You get the music, and you give a shot to learn it note by note.

In an interview with Lifehacker, Ax recommends several ways to make practicing an instrument more fun and productive.

Its not cheating to follow along with a great performer.

Get a partner

Ax frequently performs with Yo-Yo Ma, so the two often practice together.

Its very liberating and very helpful, says Ax.

Its also more fun; the two like to talk and joke around.

If youre practicing by yourself, you cant tell yourself too many jokes.

From working with Ma, he says, I like to think I know something about string playing.

But he learns how to support soloists and their interpretation of the work.

You kind of have an unspoken connection.

Whenever he works with an orchestra, he says, I always make friends with the timpani player.

He recently even performed timpani onstage in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Experiment

Practice never becomes 100 percent fun, says Ax.

Youll inevitably have to repeat some things over and over.

But a lot of time is spent discovering new ways to do things.

So the slog becomes an interesting creative process.

What if he used his fourth finger instead of his fifth?

Then it becomes very exciting!

Then you dont mind practicing that over and over to get it into your head.

attempt to practice more than one thing at a time.

This week Ax is practicing for one performance this weekend and another in October.

Its easier to tackle the tougher parts when they dont catch you unawares.

Not that Brahms is my enemy!

Use an app

At 69, Ax says, hes terrified of playing Bach from memory.

Its getting too hard.

So he usesTonara, a practice and performance app for Android and iOS.

(Tonara representatives arranged our interview with Ax.)

Ax uses the app onstage and in practice sessions to read music without relying on a page-turner.

The app can hear Ax and follow along, so it knows when to turn the page.

Until this year, Id have to get someone to take a chair and turn pages for me.

Even if you play the wrong notes, it seems to know where you are, says Ax.

Play Bach

Ax teaches at Juilliard, usually one-on-one.

Every voice in a Bach piece is an individual voice, he says.

So you dont really have a situation where theres a tune on top and everybody else accompanies.

Everybody has a different thing to do.

If you might play Bach well, then youre really good.

Hes excited for the current generation of music students.

They are going to be so much better than us.