Practice Smarter, Not Harder!

     Musicians are told to practice if they want to get better, but what is practicing, and how do you do it?  Below are some ideas you can use to make your practice sessions more effective and help you become a better musician more quickly.

•  Break up your practice time - According to a 2015 British study, adults have an average attention span of five minutes.  After those five minutes, our minds wander and are less effective at learning and creating new connections.  Instead of doing your practicing all at once, consider breaking up your practice sessions into two or three sessions.  You will be able to concentrate for a greater percentage of the time and get more done.
•  Practice the difficult sections first - It is a poor use of practice time to spend lots of time on music that is easy for you or that you already know how to play.  Instead, spend your practice sessions working on the things that are more challenging for you.
•  Concentrate on specific goals - When you practice, it is a smart idea to write down your specific goals for the practice session.  “Get better at the violin” is too broad of a goal.  “Be more in tune at measure 15” is a better goal because it is more specific, can be measured, and is achievable within a set amount of time.  Once you have specific goals, you must make sure you stay focused on them during your practice.
•  Don’t practice your mistakes - If you make a mistake, don’t keep playing and pretend it never happened!  You should stop playing, try to think of ways to solve the problem, and then go back and fix it.  If you don’t try to fix your mistakes, you will only be reinforcing them and increasing the chance that those errors happen again in the future.
•  Take time to assess your playing - In order to make changes, your brain has to have time to process the new information you are giving it.  Spend a little bit of time between each try to think of what you’d like to change and then possible solutions to the problem.  When you take time to make necessary changes, you will be more successful in reaching your goals!

Outfitting the Home Practice Studio

     Your home practice studio is a space you depend on to experiment, develop skill, and bring your music to life.  With the right tools, you can streamline the process, and work more efficiently and effectively!

Music Stand - Don't opt for inexpensive wire music stands; they are flimsy and often too short (leading to heavier music falling off during practice, and poor posture due to hunching over the music). Invest in a heavy-duty orchestral stand that will last a lifetime!  Manhasset - under $40

Mirror - A mirror will allow you to evaluate and make adjustments to your posture and form in real-time.  Violinists and violists may only need a mirror that shows from their waist up, but cellists will require a full-length mirror.  IKEA - price varies

Metronome & Tuner - Metronomes help you keep tempo and subdivide beats, whereas tuners help you check intonation and keep your instrument in tune.  Korg TM-50 - under $30

Extra Set of Strings - Nothing halts a practice session like a broken string!  Avoid this by keeping an extra set around.  Strings - price varies

Recording Device - Whether for video or audio recordings, having the ability to study your posture, technique, and interpretation is indispensable.  Most smartphones have the ability to record sound, video, or both, making for a versatile addition to the studio.

Instrument Holder - Sometimes, the hardest part about practicing is getting the instrument out of the case!  Eliminate this chore by having the instrument and bow always ready to go!  Instrument Stands - price varies

Good Lighting - Poor lighting will not only strain your eyes, but it will also make you more tired and less focused.  Position lighting high enough so your shadow doesn’t interfere.  IKEA - price varies

Practice Mute - Don't want to disturb others? Get a heavy-duty practice mute which will dampen the sound by 90%!  Practice Mutes - price varies

Practicing Away from the Instrument

     Many people believe that the only way to build skill and to progress on an instrument is to spend countless hours locked away in a room with said instrument.  However, many of the musical skills that we hope to cultivate are theoretical in nature, and the reality is that having a physical distraction (like an instrument) actually detracts from our ability to establish these skills and slows our progress.

     So, what kinds of activities can we thoughtfully engage in without our instruments in hand?  

Listening to Recordings - What better way is there to improve your sense of aesthetics and understanding of musical form than by studying recordings of world-famous performers?  Set aside time each day to select a quality recording of a piece you are currently learning, and with the score in front of you, notice the small details that the performer has chosen to do from the same music that you are studying.  

Clapping & Counting - Accurate rhythm is fundamental to music.  If understanding how a beat subdivides or keeping a steady tempo is a challenge, set aside time to work with a metronome and clap & count out sections of music you do not understand or that you feel rush or slow down.

