It’s summer vacation, time to be lounging at the pool, reading books “for fun,” and taking a break from studies. Right?
When I was in high school, I spent my summers outside at various sports camps, hanging out at the pool, and generally just having fun. What I didn’t do was anything school-related, which included practicing my instruments and taking lessons. My teacher didn’t even offer lessons in the summer, so that meant I didn’t have to practice, right? Wrong! It is amazing how three months of vacation can hurt your forward progress. Each September, when I started lessons again, I was rusty and had to spend about two months getting back to where I was at the end of the previous school year before I could learn anything new, simply because I hadn’t practiced over the summer. So, essentially, I was losing 5 months of forward progress each year, leaving only 7 months of new learning.
How can you avoid this? Even when it’s summer and you’re avoiding all those studies you do during the academic year, make sure you’re still practicing your instrument. Ideally, you should continue to take lessons throughout the summer. At the very least, you should find time to “play for fun” every day. For instance, I am a classically trained pianist, but my favorite thing to do is play musical theatre showtunes. So, in the summer, I would randomly select a musical theatre book and start jamming. This served two purposes: 1) I kept up my technical skills and 2) I worked on my sight-reading skills, while having lots of fun working on music my teachers didn’t require me to perform. I still did scales and arpeggios for warm-ups, so that I kept up my technical precision, but the majority of my time was spent playing “for fun.” By doing this, even if I didn’t make any forward progress in the summer, I at least didn’t lose the skills I’d gained. And, down the road, these sight-reading skills make me an excellent musical theatre audition accompanist.
Ideally, you should continue your form instrument lessons throughout the summer. If you do, that doesn’t mean you can’t play something “for fun.” Tell your instructor if there is something you’d like to learn or a type of music you’d like to work on to make your summer practice more enjoyable. That way, you still get a mental “break.”
The other thing you should do is start working on your audition pieces for college. Start looking at the requirements for the various institutions you might be applying to. The more prepared you are for your auditions, the better. However, even though you need to keep practicing throughout the summer, make sure you take time to prepare yourself mentally for the big audition preparation push in the Fall. So, don’t make the entire summer about work, as you might burn out by audition time. Find some time to relax and refresh. It all comes down to finding the right balance between rest and practice. Overall, make the most of your summer!
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