Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2018-04-03 07:25
After decent instruction through high school and a couple years beyond, I quit for 32 or 33 years. Starting again in 2007, I'd forgotten most of what I used to know, and lacking any available teachers I simply have worked alone.
You can get better at solving your own problems. That improves with practice just like anything else. As Ken indicated, if you're squeaking, try to narrow it down, identify specific contexts, then ask what would be special about those? It's often a divide and conquer kind of thing. Sometimes you vary one aspect and see what happens after a decent trial. Sometimes you see if you can cause the problem on purpose, and get so you can do it on command, because at that point you'll be able to identify what not to do. Etc.
Patience is a big thing here. No need to panic, nobody's holding a whip. Stop and list what you know about the problem, then ask your brain some question about it - any question. Finding solutions is pretty much always about asking questions. And you get better at asking "smart" questions. It's almost a mystical thing: put a question in, and an answer pops out, not necessarily the final answer, but the next step toward one. If one thing doesn't work, that's then added to what you know about the problem, and you ask something else.
And focus! Oftentimes the music is a million miles away, and instead you're thinking all about two opposing muscles, or how the reed is aligned with the mouthpiece rail, or looking sideways in a mirror to see what your jaw is really doing.
None of this negates the truth that a teacher will usually solve things for you immediately. They have a lot more experience and data, and they're able to observe you better than you can yourself. (Though, self-awareness gets better with practice too.) Even a single lesson may give you big improvements. It's the best answer to your question.
Having said all that, solving one's own problems can become a habit one gets reluctant to change.
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