Visualization - Sometimes, after a string of unsuccessful attempts, our confidence suffers, and we start to believe that we are unable to perform a specific action.  Visualizing success (and what that looks and feels like in the body) can help us step back and look at how we are doing things objectively.  Corrections become easier to make, and we are often able to “see” solutions that we weren’t able to see before.

Ear Training - Good intonation is characterized bybeing able to recall a variety of elements in detail such as what the pitch sounds like in your mind, and what it feels like, specifically, for the body to produce the pitch.  The more detail you can recall, the more accurate your intonation becomes!  As professionals often say - “If you can’t hear it in your mind (or better yet, sing it), then you can’t play it!”

Alexander Technique in Violin, Viola & Cello Playing

One of my specialities as a teacher is helping my violin, viola, and cello students become as efficient in their technique as possible.  Ergonomics is the study of efficiency in any activity, but can be said to have two guiding principles.  First, any activity should always be accomplished with the least amount of physical or mental effort.  Second, activities should be streamlined to only include those actions or thoughts which are absolutely necessary. 

When people first start to adopt these guiding principles of ergonomics, they may feel as if they are supposed to move mechanically and in a robot-like fashion.  Invariably, tension sets in, and the student is left feeling worse than when they started.  However, one of the greatest authorities on body ergonomics, Mathias Alexander, would heartily disagree! 

Mathias Alexander was the creator of the Alexander Technique, a system of creating body awareness through reducing static tension in the body as well as operating within the mid-ranges of each range of movement.  Through this system, Alexander has helped countless actors, dancers, athletes, musicians, and many others - including myself!

When I was in my third year of college, I developed debilitating tendinitis in my left shoulder.  It was so bad that I couldn't even hold my instrument for four whole months.  Not only did I have to take a semester off playing, but I also literally had to retrain my body how to play again.  At first, I tried things like physical therapy, massage, immobilization, and acupuncture, but nothing seemed to work - until I discovered the Alexander Technique!  

I realized that my philosophy on movement had been deeply flawed up to that point.  For example, when I had to use my 4th finger on a lower string, I would simply reach with my fingers to get over to the other string.  What I discovered is that I was overloading my smaller muscles with strain and tension instead of using the larger and more capable muscles of my shoulder and back.  Furthermore, whenever I would stretch with my hand, I froze my shoulder to act as a fulcrum for leverage, thus immobilizing it and creating static tension!

How did Alexander Technique help in this situation?  First, if I wanted to perform with the least amount of physical effort, I had to choose muscles that had the highest efficiency.  My hand had to strain to the very limits of its range of motion to reach over and play a 4th finger on the next lowest string.  Swinging my left arm from the shoulder joint would have been a much less strenuous movement, but would have still accomplished the same task of centering my hand over the next lower string, thus creating more economy of movement.

Second, because I was no longer stretching my hand to its limits, I allowed my hand to stay more in the middle of its range of motion.  At the same time, swinging my arm from the shoulder socket was not impinging on its range of motion either, allowing me to also stay within the middle of my range of motion.  When we stay in the middle of our range of motion, we lessen the likelihood that we will experience overuse injuries like tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.

However, the most important benefit of learning to have economy of movement and operating in the mid-range of motion is that static tension is reduced, if not eliminated.  When I allow my shoulder to swing, enabling it to center my hand over that lower string, I also release all the static tension my shoulder had been holding up to that point.  The more I allow my body to move freely, the less tension it is allowed to hold.

Of course there are many more examples I could present, but they are almost too numerous to list.  The takeaway is this: musicians must move in order to create sound, and wherever there is movement, there will be the question of ergonomics.  If a musician is well set-up and properly educated in how their bodies are made to move, they can play for a lifetime without pain or difficulty.  And isn’t that the aim - to be able to practice art for the rest of our lives while enjoying every moment?

Reminiscing

As we near the end of 2015, I can't help but marvel at how much can change in just twelve short months.  I dissolved a teaching studio of nearly 40 students, started a sabbatical, became a certified teacher of three different professional teaching organizations, began developing a definitive ten-year curriculum for the learning of violin/viola/cello, and accepted the opportunity to apply these same curriculums in support of music schools in Kuwait and now Alaska! 

