Great List of Playing Tips

I recently stumbled onto a great list of playing tips over at the website for the International Horn Society by Eldon Matlick, professor of horn at the University of Oklahoma.

It is titled "Hot Tips for Horn Players" but is really a list for all musicians. It features 18 tips for musicians of all kinds. Really, really good stuff!

You really need to read the whole list but here are a few of my favorites:

1. PERFORMANCE IS 90% MENTAL! Learn how to think! If you can hear it, you can play it. Expose yourself to great music and music making. Listen to great horn players. Experience live professional music making. Listen to recordings of world- class ensembles. Experience various mediums and styles of music. Become a musical sponge and take everything in. Every musical experience goes into your memory bank and this is the source from which you draw.

6. LEARN TO HEAR DETAILS IN YOUR PLAYING! Don’t succumb to the trap of falling in love with your playing. Develop a critical ear. When you think something is polished, record yourself. You will be amazed at what you hear. Keep stock of what you can do well and what you need to accomplish. Don’t waste time doing things that are not a problem. Great players work out and solve their playing deficiencies. Eliminate weaknesses in your playing. While this may prove to be mentally painful, this is a sure-fire method of gaining success in your performance.

12. PRACTICE ‘OUTSIDE THE BOX’ Musicianship is not the same as horn playing. Create a musical experience when you play. To this end, we must free ourselves from the instrument. Learn to sing! Singing is the ideal medium for establishing musical flow and the identification of logical breathing spots. Identify the natural flow of the solo line. Is the phrase asking a question or making a statement? As you sing, are you aware of the various emotional content of the various passages/sections? Practice singing and phrasing different ways. Identify those phrasings that have promise and then experiment on your instrument. When learning a solo, don’t neglect learning, and being able to sing, all interludes between solo entrances.

Seriously, go read them all!

Have A Lot Of Ideas

"The only way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas."

-Daniel Pink

Daniel Pink is not a musician. He was talking about ideas like starting a business or writing a book.

But he might as well have been talking about a musician's approach in the practice room.

The odds of you having a great idea come out of your bell if you only had one concept of how that phrase might go in the first place is very, very low.

1. Have lots of ideas of how a phrase could go.
2. Record a convincing version of each of those ideas.
3. Listen to each and decide which is best.
4. Repeat this process with every single phrase of the piece.

If you only bring one concept of how a phrase might go into your practicing, how can you possibly compete with the artistry of someone doing the above sequence over and over again?

Spoiler Alert: You can't.

And furthermore, there have never been better instrument operators graduating every single year en masse than there are today. So you have to stand out some other way.

The real question is can you afford not to do the above sequence over and over again when you practice?

The Key is Consistency

Much more important than total time spent is the consistency with which you practice.

If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.

- Jascha Heifetz

Consistency in terms of both how often you practice and how focused you are in the practice room.

The first step to consistency is practicing every single day. The best way to get playing in the extreme high register is to play in the extreme high register. Pretty simple stuff.

The second step is how consistently you bring a laser-like focus to your practicing.

I had the privilege of watching David Fedderley work with the top three finishers in the Young Artist competition at a conference back in March. The top two players were really good. Very impressive for 19 and 20 year olds.

The person who finished third in the competition played last of the three and was by far the best musical storyteller of the bunch but her tuba playing was well behind them. David asked her, knowing the answer, "So with that musical storytelling, you won the competition, right?" She simply smiled.

He then explained that the other two were much better tuba operators than she was at this point but that she had musical ideas that were just dying to get out of her horn.

He then pointed at me, then Charles Villarubia, Justin Benavidez, and Demondrae Thurman. He asked her what all of us have in common. She smiled and said "They are professionals."

He said "Yes. They get paid to play their horns for people. Do you know what else they have in common? I know each of them and know that they each bring a laser-like focus with them every single time they practice."

You could see the lightbulb go off in the student on the spot.

So while the amount you practice is certainly important, the consistency in how often your butt is in that chair coupled with the focus you bring to those sessions is much more important.

