 The Fingering Forum
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Author: joseph
Date: 2004-10-18 15:14
I play a alto saxaphone.Is it normal or typical to be able to play really good one day, and then on other days you feel like your are struggling just to play a note? Just the other day I played my sax and it felt so comfortable and I was picking up new techniques nothing to really to boast about but I felt I was moving in the right direction as far as learning.
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Author: TorusTubarius
Date: 2004-10-19 01:19
Yes it is totally normal, not just on the saxophone, but any instrument. Somedays I have good music days, and some days not so much. There really is no single reason why I don't think. It's probably just a cumulative result of lots of independent factors that play a role in shaping your mood at a given moment. I have found that for me personally, I make the most progress musically when I'm in a relatively good, but not overly ecstatic mood. Also it seems to be easiest to advance when well rested, and when you are calm and not distracted by other concerns such as tests, work, etc. Your mind has to be clear, alert and in a state of readiness.
Sometimes I like to compare playing an instrument to meditation. Many types of meditation have you focus on your breathing in order to clear your mind of all other concerns. If you have the ability to focus your concentration as such, eventually all the forces which pull at you everyday lose their hold on your mind, it then it is only you in the present moment, breathing slowly in and out.
Playing an instrument is a similar feat when you think about it. As you practice a piece and get it under your fingers, many aspects of playing it become automatic. You are forcing your concentration all on one area, the music, and all other concerns disappear from your mind. I mean think about it; what exactly are you thinking about when playing a piece you know well? Have you ever tried to consciously think of something else while playing it? Or have you ever had some inadvertent thought creep in while playing? Most of the time when that happens you mess up (or at least I start to) because your concentration is broken. It then stands to reason that if you're having a particularly bad or eventful day, it is harder to shed the influence of outside forces on your mind, and thus your ability to make music may be diminished.
Anyway, that's my two cents on it.
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Author: Fingerer
Date: 2004-11-09 11:36
> I play a alto saxaphone.Is it normal or typical to be able
> to play really good one day, and then on other days you feel
> like your are struggling just to play a note?
Well, statistically, that's only likely to happen if you're drawing from a distribution with a really large variance or if your detector (in this case, your brain) is really lousy. Bad detectors will introduce unphysical noise into the system and make it seem to behave erratically. One might naively expect the distribution to be Gaussian, but if your performance is ever so poor as to be discretized, it might be Poisson. Relative to average, then, you'll occasionally have really good days, but never really bad ones (it's hard to do worse than awful).
If I were you, I would test the physical limits of the system by introducing other variables. For example, you could invite friends or loved ones over to verify the stability of your detector and give their own results. Also, it sometimes helps if you let them taunt you while you play. This method is good for training you for high-pressure situations and has the added benefit of giving your friends an outlet for the aggression built up while listening to your performance.
It may seem tough at first, but keep at it. The Hubble Space Telescope was broken when we first sent it up, but after applying corrections to the hardware, it worked beautifully. Convey this analogy to your doctor before he makes the incision, I'm sure it will be a great inspiration to him.
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