At the beginning of the year, I knew that Hammond Ashley Violins would be closing its doors in June, and in turn, closing the doors to my studio.  Even though I had ample time to find a new studio location, something inside of me told me to look for a different opportunity.  At the dismay of family, friends, colleagues, parents and students, I gave back my keys to the building and started down a road where I didn't know was going...

At first, I thought I wanted to create online tutorials for YouTube so that my reach would be broader, giving me the ability to impact well over the 40 students I had formerly been able to influence.  However, with a new baby, a four-year-old, and barking dogs in the house, it was almost impossible to find quiet time to film, and even when I could, there was bound to be an interruption.  I reluctantly benched that project even though three months of preparation and research went into it.

With half of my sabbatical gone, I started scrambling for something tangible to show for my six-month break - some kind of accomplishment.  I began receiving my acceptance letters from different music education organizations which allowed me to enroll students in their curriculum programs.  Being a certified teacher of three different certificate programs made me feel a little better about scrapping half of my precious sabbatical.  That is, until I started going over their curriculums...

I found myself agreeing with very little of what they put down on paper.  "This is not logical."  "This is way too hard for a student at that level."  "I would find that piece so demotivating to play."  It seemed I always had a critique up my sleeve.  And finally, this telling thought:  "If I were to put a curriculum together, it would be SO much better."  Was I just saying that because I was frustrated with what I was working with?  Or on some level, did I really believe it to be true?

I decided to put my money where my mouth was.  I gathered fifteen different curriculums - from national and state standards to famed pedagogues who taught at Juilliard and Curtis.  I cross-referenced and analyzed all the data and added in my own philosophies and experiences gained in the teaching studio.  I wanted a curriculum that I could use for my own students, but also one that was so logical, so sequential, and so well-graded that even a brand new teacher right out of college could use it to produce exceptional results in even the most average of students.  

It was ironic that an old friend from college was looking for precisely such a system to become the basis for the first school of Western music in Kuwait.  When I think of my work being able to influence people on the other side of the globe, I am both thrilled and indebted.  Thrilled that I will be able to give a gift to the world that reaches far beyond my own means.  Indebted to all the teachers who have taught me and to all the students who have taught me how to teach; without them, I would not have the skills and experience to create something like this in the first place.  

So, as I prepare for 2016, I am getting ready to say hello to a new studio space, a re-branding of my teaching studio, the potential within new students, and the opportunity to train and coach teaching teams in Kuwait and Alaska.  As Robert Frost so eloquently put it, "I took the (road) less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

Sabbatical (part 1)

When I decided to take a sabbatical from teaching, I had no idea that it would become one of the best professional decisions of my life.  At first, I thought it would be a period where I would take time to relax, finish old projects, and try new things.  But I never thought it would become a catalyst for diving into pedagogical research and gaining clarity on what kind of legacy I want to leave to the world.

It didn't happen all at once though.  I started out with a strict schedule of practicing, composing, reading, and writing.  Yet, as with all things that are inflexible, it gave way to a more open-ended process.  I began to ask, "Why am I doing these things?  What's the big picture here?"  And I realized that I wanted to do more than just be a music teacher - I wanted to be a pedagogue.  And I wanted to reinvent the wheel.

My work was slow at first, as I gathered the research and curriculums of all those great thinkers who came before me.  I began to compare, contrast, and ask why they believed in their processes.  And as I worked through all fifteen of these other philosophies, I found agreeing with as well as refusing their ideas.  And through this process, I found myself solidifying my own beliefs on what worked and what did not.

I decided that I wanted to design an eleven-level curriculum that would take a student from first being introduced to the instrument to being ready to take an audition at a conservatory -and- I wanted one each for violin, viola, and cello.  Eventually, I hoped to create a series of books that would accompany my philosophy so that any teacher, no matter their level of skill or experience, could successfully teach a student from 'Day 1'.  Little did I know that I wasn't the only person interested in my project.

By chance or fate, one of my friends had returned to his home country of Kuwait and wanted to open a school that catered to Western music - it would be the first of its kind there, and he wanted my research to serve as the foundation for his institution.  I was at once flattered and overwhelmed by his faith in my abilities.  I redoubled my efforts, and began working with more purpose and passion than ever before.  If I succeeded, my work would be used internationally to raise a whole new generation of musicians halfway across the globe.

To be continued...