Klarinet Archive - Posting 000116.txt from 2009/09

From: Michael Nichols <mrn.clarinet@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: Preparing for auditions
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:43:00 -0400

One aspect of mental preparation I don't think anybody has really
touched on yet is careful study of the music away from the instrument.
Practice is important, of course, but I think there's something to be
said for sitting down with the score and coming to a good musical
understanding of the piece or excerpt. I think (for me, anyway) this
is easiest and best done away from the instrument, where the mechanics
of playing the instrument and one's technical limitations do not
interfere with one's artistic thought. In my own musical study, I
like to formulate an "ideal" mental picture of what the music should
sound like apart from the instrument, before I spend significant
practice time on the mechanics of it. I think it helps--in fact, I
find it to be rather essential, since it doesn't really make much
sense to practice something if you don't really have a clear idea as
to what the goal of your practice should be.

There are a lot of players out there who are highly competent
technically, but the more I listen, the more I learn about music, and
the better listener I become as a result, the more I am convinced that
the number of players who demonstrate a truly excellent understanding
of musical interpretation and style is surprisingly small. It seems
to me, then, that any time spent *thinking* about the music on a
purely *musical level* (as opposed to a technical level) is time well
spent, particularly if one is preparing for a competitive audition.

Why is it that neither Chicago nor New York can decide on a new
principal player? If all it took was fast fingers, fast tongue, and
good tone, surely they would have picked somebody by now. It seems to
me that who they are looking for is someone who will demonstrate
outstanding musicality (in addition to technical competence, of
course), and that person may be much harder to find. So if excellent
musical and stylistic understanding would give someone an edge in that
kind of high stakes audition, it stands to reason that in any other
audition, it is one's good grasp of musicality that makes one stand
out from the crowd.

So I think this sort of *musical* mental preparation is every bit as
important as rote practice or efforts directed toward quelling
performance anxiety. In fact, I think the more one prepares mentally
in terms of musicality, the more one is able to enjoy the music when
it comes time to perform it and the less nervous one is likely to be.

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