In August of this year, I gave a lecture on my memorization technique.  A few weeks later I received this question from one of the attendees, Janel Caine, a private flute teacher, freelance performer, and founding member of Category 5 (Woodwind Quintet) in Tallahassee, FL.

What does one do when the number of notes is too many to say at a given tempo?  (Such as a run of 32nds?  Or even sextuplets that are easy enough to play, just difficult to speak out with a metronome?)

I thought the answer might be of general interest, so here it is:

Keep in mind that you do not have to say the note names aloud, you just have to think them, and thinking is usually much faster than speaking!  Then, if you are working on a really long string of lots of lots of fast notes (like say, the opening of Daphnis, though why you would memorize that I don’t know!), you can start thinking in a kind of short-hand once you get up to a prohibitive tempo for thinking all the note names.  For example, “then up a B-flat major scale to an F,” or “D Maj 7 chord” or some such.  For me, it feels kind of like the difference between reading whole words and reading by sounding out each letter.  The better and better you know your music, the more like words it will seem, and the less necessary to think of each individual note.  

I will say, though, that the more I work this way, the more note names I can hold in my head.  You may find that ability growing as you go!

Good luck!

-z

If you were at my lecture at the Convention, and did not get a copy of the handout, you can download one here.

PS.  Don’t you think Category 5 is a great game for a woodwind quintet based in Florida?

When practicing music, one of your most important jobs is crafting an interpretation.

Sounds very nice, but how do you go about it?  A lot of the time, an interpretation develops organically, as a musician studies a work of music, experiments with different ways of playing it, thinks about how she would like it to sound, and makes decisions accordingly.

Sometimes, though, that organic process needs to be kick-started.  Many people have noted that learning about other art forms can enhance your musical interpretation (for example, see Paula Robison’s interpretive guide to Frank Martin’s Ballade)  While I do recommend that approach, it requires that you leave your instrument and head to the library, museum or internet.

I think that it’s important to have a repertoire of ways to get the creative juices flowing in the practice room.  Here are a few tricks that I’ve developed and learned over the years:

1. Play as if you’re a movie soundtrack. Even the most abstract or dull music can sound deeply meaningful when it’s in an emotionally packed movie.  Picture yourself as Helena Bonham Carter in A Room with a View*, tempestuously playing the piano, and see what comes up musically. 

2. Imagine it as a conversation. This is a trick from Paula Robison, and it works best if you can practice with a friend.  You play the first phrase, he plays the next, then you play, then he plays…etc.  It can instantly transform a narrative into a dialogue (and it’s fun too).  Then, when you are back on your own, just imagine that you are two people having that same conversation.

3. WWID? What would I do? If you are stuck on something in a piece that seems weird—like you really don’t know what the composer was thinking when she changed the rhythm of this one passage—change it to what you would have done if you were the composer.  Then compare the two versions—yours and the composer’s—and see if that reveals anything about the composer’s intentions.

4. Start with your favorite part of the music, and work your way forwards and backwards from there.  What’s the best way to build up to your favorite part?  What’s the best way to recover from it?**

5. What is the craziest or silliest way you can play it? Play the phrase at the wrong tempo, or change tempo half way through.  Try it with extreme dynamic shifts.  Try to be as schmaltzy as possible, then try to be as deadpan as possible.  You will often find a grain of truth in the crazy versions, which can then become the basis of your “real” interpretation. 

6. Free association. Just asking yourself “What does this remind me of?” is often enough to engage your imagination.

7. What’s the story? This is a slightly more elaborate version of free association.  Let free association set the scene, and then create a narrative to go with the music.

8. Pretend you’re a musician you admire. How would your teacher play this?  James Galway?  Richard Goode?  Jon Bon Jovi?

9.  That Old Song and Dance. Even if you can’t do it very well, singing or dancing a phrase is sure to help you get an idea of how you really want it to sound.

10. If all else fails, just keep playing it until you get an idea.

The common theme running here is engaging the imagination. You can use any of the above techniques as gateways to your own musical creativity.

*Or Denzel Washington in Mo’ Better Blues, or what’s his name in Tout les Matins du Monde, or Wilhelmenia Fernandez in Diva…! It doesn’t even have to be a movie about music. Leave a comment below with a movie that has inspired your playing.

