When learning new pieces, challenge yourself to not trudge through it from start to finish. In fact, don’t start at the beginning at all! Find the hardest spots in the music (your teacher can help you do this, too!) Then, break it up into manageable chunks (perhaps one measure, perhaps just two notes). Then add notes, and measures onto that spot gradually until you’ve learned the difficult spot.
Now, here’s the trick to make it fun – shake it up! When practicing day in and day out, our minds often get bored with the same routines and approaches. Engaging our creativity for motivation is where it’s at! Your brain learns by repetition, so any way to make doing repetitions of the small “chunks” in the piece more interesting will help us learn things faster. My tried-and-true way to do this is the “penny game”. I always keep 10 pennies on my stand. Every time I play a small chunk correctly (correct rhythm, notes, intonation, etc.) I put a penny on one side of the stand. If I make even a small mistake, I put a penny on the other side. (Mind you, if I can’t seem to get any on the “right” side, I know I need to break it up into a smaller, more manageable steps.) Stacking dominoes is always fun – you get to place a domino in a line for every correct repetition, then when you’ve reached your goal, you get to topple them over! A few of my students have reported playing the stairs game (this works for instruments that you can play while standing.) Every time you play a correct repetition, you can go up a step. If you get something wrong, go down a step. When you get to the top of the steps, you get to have a mini-celebration, such as playing your favorite piece (or for some of my students, a fiddle tune!)
Use your creativity and have fun! Break it up and shake it up!