In the practice room, treat yourself like a student

The following comes from Episode 11 of the Performance & Pedagogy Podcast:

Remember that when we are practicing we are the student and we are the teacher as well. Treat ourselves like the student. Be kind to the student. If you are a teacher and you have ever had a student who could not get past something, do you ever just get really mad at them? Do you ever yell at them? Do you ever make it personal and pass judgment in their direction that they can't do this one particular thing in this particular moment? No? 

“If you are a teacher and you have ever had a student who could not get past something, do you ever just get really mad at them? Do you ever yell at them? No? 

Well guess what. We do that kind of crap all the time to ourselves when we are in the practice room.”

Well guess what. We do that kind of crap all the time to ourselves when we are in the practice room.

We move the goal posts for a student when it's needed, right? Sometimes you have to break down the problem into a more manageable chunk. Sometimes you have to put the problem down for five minutes and get a little momentum, mental or otherwise, and then pick it back up and try again. But we will always move the goal posts for our students.

In fact that's one of our most useful roles as a teacher: showing them how the path to getting to the mountaintop of any given proble might not just be tonguing something fast enough or getting the fingers right or memorizing something better. Sometimes it's linear and then there's all the other times.

But we sure as hell aren't just stubborn while setting them up to fail over and over again and then being baffled or passing judgment when they snap. Sometimes snapping means shutting down. Sometimes snapping means lashing out at themselves or someone else. So don't treat yourself that way in the practice room, which I think we can all be prone to do.

This is where ego comes in. I know that I can fall into this trap of thinking ‘I should be able to do this’. Or ‘my student can do this better than I can right now’ or ‘I could play this three years ago’ or ‘I can't believe how much time this has taken me.’ There's a lot of should’s in there.

Am I looking for results or am I looking to placate my ego is really the question that I always have to be asking myself. And if I'm being frank, I don't think that I'm below average in terms of the ego thing. I don't think that I struggle with that more than the average human. But that last part is important. I am a human which means that I occasionally struggle with it. ‘My son should be behaving better in this restaurant because I've spent so much time teaching him what the proper behavior is in a restaurant’ is the kind of thought that can frequently be going through my head. And the last part of that thought is true! I have spent a lot of time teaching him. And yet he is behaving exactly how he's behaving and me reacting is not getting him to to amend his behavior, right?

I need to have this exact same approach to myself when I am practicing. I must actively avoid the should’s and only deal with reality, whatever that may look like in that moment. I must avoid talking to myself in that unhelpful, fear-based, ego-driven way when I am in the practice room. That's very important for me to remember. 

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Words of Wisdom from Bud Herseth

"It is not a matter of being better than anyone else. How can you love trying to be better than anyone else? Play for your own satisfaction, and for other's enjoyment."

—Bud Herseth (Former Principal Trumpet - Chicago Symphony Orchestra)

Mr. Herseth was an incredible player and teacher and his above words are incredibly wise.

There is a byproduct of playing for your own satisfaction: You tend to enjoy the process of getting better a whole lot more and therefor do the work. Bottom line: You get better.

Practice something until you love it and then share it with the world. At that point you'll be dying to share it with us and that will shine through in your performance.

Four Words to Make Your Next Practice Session More Focused

"Make the simple beautiful."

-Marty Hackleman, former horn player for the Canadian Brass, Empire Brass, and National Symphony Orchestra

The next time you are bored in your warm up, think of this four word quote from Marty Hackleman and I guarantee you it will get better.

While technical wizardry on any instrument can be quite engaging it is actually the simple or "easy" music that the best musicians in the world can make sound way better than the rest of us can.

Making the simple beautiful should be a goal that is at the forefront of your mind every time you pick up your instrument or baton.

Practicing Wisdom from Picasso

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

-Pablo Picasso

There were a few people at Northwestern who always sounded good when I walked past their practice rooms back in the day.  They were doing it wrong and are no longer in the music business.

Regularly attack what you can not do and you will be amazed at the rate of progress.