**I learned this “trick” from coach Nancy Garniez.  She has even more interpretation ideas up her sleeve.  Check them out here.

Photo credit:  Hamed Saber

They’re here!  The winter holidays, filled with family visits, parties and gatherings, travel, chocolate, new toys, a surprising amount of stress, and hopefully, more chocolate.

Many of these things can mean major interruptions in your practice routine.  If you’ve been away at music school, you may suddenly find yourself back at home with people who want to see you, not hear your scales from behind closed doors.  For professionals, you may have gigs sprinkled randomly throughout the season, interspersed with long travel days and social obligations that trump professional considerations.

Practicing over vacation, while everyone else is playing with new toys, can be a real challenge.  Here are a few strategies that I’ve employed over the years to make practicing work over the holidays.

1. Let your family know ahead of time that you will be practicing. The delicate balancing act of family and practice is a LOT easier if my family knows about it ahead of time, and knows why it’s important. If you have a concert or audition coming up, let them know!
2. Get creative about where you practice. I remember several Christmas vacations spent practicing in my grandparents’ basement.  It was not the most pleasant place to play, but it was the only spot that was quiet and that I could call my own for a few hours a day.  Find your own private practice spot.
3. Get creative about when you practice. It’s a tough discipline, but sometimes getting up early is a great way to get in some quality time on your instrument before family madness is in full swing.  (Especially if you can practice somewhere far away from sleepers, like the basement!)
4. Plan ahead. Decide ahead of time what you are going to practice, when, and how much.  At the end of each practice session, make a plan for the next day’s work, and write it in your practice notebook.  Then when you drag yourself away from the Playstation tomorrow, all you have to do is follow your own directions, not reassess your practice needs.
5. Be reasonable with your goals. Winter break is NOT the time to up your practice routine from 3 hours a day to 5. Let’s be real, people!
6. Practice big ideas. Winter break often means an interruption in your normal lesson schedule, if you are a student.  Maybe you have 2 or more weeks between lessons instead of just one.  That makes it a good time to spend some focused effort on big ideas that your teacher has been working on–like changing your posture or your embourchure.
7. Practice a new piece of music you’ve been wanting to play, or a piece you really love. Make sure you have a compelling reason to take yourself away from family activities:  music that you love, or music that you haven’t been able to find time for during the school year.  I’m going to be working on Edie Hill’s This Floating World and I can’t wait!
8. Find time to enjoy casual chamber music with family or friends. Normally, I would say that playing duets with your dad doesn’t count as practicing, but over the holidays, it’s a great way to keep your chops up, and to reconnect with the reason you became a musician in the first place.
   

   portrait of the author as a young flutist (in fifth grade, playing Christmas carols with my father)

9. Perform for your family. This one is especially good for younger musicians, and music school students. Just make sure you choose your pieces carefully.  As an enthusiastic student, I once played some weird “new” music for my partly tone-deaf grandmother, and she stopped me in the middle of it, saying it was so loud, it made her stomach hurt!  I should have stuck with the Ave Maria…
10. Give yourself some external motivation. Bart Feller, principal flute of the New Jersey Symphony, just mentioned to me that he is headlining the Kentucky Flute Fair in January, and that not only is he looking forward to the Fair itself, but to having a reason to stay in shape over the break.  Everyone needs external motivation, and a performance or audition scheduled for early January is a great reason to practice over the holidays.
11. Cut yourself some slack. It is vacation after all, and we all need a break from time to time.  If you want a break, but you have to keep practicing (because you have an audition in early January…), schedule some off days, and stick to them. Enjoy them, even!  You might find that a day or two of rest improves your playing. It’s a phenomenon my colleagues and I call The Magic of Gestation, and will be the subject of it’s own post next year sometime.
12. Eat lots of chocolate. I’m pretty sure there are studies that show this helps with your music performance…

Happy New Year!

Photo credits:  Snow crystal:  elif ayse;  Me & my father playing together:  my grandfather.

