Practicing with a plan

Growing up, my piano teacher always urged us to have a plan when we practiced. Every day we practiced, we should write down what we hoped to accomplish in that practice time. He insisted, but did we listen? Of course not. We knew better. Even when I was practicing three hours a day(!), I never had a practice plan, or at least, not one written down.

As an adult, however, my attitude has changed a lot. For a wide variety of reasons, I feel that if I put effort or time into something, it needs to count. So if I'm going to spend time practicing the violin, I need to making tangible progress in each of those minutes (or at least most of them).

My teacher gave me some suggestions at my lesson yesterday. Here's how my notes read:
1) Twinkle: straight bow
2) A scale: straight bow
3) Lightly row: left hand fingers above fingerboard, first row of knuckles even with fingerboard

Today's practice definitely had all those suggestions in mind, but I spent most of my time focusing on intonation. When playing a scale, it is best to actually play the notes in the scale and not some pitches that do not correspond to notes at all. That is much easier said than done. Then, I practiced learning Lightly Row, focusing on playing pitches that were actually notes. That song is tricky! And I don't quite have it done to be able to play it with the accompaniment.

Lastly, I played Twinkle with the accompaniment CD. That violinist plays it really quickly, and I don't have a good enough bow hold to make it through very well. So I'm putting bow hold (with a focus on the pinky) on my list of techniques to master (or improve on) before my next lesson.