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If you want to bet better, don't practice

Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2017-06-12 19:30

It sounds too good to be true; and it is.

If you take one message away from here it's that spending near daily, uninterrupted distraction free time in front of etude books, solos, and sight reading, with strict adherence to form and meter, avoiding taking music faster than you can accurately play it, is the recipe for success. We are creatures of habit: (repetitive) practice makes perfect. Forsaking accuracy for faster tempo only reinforces mistakes that will become harder to correct. Even more: if you can only play it fast, not slow, you haven't mastered it. And sure, add great teachers and instruments to the mix while you're at it.

And if this practice needs to occur in more than one daily session—because stamina, or commitments to other things (not the least being reeds) deem it necessary—so be it. Multiple shorter, but daily sessions is one of things Julian Bliss has advocated; (that, and maybe to start said practice at the “ripe old age of” …. 5.) Then again, “short” for Bliss may be 2.5 hour stretches.

But with this caveat understood, I'm a firm believer in downtime, (even if I don't practice what I preach because....(cymbal crash) I do practice)) and wonder if others have anecdotes or wisdom to share in this regard.

First—and I'm the biggest offender, put the instrument down if your tired—especially if you keep on making the same mistakes and are getting frustrated. All your doing is reinforcing bad habits. Still more, avoid practicing when in a foul mood. It can screw with your concentration.

(To those that say, "if I only played when I wasn't pooped, I'd never play"—I hear you. Life has a funny way of getting in the way of clarinet practice, rather than make time for an instrument often described as a “jealous mister/mistress.”)

But with all of this said, I've taken vacations with family that have included vacations from clarinet. This may have been born of the necessity of having no time on trips, much less ample secluded space to not disturb neighboring hotel guests. (Still more, I've taken the instrument on more wilderness/free open time trips and loved it.) But it's had its serendipitous benefits to play when I return.

Time away sometimes helps me re-attact some phrase or passage that's been beyond my reach. Maybe the time away has helped my brain forget the wrong way I was approaching it. Still more, variety is the spice of life. Doing other things, having other passions makes life more enjoyable (he says as some orchestra auditioning prospect of 50 auditioners, who needs this job to make rent, is telling me what I can do with my “free to be you and me” approach to play.)

How did stepping away for a bit make you a better player, if at all?

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