1.  Do a thorough physical warm-up. Physical warm-ups not only prevent injury, they make your practice more efficient. If you start practicing without doing a warm-up first, your body is going to be trying to do two things at once:  warming itself up to the task of playing and learning the new skill you are practicing.  Eventually, you will probably accomplish both those tasks, but you’d be able to do it faster and easier if you did them one at a time.  You can find my suggestions on physical warm-ups by clicking on “Physical Warm-ups” on the Categories tab at the right.

2.  Incorporate mental practice into your routine. Study after study has shown that some form of mental practice, separate from physical practice, enhances any skill you are trying to develop, whether it’s playing a sport or playing an instrument.  Why not experiment with one of the following techniques, even for just a few minutes a day?

• Visualization: Imagine yourself playing beautifully in your upcoming concert or audition.
• Score study: Notice how the piano part fits with yours.  Look for melodic and harmonic patterns.  Apply some of that stuff you learned in theory class to your own music!
• Memorization: Try beginning the memorization process away from your instrument. Study the music phrase by phrase as you would if you were practicing with the instrument.
• Practice the thought process you use while playing the piece. Page through the score while reminding yourself of the various things you need to think and do while playing the piece (make sure not to play this phrase too loudly, match the pitch of the horn on this note, use this long rest to relax the shoulders, etc).

3.    Practice the hard parts first. (after having done a good warm-up of course!) Jump into the deep end! When you practice the most challenging part of a piece of music, you are not only getting better at the piece, you’re getting better at your instrument.  So mastering the hard parts of a piece first will make the easy parts even easier, and therefore take even less time to practice.

4.    Be ruthless when isolating the problem spots. Sometimes the main obstacle to playing a difficult passage can be narrowed down to a single interval.  Tedious though it may seem to practice just two notes, it is way MORE efficient (and way LESS tedious) than slogging through an entire phrase over and over again.

5.    Close the door. Having a private space in which to practice can have a profound impact on your ability to concentrate. While you’re at it, you could also try turning off the phone and putting the computer to sleep.  If you don’t have a room in which to practice (for example, if you practice in your family’s living room), you can still find a way to metaphorically close the door—face your music stand away from the hall where people might be walking by or away from your sister sitting on the couch…

6.    Plan and take breaks. Give yourself a time limit and stick to it.  If you’ll be practicing for an hour, take a 5-minute break after half an hour.  You’ll come back refreshed, and your second half-hour of work will be more productive than it would have been if you had just plowed through.  Pilots are required to take breaks, and musicians should be too! For more on breaks, see this post.

7.    Keep a log. Think today about what you need to practice tomorrow and write it down.  It’ll save you the time of idly playing through your piece at your next session, trying to remember which spot you thought needed attention. I saved this one for last, since technically, it won’t improve your practicing until tomorrow.  For more on the value of keeping a practice notebook, check out my first and second posts.  And be sure to read the comments, as readers have posted some interesting ideas on the topic.

Photo credits: Stretch is by That Guy Who’s Going Places;  Clock is by inocuo;  Notebook is by *spudballoo*

The following are two hand stretches that I learned from the composer Michael Colgrass.  He gave a class at IU, back in ye olden times when I was a student there and before it became the Jacobs School of Music.

I’ve been using these stretches as part of my warm-up routine ever since.  I hope you will find them as useful as I have.

And a little prize for those of you who have made it to the bottom of this post:

When I was first starting to do a lot of playing from memory (preparing for a big competition in my first year of graduate school), I wanted to have some sort of method that would help me feel certain that I had studied the music enough to know it for sure.   I thought that if the process of memorization felt systematic, I could be sure my preparation was thorough, which would translate into more confidence on stage.

I developed the following system at that time, and it has served me well in the years since.  I will devote future articles to some of its finer points, and why it works.  For today, however, I’ll cover the basic steps, so you can start using this system immediately.

The first thing you need to do is choose a short passage to memorize.  The principle of small sections is absolutely crucial to successful memorization – I can’t stress this enough! Please read my previous post on the topic of small sections if you need more information.

Once you’ve chosen your section, here’s what you do:

First stage:  Learning the passage mentally

1.    Play the passage twice through, reading it from the music, with the metronome on.
2.    Now, without looking at the music, think the passage through once at tempo (i.e., keep the metronome on).
3.    Play the passage once more while reading the music, noting anything that you forgot or didn’t know when you thought it through.
4.    Look away from the music, and think the passage at tempo another two times.

