What’s on Your Practice Plate?
September is always an exciting time.
Back on campus, back in the studio, starting—or restarting—with students, structuring bigger goals, and figuring out what the practice season is going to look like.
But once you have all those goals in front of you, how do you actually design the practice that gets you there?
Last week, we talked about habits and how "discipline" is a fairweather feeling. The infrastructure behind our work is what holds us up on the days we'd rather not open our case.
Now let's get into the nitty gritty of practice design.
Your practice shouldn't be one big blob
Think about the DCA Foundations Stack as layers.
Each element sits on top of another, with each layer supporting and building on the one above it. If you skip a layer, the whole thing can get wobbly, no matter how much time you spend practicing.
Over the weekend, our Club DCA guest Jenny Maclay shared a metaphor that I love: nutrition.
A healthy diet needs the right proportions of different food groups. You wouldn't fill your plate with only dessert.
Your practice works the same way.
You shouldn't fill your entire practice session with only repertoire.
What's on your practice plate?
At the bottom of the Foundations Stack is wellbeing.
Is your mind in the right place? What attitude are you bringing into the practice room? Are you taking care of yourself?
Then you build upward from there.
Depending on the week, you might need different proportions.
One week, you may need to spend more time on your foundational work. Another week, an approaching repertoire deadline might mean you spend more time at the top.
That's okay.
The goal isn't to make every practice session perfectly balanced.
The goal is to make sure the base stays strong enough to support everything you're asking yourself to do.
Build the layers—and plug them in
Here's the other piece that's easy to miss.
The layers of your practice don't exist independently.
They need to be activated.
Maybe you have beautiful air support during your long tones—but where did it go when you started your etude?
Maybe your embouchure felt strong and flexible during your technical exercises—but then disappeared when you picked up your excerpts.
That's the problem.
You have to plug the layers in.
Try setting a timer that dings every 2–3 minutes while you're practicing.
When it goes off, check in:
Am I actually carrying the things I'm working on into the music?
Are you still using the air support?
Is your embouchure doing what you practiced?
Are you carrying the technical work into the repertoire?
The point isn't to interrupt yourself constantly. It's to develop the awareness that connects one layer to the next.
Make your practice plan visible
I used to write all of this by hand into my students' blank practice notebooks.
Now there's a practice planner with the template built in.
Get a sample of the practice planner here.
It's eight pages, and those pages will also be part of the new version.
The point of a planner isn't to make your practice more complicated.
It's to help you see the different pieces that need attention so your session doesn't become one undifferentiated block of "practice."
Start designing your weekly menu
If you want the full breakdown—with the why and how, sample exercises for every category, and space to build your own weekly menu—check out the Foundations Packet.
And if you're still using the original Clarinet Practice Planner, there are only eight copies left from the original print run.
That four-month fillable version is officially being discontinued and will eventually be replaced by a customizable version with the original exercises, trackers, tips, and fingering charts, along with a new design.
Get the original Clarinet Practice Planner →
If you'd like to be first in line when the new planner drops, reply and let us know you want to be on the waitlist.
So... what's on your plate?
Take a look at your practice this week.
Not just how much you're practicing, but what you're practicing and how the pieces support each other.
What's the one layer of your practice pyramid that's been getting skipped lately?
Maybe that's the place to start.
Cheering for you,
Ixi & team DCA
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p.s. Attention those who are seriously looking for a new clarinet: I'm heading to Mantes-la-Ville to the Buffet Crampon factory to hand select clarinets! If you're interested, let me know!
📖 a 6-month planner for the whole musician, the → Practice with Purpose Planner
📘 A daily regimen for conditioning → Foundations Packet
🎯 The "done for you" → 28-DAY SCALE RESET
⭐️ Free stuff → Resources
🎤 Be part of a community→ Club DCA
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