Part 1. How I practice

NOTE: This article is about practice regimens. Part 2 will contain specific techniques for practicing.

Some people practice the same way all the time. Prescriptions differ, but conventional wisdom dictates that you should follow a strict regime for every practice session, and that looks something like this:

1. Practice long tones.

2. Practice all major and harmonic and melodic minor scales with various combinations of articulation patterns.

3.  Practice all major and minor arpeggios with various combinations of articulation patterns.

4. Practice one or more technical etudes, especially the stuff that's in Baermann III,.

5. Finally, practice the repertoire you're working on. 

Done "correctly", the first three should take about an hour, and the last one should take two hours or more. It's common knowledge that more time is always better, too...if you want to be a top-flight player!

Well, I don't practice that way, and I never did, even when I was a legit player. This kind of thing not only makes me not want to practice at all, but 

There have been very few times when I've actually enjoyed practicing. Some people really get off on it, but not me. If I practice according to that regimen, I start out unhappy, and slogging through all that technical stuff before I get to repertoire makes me tired.

There have been very few times when I've gone longer than two hours in a session. I may have practiced multiple times in a day, but never once in one long session.

I have almost never followed the rules, nor followed any regimen consistently.

Here are the ways I practice.