Total:  six times, three times playing from the music, three times thinking it through without the music

Second stage:  learning the passage physically

1.    Play the passage twice through, reading it from the music, with the metronome on.
2.    Now, without looking at the music, play the passage once through at tempo (keep the metronome on).
3.    Play the passage once more while reading the music, noting anything that you forgot or didn’t know when you thought it through.
4.    Look away from the music, and play the passage at tempo another two times.

Total:  six times through, three times playing from the music, three times playing from memory

Grand total:  twelve times through

For a slow passage, one or two times through this whole process is often enough to get it memorized.  Even if this process takes less than 10 minutes, I only do it one time through in a single practice session.  I come back to it the next day if I feel the passage needs another cycle through the memorization process.

For a fast passage that is technically challenging, here’s my routine:

1. First I do the whole process, all twelve repetitions, at a slow tempo (often a tempo even slower than where I would start if I were merely working on the passage technically)
2. Then I work on the passage using Metronome Trick No. 1, and at every tempo level I do the following:

a.    One time through mentally, at tempo
b.    Two times through playing while reading
c.    One time through playing from memory
d.    One time through playing while reading
e.    Two times through playing from memory

Basically, at each tempo level you go through the passage once mentally, and then go through the entire second stage of memorization.

If you would like a cheat sheet that lists the basic steps of this memorization technique, here it is: memorization-cheat-sheet (click to download as a pdf).

As you try this technique, know that your skill with it will develop slowly, but it will improve over time. If at first you don’t succeed, try again with a shorter section of music.  There have been occasions (most notably complicated music like the Ibert Concerto) when I have memorized one beat at a time!

I find that working from memory is like developing any other skill—it gets easier as you get more proficient.  Your memory, just like your muscles, can be ‘in shape,’ and when it is, memorization happens faster.  And when you’re just starting, you need to start with small units, just as you would start with small weights for your first day at the gym.

NOTE:  This is the first in a series of articles about memorization.  If there are any particular aspects of working from memory that are of interest to you, or you have questions about the techniques I share, please leave a comment below, and I will endeavor to answer those questions in future posts.

Photo Credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/derricksphotos/2172690132/

Practicing an instrument is both like and not like playing video games. Discuss.

Practicing an instrument is like playing video games:

1. When you first begin, you must start at the lowest level.
2. The more you do it, the better you get.
3. If the video game in question is Pong, it sounds like this:

Practicing an instrument is not like playing video games:

1. You get to choose what section of the music you practice.
2. You can practice that section however many times you want—you are not forced to move on to the next level.
3. When practicing an instrument, your goal is to be able to perform on that instrument (there are two stages, performance and practice).  Playing a video game is both performance and practice simultaneously*.

1:  Choose your small section.

Which to choose? Whatever you need to practice—you can start with the hardest part, start at the end of the piece, alternate between easy and hard sections.  I like to start with the hardest part, because once mastered, it makes every thing else seem even easier.

How small? However small it needs to be for you to learn it.  In some cases, maybe a slow movement, it can be as long as a phrase.  In many fast passages, though, a whole phrase is too long.  I often just practice two bars at a time, sometimes just one, and yes, even less than one.

This is so important!  You cannot practice the whole piece at once**.  In order to efficiently and effectively learn a piece of music, you must break it up into small sections.  Your brain and your body can only learn so much at once.

When you are practicing small sections, you are creating and strengthening neural pathways in the brain that allow your body (and, at best, your soul) to perform that “dedicated series of acts” that Martha Graham wrote about.  Those neural pathways are best created one tiny bit at a time.

2:   Keep practicing even after you’ve “got it.”

In a video game, as soon as you successfully get through a level once, you are immediately advanced to the next level (woohoo! up from the dungeon!).  In music practice, one success is not enough—now that you know how to play it, repeat it 4 to 7 times so that you will be sure to be successful in performance.

3:  Number 2 above is only possible because in music we separate performance and practice. And we’ll talk more about that in a later entry.

