3 reasons why we don't want to practice

We all go through times when we do NOT feel like practicing. But knowing why we do not want to practice can actually help us practice better, so here are three common reasons.

1. Overwhelmed: Too much music to learn in a too short amount of time can make us scared of practicing because we don't even know where to get started.
   
   When that happens, the most important thing to do is to find the hardest spots by either playing through the whole music up to speed and see where we fall apart, or listening to the whole piece while looking at the music and marking down the tough spots. It is more manageable to learn a few important spots than to learn three hours of music. 
   
   
2. Negative self talk: We can't practice well when we are harsh with ourselves, so it's important to deal with our fears before we even try to practice.
   
   Negative self talk can be self-defeatist: "I'll never reach the level I want," "I hate how I play," or "No matter how much I practice, my teachers and colleagues will still think I'm not good enough." It can also be self-pressuring: "I have to prove to my parents that I made the right choice by picking this career," "I'm gonna practice until this spot is absolute perfection"
   
   
3. Fun: Sometimes we don't want to practice because we want to do fun things like hang out with friends, enjoy beautiful weather, or simply sleep. When that's the case, many of us push through that feeling and go practice anyways, and then get frustrated because our practicing isn't going well.
   
   Why not follow our needs and take some time off? Because we're afraid that if we listen to the voice of fun, we'll never go practice ever again. However, the best practice sessions come from being excited and inspired to play, and that often happens when we have a good balance in our lives.
   

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Living with a musician 101

Considering moving in with a musician? Make sure you know what to expect with these four aspects.

1. Practicing: You will hear a lot of practicing, often the same music played over and over again, many times along to a metronome.
   
   What this means to you is that you may not be able to play your own music at the same time, and that you'll always hear background sound even when you're watching tv.
   
   
2.  Schedule: Know ahead of time not to expect your musician to be home every evening, or the whole weekend. Rehearsals and concerts are often during those times, and musicians will often use their free time to practice. Embrace the lifestyle because changing it rarely an option.
   
   
3. The space it takes: Musicians take up a lot of space with sheet music, gear and instruments. This is normal and often necessary, even when piles of scores never seem organized, and gear or instruments lay on the floor between practice sessions.
   
   
4. Listening to music: Many musicians are quite particular with the music they listen to. Some need to listen to what they're working on at the moment to get ready for a gig, some prefer to listen to the opposite of the style they play, and some even need complete silence after rehearsal and concerts. It's best if you can follow their lead on that one.
   
   

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How to make time to practice

It can be hard to find time to practice, which is why this article listed 33 ways to make more time for music-making.

Here are some excerpts:

• "Disconnect. Power down your computer–or if you absolutely need the thing for some reason related to your practice and studies, sever it from the internet. Switch off your router. Close all unnecessary windows."
  
  
• "Banish Television. On your deathbed, will you regret not seeing this particular episode of “Generic Man and his Comical Family”? Alright then."
  
  
• "Timer. Every day, set a timer for 5-10 minutes. Within that time, work on a particularly mundane task related to your instrument or music theory."
  
  
• "Shut off your cell phone. You don’t need the added distraction of incoming texts from National Geographic’s Twitter account. Unless you’re writing about giraffes or the indigenous peoples of New Guinea."
  
  
• "Purpose. Before you pick up your instrument, take a moment to decide what you’ll be practicing. Fix it clearly and firmly in your mind. Then get to it! Stick to your plan and don’t allow yourself to wander."
  
  
• "Set a timer for 15, 30, 60, or 90 minutes… however much you can stand. During that time, chip away at the tiny corners of a big, intimidating project."
  
  

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How to know if you're doing enough (or not)

We all want to get more done, and at the same time we all want to have more free time.

So how are we supposed to know if we're doing too much or too little?

Author Dave Navarro mentions in his manifesto More Time Now that we just have to ask ourselves the following question.

How many things do you regret not having accomplished, attempted or experienced over the last ten years?

Answer it honestly, and you'll know just how you're doing.


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Why it's ok to not always be productive

Do you ever find yourself practicing your instrument and feeling that you're not getting anything done?

Here is why it's completely ok, from the following excerpts from an article on productivity by Jason Fried published in the latest edition of Inc.

"A few weeks ago, I was on fire." "Every day, I felt as if I were accomplishing two or three days' worth of work. I was in the zone, and it felt fantastic."

