Welcome to my blog! I’ve been thinking (threatening?) to write a blog for the past several years, and the redesign of my website has finally allowed me to do so.
For my first post, I want to talk about something that I’m sure will be a frequent topic: practicing. Every day in my studio I encounter students who haven’t practiced, and while I may not always say something I can always tell. This is a non-negotiable aspect of being a musician: you will never improve unless you put in the time and practice. There will be days where you can get lucky on a passage and get away with it, but you must devote regular time to working on your studies in order to see the rewards. I was reminded of this recently as I watched the excellent PBS documentary “Circus”, an in-depth look at a year on the road with the Big Apple Circus. Here are performers who are in peak physical shape, and have already spent hours perfecting their routines. When the circus begins its season they perform more than 200 shows a year, so you would think after a while they can perform on auto-pilot, right? It’s the opposite, and I was struck watching this documentary at how many times the camera caught the performers quietly practicing like they were still learning the routine, or even as if they were about to audition for the first time. One performer even relates the last advice her father gave her son before he passed away. It’s cliché, but he said, “Practice, practice, practice.”
Conservatory students devote hours each day to practicing, but the majority of my students have school, family and athletic obligations in addition to playing the flute. How can you effectively practice an instrument each week and balance everything else in your life? The best advice I can offer is to always practice the day after a lesson, just like the circus performers who do a show and then practice hard the next day. Their bodies are sore, and they may even need time to physically rest, but they still put in a session (and it might even happen on their only day off for weeks!). Everything about the lesson will be fresh in your mind – the comments you received on your solo, mistakes you may have made at my house that were perfect at yours, any techniques we may have worked on, and your ear will still have a good memory of new music and rhythms if I played any example passages for you. You might even try practicing at home right after a lesson, it doesn’t get any more immediate than that. For this first session you should play ALL the music you need to prepare for the next lesson, don’t leave anything out. I wouldn’t worry too much about warming up during this session, just dive right in and let your memory guide you. And have your metronome by your side and use it a lot. Right away you’ll see how fast/slow things should be, and start to plan out how much work it will take to get you to the next stage. I like the insurance offered by this approach: you’ll be covered if you have a busy weekend or get slammed with homework and lose a day or two later in the week.
Practicing is a constant struggle, and I face it, too. Before I became a mom, a professional bassoonist friend of mine told me that I would never be able to practice again without hiring a babysitter. I laughed at her comment at the time, but four years later, she was dead right. Since I am paying someone to watch my kids when I practice, I make sure my time is well spent: I have a routine that combines scales and long tones together so I warm-up quickly and move on to the meat of what I need to work on. I follow what I described above, front-loading my practice sessions and practicing heavily as I first learn something. Just recently this method was invaluable: my woodwind quintet was preparing a concert and we were learning difficult new music. I had spent a lot of time working difficult passages up to tempo, then came down with a cold which developed into asthma. I went more than a week without being able to play; when I finally was healthy enough I had just five days before the performance. My finger and muscle memory was strong because of those early sessions I had put in, otherwise I would have been in trouble. I’m happy to report that the performance went well, but the memory of the stress I felt at being sick will absolutely motivate me the next time I’m preparing for a performance. I hope by conveying my struggles to you here and in our lessons that it will give you ideas about how to tackle practicing. I’ve been playing more than 30 years and I still don’t have it all figured out!