It’s surprisingly easy, when practicing music, to forget that we are in the driver’s seat.  Sometimes, we think of the music as a beautiful, organic whole, and we want to just play it that way. Sometimes we think of it as a daunting, huge task that we will never be able to achieve.  Sometimes it seems like a magical force beyond our control.  Any of those ideas can stop us from practicing in an effective way.  But just remember, it’s not a like a video game because you are in control of what parts you play when, how many times you play them, and you don’t have to try and do the whole thing every time.

*OK, OK, some recent video games, like Guitar Hero, sort of let you practice, but the point here is that in music practice, YOU are in control.  In video games, the video game is always in control.

**In fact, you can’t even perform the whole piece at once.  In performance, you play every small section, in succession, without stopping, but you are still only playing it small section by small section.

I started writing this blog last fall, and publishing it in December, as is probably obvious  to you if you are reading this now.  This week, I was going to post an entry on how practicing is like and not like playing video games, but since something incredible happened this weekend, you’ll have to wait to hear about video games and music practice.

It all started with the first draft of my entry on Metronome Trick No. 1. (but as you will read, it goes back even further in time than that…) Here is a paragraph that I cut from the final entry about that metronome trick:

I learned this technique the weekend I auditioned for Eastman.  I was staying with a friend of mine from high school, and his roommate, a violinist named (I think!) Tom, told me about it.  I forget the exact context of the conversation, but what I do remember is that he made it sound like no other practice technique was worth bothering with, because this one was so superior.

So, did I make an effort to track down the identity of the mystery violinist so that he could be properly credited and included in my entry?  No, I did not.  I confess it just seemed easier to cut the paragraph from the article.

But the small world of music did the job for me.  I spent the last few days at the very awesome Chamber Music America Conference where I was talking to the cool flutist Laura Barron. When she casually mentioned that she had just run into a violinist friend from Eastman 20 years ago named Tom, I did not immediately leap on that tidbit of information (I didn’t want to appear crazy, after all.)  I bided my time, and later in the conversation I asked if she knew my friend from high school, the composer Brian Schachter, with whom I had stayed lo those many years ago.  When she said she did, I knew it had to be the same Tom.

Sure enough, I got to meet him later at the conference and solved the mystery of his moniker: it turns out his last name is Stone, and he plays with the Cypress Quartet. When I told him the story, he said, “Yeah, that sounds like me.  I had pretty strong opinions when I was a teenager.”

me, contemplating the small world we live in, writing this entry on the plane after the conference.

I cannot tell you how cool it was to re-meet someone who inadvertently had such a big effect on me.  That was the only conversation I had with Tom when I was there for my audition, but I was so green, so wanting to be in music school, and to know all the things people like Tom knew, that it had a huge effect on me.  He said it with such force and conviction — I wanted to feel that confident about playing and practicing!  He just swept into the room, anointed me with his wisdom and swept out – and didn’t even know how much he affected me.

And what a pearl of wisdom it is, people.  Metronome Trick No. 1 has been my main way of practicing ever since.  Probably 75% of my practice time is spent going up two and down one on ye olde metronome.  And there he was at the conference:  Mystery Tom, from the mists of time!  Talking to me!

So, thank you, Tom Stone, for having strong opinions when you were a teenager, and for being at the CMA Conference. And thank you, world, for twice giving me information that I needed.

Sam Baron, grand old man of the flute and one of my teachers, used to say that working with a metronome was like taking a vitamin—you need to do it each day.  OK, maybe he actually said that vitamin thing about playing Bach, but I think it applies to metronome work, too.

The thing is, no one (and I mean NO ONE) has a truly perfect sense of time.  Except maybe Jason Marsalis, but he probably practices with a metronome too!  So, if you are not Jason Marsalis, if you are one of the rest of us, please continue reading.

Metronome Trick No. 1, along with the practice notebook, is one of the most powerful practice techniques I have ever found.  If you don’t read any more of this blog ever, if all you do is adopt the practice notebook and this trick, you will definitely improve your practicing, and therefore, your playing.

So what is it, after all this buildup?  It’s pretty simple.

