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Post your WOOP – Week of February 27th
What is something you’d like to accomplish by the end of the week? Set a clear intention for the week by posting your Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, and Plan below! Keep it short – just one sentence or a few words for each!
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20 Replies
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WISH – Try out two techniques and research for others, to get forte notes forte but not brash, and pp notes pp but not ghosted — both within the general tone and character of the piece I’m learning.
OUTCOME – Unsure what this means?
OBSTACLE – Consistency. I cannot get one or the other technique to work consistently. The only obstacle I see is just practicing each one over and over until one starts to work?
PLAN – Every day, play “An Evening Tale” and Amy Beach’s Waltz at least five times each, paying close attention to the “f” markings to be sure the f’s and p’s sound correct. Up the overall loudness of the piece so the pp’s are easier to create by comparison. Re watch Josh Wright’s “scoop” technique for pp’s and find one where finger stays on keys then a soft pushdown. When I reach for a high f note, ensure finger is on the key and push down and in toward the fall board to improve f’s. Every day search for other credible videos on how to produce both ends of the dynamic.
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Hi Ann – the Outcome step is where you visualize how it will feel or what would be different if you did accomplish your goal for the week. Like a sense of accomplishment, or progress, or reduced stress. Or, drawing from my current situation where I’m procrastinating on doing laundry, if I accomplished my goal for the day, the outcome would be that my kids will be happy to sleep in freshly washed sheets tonight. ????
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WISH – To get the B Section of Waltz in Am from 55 Bpm to 65 Bpm.
OUTCOME – This is the trickiest part of the piece and I was able to figure out how to coordinate left and right hands with counting out loud and subdividing the beats 1+2+3+ last week – 65 Bpm will get this trickiest passage up to beginning speed of the remainder of the piece I still have to learn. Then I can work on this incrementally while moving on to the next section.
OBSTACLE – I often leave this to the end of practice during my evening session … sometimes I don’t get to it because its outside of my lesson material – its my own thing I am working on and my personal deadline for this piece to be completed is May/June.
PLAN – Work on this tempo increase each day, but at the beginning of practice session so its not skipped and for a minimum of 5 minutes (can do more if I want but make sure to get to lesson pieces for next week). Only bump the metronome 2 bpm each practice session (no going crazy and making a sloppy mess out of it!).
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My wish for this week is to achieve playing a difficult passage ( of Variation V4 Giuliani OP107), 3 bars at the final tempo of 88-90.
Outcome–>The evaluation will be 9 of 10 times played should be OK.
Obstacle–> internal doubt of being able to achieve in one week.
Plan—> if it seems to difficult after two days , I will reduce the wished tempo to 80.
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I was confuse with some concepts of the WOOP:
Wish–> the same
Outcome–> I will feel I am progressing in this piece and that my methods of learning are coming more effective and quickler
Obstacle–> my learning capacity is not so quick? or may be is more a doubt…
Plan–> if I do not reach that speed I will continue trying with the confidence that it is only a matter of time
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Hi Nora,
Yes – the Obstacle is something internal, that you have control of. So it might be that the obstacle is losing patience, or getting discouraged, or telling yourself the story that you’re not capable of ever getting it up to tempo.
And the Plan might be something like…If the voice in my head says maybe I can’t do this, I’ll remind myself to adopt a growth mindset and tell myself that I can’t do this “yet”. Or if I lose patience and am tempted to give up, I’ll take a break and come back to this later. Or if I get stuck, I’ll take a slow-motion video, and see if I can identify something new that I haven’t noticed before.
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Thanks Noa. That is exactly the obstacle and your plan options are very appropriate d for me also. ☺️
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My wish is to do a 1st time recording of each of the 2 recital pieces I’m playing
The outcome will be to feel more confident about my playing and to identify areas that need more attention in practice.
My obstacle is feeling shy about seeing myself on video and finding other things to do instead of the video.
If I feel shy and find myself doing other things, I will take 10 minute nap/meditation and afterwards, go to the piano and record.
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My weekly wish is to organize all of my practice strategies for Dein ist Mein Herz by Fanny Mendelssohn and implement them in my practice. My larger goal is to be able to sing the whole song without tightening my throat and jaw.
This outcome will give me an opportunity to organize problem-solving strategies which I can then apply to other songs in the future and become more fluid at problem solving difficulties.
My obstacles will be allowing other activities to interfere with my practicing first thing in the morning and procrastinating on outlining my recorded lessons (1 1/2 behind currently) into my journal.
My plan: If I want to do something else before my 1st practice session I’m going to get a sticky note and write “Practice 1st-then whatever it is” and post it on my refrigerator, removing it after I’ve practiced. I also plan to listen to advice on lessons and transcribe into journal. Go through old notes/and gather together thoughts. Put thoughts on note paper. Write out strategies on to a table/graph. Practice strategies.
