I did discover that if I stuck to a rigid schedule, I would only hit the first few items regularly, and the rest became sort of iffy when time was a factor. I now find myself trying to incorporate a few key exercises up front for things like bowing, shifting, and dexterity, but then don’t let myself dwell on those points and start moving on to the things I want to practice such as my solos and chamber music excerpts.

Happy practicing to you too!

All of the technical work you mentioned is good – if you’ve been doing the same exercises in the same way for a long time though, it might do you good to change it up a little. Have you tried doing Sevcik bowing exercises (as an alternative to Zimmerman) or Flesch scale studies (in place of Streicher or Petracchi)?

One nice idea I got from Philly Orchestra bassoonist Danny Matsukawa is to not segregate your technical and musical work – mix it up, play a Mozart excerpt or a short Bach movement between scales or etudes. It will keep the creative part of your brain engaged, even while you’re focusing on mechanics.

Happy practicing, and I’d love to see you continue to write on these topics — let’s see if we can figure it out once and for all!