Practicing is an expansive subject. It’s almost an art form in itself. On a basic level it is knowing when to apply a particular strategy to a given situation and why it will be beneficial, to ultimately make practice become as efficient and effective as possible. We all need to have a toolbox that’s overflowing with ideas to tackle any situation, and what approach works best may be different for each individual.
However, when you look beyond the nitty-gritty practice tools of dotted rhythms, open string bowing, isolating sections, etc., there is the overarching idea of thoughtful practicing. Mindful practicing. Practicing with a vision and a plan. However you name it, without it, we will flounder despite how full the toolbox is. It involves being present, making observations, assessing situations, creating a practice strategy and having an open mind and ear to one’s playing.
Self-Criticism and Being Present
It is far too easy to fall into a pit of self-criticism and negative thoughts. When we make a mistake, or do not execute a passage in a satisfactory manner we observe it as it happens. And then we have a choice. For many the default reaction is negative. There is some element of self-chastisement that occurs. But how does that help? That negative reaction may be an instantaneous thought underlining “I can’t play this”. Yet, practice is all about working towards “I can play this”. We have to start somewhere and in the meantime our prevailing thought should be “I will be able to play this”. Reinforcing the negative will pull you into a bed of quicksand. To keep moving forward, reinforce more productive thoughts. With time you can change any immediate negative reaction, but doing so itself takes practice and discipline. If you are in the habit of saying a nasty word to yourself or getting frustrated, after it happens take a moment, breath, regroup and let yourself know it’s ok to make a mistake because you are actively working towards improvement.
After playing a passage that didn’t work, instead of a reflex negative reaction, we want an immediate response of calm assessment. In fact, that assessment was likely already occurring as you played the passage, otherwise you would not have known that it didn’t meet your expectations. You can build on that in a positive way! While you play the passage listen to the sound, feel the movement of your body, and observe your technique: be present in the moment.
It is not enough just to play a passage, observe it didn’t sound right, and think “oh well, I guess I need to do it again”. Instead practice has to become a blend of presence and observation in every moment, simultaneous assessment, and subsequent strategizing. These three individual strands of practice, observation, assessment, and strategizing, each have their unique values but become even stronger when interwoven with each other. When one has observed what occurred when playing and assessed what might need to change, then the next step is figuring out how to improve it.
Being present in the moment provides you with the ability to go beyond a surface “good or bad” judgement, and move into the necessary next steps of assessing and strategizing. It is an all-encompassing awareness that should allow you to identify what went wrong, why, and how it might be fixed. And if something went well it lets you absorb what that moment felt and sounded like so you can recreate it again. As a string player, it is being sensitive to what is happening to the sound, the articulation, the shifts, the vibrato, the right hand, the bow arm, etc. It is being conscious of your body and how it is moving and how it may be affecting positive or negative results in what you are playing.
If a shift is landing out of tune we need to assess whether it is too high or too low. Is it the shape of the hand that is affecting the intonation? Is it the elbow, the hand, or the finger that is moving in a way that might be affecting the results of the shift? One error could be the result of one particular movement that is out of place, or a combination of several. After identifying what isn’t working, you may need to repeat the section multiple times to figure out exactly what needs to be adjusted, concentrating on different aspects of your technique and testing out possibilities. Each repetition should be done with presence and attentiveness.
Being present and aware of your body, and approaching practice with intelligence, conscious technique, patient reflection, and deliberate action will give you a deeper understanding of any passage and help you move efficiently towards improvement.
Having a Vision
During one of the Suzuki violin training courses I took many years ago, one of the instructors told our class that we must have a vision for our students. We need to look beyond what we are teaching them in the moment, whether it be how to hold the instrument or how to play a minuet, to what we want to see them being able to accomplish in a year, in five years, and beyond. It’s our responsibility as teachers to provide our students a solid foundation from which they can continue to successfully grow, add new skills, and be able to rely on the old ones in advancing repertoire.
We need to have both a long-term and short-term vision for our students. While it’s important to be able to see where we want them to be years from the present, it’s just as essential to know where we want them to be next week, or even 10 minutes later in the lesson.