"It lasted about three weeks. And then I found myself back at my old pace. Instead of being super productive, I was sort-of-productive. Some days, I felt as if I barely accomplished anything."
"So what was wrong? Nothing at all."

"I believe it's perfectly fine to spend some of your time, maybe even a lot of your time, not firing up on all cylinders. Full capacity isn't always great for your mind."

"Motivation, productivity, efficiency- these things are not constants. In my experience, they come in waves. They ebb and flow, and there's no sense in fighting it. The key is to recognize a productivity surge when it appears, so you can roll with it."

"I think about work the same way I think about the weather. Sometimes it's snowy or rainy or foggy at work. When that happens, I stay 'inside'- and take care of the busy work, the boring stuff, the small things that need to get done."

"But when things warm up, it's time to head 'outside,' to get creative, focus on the interesting problems, and ride the wave of creativity as long as it lasts. It may be days, weeks, even months."


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Why you should take a gig you're not ready for

We all believe we have to work our way up.

So when an offer comes asking us to play at a higher level than the level we are on, we may think that it is in everyone's best interest to turn it down.

After all, what we do in the practice room is reflected on the stage. So why take a chance?

Because the opposite is true too. What we do on the stage is reflected in the practice room. So when we do a higher level gig, it forces us to work quicker and better, and to adjust our work in the practice room.

When we turn down a higher level gig because we want to get to that level on our own first, we actually turn down the best way for us to learn how to get to that level. 



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How to be proud when you screw up

When you are working on a new piece and a section isn't working, it can be tempting to get frustrated.

However, it is the perfect time to feel a sense of pride. Why pride when you just screwed up?

Because it's a reminder that you know what all the options are to fix that spot!  All you have to do is go through each one of those options to figure out the one that will make that section work.

With every option you try that doesn't help, you can get prouder and prouder of yourself for having more and more tricks in your tool bag to try.

Practicing is so much more fun when you turn every mistake into a way to be proud of yourself!



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Why muscle memory does not work

As musicians, we spend a lot of time training our body to play the right notes, and to play them with the right sound.

But when we use our body the way we normally do in a different hall or on a different instrument, it doesn't create the same result as it usually does.

It's only when we use our ear the way we typically do, that it makes our body change what it needs to change in order to get the same results as it usually gets. 



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Are you working too hard?

There are two kinds of hard work, the doable hard, and the destructive hard.

In his fantastic book Axiom, author Bill Hybels mentions some of his team members speaking about hard work.

"As they talked about their stressors, their energy actually increased, their eyes brightened, and their posture seemed to straighten a bit. They'd use language like, "This is exhilirating!" "It's hard, but it's fun!"

He also brings up other team members who "talked about how they were losing sleep at night. They were experiencing anxiety and increased bouts of fear and despondency. They were having escapist thoughts. They were worried that they'd lose their jobs if they didn't set new excellence records."

Here are some examples of the two kinds of hard for musicians.   

Doable hard: Create a private teaching studio     
Destructive hard: Reschedule every single missed lesson              

Doable hard: Make a living as a musician                
Destructive hard: Refuse the gigs that don't pay well enough

Doable hard: Practice a piece until you know it well
Destructive hard: Practice a piece until absolute perfection

Doable hard: Create a band or a chamber ensemble     
Destructive hard: Solely do all the planning, but don't get paid more

Make sure to keep in check with the kind of hard work you're doing, to stay motivated and not get buried under your work.



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Should you play lego with your music?

When you find yourself getting more and more frustrated the more you practice, it's time to separate the elements that make up the music and put them back together.

In other words, play Lego with these music components:

1. Harmony
2. Rhythm
3. Melody
4. Tone quality
5. Words if you're a singer

There's just too many things to think about when learning a piece, to not deconstruct and reconstruct it bits by bits.

Wanna get better at sight-reading?

I believe that our ability to sight-read is directly related to our ability to read out loud.

Growing up, my mother had me read books out loud. She would stop me if my tone of voice did not match the message, if I did not breathe in a place that made sense for the phrase structure, or if I didn't change my voice when a new character was speaking.

The focus was never on reading new words, but on interpretation.

I hadn't had the occasion to read out loud for years until last night, when my husband told me he had read out loud for his Navy shipmates a very difficult section of a book. So of course, I had to try reading it out loud myself to see if I was still able to read without tripping on words.

