Klarinet Archive - Posting 000352.txt from 2004/04
From: "Ginger Hill" <Gigi1182@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] motivation
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 21:21:04 -0400
Tracy Tracy Tracy
If I didn't practice, I'd suck. Bottom line. I don't necessaril SCARE
myself into practicing, but I psych myself out into thinking it's just
another fact of life. Musician = practice time. There's no way around
it, unless you've got a sight-reading convention coming up... :)
Do it for your love of music and the clarinet, not for anybody else.
(unless you got a mean professor down your throat... Then you're beat)
~Ginger
Completed Junior Recital, Graduating from USF December 2004- here I go
interning!!! YEEAHHH!!!
-----Original Message-----
From: Karl Krelove [mailto:karlkrelove@-----.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 5:46 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: RE: [kl] motivation
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tracy Jones [mailto:tracyj_83@-----.com]
> Subject: [kl] motivation
>
>
> I am having some trouble getting motivated to practice. I am just
> wondering what some of you do to motivate yourself to practice or what
> you think to yourself before or while you are practicing to keep
> motivated.
One of the greatest motivations for me is knowing how much harder
everything will be if I *don't* find some time over the course of a few
days. If it's easier to find time now than to find the energy to clear
away the barnacles that a week's layoff can allow to form, most days
that's enough.
> Do you think about listening to your sound and enjoying yourself play?
I don't worry about "enjoying myself" whether you mean having "fun"
while playing or you mean enjoying my own playing. My goal when I
practice is mostly to gain and maintain control, which goes back to my
last comment - the longer I put off practicing, the more out of control
things are when I come back. The satisfaction comes from establishing
the control I need over the equipment to be able to play in a way that
gives me musical enjoyment. But it isn't the enjoyment I'm focusing on,
it's the control.
> Do you think about improving yourself musically and technically? Do
> you think about the need for preparation for recitals or concerts? Do
> you think about the sound of the final product of whatever you are
> practicing?
>
I suppose all of the above apply to an extent, but I don't so much
"think about" as I just listen for faults or flaws. I can always find
them, and the satisfaction comes from making at least a little progress
toward erasing them. One important difference between playing by myself
(practicing) and playing in an ensemble (rehearsing or performing) is
that I can hear every note I play. The feedback I get from my own ears
in a practice studio is, at least in some areas of playing, more
reliable than what I can get in an ensemble environment.
I haven't practiced for a recital in a long time. When I did, one of my
concerns was always just to build enough endurance to be able to play
the amount of uninterrupted time recital repertory requires. The only
way I know to build endurance is to practice for extended periods of
time. I always hated preparing for recitals because I tend to do things
in spurts and have trouble staying with a repetitive task, which much of
practicing is, for a long time. Symphony playing has more times when you
can hide in the tutti textures and generally more rests, hence endurance
becomes less of a priority. So part of the motivation problem for me is
solved by allowing myself the luxury of relatively short practice
periods with interruptions to do other things. Some scales and then
return a phone call I need to take care of. An etude or two, then go
check my email and fire off a post or two to Klarinet, then maybe work
on a few passages from an orchestral piece I'm playing this week, then
maybe get a drink or a small snack or do some preparation for school the
next day. If the day hasn't by then run out, maybe a little "noodling"
with a new box of reeds or a mouthpiece I'm curious about or a new piece
of music I've run across - you get the idea. For me, planning to sit
down for an hour or 90 minutes straight is enough to sour me on the
whole project. I do it when I really need to, but I do it somewhat under
protest.
I don't know that practicing will ever be something you look forward to
eagerly. Even if it goes down like medicine you need to take every day,
it can be easier if you concentrate on what you want to accomplish
rather than on trying to make it consciously "enjoyable." Your goal (the
hoped-for
accomplishment) is something you need to define for yourself. The
satisfaction of making progress toward achieving the goal is, in my
opinion, the most reliable source of "enjoyment" in the long run.
For what it's worth...
Karl Krelove
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