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Hitz Academy Blog

A blog about performing music, teaching music and the business of music.

Inside the Practice Room with Rex Richardson

Andrew Hitz

 
 

What better way to improve in the practice room than by joining the best musicians in the world while they practice?

Join trumpet superstar Rex Richardson for an intimate look into how he approaches practicing!

During this workshop Rex described in detail the very intentional process he uses every day in the practice room: 

  • The trick he uses to be nicer to himself in the practice room

  • How to be objective and detached emotionally when practicing

  • How attention to detail ends up leading to a set of goals in the practice room

  • Implementing structures into your practice sessions

  • The importance of knowing where you are right now when establishing goals

  • The importance of focused listening to yourself and others

  • Ask yourself “Is this my best playing today?”

  • Knowing when we sound our best is how we set our current standards

  • The importance of noticing when you sound good

  • If he gets frustrated while practicing he steps back and makes sure he isn’t just having an emotional reaction to the session

  • The danger of tackling music that is too difficult, too soon when you are young

  • The powerful combination of humility and fearlessness

  • Why he starts practicing at the same time each day

  • His first session is the most structured of the day which is usual about an hour

  • Why he doesn’t practice past the point of exhaustion

  • Why his practice journal is the most important tool that Rex uses in the practice room

  • His setup for recording himself and why he does all the time

  • Why he also records video so he can see whether he’s doing anything inefficiently

  • Why Rex thinks it’s important to take time off of the horn from time to time

  • Why practicing must be viewed as a living process

  • Plus an sneak peak at his upcoming book, 100 Days of Trumpet Practice

Purchase long-term access to this workshop for only $29!

Tom Hooten on Finding the Sweet Spot When Practicing

Andrew Hitz

This video is by the incredible Tom Hooten, Principal Trumpet of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

He talks about practicing in the sweet spot, which he defines as "having the conviction and patience to practice from a happy place." He then explains how to do that.

He packs an insane amount of insight into a video that's less than 10 minutes. Enjoy!

Monday YouTube Fix: Yo-Yo Ma Masterclass

Andrew Hitz

I recently stumbled onto this very cool concert/master class with Yo-Yo Ma. The first 25 minutes is him performing Schelomo by Ernest Bloch with the Tel Aviv University Orchestra. The performance is predictably wonderful.

But he then puts the cello down and conducts a master class that lasts well over an hour. He touches on some very thought-provoking stuff like which spots in the music were the most emotional and gets the students to put into words why they thought so.

I love finding things like this on YouTube! Enjoy!

Practicing Tool: Drone Tone

Andrew Hitz

I am a big fan of practicing with a drone. I regularly do scale and arpeggio work with a drone. I much prefer using my ear to tune things rather than using my eyeballs to look for a green smiley face or something like that.

Speaking of green smiley faces, the drone feature on the Tonal Energy Tuner is wonderful. I’ll write about that another time. But today I wanted to talk a little about a less known site called Drone Tone.

Drone Tone is not anything fancy. It only does one thing: it plays drones.

 
 

What I love about it is the tone it produces. The drones are comprised of real cellos recorded in octaves. It is a rich sound that is quite easy to tune to. It is also a sound that will cut through a loud instrument (like a tuba!) but still with a pleasant sound. It also has a built-in metronome.

I use the web version but there is also an app for both Android and iOS: Drone Tone


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Take Your Practicing to the Next Level

Workshops, masterminds and resources to help you unlock your true potential in the practice room.

Inside the Practice Room with Patrick Sheridan

Andrew Hitz

 
 

What better way to improve in the practice room than by joining the best musicians in the world while they practice?

Join tuba superstar Patrick Sheridan for an intimate look into how he approaches practicing!

During this workshop Patrick described in detail the very intentional process he uses every day in the practice room: 

  • The routine he starts every day with

  • The he leaves time at the end of his routine for fun which he calls “playing in the sandbox”

  • His relatively random post-routine practice schedule that he refers to as “random acts of music” and how he regularly finds the time to practice even when he is very busy

  • The dangers of practicing self-hatred and judgement in the practice room rather than practicing music

  • He chooses at least one thing each week that he is intentionally trying to move forward in a measurable way

  • Why he regularly asks himself “Could I have played that with any less tension? Was there any tension at all?”

