Two Stages of Practice
There are two main processes that need to happen while you practice, and they are:
Experiment, then rehearse.
First, experiment. Try out different things and different ways of playing. This method applies to to musical/interpretational questions like: Does this sound better a bit louder? Does the poignancy of this phrase come through more effectively if I diminuendo on the last note? It addresses technical ones as well, such as: If I move my embouchure this way will the pitch be better? If I concentrate on my left ring finger, will the notes come out more clearly?
When you find the way you want it to go, rehearse it that way. Play it over and over (4 to 7 times is a good rule) the way you’ve decided upon. I like to call this stage “putting the ‘re-‘ in rehearsal.”
It sounds nice to call these processes “stages,” and you might think that implies you will always do them in that order. In reality, however, it’s rarely that organized. You will probably find that you will sometimes experiment, then rehearse, then experiment some more, then re-rehearse.
This is one of my favorite things about practicing: the sense of discovery I experience as an interpretation emerges out of my experiments. I also find that using this method leads to a certain amount of confidence in my own interpretation, knowing that I’ve tried things several different ways and chosen the one that seems the best. And the repeated opportunity to experiment is one of the things I enjoy about all the repetition involved in practicing technically challenging passages.
This technique is of course related to the principle of being willing to sound bad. That’s why I like the experiment stage to be explicitly stated as such: it makes it easier to be willing to sound bad if you can say, “well, it was just an experiment.”
So give it a try the next time you practice. Think of yourself as “in the lab,” instead of on stage. Take advantage of the fact that, in music, practice is not a performance. In the lab, it’s just you tinkering away with your interpretation. Give yourself the freedom to experiment, and then, once you’ve found what you like, enjoy the repetition of it.
Credit where credit is due: I heard this idea in a lecture at the Banff Centre for the Arts given by Froydis Ree Wekre, fabulous Norwegian horn player and teacher.
The picture is by: Alejandro Hernandez