10 Essentials for a Practice Environment

Practice is discovering and solving musical and technical issues, both physical and mental. If you are not doing this, you are not practicing.

Make practice sessions more productive by organizing in advance:

1. Have a quiet space that is free from interruptions.

2. You need a music stand for proper posture. Do not use an instrument case, your bed, the floor, etc.

3. Have a chair that is like you would use in performance. Do not use a bean bag chair, recliner, sofa, the floor, or a chair with arms.

4. Create and keep updated a chart of all skills and literature that you should be practicing.

5. Keep all of your practice material / literature organized and within easy reach.

6. Always have a pencil. Use it.

7. Keep a Practice Journal. Track your discoveries, new ideas, and reminders. Log your metronome markings.

8. You need a metronome. Use it LOTS.

9. You need a tuner. Use it LOTS.

10. Have a way to record yourself. EVERY DAY. Listen back with your audience’s ears.

Technique

Perfection of one’s technique is essential, but not as an end unto itself. Technique is the servant of musicianship.

Superb technique can clearly communicate ideas of substance.

Still pleading for conceptual awareness of the difference between singing and yelling. And the difference isn’t volume. Try to hear lyricism.

Metronome

The metronome has three primary uses: provide a specific tempo, teach the ability to perform with an even, steady pulse, and provide a systematic approach for incrementally adjusting tempo while working out fast technique.

The metronome is not meant to count for you. Performers should focus on developing their own inner pulse or internal metronome. This internal clock is then compared to - and synchronized with - the external metronome. If the performer relies on synching their playing with the metronome without developing an internal pulse, performances (obviously without a metronome) can be unstable. The metronome is no more a substitute for your own rhythmic stability than the tuner is a substitute for your own ability to play in tune. These are great aids for developing our skills, but they don’t replace them.

A Note About Teaching

Teaching is not merely the presentation of correct information. Teaching, in those cases where learning is also expected, requires a cycle of events:

- Initial presentation of a fact, concept, or skill
- Student’s attempt to utilize the information
- Teacher’s clarification, guidance, or affirmation in direct response* to the student’s attempt
- Monitoring, clarification, and reminders in direct response* to ongoing efforts by students

*In direct response: even correct information needs to be appropriate to the moment.

In teaching physical skills, intellectual understanding does not ensure that a student will demonstrate the skill correctly. They do not always understand that what they say and what they are doing are different. Without individual continuous monitoring a student can easily create poor physical habits. The student often incorrectly assumes that because they understand the explanation they are performing the task correctly.

I have observed classes where only one, two, or three of these steps were utilized. The best classes always utilize the entire cycle while listening to individual students as often as possible.

Youthful Auditions

Listening to young performers prepare competitive audition pieces, I am struck [a swift, firm blow] by the double-standard tolerated by many players.

Firstly, from a technical perspective, students don’t always demand the elements of a ‘complete, finished performance’ that is so often required in much of their ensemble experience. For example, most students would be mortified if their performing ensemble had to stop midway through a piece — but often, the same students are casual about any awkward interruption in their own piece.

Secondly, there exists a lack of understanding that interpretation is a process that matures over time. It is not a last minute consideration. Maturing an interpretation and mastering technique both take time and effort. There are musical (and technical) problems to be wrestled with and composers don’t always make their intent simplistic or obvious.

Ultimately, we try to communicate meaningful, organized, logical ideas that express the very nature of why a piece exists. The performance should continuously engage the listener. Our technique will either: (a) provide us with the necessary tools to communicate, or (b) limit our musical language as to what can be communicated, or (c) because of error and inconsistency detract from the substance of what is being communicated. Nonetheless, communication remains the goal. Connecting with the listener. The performer’s preparation strategy has to focus both on what needs to be communicated in a piece and ensuring that technique serves that communication — never detracts from it.