  • His “Practicing in Trios” concept and how he applies that to everything he learns

  • The need to develop a love for repitition

  • Why copying someone else’s practice schedule is idiotic (Spoiler: You need to come up with what works best for you!)

  • Patrick’s mental approach that there’s nothing difficult in music - just familiar and unfamiliar

  • The tools he uses to help him practice on a daily basis

  • How he deals with both boredom and frustration in the practice room

Purchase long-term access to this workshop for only $29!

Inside the Practice Room with Michael Sachs

Andrew Hitz

 
 

What better way to improve in the practice room than by joining the best musicians in the world while they practice?

Join Principal Trumpet of the Cleveland Orchestra Michael Sachs for an intimate look into how he approaches practicing!

Michael took a deep dive into a number of different aspects of practicing during this workshop: 

  • His preferred warm-up and why he has many different versions of the same routine (including one that's only 5 minutes long!)

  • How long he practices in any given day (probably not as long as you might guess!)

  • His advice for someone who needs to improve their focus in the practice room

  • What tools he uses to help practice

  • How he gets great results in the practice room to translate to performance

Purchase long-term access to this workshop for only $29!

An Example of Stunning Musical Storytelling

Andrew Hitz

If you’ve ever seen me give a clinic or taken a lesson with me there is a very good chance you’ve heard me talk about storytelling. The whole reason we put in thousands of hours in the practice room is so we can better tell our story.

Every once in a while you come across a performance that is so good that it makes you a better musician just by listening to it. Like something transfers from that performance into your playing on the spot like some kind of magic.

Those performances are quite rare.

Here is one in case you haven’t heard it before. Prince’s While Guitar Gently Weeps solo during the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony has been the stuff of legend for the last 17 years.

This newly produced clip just surfaced for the first time last week and it is stunning.

Even if you don’t like the Beatles or Prince or his interpretation of this solo you will be blown away by the conviction. He commands a room full of superstars like few in the history of the music business have ever been able to do.

I’m going to go practice now…

TEM232: Don't Focus On Growth

Andrew Hitz

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TEM232: Don’t Focus On Growth

Why growth is just the byproduct of continuing to show up every day.

On Today's Episode of The Entrepreneurial Musician:

  • A quick shout-out to the remarkable city of New Orleans

  • The Inside the Practice Room workshop with Jeff Nelsen of Canadian Brass that inspired this episode

  • Why growth is not the thing you should be focused on in the practice room or in your career

  • The magic of showing up in a meaningful way day after day

  • The danger of turning any one negative result into a narrative in your head

  • This week’s quote is from the wonderful Brené Brown

  • The all new Hitz Academy

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.tem.fm/shownotes

The Brass Junkies Episode 162: Jennifer Wharton

Andrew Hitz

 
 

Jennifer Wharton is a creative force in the brass world and it was a blast getting to interview her!

I love hearing people who have managed to be able to have a significant creative output during this pandemic. I particularly found the discussion about how she managed to record an album during this time when they her group couldn’t even rehearse together.

And be sure to check out the Bonegasm album. It’s awesome!

You can watch the episode on YouTube below or head over to Pedal Note Media for all of the links.

Enjoy!

Inside the Practice Room with Jeff Nelsen

Andrew Hitz

 
 
 

It’s not every day that one of the world’s best brass players gives you such a complete look into the daily process that made them what they are today.

Join Jeff Nelsen of Canadian Brass as he invites us inside of his practice room!

Jeff covered a lot of ground!

  • His ideal number of practice sessions in a day

  • How he religiously times his sessions and why it makes him more focused

  • The magic of unemotional critique

  • The “Three Phases” of preparation for a performance as he has laid out in his Fearless Performance program

  • Why “forced urgency” is important at the beginning of the preparation process

Purchase long-term access to this workshop for only $29!

Inside the Practice Room with Jeff Nelsen was absolutely fantastic! The step-by-step tips he shared on how to practice and prepare for a performance completely changed the way I teach my middle school students how to practice. We all have our own practice journals now (myself included!) Thanks to his tips, my students feel more confident in identifying their successes and are having a more positive experience in the practice room.
— Kathryn Williams