practicing 101

practicing is the real life of a musician.

sure, they get on a high and perform every so often.

if you’re professional, performing might not be your greatest high – for some it’s their low.

(but that’s only if you’re a loser who has let life get the better of you. there’s nothing worse than seeing a professional musician who’s obviously bored with their job.)

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I have been doing a lot of practicing recently.

I have learned a lot about practicing over the last few months, and thought I’d share what I’ve learned:

….

1. Decide before you pick up your instrument what you would like to accomplish in that practice session. Be realistic.

2. Go into a quiet room, shut the door, and eliminate all distractions (cell phone, Facebook, whatever.)

3. Ensure that your instrument is impeccably tuned. Take a few minutes to tune and listen to the sound in the room. Open your mind up to listen, and to think objectively. Keep it sharp and alert.

4. Always use a mirror. This will help keep you from developing poor posture habits, and will also help you watch where your bow is, which in turn will help you keep your tone clean.

5. Approach the music and select the section you will practice. Do not just aimlessly open your music and start fooling around. Choose a specific section that you feel you can perfect within the amount of time you have. It doesn’t matter if it’s only 3 or 4 notes. Start small – build up.

6. Begin with the first note, and slowly work through your passage. Fast is overrated. Let me say that again.

Fast is overrated. Slow is underrated.

7. As you work through the passage, keep in mind three things of utmost importance.

intonation: listen to each note with open ears, listen to it harmonically, listen to hear it ring. Do not move on before your note is in tune. If a note is out of tune when you hit it; stop, go back a few notes, and come at it again, slowly. Find a speed where you can hit it accurately several times in a row before speeding up.

tone: as string players, tone is of utmost importance. How you are connecting with the string is very important. Everyone should do basic tone exercises as part of their warm-up, or as part of a piece they are working on in order to ensure that the tonal purity is at its best. As you practice your piece, listen for any little bumps, jerks, scratches, whispers, rasps…etc. Identify the root cause of your sound interruption; is your arm jerking? Is your elbow too high? Is your shoulder up? The sound should be silken.

rhythm: rhythm is the structure and heartbeat of music. Within rhythm, many things are determined – bow speed, bow distribution, etc. Rhythm dictates the feel and direction of the music, and so it must be spot on. Use a metronome at first in order to make sure that you are playing everything as the composer intended. Work it through until it “sits” in your body comfortably. Your bow and the rhythm are very closely linked; it’s like a ball bouncing evenly off of the walls in time to a beat. Sometimes the ball has to travel faster in order to hit the opposite wall on time, sometimes slower. Make sure that you work out all the bowing issues so that rhythm isn’t jerking your arm around.

These are just a few basic things to think about as you are beginning practicing.

Other things that are important to think about and prepare for as you practice are questions of colouring – either with vibrato, or with your bow, a combination of the two, or none at all.
One thing Jonathan encouraged me to think about yesterday was how I thought about vibrato. It’s easy to “turn on” your vibrato, and leave it on. But that gets boring. Instead of pasting your one colour all over your entire “house” – think about what colours would look good in what “rooms.” What passages would sound better with a faster vibrato? A slower vibrato? Non-vibrato?

So there are some things to think about as you begin practicing!

And remember – don’t get distracted and leave your practice piece until you have completed what you set out to do!

Either you will run out of time to practice, you will reach your goal, or you will lose focus and change pieces. The last one is very dangerous and detrimental to your progress. Set small goals if you need to, and reach them. Remember, your brain is like a CD that’s being written; everything you do it records, and if you do wrong things on the instrument, you will be “recording” mistakes into your playing.

It’s an art: finding beautiful ways of expression within difficult boundaries.

Until next time…I’ll be practicing!!