On Practicing
17/11/13 22:04
Last week I wrote about the link between LISTENING and SLOW PRACTICE. Today I’d like to suggest that you spend a little time with your tuner during your warmup and beyond. And not surprisingly, that subject also links back to slow practice.
Spending even five careful minutes playing whole notes with a tuner will benefit all subsequent aspects of your practice session, just as slow practicing does, and for some of the same reasons.
Unless we are very careful players, most of us go through our practice routines doing the same, habitual things that make us feel comfortable; not the things that make us better. And one of those habitual, counterproductive things many of us do is backing off on our air to “favor" difficult passages, difficult attacks, out of tune notes, etc. We manipulate notes and lines, rather than using our air to play them.
Using the tuner at the beginning of the practice session helps us break that cycle of daily, counterproductive habits by forcing us to use our air. If our air isn’t consistent, some notes will be out of tune or “out of color” (sounding different from the other notes); we will see (on the tuner) and/or hear that immediately, and we instinctively use more air to fix it, because that’s the only thing that works.
So after (or even during) your warmup, pull out your tuner for just a few minutes. It will get your practice session off on the right foot in all kinds of good ways!
Spending even five careful minutes playing whole notes with a tuner will benefit all subsequent aspects of your practice session, just as slow practicing does, and for some of the same reasons.
Unless we are very careful players, most of us go through our practice routines doing the same, habitual things that make us feel comfortable; not the things that make us better. And one of those habitual, counterproductive things many of us do is backing off on our air to “favor" difficult passages, difficult attacks, out of tune notes, etc. We manipulate notes and lines, rather than using our air to play them.
Using the tuner at the beginning of the practice session helps us break that cycle of daily, counterproductive habits by forcing us to use our air. If our air isn’t consistent, some notes will be out of tune or “out of color” (sounding different from the other notes); we will see (on the tuner) and/or hear that immediately, and we instinctively use more air to fix it, because that’s the only thing that works.
So after (or even during) your warmup, pull out your tuner for just a few minutes. It will get your practice session off on the right foot in all kinds of good ways!
On Practicing
10/11/13 21:52
In this post, I would like to stress the link between two previously-mentioned thoughts: listening, and slow practicing.
LISTENING: Trumpet great Vince DiMartino tells his students, “Whatever time you have to practice every day, spend half of it listening.” And Mick Hesse, in his book Perfecting Your Practice, highly recommends, in several different contexts, listening to other great players for many reasons, including improving our pitch. While most of us depend on our tuners for pitch, Mick says, “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of listening to skilled musicians… [And I love this line] …Even trumpet players can learn to play in tune. We must fill our aural memory banks with what is in tune.”
Needless to say, we’re talking here about analytical listening. It’s fine to listen for fun—that’s why we all love music! But improvement dictates that some of the time we listen carefully, for specific things. How does a great player shape a phrase; prepare an octave leap; articulate difficult passages; vary volume to create a line; tune to the players around him/her, etc.?
SLOW PRACTICE: The importance of slow practice is often misunderstood. A frequent mis-application of it is to approach difficult passages by slowing them down only enough that we can play all the notes, however imperfectly, then speeding them back up. While better than nothing, that approach focusses only on “getting the notes”—it omits far more than it includes. Those notes that we’re “getting” may still be inconsistent in sound or pitch, lacking in line, or in other ways falling far short of our best efforts.
A far more productive use of this technique is to slow down difficult passages (or easy passages, or even single notes) to the point that we can focus entirely on producing the sound, musical line, phrasing, perfect articulations, and intonation that we are seeking—not just on “getting the notes.”
And though slow practice is, to some, boring, it pays an extraordinarily high dividend rate: even a short period of slow practice (the right kind—always reaching for that sound and that attack) doesn’t just improve the passage you thought you were trying to improve—it improves EVERYTHING. Talk about Bang for the Buck!
A specific example: if you’re not happy with, say, your attacks, just spend ten minutes—honest, just ten minutes—really focussing on nothing but playing perfect whole notes at, say ♩= 60, removing the instrument from your embouchure after each. You won’t believe how much that improves everything else you do in the rest of your practice session.
THE LINK BETWEEN LISTENING AND SLOW PRACTICE: At the risk of repeating the obvious, virtually all artist/teachers agree that the only way to get a beautiful musical sound to come out of our instrument is to first put it into our ears. So that’s the link: listening puts it in, slow practice brings it out.
And finally, here's a good link from Steve Ferrandino, MWS Baritone Saxophone (thanks, Steve!) with some additional thoughts on practicing in general, including some particular thoughts on getting the most out of time spent.
LISTENING: Trumpet great Vince DiMartino tells his students, “Whatever time you have to practice every day, spend half of it listening.” And Mick Hesse, in his book Perfecting Your Practice, highly recommends, in several different contexts, listening to other great players for many reasons, including improving our pitch. While most of us depend on our tuners for pitch, Mick says, “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of listening to skilled musicians… [And I love this line] …Even trumpet players can learn to play in tune. We must fill our aural memory banks with what is in tune.”