We can apply the same idea of envisioning our goals to performance and practice. In the long-term we might want to imagine ahead to being able to perform a particular work with musicality, ease, and confidence. But that vision will remain hazy and elusive until a significant amount of time and diligent practice has been put in to reaching that goal. The many small musical vignettes we create with the use of vision in daily practice eventually will merge into one unified vision of the entire performance. Mental practice can be used to accomplish both the larger vision of performance, and to accomplish smaller more short-term goals set during practice.
Mental Practice
What is mental practice? Mental practice is the act of imagining something, in detail, as you wish it to happen in reality. This could be a small practice section that you are working on, or an entire performance. For example, if the fingers of your left hand are getting scrambled in a passage, instead of actually playing it on the instrument again, stop. Visualize your left hand going through the fingering. You may stumble and make the same mistake in your mind that was occurring when you were playing on your instrument. Try visualizing it again, perhaps slower, or narrow down the section even further to isolate the tricky fingers. Once you are able to do it a few times successfully with mental practice, return to your instrument and try it again. Most likely it works much better!
Mental practice initiates the same neural pathways that activate when were are physically playing our instrument. This benefits us in many ways. We can practice whenever we are away from the instrument. It can be used for a physical break from the instrument. It can also be used to create a practice vision. Using mental practice is a way to for us to stop and think for a moment instead of getting stuck in an eddy of continuous, and perhaps thoughtless, repetition on the instrument. While it may take some repetitions of the mental practice to create the mental picture you need, if you can ultimately visualize in your mind how your fingers need to move, or how your bow arm should feel, or the phrasing you want to achieve, you will be able to recreate that same vision much more easily on the actual instrument. Your mind is creating your own model.
On a grander scale mental practice can be used as a way to do a run-through of a performance; instead of actually playing the piece all the way through, you visualize it. You go through the entire action of performing it exactly as you would in reality. This means you are feeling the bowing, the fingering, hearing the sound, etc. A mental run-through can be difficult, but also quite revealing, bringing your attention to areas that are weaker and need further attention. The reward of a successful mental performance is invaluable: confidence. Your hard work and study have paid off. It doesn’t mean you won’t ever make a mistake again and it doesn’t mean that you won’t still have to practice to maintain the piece, but you do know it inside and out.
Teaching the Art of Practice
Students take lessons to learn how to play an instrument. In those lessons we as teachers are responsible for teaching students how to practice. From the very first lessons I am modeling how to listen to the sound that’s being made on the instrument and how to practice, gradually introducing new strategies as students progress. Early on we use simple games to build on the importance of repetition, but even within those activities I am making sure the student is really learning how to listen to what they are doing. This is the beginning of thoughtful practice.
Teachers can incorporate “creating a vision” or mental practice into lessons to encourage students to use these invaluable and incredibly effective practice tools. Before a student performs through a piece have them imagine the first phrase exactly as they want to hear it, with the right tempo, and all the dynamics. Or have them imagine playing a scale with the correct fingering. It may take practice for the student to develop this skill. By exercising the mental practice muscle, with time they will be able to paint an accurate picture in their mind of what they want to hear and feel as they play.
Practice: A Safe (Mucky) Place
In a recent San Francisco City Arts and Lectures interview, the interviewer was asking an author about her experience working in restaurants and went on to describe the kitchen as “a mucky place where things get chopped and stirred, and made into soup…and then there’s the front-of-house”. Practice is that “mucky place where things get chopped and made into soup”! Practice should be a safe place to make mistakes, try things out, experiment, throw out the attempts that didn’t work, and try again, continuing construction until you have built your imagined performance and it’s ready to present to front-of-house.
When we listen to professionals perform, we are hearing the final package. What we don’t see are the hours and hours, and years upon years of practice and hard work that went into that product. The polished and well thought out performance of a virtuoso took time and trial and error. Remember that what you are hearing presented on a concert stage was not what that musician played the first time they picked up the piece. So be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself, and engage in constructive reflection when what you hear doesn’t match your vision. Keep striving towards thoughtful practice.