How did I spend my fourth of July? With record heat for July, and a ban on fireworks, it was tough to justify, spending the money on them, or to go wait for the big show down by the river. We have hardly had any rain, and there were big concerns for fire...What is a musician to do?
Go see the new Spider-man movie! Honestly, it was a great decisions, I grew up on the Spider-man mythos, and the idea of a new movie was exciting to me. Let me give you a history of me and spider-man movies. I saw the first one in the theaters four times; most of the time when at a movies I only get to see a movie once. At the end of Spider-man 2, it was the midnight showing, I screamed out "Kiss the girl already," in what had to be my most masculine moment of film viewing, and when Spider-man 3 rolled around, I went to the midnight showing the night before my jury.
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And now....Mozart! |
Ten years after the first movie came out, I was just as excited to see the new one, and I honestly was not disappointed. Without going into a review, I just had a great time at the movie, and flt myself truly at ease. It was a great time with friends, and I enjoyed the chance to geek out again.
This summer, when I am not indulging a fantasy of being a costume vigilante I have been contemplating how to be a better pianist. How to push the boundaries, learn quicker, and become a deeper musician. Frankly speaking, since starting this blog, I feel the urge to put a disclaimer at the end of every post, "I am not a teacher, and still learning myself" I feel that half of the things I try, end up with me making some pretty bad mistakes.
My technical abilities have constantly been improving, but despite my love of playing, I have not been the most natural musician. There have been many times, where there has been struggles: struggles with speed, agility, and sometimes reading. The aspects of music that we call "technique" have been a struggle for me. Though, I no longer view that as a hindrance to my musician ship. This is not to say these aspects are not important, they most certainly are, and I can't help but to be a little bit jealous of those who posses them.
Sometimes though, our technique can be a liability, making things too easy, too slick, giving us nothing to hang onto. Ideas, can loose value, we loose a sense of control, letting our technique govern us, instead of using our physicality to reach our means.
We can achieve this through practice. The addage "practice makes perfect" is still very true, but as I get older, I realized, the kind of practice, is just as important. I can sit at the piano and doodle around for hours, and get no where. Two important factors to practice is regularity, and mental control. It is very important to practice regularly, despite how we feel some days. what we would like to be out doing, or what our mood is. Mental control is also very important, we should strive not to play a note that is not directed and guided by alert musical thought.
As of now, my own practice routine is five hours a day, and never in one sitting. I will not sit at the piano longer then an hour, setting an alarm for myself, and taking time between each one of these hour sessions. The outcome has been fantastic, my practice is filled with mental alertness, and I avoid the fatigue comes comes from over practicing.
In a previous post, I went through how I go through scales, and I can't stress enough how this has improved my technique. I practice with an awareness, of everything technical element, running through some very basic exercises to help with evenness in the sound. I do not rely on instinct when I practice like this, and achieve an awareness of my abilities and how to use them. I have been adding technical study pieces into the mix, playing them slowly, or with a syncopated rhythm. My hands are now more capable of dealing with the challenges I find in my repertoire pieces.
Achieving my interpretive goals with the music is another matter entirely, and honestly is one that comes easier to me; it is where my own strengths lie. The ironic part, is that the same ideas apply to interpretation, if we are not aware of what we are doing, then we loose the value. When we look at music, we must look note value length, voice leading, and patterns in the phrases. We should find reason, instead of relying on instinct, for a more thoughtful, and profound music experience. When we work out the why, based on the note values and melodic patterns, we can turn our nebulous feelings, into something tangible, into crystalline shapes, and know the how and why in the things we see in the score.
Despite, all we do to strive for good practice, one can still encounter off days, when we feel a resistance in the body, or our nerves are getting the better of us. Anything from eating bad, to having a sleepless night. The best way to minimize these days is to lead a regular somewhat disciplined life. Avoid excess, eat well, sleep regular, good hours, and exercise; these are all common sense things, but can lead to better balance, and avoiding those off days. We don't just play the piano, it has become infused and part of our lifestyle.
When I feel nervous before performance, I once again feel it is important to exercise control, no one needs to know of how nervous I am. So I a place to relax, meditate, take a few deep breaths.
The lesson I have learned, is that no matter what angle of music I am approaching: the technical, the interpretive, or even just nerves or bad days, the one constant way of dealing with them is control. As I continue to learn how to master myself, I become more and more aware of what I want to do, and exactly how to do it. The key for me is not focusing on the finger work, but rather on regular, alert, and never remitting self- discipline. I stop worrying about the preparatory details I used to feel I must accomplish before a concert, through regular practice work they become second nature, but of the beauty of the music, the releasing of my emotions, and just how fun playing in public can be.
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