Needless to say, we’re talking here about analytical listening. It’s fine to listen for fun—that’s why we all love music! But improvement dictates that some of the time we listen carefully, for specific things. How does a great player shape a phrase; prepare an octave leap; articulate difficult passages; vary volume to create a line; tune to the players around him/her, etc.?
SLOW PRACTICE: The importance of slow practice is often misunderstood. A frequent mis-application of it is to approach difficult passages by slowing them down only enough that we can play all the notes, however imperfectly, then speeding them back up. While better than nothing, that approach focusses only on “getting the notes”—it omits far more than it includes. Those notes that we’re “getting” may still be inconsistent in sound or pitch, lacking in line, or in other ways falling far short of our best efforts.
A far more productive use of this technique is to slow down difficult passages (or easy passages, or even single notes) to the point that we can focus entirely on producing the sound, musical line, phrasing, perfect articulations, and intonation that we are seeking—not just on “getting the notes.”
And though slow practice is, to some, boring, it pays an extraordinarily high dividend rate: even a short period of slow practice (the right kind—always reaching for that sound and that attack) doesn’t just improve the passage you thought you were trying to improve—it improves EVERYTHING. Talk about Bang for the Buck!
A specific example: if you’re not happy with, say, your attacks, just spend ten minutes—honest, just ten minutes—really focussing on nothing but playing perfect whole notes at, say ♩= 60, removing the instrument from your embouchure after each. You won’t believe how much that improves everything else you do in the rest of your practice session.
THE LINK BETWEEN LISTENING AND SLOW PRACTICE: At the risk of repeating the obvious, virtually all artist/teachers agree that the only way to get a beautiful musical sound to come out of our instrument is to first put it into our ears. So that’s the link: listening puts it in, slow practice brings it out.
And finally, here's a good link from Steve Ferrandino, MWS Baritone Saxophone (thanks, Steve!) with some additional thoughts on practicing in general, including some particular thoughts on getting the most out of time spent.
On Practicing
08/10/13 20:53
While the goal of practicing is learning and growth, with a goal of constantly moving forward, the way to do it is, perhaps counter-intuitively, to do the same things repetitively. It’s all too easy to think, "OK, I know about using the metronome, playing long tones, or [insert practice routine here!]; I've checked that item off, so I don't need to do it any more." But that doesn't work—we don't just use a practice technique for a week and then move on, marking it as being "done".
On the contrary, we need to: a) figure out which exercises or practice regimens we need to maintain daily, and b) learn to retrieve practice techniques learned in the past to meet challenges in the present.
Liz Axtell (MWS Principal Horn) shared a couple of links, one of which focussed on one of those techniques we all know about but may take for granted: PRACTICING SLOWLY.
We all know we need to slow things down to the point that we can control them as part of the process of working out technically difficult passages. However, this link takes a closer look at practicing really slowly, revealing benefits that go far beyond merely learning difficult passages.
Liz also recommends this regarding how much we should practice , and this link for a whole lot of great thoughts on music-making in general (thanks, Liz!)
On the contrary, we need to: a) figure out which exercises or practice regimens we need to maintain daily, and b) learn to retrieve practice techniques learned in the past to meet challenges in the present.
Liz Axtell (MWS Principal Horn) shared a couple of links, one of which focussed on one of those techniques we all know about but may take for granted: PRACTICING SLOWLY.
We all know we need to slow things down to the point that we can control them as part of the process of working out technically difficult passages. However, this link takes a closer look at practicing really slowly, revealing benefits that go far beyond merely learning difficult passages.
Liz also recommends this regarding how much we should practice , and this link for a whole lot of great thoughts on music-making in general (thanks, Liz!)
On Practicing
22/09/13 21:08
I strongly urge using a metronome for at least some part of every single practice session. Many players think only people “with rhythm problems” need to use a metronome. When I used to walk down the halls outside the Coast Guard Band practice rooms, I would always hear metronomes clicking in the rooms of the strongest players, the ones who you might think needed it the least. Enough said?
And again, for someone else’s ideas on the subject, check out this site. Don't let the tone of the graphics or the general appearance of the page scare you off—there's a lot there that makes sense for all of us. I particularly recommend "Part I - The Five Steps of Practice" for some ideas on how to work the metronome into your practice routine effectively.
And again, for someone else’s ideas on the subject, check out this site. Don't let the tone of the graphics or the general appearance of the page scare you off—there's a lot there that makes sense for all of us. I particularly recommend "Part I - The Five Steps of Practice" for some ideas on how to work the metronome into your practice routine effectively.
On Practicing
15/09/13 20:31
Here’s a tip for when you’re in rehearsal: Form the habit of putting an asterisk or some other mark next to staves that have tough passages that you want to remember to work on. It will save precious practice time at home and will help you focus your time efficiently on just what you most need to work on.
And in the category of other musicians' thoughts, here's a website I found to be interesting and informative on the subject. There are many more; just google "practice tips in music" or something similar.
And in the category of other musicians' thoughts, here's a website I found to be interesting and informative on the subject. There are many more; just google "practice tips in music" or something similar.