That's when I realized that it felt the same reading out loud as it did sight reading a piece. In both cases I look for the structural points of the music, and interpretation takes center stage over the actual pitches.

I've always been a strong sight-reader, and now I wonder if that's thanks to all the "words-sight-reading" my mother made me do (thanks mum).



Picture from http://www.fortcollinsreadaloud.org/

Do you play with your fingers or with your brain?

Our brain is what makes the body work.  But when we practice many of us slip back into our childhood habits of training our fingers instead of our brain.

Consider the empo you use to get a new piece up on its feet. Many people get tempted to play up tempo sooner than the fingers are able to.

But you have to make the fingers go as slow as the brain needs to go through all of the thought process. Only then can the fingers play accurately.

When you play faster than the brain can comprehend, the result can only be messy. Repetition at the same tempo won't make it better, but worst, because of the muscle memory of the repeated mistakes.

When a piece is played as slow as needed for the brain to think, the result will be consistency because of the team work between the brain and the fingers.

Next time you hesitate to practice a piece twice slower, consider the actual speed your brain has to think at at that tempo, and you'll realize that it's not nearly as slow as you think.



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Who says you can't wear nail polish?

The weather is so beautiful outside, which makes for a perfect Saturday, and for light(er) topics.
Namely: Nails.

For so long I took for granted that as a musician I would never be able to wear nail polish. Not that anyone told me that I couldn't,  but no musician I knew ever had nail polish on, so I figured it was a no-no.

Well, it turns out it's OK. Yes! It's O. K!

I've now been coloring my nails for ten years, and the only downside of wearing nail polish as a musician is that my priority has to be about keeping my nails short, which chips the nail polish. Oh well, chipped nail polish, who cares?!

 My playing has improved the same, and my painted nails have made no difference to the world of music whatsoever. And I think that my piano loves it (and no, no color goes on it)!

So women instrumentalists, there you go!

You get to do whatever you want with your nails, like all the non-musicians out there!

Extra tip (from my grand-father):
To avoid cuticles, never cut your nails on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I don't know why, but it does work.

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3 performing struggles

I came home yesterday and found that my boyfriend had been reading the wonderful book The Art of Practicing by Madeline Bruser, which was given to me years ago by the wonderful department of music of Kalamazoo College. I read through the book again and came across the part where the author explains the different types of struggles that performers can go through. Here they are.

1.  Overstated Passion: That's when we over do it, when we want to prove how great we are and how inspired we are. We turn any subtlety into cheesy stuff. We just have to remember that we are the link that allows a silent sheet of music to turn into sound, and that it's about the art, not us.
2. Avoidance: Bruser writes: "Sometimes we try to play it cool. We say to ourselves, "Hey, it's no big deal. Just lie back and play the notes." And that's about all that comes out. Notes." That's when we turn into robots, and become a machine of technique. We don't even like it ourselves, so why would anyone else?!
3. Aggression: That's when we want to do well so much that we tense up just at the idea of playing and taking the risk to make a mistake, and that's just what happens. We tense up, get scared of making a mistake and make a mistake. Then we decide that we really know what we are doing and that we are really going to play with no mistake, so we tense up and get scared about making mistakes, and.... It's a vicious circle. The interesting thing is that after that happened a few times we do the exact opposite, which is to focus on breathing and being relaxed, and that still takes us away from the performance.

Awareness of who we are is truly what is needed in order to be a good performer, so that we can catch ourselves when we are struggling in any of the ways described above.

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Practice makes perfect but does it pay your rent?

The daily life of a professional musician is learning the necessity to be good without practicing. Not that you don't need to practice, but that you spend so much time at gigs and in rehearsals that it lives rarely enough time to practice.

When you are a professional you need to prepare rather than practice. Before playing new songs, figure out what you need for each particular song and then get ready for it accordingly; if there are tricky runs mark in fingerings, if it's a tricky rhythm mark the beats clearly, and if the harmonies are more unexpected, then actually play through the song, etc. The most important is to anticipate what mistakes you would make more than playing the piece again and again.

Professional musicians need to accept the difference between practice and preparation.  Preparing means that many times you will be ready enough to do a good job, but that it won't always be the best that you could have done if you had had time to practice. At the end of the day the options are either practice to perfection and don't make a living out of your perfect pieces, or prepare efficiently and play a bit under your ability but go from gig to gig.

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