How to improve your music practice sessions?

Learning and practicing an instrument is a great activity, whether you want to become a professional musician or you're looking to pick up a new hobby. Studies have shown that playing an instrument improves your memory, reduces stress, and also increases personal creativity! But it can also quickly feel very overwhelming. From learning on your own from home to trying to get in as much practice as possible between classes to impress your teacher, taking the time to practice is an essential step in your musical journey—that's why they say that practice makes perfect! But who said music practice has to be boring or difficult? In this article, we'll go over the various features of the Metronaut App which are designed to make your music practice sessions easier, fun, and diverse so that your sessions don't have to be a chore but rather a moment to look forward to in your day! We'll also look at some tips to get the most out of your practice to improve steadily.

Setting Goals and Practicing Consistently

When you stop doing an activity for a long time, it gets harder to pick it back up. For example, athletes don't just show up to a game and score without effort. They have to train consistently to make sure they're always in shape and keep their bodies in good condition. It's the same for musicians! If you want to grow as a musician, you have to put in the effort often and not let yourself get rusty. In fact, consistency is one of the most important catalysts of growth and improvement, in any task. That's because if you do an action every once in a while when you feel like it, each time you start again you have to take an extra step to "relearn" and get back in the groove.

When learning a new piece, consistency is key! So how can you ensure that you'll be consistent? Begin by setting goals and holding yourself accountable! In the Metronaut App, you can plan your music practice sessions by setting a practice goal. Choose how often (every day, weekday or weekend) and at what time you wish to practice and we’ll send you a notification to remind you to come practice, to help you make a habit of it. Remember, practicing frequently doesn't mean you should play your instrument two hours every day (unless you want to, of course). Rather, practicing for even 25 minutes every day can be just as effective to keep your musical skills in shape.

Find new pieces and make playlists

It can be easy to get lost in the endless catalogue of great music to play, but Metronaut makes the process of discovering new music easier. In the app or on the website, look through our collections of works grouped by musical style, composer, and even moods! You can preview the songs by listening to a short extract while scrolling, and when you find something you like, keep track by creating a playlist for different categories. For example, you can create a playlist of pieces you'd like to learn, another for pieces you already know to revisit them occasionally, as well as one for easier pieces that you can use for warm up.

Warm up with easy sheet music and exercises

Sometimes the best way to start a practice session and to find the motivation is by playing through music you enjoy. In fact, most time the most daunting aspect of practicing is jumping right into a difficult piece you're stuck on, or the dreaded scales and exercises. But if you start warming up on your instrument by playing easy pieces you enjoy, you'll be having so much fun that before you know it you're already practicing and are now ready to tackle the work. You can see the difficulty level indicated by Metronaut on different pieces to select a few, or even choose to play a song you already know with our easy arrangements.

And though they can seem more boring on first approach, educational repertoire and exercises can also be enjoyable, and will be the most efficient in helping you improve your music-playing. With Metronaut, play all the major and minor scales, but also exercises and etudes by composers such as Czerny, Bach, and Burgmüller. These shorter pieces are great for targeting specific areas of your playing, and getting you warmed up before moving on to playing other pieces.

Increase (or decrease) the difficulty level

With Metronaut, you can take advantage of our easy arrangements of more difficult pieces designed to play famous melodies which might otherwise seem unattainable. And if you're trying to learn a difficult piece, you can start with the easier arrangement, get familiar with the piece, and work your way up to the original arrangement! Choose the difficulty that's right for you and work through the different arrangements.

Play with accompaniments

Tired of playing alone? Discover a new way to play with Metronaut's musical accompaniments. Play along to high quality piano, strings and orchestral accompaniments for both classical and pop music. If you originally play in a band and are looking to recreate the conditions while practicing at home, this is a good option! For pianists, you can choose to play the right or left hand of the piano only, while Metronaut's accompaniment plays the other hand. In piano, it's a crucial step to learn hand by hand, but you'll also better understand how the two fit together.

Work up to the right tempo

One of the biggest challenges of learning a piece is getting it up to the right tempo. The only way to achieve this is to start slow, master the piece at a slower tempo, and try to increase the tempo in increments with the help of the metronome—before you know it, you'll be at the original tempo.

The tempo settings in the Metronaut App allow you to customize the tempo, and so the speed at which the sheet music scrolls. In "Fixed" mode, the tempo is constant at the value you set it to. The "Wait" mode is great for sight reading a piece. Metronaut will listen to the notes you play and the cursor will move when you play the note. No need to set a tempo, the priority is just hitting the right notes. Finally, in "Smart" mode the accompaniment will adapt to your tempo in real-time, just like if you were playing with a real musician. Metronaut listens to you and automatically adapts the tempo to match you, which is perfect for rubato sections to express yourself more freely.

Record Yourself and get feedback

When learning a piece at home without a teacher, it's sometimes tricky to determine exactly what you need to improve on. Did you miss a note, are you not respecting the tempo, is your use of dynamics correct? The list goes on and on, and while you're playing, it's hard to take in everything all at once. With Metronaut, use the recording feature to record your practice in video or audio, and review it to identify the issues you'll target! No need to use a separate camera app, you can do it right in the Metronaut app while viewing the sheet music and using the other features. You can choose to automatically record all your performances longer than 10 seconds to make the process even smoother. And if you're proud of your playing and want to share it with the community, you can post it to Metronaut for other fellow musicians to view!

For more input, you can also turn "Feedback" mode on, and Metronaut lets you know in real-time if you’re playing on time or not, and if any of your notes are incorrect.

Take advantage of more Metronaut features

Here are a few handy tools in the Metronaut App which you can use while playing!

1. Loop: With the "Loop" feature, you can select a passage of measures and Metronaut will loop through it over and over so that you can practice just that part without having to stop each time to go back.

2. Transpose: Easily transpose anything on the app by any interval and octave to fit the piece to your instrument's range.

3. Tuner: Tune your instrument right in the app in the "My Music" tab by clicking the button in the top right corner.

4. Annotations: Annotate your sheet music with your Apple Pencil or your finger to mark difficult passages or reminders! Annotations are automatically saved so you can come back to them each time

5. Metronome: Use our built in metronome to keep track of the tempo as you play

Take the music anywhere

Need to take Metronaut with you to class? Or to the park? Or perhaps you won't have access to wifi or to your device? No problem! You can download sheet music on the app to make it available offline, with all the same features. If you're on the go without your device, print it right from the app. And if you're looking to play with a bigger screen, cast the Metronaut App from your iPhone or iPad with AirPlay!

Download Metronaut now and bring your practice to life! Start exploring the app today and enjoy a new way to learn and play music, anytime, anywhere.