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A blog about performing music, teaching music and the business of music.
Filtering by Category: Practicing
This quote from Dr. Mickey McCale reminds me of a time I heard a student ask Joe Alessi about how to prepare for a professional audition. Joe told that student that they needed to get "brutally honest" with themselves about what they could and could not do on the horn.
First you have to recognize your defects as a player, conductor or communicator. Then you have to own those defects until you turn them into strengths.
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” ― Frank Zappa
Are you in a practicing rut? If so, what can you change to promote progess? More frequent, shorter practice sessions? Starting earler in the day? More basics? More tools like decibel meters and video cameras for additional external feedback?
We all have a tendency to find “what works” and then stick to it. But we must not be scared to change what’s working in exchange for the possibility of a breakthrough.
We can always go back to what we were doing in the first place if our deviation doesn’t bear fruit.
This interview clip is only 90 seconds long, but the very end of this interview with JJ Johnson gets right to the heart of the matter: "I wish that somebody, someday, would find a shortcut and I wish they'd tell me about it." One of the best instrumentalists of all-time talking about the secret to his success.
Enjoy!
I taught a young guy from New York City who plays the bass, Ray Cetta, a lesson on tuba today. He's started to get a lot of calls to play Sousaphone on gigs and wanted to take his first ever lesson on the instrument. I was immediately impressed when he told me he had no car (typical New Yorker) but was willing to take the train all the way to DC with his Sousaphone! It was a really great experience for me. He is exactly the kind of student that we all enjoy teaching. He grasped concepts immediately and was eager to learn. One remark he made in response to something I said really jumped out at me.
He asked me about playing really softly with control. I showed him a number of exercises to work on that, then told him the obvious: to work on the extremes of playing the most important aspect is doing it every single day. Much more important than the total amount of time spent on practicing a skill like pianissimo playing is the regularity of the practicing. I told him I knew that was a pain, especially on a secondary instrument. His response was right on the money:
"I will find time ..... no, I will make time for it. I needed to do it on a gig once and that's enough times for me to need to make time to do it."
This is from a 23 year old kid who is about to release an album, is a band leader, has a very active freelance career, and has more irons in the fire than most of us. The difference between finding time and making time for essential work is what separates those who make it and those who don't. I learned something during his lesson today as well.
"Overwhelmed? Stop. Assess. Tackle one small thing. One step in the right direction. Rinse & repeat." - One of Lance LaDuke's daily practice tips on Twitter
If you are anything like me, when faced with an apparently insurmountable task your first instinct is to put it off. This can absolutely happen to the best of us in the practice room.
The above quote is a great reminder for all of us when it comes to practicing. Identify a small thing to improve, then tackle it. Do that over and over again and you can learn an entire recital's worth of music in due time.
Rome wasn't built in a day either.
"Start with bad sounds and make them into good ones. Silence can not improve." - Arnold Jacobs
As with almost all Arnold Jacobs quotes, this one is so simple yet says so much. You have to sound bad in the practice room to improve. Avoiding problems with your playing (silence) does not improve anything.
Improvement starts with bad sounds.
"A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience." - Elbert Hubbard
When I was younger, I was very hesitant to record myself unless I sounded really good on a piece of music. I would then use the recording to refine my performance - the finishing touches if you will. This is a great use of a recording device but to limit it to only this scenario is borderline criminal and it was all only because of my ego.
Anyone that tells you they enjoy listening to a recording of themselves screwing up is a pathological liar. No one does, period. But great musicians are always efficient musicians. And great music educators are always efficient music educators. Identifying mistakes early in the process, whether in your band or in a passage you're learning, is by far the most efficient way to correct them.
"Failures do what is tension relieving, while winners do what is goal achieving."
- Dennis Waitley
The great band directors listen to recordings of their band's rehearsals when they sound great, when they sound horrible and everything in between. A great performer listens to countless attempts at a difficult passage and constantly checks in via recording themselves throughout the process.
We all need to be reminded to bury our egos, listen to recordings of our mistakes frequently and get to a better finished product sooner as a result.
Every once in a while you stumble on a post online that just nails it. My friend Eric Berlin, trumpet professor at UMass and one heck of a player, wrote a blog post on the subject of practicing last week that every single musician absolutely must read. If you are a player, you must read this piece. If you are a private teacher, you must read this piece. If you are a music educator, you must read this piece: Practice Space - The Practice Routine
There is not a single thing in his post that I haven't heard in some form or other over the years. Musicians have been talking about practicing for hundreds of years so I'm not sure there are any original ideas left! But the way Eric puts everything in this post is so clear and concise that it inspired me to share it with the world. He made me a better and more efficient practicer after reading it.
He breaks down his practicing routine into four stages (I've included a small snippet from each):
1) Mental Practice - Create: Creating your ideal trumpeter: (The real creative process.)
"This is the most powerful part of the process and what most people skip."
2) Press Record - Perform: Bringing your creation to life.
"Hit the record button on your recording device and just play along with that wonderful sound you created in your head."
3) Press Play - Listen: Changing hats from performer to critic.
"Changing into listening mode will free that critic which you have drowned out with the excessively loud amplifier you turned up to 11 in the last segment."
4) Back to the wood shed: Refining the vehicle of expression.
"Your practice is now informed by a much more detailed idea of what you hope to achieve and where you need improvement."
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The above quotes only scratch the surface of this post. Do yourself a favor and take five minutes to read the whole thing. I've already read it more than once. Here's the link again:
Practice Space - The Practice Routine
Thank you Eric for a terrific piece!
Every once in a while you stumble on a video that makes you reevaluate something you do on a daily basis. This video by Derek Sivers did just that for me. In a departure from the norm around here, this is the first Monday YouTube Fix that is not a musical performance. In fact, this video isn't even specifically about performing music, although as you'll see it is referenced and couldn't be more relevant to that pursuit.
"Why You Need To Fail" is a 15 minute look into why failure, whether it be in the practice room or the board room, is essential to all human growth. This video made me do so real soul searching about my own practicing and I already feel a refreshed approach to my craft. I can not possibly recommend this more to ANY musician (performer, teacher, conductor, composer, ANYONE.)
Prepare to have your eyes opened...
Enjoy!
(A tip of the hat to my friend Syd Schwartz who is currently serving as Music Business Entrepreneur-In-Residence at NYU for bringing this video to my attention via his twitter feed.)