Klarinet Archive - Posting 000758.txt from 2003/04

From: "Patricia A. Smith" <patricia@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Performance Anxiety techniques/remedies
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:41:34 -0400

Richard Bush wrote:
> 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.

More than likely, it was a thread on how to memorize. It is a worthy
technique, and I have used it to relieve the "starting at the beginning"
syndrome which means the opening parts are usually better prepared than
the rest of the pieces.

Another idea that this post brings to my mind, Richard, is being
OVER-prepared. Practicing what one has to have prepared, until one
feels one cannot really get any better at it. It's kind of an
undefinable thing in a way - because, theoretically, all of us are
capable of improving, obviously.

Yet at any given point in time, we can only play a given
passage/piece/lick/whatever at a given level of accomplishment - past a
certain point AT THAT TIME, it simply isn't going to get any better. I
hope I'm conveying what I mean by over-prreparing. At any rate, I find
that this technique is something that, if one plans well in advance of
whatever is coming, then the player basically realizes that s/he has
done the best s/he can possibly do and that the results of his/her
actions are now in the hands of whatever higher power that person
believes in as well as the audition committee, the audience, and/or fate.

If one is as prepared as one can possibly be, that is the best one can do.
There are a number of folks who probably can talk about this topic a bit
better than I have. I simply know that this works for me.

Patricia Smith

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