Practice routines?

Do you have any practice routines? How much do you practice? Do you do it daily? Do you try to improve technique or do you just play/compose songs/melodies?

The question is mostly directed to people that teach keyboard playing or ones that have teachers with certain methodology, but of course everyone is welcome to share ideas.

I belive that our little synth world lacks a monophonic keyboard learning method, because most piano exercises don’t match our instruments/style of music.

Here’s my story :wink:

I’m trying to improve my chops, but I seem to lack a practice plan, I should really get a teacher I know :wink: I’ve learnt some music theory, scales, intervals etc. but I have no idea how much should I practice, how to practice, what to concentrate on first, tips and tricks, you get the picture…

What I’ve come up with so far is doing a 20-30 minute warm-up with scale/passage that I have planned for that day and then I either try to make up a melody with that scale or I learn an element like a short scale run or octave jumps and when I’ve figured out something cool I stick with that element for the rest of my practice time which is usually 1-2h if I have the time. Also I try to play 10-20min of scales whenever I have the time.
And I do everything with a metronome.

Do you have any special practice methods either your own or ones that you’ve read somewhere/somebody tought you? Some links/PDFs would be cool, unfortunately I have none to share.

Do you ever play along with CDs? I’m a bassist, not a keyboardist (though I took piano lessons as a kid and have come back to keyboards via Moog), but that’s really how I learned. I heard stuff that I wanted to learn and then sat down and figured it out by ear. You can either try to copy what you hear, or you can make up your own stuff on top. It might be a good way to expand on what you are already doing.

Oh, and actually I played along with records and tapes! :sunglasses: