It’s so easy to put our work off and then feel guilty we didn’t get to it sooner. Let’s make a point to get started earlier. Nobody ever says “man I wish I had wasted more time this morning and THEN gotten to work.” Starting is the hardest and most important step. If I get in a good practice session in the morning, my entire day falls into place.
Tomorrow I’m starting earlier. Who is with me?
Pretty much everything tough we face needs to be handled like a beautiful ice-cold pond on a hot, sunny day. We want to swim, but it seems impossible. Should we walk away because it is initially difficult? NO. We don’t walk away from beauty because it’s a little scary. Should we dip in a toe and then very gradually and slowly adjust to the difficulty? NO. We’ve all tried that and it doesn’t work. It’s like a thousand slow, painful, mini-deaths.
Just, GO. Face the thing. The toughest time is the lead up to getting started. Just GO. Today, I faced a thing. (more on this soon.) It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t impossible or horrible. And now I have the success that is having faced a difficult thing.
Stuff is hard. Each of us is facing at least one really hard thing. Today my advice is to just GO. Just get in there.
START. GO.
I work best in short, intense segments of time. My favorite is 20 minutes. I separate these with 5 minutes of doing something non-musical, like washing a few dishes. It makes the segments more potent. This kind of time organization is for really focused, problem-solving work.
So what should be one 20 minute block?
It should be one very small thing. The work of narrowing it down is literally an important part of the work. It may take 4 or 5 minutes just to decide which note or which rest or which moment is the problem. This thought process itself is of import. I worked through this idea with a student tonight, and I’m going to share the specific musical moment because many readers will be familiar with it, but even if you aren’t, I think it translates.
You know the Gavotte at the end of Suzuki book 1? You know THE 8 notes? (I know you do. But just to be clear, I’m talking about the 16th notes in measure 20.) I asked my student which note was the problem; he thoughtfully played each note slowly and correctly chose the c natural. Then he decided it was the approach to this note, and not the departure from it. So then we had two notes, D descending to C. But this is simple, even very fast, so we weren’t there yet. We added the 4th finger E before these two notes, and we were in business. Now it’s been maybe 7 minutes? Now is the very focused, relaxed work of playing through these three notes. We created a tiny mini-etude working up and down the notes like a Philip Glass motive. One finger at a time, we considered the relaxation and accuracy of each finger, including the thumb. We considered the subtle rocking of the 3rd finger on it’s tip. At about 13 minutes, we add the 2 previous notes. We do this when the initial 3 feel easy, and we choose the previous 2 (only) because they add a new complication, and adding the 2 before (the b & d) does not. We now have a 5 note cell, isolated and slow at first, to work out what EXACTLY is going on in this measure. At the end of 20 minutes, we’ve done a great & focused thing. We may not be done with it, but we will have truly progressed with it. After a 5 minute break, I suggest working on a different thing for the next 20 minute segment; come back to these notes later today or tomorrow. This is how I work best, at least.
This is what truly takes up 20 or 25 minutes of great practice. If you do this work in 5 minutes, you aren’t doing it right. We’ve all been there, and we were wrong.
So there is this one thing that has you (or a student) flummoxed. You’ve been trying and trying to crack this one difficult measure/shift/bow stroke/passage and there is a brick wall between you and successful execution. Obviously I don’t have a magic wand, and I don’t even know what your one impossible thing is. But, here are just a few thoughts:
A friend and fellow string instructor suggested this blog entry’s topic, naming a few specific things that somebody might be up against. In honor of Ms. Faidley’s idea, I will pick one of her suggested problems and propose a practice technique: “how do we help a student with a difficult passage of double-stops?”
Here is my favorite double-stop trick. (I will begin with a nice little intro to it: practice the passage without the bow, plucking the strings. Become very aware about the left hand movements. Then, practice bowing and without the left hand, focusing only on what the bow arm will need to do. Now for the killer trick…) Isolate the double-stop passage to its very hardest part. Practice this part, VERY UNDER TEMPO, with your left hand fingers playing both notes but your bow playing only the upper or lower note at a time. Listen to one line even as you place the fingers for both, then do the other line. (This has to be slow & thoughtful work for it to be any good). Do this work, exactly as described, slowly and carefully.
I think I got that last idea from Simon Fisher’s BASICS. This little practice trick has worked tremendously for me and every friend or student I’ve ever shown it too. (It saved one friend’s tail days before an important recital which she then proceeded to rock, just by the way.)
But the bigger moral is: Work slowly and smartly. All things will become easier.
The reluctant learner: maybe it’s you- you’re in a slump but you have work to get done (& why does the work never get in a slump??? What is that about?? Not fair.). Maybe it’s your child… there is almost certainly a subject area where he or she isn’t easily motivated. Maybe it’s your student: this kid doesn’t even want to be here at the lessons, let alone doing the work. One way or another, we have a reluctant learner on our hands.
(I’m going to write this from the teacher’s perspective. This is how I most naturally think… I’m just a teacher at heart. But also when I’m working on my own, I often get best results from channeling my inner teacher. When I happen upon a problem or confusion, I make that part of myself into the student and problem-solve with the rest of myself as the teacher. That sounds a little crazy when I write it out like that but I swear it works.)
The student is a puzzle. Let’s (quite randomly) say she’s a 13 year old girl. It is our job to figure out how she works. She is reluctant in lessons, which means she is almost certainly not playing at home. (Notice I said playing not practicing: no way is this kid practicing.) So now we need to figure out how she ticks. Some kids are super quiet, and it may take time. Between asking her (and her parents) questions and just generally taking in any cues they give us, we need to figure out what she is in to. The easiest bridge might be music… if she’s obsessed with Adele, we’re going to arrange a song of hers for viola duet so she can play it with her best friend. If she’s in school orchestra, she’s probably eager to learn how to do vibrato (and she’s going to do it super-incorrectly if we don’t teach it to her), and it’s time to start introducing pre-vibrato exercises. If she’s not in orchestra, maybe we can make a contest for her to compete with other students in her age group in the studio. (I have Suzuki book contests each year, and whoever gets the farthest by the end of the school year gets a ribbon or a trophy, or if they are older, maybe a $10 gift card to Starbucks or Forever 21. I keep the tally of who is where in the book, and put it up on the wall to motivate. This obviously isn’t for every kind of learner, but when it works it really works.)
One student of mine, a very reluctant learner and particularly quiet girl, kept bringing manga to her lessons and setting it on the piano. I started asking about the books, and suddenly she was a super-talkative girl, obsessed with video games and anime and Japanese culture. I unlocked the weirdest little motivational trick for her: instead of the normal stickers, she gets her own special Japanese stickers when she learns a new song. For every great week of practice, she gets a small prize. Japanese candies & little figurines have her practicing like a fierce viola monster. I got a set of sushi erasers for her, and each great week meant one more eraser for the tiny adorable collection. And a bonus: every 2 pages of music she learns, I transcribe a tune from one of her video games for her. Suddenly she is obsessed with music, too.
Each student is going to be different and it can take some serious detective work for us to figure it out. There are plenty of tricks and tools, and not all of them are going to work for each child. For some of my students, a practice chart is enough. For others, it takes an embarrassing performance at a recital to wake them up. I think that it’s up to us to never give up on the kid; music is for everybody.
Tomorrow begins a new year. Like a birthday or anniversary, the beginning of a new year reminds us of the larger increments of time we may forget to notice in our daily lives. We can get pretty bogged down in the chores and errands of a given day or week and forget that years and decades are… ahh, happening. Anyhow, I needed this reminder! Here are 5 things on my mind.
1.discipline
A friend of mine wrote today that he had surpassed his annual goals for biking (2500 miles) and running (500 miles) in the last year. Obviously these are remarkable goals, but the discipline he used to keep at them is truly inspiring (I almost detest this word, so often overused, but here & for me, it fits: I’m inspired.) Discipline is working during downtime, working when the next big goal isn’t immediately in sight. Discipline is difficult, but it’s also very rewarding.
2.balance
I’m always working on finding a balance between getting work done and taking care of myself. If I spend too much time relaxing, I may not get anything done. If I focus only on my work, I can become very tense and even suffer an injury, which would mean no work at all. You know what they say: all work and no play makes Jill a ball of tension. And so, I’m striving for balance.
3.goals
I write often about setting goals for ourselves. Setting goals helps keep me motivated and gives my work organization and purpose.
4. __________ is a lifestyle
Whatever we are working on, if we are completely dedicated to it, MUST become a lifestyle. No new year’s resolution will solve anything in our lives. No promise to ourselves or to anyone, in and of itself, will achieve our goals. We are doing this thing or we aren’t. My blank is filled with music. Yours?
5.forgiveness
We will (at least occasionally) fail at all 5 of these things, even this one, and more. We deserve to forgive ourselves and keep it moving.
These are 5 things I’m working on. Who is with me?
One of my greatest teachers told me there are no holidays. She would say, “consider a diet, where you eat healthfully every day. How exactly do you ‘deserve a holiday,’ when the calories don’t ever take a break?”
I haven’t been on a practice regimen like this in a very long time, but I am now, and it feels absolutely wonderful. Today there was no time to practice, and I just had to find time. Somehow I managed.
If you set your mind to it, it’s like brushing your teeth. Even on the busiest day, you find time.
one note at a time 