The one thing you should add to your practice

Improvise.

String players are expected to start their daily practice with scales. From a young age this expectation is drilled into our brain like it's the most important thing for our fundamentals. The great Carl Flesch wrote the most famous scale book in history. For string players, he is our hero and we will not doubt the success of his method. Our teachers and our teachers' teachers used his book, so how can we ever doubt this wonderful plan?! 

 My old roommate, shocked my world when he told me he starts his practice with some improvisation. He would just play around the instrument and make some sounds.

WHAT?!

Aren't we supposed to start practicing with nice solid scale exercises?

 Recently, I attended a music therapy session in a homeless shelter as part of my job. The session started and ended with some musical improvisation. The point of the improvisation (mainly on drums and a couple of string instruments) was to bring expressive and intimate structure to the session. While it was for people who don't know how to play music, I still got a lot out of it as a classically trained musician. The time was spent on listening and meditation, which allowed us to really dive in on some emotions that we don't usually have the time to think about; especially not during our regular practice time.

So now I start my practice with some improvisation, before my scale. I improvise on different things and it changes daily! I experiment with some melodies from different instruments, the 1st violin part of a quartet, or even some pop music that get stuck in my head. It’s my “quality time” with my viola, and my time to ground myself right before diving in to the practice session.