Structured Practice Journal – Take Your Practice Journal Out of the Dark Ages

Practice Like a Professional

Every musician, somewhere in their training, is told they should be keeping a practice journal, but they are rarely told why or how. The Structured Practice Journal can help by providing a framework in which to build strong habits and improve your practicing skills.

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The SPJ Solves Many of the Problems Musicians Face

Problem

Solution

Keeping a practice journal and articulating your thoughts and details about practicing is great, but paper journals make it hard to refer back to your notes later on

In the SPJ you associate your journal entries directly with the music they relate to. This way, when you are practicing you automatically see the journal entries and recordings that are relevant to that item. Your journal entries are always just a click away, whether that’s tomorrow or next year

It’s next to impossible to keep track of all the things you’re working on at any given time, let alone taking into account your past week of work to know what should be your priority right now

While you use the SPJ, it tracks what you practice and how long you do it, and presents all your stats so that you can understand at a glance

Being able to see how much time you’ve spent on different music, and on practicing as a whole, can be enlightening and motivating, but it takes way too much effort to compile that information manually

Because your journal entries are attached to your practice items, the SPJ tracks how often you practice each item. It can then compare that against what you have entered as your priorities and how often you want to practice those items and helps keep you on track

Dr. Mark Flegg, Creator of
The Structured Practice Journal

“I kept written practice journals, off and on, for about 15 years. The big frustration for me with paper journals was that I felt I was putting useful information down on paper, but there just wasn’t any efficient way to retrieve that information later. While just the act of writing things down was helping me remember what I’d done, I knew that if I could just see my previous entries more easily, I’d get much more value from my efforts.

This frustration led me to start moving my practice journals to the computer. Over time they evolved into a complex set of documents that were hard to keep track of. At this point I was doing a few major orchestral auditions per year, along with around 250 freelance services. There was just so much repertoire on my plate at any given time, that I was having a hard time keeping up with it all. Invariably, I would arrive at rehearsal feeling well-prepared, only to realize that I’d missed one piece on the program. This is an uncomfortable reality no musician wants to experience, but each of us has.. This is what inspired me to create the Structured Practice Journal as it exists today.

I started using it for my own practicing in May of 2014, and continue to this day."

Self Record to Reach Your Potential

Self recording during practice is one of the most important things you can do. The SPJ has a built-in audio recorder to help. You can record yourself and listen back during a practice session and, if you wish, save the recording along with your journal entry. This way, your recordings are just as easy to find as your notes. You’ll be able to go back to them at any time. If your teacher is also using the SPJ, you can flag journal entries with a recording for them to listen to and provide feedback.