1. Choose a small section to work on.
2. Choose a metronome speed that is slow enough that you can play it exactly how you want to EVERY TIME at that tempo.
3. Repeat the passage 4 to 7 times at that tempo.  (note:  professionals—4 times will usually be enough, beginners will need more)
4. Now set the metronome two clicks faster than your original tempo.
5. Repeat the passage 4 to 7 times at the new tempo.
6. Set the metronome to the tempo one click down from this faster tempo.
7. Repeat the passage 4 to 7 times at the new tempo.
8. Continue on, setting the metronome up two, then down one, repeating the passage the full 4 to 7 times at each level, until you get to a tempo that is two clicks faster than the target performance tempo.

What’s it for?  This trick is the most efficient way to learn a passage of music and get it up to performance tempo.

And, if you were following along, you will note that this method will yield A LOT of repetition of your passage.  That’s one of the reasons it works.  Here are some of the others:

Unlike the old stand-by of increasing the tempo one click at a time until you reach performance tempo, this technique has you building a very strong foundation for that eventual fast tempo.  When you just increase steadily, and never decrease, you are essentially building yourself out on a limb.  Eventually, you have nothing below you.  Up two down one is like building straight up on your strong foundation.

Another reason this technique is so effective is that it gives you a chance (in the down one) to integrate what you learned when playing it up two.  The pressure is off, you’re at a slower tempo, and you can relax and play, instead of trying like you did at up two.

Yes, it does take time to do that many repetitions.  Give it a try anyway! I assure you, when you use this trick, in conjunction with the other principles and techniques we’ll cover here, you will agree it is the most efficient way to learn a difficult passage.  None of your time on this technique will be wasted.

When you’re in performance, you want to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you can play that passage every time.  Metronome Trick No. 1 will help give you that confidence.

[NOTE:  You will need an old school metronome for this.  Trust me when I say that the tempo levels on a non-digital metronome are perfect for this technique…there will be more info in a later article on The Old School Metronome and The Human Scale.  In the meantime, for those of you with nifty new-fangled digital metronomes,  here is a clip-n-save list of ye olde metronome markings:  ye-olde-met-markings1]

So, let’s say you want to bring a passage from quarter equals 80 up to quarter equals 100. Here’s the order of metronome markings you would use, always mindfully and successfully playing the passage 4 to 7 times at each separate tempo:

1. 80
2. up to 88
3. down to 84
4. 92
5. back to 88
6. 96
7. 92
8. 100
9. 96
10. 104
11. 100
12. 108
13. you’ve got it!

[Note:  the awesome photo above is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgladdery/2355605963/ ]

Why to write (or why I write, anyway)

Part of the value of the practice notebook is that it makes your work visible. This is of prime importance in the music world—no one pays you to practice, no one applauds when you’ve finished your scales, and though your always-growing skill is a great reward, it is often a real challenge to feel accomplished when you practice and have nothing to show for it. You know, a carpenter builds a set of shelves, and they have the shelves as proof of their work. An artist does a painting, and even if it’s still in progress after a day’s or week’s work, it’s there to see (and touch even)—a visible, tangible monument to their work and talent.

Now, I don’t expect that the Met will ever have an exhibition of the practice notebooks of the great musicians of our time, but the practice notebook can go a long way to make you feel good about the amount and quality of the work you’re doing, simply by making it visible and tangible.

But wait, there’s more!

I’d like to list a few more benefits that you can keep an eye out for as you experiment with keeping a practice notebook. Keeping a practice log allows you to:

• Keep track of what still needs to be done (write yourself a note: come back to bar 12, work on bars 234 and 235 together now, start 2nd movement tomorrow).

• Give yourself encouragement. Don’t be shy about it—remember how I said this wouldn’t be posted in front of the class? Go ahead—put a gold star every time you meet your practice goal! Or write in curse words! Or both!

• Be your own best teacher by keeping track of what works and what doesn’t

• Get to have a cool notebook.  Isn’t this one pretty?

• Have fun, later on in life, to look back at a record of your past life in music. Remember when you took that big audition? Remember when you first started working with your favorite teacher?  Here’s mine from the day I took my Tales & Scales audition:
  

A special note to the beginners out there: have you ever wished you could have your teacher there with you all week, making sure you practice right? This is a great way to learn to practice—what works, what doesn’t, what’s fun, and what isn’t. It’s especially valuable if you are not practicing every day—to help keep track of where you are, and what still needs time and attention.

A note to the professionals and conservatory students out there: I know you’re skeptical! Try it anyway!