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WISH: Memmorise study 10 Carcassi.
Polish bars 4, 5, 8, 13, Bach prelude,
first page of sueño, where I produce a slow, clean and musical tremolo
Half hour of scales
OUTCOME I feel happy with the use of my time
OBSTACLE Procastination
PLAN will put the mobile away and if I stop practicing will do something else
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Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagete Coda –
Wish – to play it correctly with no mistakes.
Outcome – I will feel relieved.
Obstacle- I, literally, change multiple fingerings every time I practice it! I even write the fingerings in my part so I know what fingerings have worked for me “this time” and do not once play them as I have them in my part! If I were my own teacher I would be super frustrated with me. (: I’m wondering if my internal voice is telling me something to the affect of “you’re not a ballet player,” or something of this nature. Because I have about no confidence in my playing this and it’s no harder than anything else I am working on at the moment.
Plan – I wonder if I should make myself do physical push ups as a punishment for changing the fingerings. Corporal punishment? JK. – OK. I just will not change the fingerings or bowings again and stick to my guns. Period.
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Ha, maybe just put your pencil away somewhere hard to get, like in a different room, instead of pushups. ????
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I’m posting this today because my violin lessons are usually on Thursdays.
Wish: To play Rode étude no.5 correctly -> Improving intonation, playing at a faster tempo and putting in my own interpretation.
Outcome: I’ll have a new étude to play for my exam and learn something new.
Obstacle: Too much pressure on both the right hand and the left hand.
Plan: I’m going to focus on the harder parts first and use the rubber duck debugging technique. That way, I’ll have to actively think about my hands. I also watched this video titled “How to practice to increase speed” by Dr. Molly Gebrian: https://youtu.be/75OWZAq-O4U, so I’m going to try this out as well.
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I am looking forward to hearing your experience with Dolly method . I have tried once time ago and it was really good that day I did it but the next day was not in the long memory…and it takes quite a long time (in my hands) to repeat it let’s say 3 times a day ? I am not a professional like Molly , she was really impressed by the efficiency of the method . May be she will talk about this next week ! Good plan ????Rita
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I’d like to prepare two performances to a level of reasonable comfort. I’d like to take at least two passes though all 30-40 selections on a playlist for a wedding, and also finger + bow a few excerpts for an orchestra children’s concert on Wednesday.
Outcome: that I can feel confident in the knowledge that my practice system is efficient and effective, even with limited time.
Obstacle: I tend to schedule my day by “freewheeling,” with no actual plan in place.
Plan: If I find myself doing stuff that doesn’t matter, I’ll leave the room and refocus on any relevant portion of my performance prep.
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This week I would like to get back the final movement of the Walker Sonata. There are some squirrely passages for the left hand with large skips in the right hand that seem to create pauses, slow downs and the words, “Drat, here is comes again.”
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My Wish for the next two weeks is to spend no less than an average of an hour a day practicing a set of Celtic pieces (preparing for a 3/18 job).
My Outcome will be to have the satisfaction and musical fun that comes from being prepared and not “hacking through” the music for the job (which is background for an event).
My Obstacle is in postponing my practice until too late in the day, not allowing it to be enough of a priority in “my busy life.”
My Plan is to schedule my practice time for this right after my morning coffee/tea, and make a promise to myself that I will do it (I do keep my promises to myself, once I put it that way).
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My wish this week is to finish memorizing the first page of the Meditation from Thaïs.
The outcome will be pleasure at playing this lovely piece more expressively.
An ongoing obstacle for me is practicing too late in the day, when I’m feeling tired.
My plan is to practice before or after lunch.
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Wish:
1) Secure solo program: esp Ravel + Liszt (memory) for 3/19 performance
2) Prep Tuba recital (accomp) program, esp. Broughton Sonata for 3/15 performance
Outcome: I will feel satisfied with my work and have confidence for my upcoming concerts, I expect I will be eager to play more solo recitals in coming months. → help motivate better marketing effort.
Obstacle: My biggest obstacle is discouragement-feeling like I can’t do things well, setbacks when I can’t hear or think dearly or quickly enough make me feel inadequate → I am prone to “bailout” and not stay engaged in the process.
Plan: If I feel defeated I will select 1 problem and only 1 to give my focused attention. I will use Rubber Duck practicing in writing to stay engaged with my best mind. If I get discouraged, I will confront the obstacle with curiosity and creativity
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Week One Woop was not personally productive. I’m at the end of prepping for student evaluations which took priority over my plan. Going forward, I structured practice differently and think I will have a better handle on Week Two Woop. It’s all about time management for me.
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