Are You Procrastinating?

“If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it.” ― John Mayer

Stop procrastinating. Face whatever it is that you fear about your playing or career and make a plan to attack it. Take the first step today or you know where you’ll be two weeks from now.

How to Develop a Great Vibrato

When you break it all down, all of us instrumentalists have only one goal: to sound as natural as singers. They are the best example we have of lots of things, including phrasing and vibrato.

Developing a really great vibrato (and identifying when and how to use it) is a very important thing for an instrumentalist.

(Note: This is not to say that any musician should ultimately develop only one vibrato. Variations in vibrato give us way more tools with which to tell our musical stories.)

But where do you start?

My advice would be to find three examples that speak to you of a singer using a vibrato. Then analyze them for the following:

1. The speed of the vibrato
2. The width of the vibrato
3. When vibrato is used and when it isn't

Take one of the examples and try to copy the three above things on just one note in your middle register at a medium dynamic. The key (always!) is to record yourself and immediately listen to it.

Once you have a version that sounds somewhat similar to the example you are trying to mimic, move on to the next example, and finally the third.

This exercise will at least give you a starting point for developing a vibrato that can help you to convey your musical ideas.

Bottom line: Always start with singers.

Intentional Practice Sessions

"A schedule defends from chaos and whim."

–Annie Dillard

I have had a great deal of success over the years as the result of scheduling my practice sessions.

To be clear, I don't mean how long they are to be. I find that when my primary goal is to practice for one hour instead of improving specific musical passages, I get bored easily.

By scheduling a practice I mean two things: when the session will start and what will be accomplished.

I encourage all of my students to never end a practice session without going on the record with yourself about exactly when your next practice session will begin.

You can always reschedule. But it is a lot harder to skip a practice session that I've already scheduled (even with just myself!) than one I haven't.

And never begin a practice session without having a very clear idea of what you are planning to accomplish. (Hint: "Make Mozart's Third Horn Concerto better" is not a clear idea!)

I will choose four measures in this piece, three pages in this book, and a page of this solo and will put them in a stack on my music stand. I then don't get up until those goals are accomplished.

If you've never scheduled your practice sessions and planned specifically what you are trying to achieve in each one then I challenge you to try it.

You will be impressed by the results in a short amount of time.

Navigating The Daily Grind

Let's be honest.  There are some days when we really don't feel like warming up.  When we really don't feel like practicing.  Anyone who denies this is either lying or should be put in a museum.

There are many tricks for navigating this occasional problem.  One that I use is to put on an artist that can do something I can't do on my instrument, of which there are literally thousands.  Could be a tuba player and could be a clarinet player.  I then focus in on exactly what aspect of their playing I can not achieve on my instrument and then simply try to go close the gap in the practice room.

Listening that intensely to someone else's playing helps me to regain focus and identifying what aspect of their playing I specifically want to add to my own playing helps me be motivated enough to get to work.

This is a very quick solution to a common problem that we all encounter from time to time.

More Advice from John Wooden on Thorough Practicing

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

-John Wooden

I can't get enough of John Wooden quotes.  He was a wise man and gifted communicator.  His quotes are so insightful into learning music that you'd swear that he was a master music teacher.

But alas, he just taught basketball.

Do It Right The First Time

“Short cuts make long delays.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien

In the practice room, you will save an awful lot of time by practicing something slowly and correctly the first time.  Whenever we learn a passage with a wrong note or wrong rhythm, it takes a lot longer to unlearn the mistake than it ever would have taken to learn it right in the first place.

The ability to have the in the moment intelligence to know that practicing something slowly and correctly is always the correct path rather than seeking instant gratification is what separates great practicers from everyone else.

Short cuts never pay off in the practice room.

Scales are Binary

Scales are binary. You either know them or you don't. They are also incredibly easy to play as long as you have put the work in. When it comes to performing a jury or auditioning for college, if you have to think about the scale before you play it, you did not put in enough time beforehand.

You either know them or you don't.