Klarinet Archive - Posting 000722.txt from 2003/04

From: Richard Bush <rbushidioglot@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Performance Anxiety techniques/remedies
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:40:58 -0400

I heard some good comments on practicing and performing. Can't remember
where it came from, though.

This person suggested practicing, so to speak, backwards. Start and the
end and play the last phrase. Then include the phrase before it.
Continue until you've reached the beginning. This way, you'll always
know where you're going, and will have practiced the last phrase the
most, the second to last phrase the second to most, and so on.

Maybe it was a thread on how to memorize. It doesn't matter.

The reason I'm mentioning it is because of Karl's comment below,

"Then, stop worrying about it. Once the passage is gone, it's gone and
you'll
> make more mistakes by worrying about it afterward and not
> concentrating on
> what's still coming."

On Friday, April 18, 2003, at 11:11 AM, Karl Krelove wrote:

> The best remedy I have found (and it's taken me a very long time to
> find it)
> is to be enough in control of the instrument not to have to worry
> about it.
> I still have very strong jitters when I need to play a solo passage
> that
> hits one of my weaknesses - fast tonguing, for example. Passages that
> once
> made me ill days before a performance no longer worry me as much, not
> because I've learned special relaxation techniques or because I've
> found
> something to take, but because I play a lot better now than I did 30
> years
> ago.
>
> That said, you need time to work out your technical problems, and the
> performance next week is too soon for that. One thing that does help
> me with
> a problem passage is to be able to consciously tighten and relax the
> muscles
> I use in playing (or any of the others, for that matter). If you can
> locate
> and feel the muscles in your lower arms and wrists, your neck, and your
> respiratory system, you can practice deliberately tightening and
> relaxing
> them each individually. I actually incorporate this into my practice
> of any
> problematic passage that I'm preparing for a performance. When the time
> comes for a public performance, you do the same thing - deliberate
> tensing
> and relaxing, ending in the most relaxed state you can achieve just
> before
> you start to play the terror passage. Take a good, relaxed breath, and
> remember how many times you played it well in your practice room. It
> still
> may not come out perfectly, but it'll be a lot better than it would
> have
> been with everything tight and, in effect, frozen.
>
> Then, stop worrying about it. Once the passage is gone, it's gone and
> you'll
> make more mistakes by worrying about it afterward and not
> concentrating on
> what's still coming. And one day, maybe thirty years from now, that
> spot
> won't hold so much worry.
>
> My thoughts, for what they're worth,
>
> Karl Krelove
>

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