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Post your WOOP – Week of March 13th
How’d your WOOP go last week? If you had any wins, please share!
And if things didn’t go according to plans, please share that as well! Let us know where things might have gotten off-track, and we can all troubleshoot together. ???? (Quick tip: It often helps to either aim for a tinier change, or make an adjustment to your Plan.)
If you plan to set a new or revised intention for the week, post your Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, and Plan below!
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29 Replies
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Last week WOOP was really good!I have not only written my plan but it was very useful, with limited repetitions , very concentrated, slow enough to think in each finger.
New WOOP:
Wish–< that the slurs of Piazzolla sound clear and nice. I will dedicate 5 minutes each day only to these two slurs.
Outcome–< to hear a nice beginning of the piece..like a “bandoneon”
Obstacle–> that my fingers are not quick and precise enough…
Plan–> I will continue exercising until IT WORKS ????
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Yay, new WOOP! A quick thought in terms of the O and P. Ideally, the obstacle is something internal that you have control over. So something like awareness of finger tension might be easier to control, perhaps?
And with something like this, do be careful of doing too much! It might be helpful to plan to take regular mini breaks, instead of being tempted to keep at it and accumulate more tension/fatigue.
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Thanks Noa. In fact I was increasing the time to 10 minutes instead of thinking on the tension. Good point. Is is good that you orientes me on how to define the obstacles …still a little difficult for me.
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Yes – WOOP is a simple enough concept, but not actually so easy to put into action sometimes!
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Last week’s WOOPs went well. I did the recording session, and the plan for overcoming the obstacles to that came in handy so I didn’t push it off. And I completed the practice plan on all days but one (and that was an informed adjustment – a tiring double rehearsal/concert day).<div>
Wish: Pull at least 6 rep cards in a circuit timer practice session each day except Thursday.
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Outcome: I’d like a sense of assurance that I will get to all my rep. I hope this strategy will alleviate worry about whatever I’m *not* actively touching and improve my focus on what I *am* practicing in a session. And I’d like to make forward progress on each card in my deck this week, even if brief.
Obstacle: For a variety of reasons, my individual practice may start later than usual this week. I may be tempted to call it “done” and skip a rep-focused session if I haven’t gotten to it by evening.
Plan: I’m using the calendar to plan sessions in this busier week. I’ve committed to checking in with an accountability partner at 9pm each day. I’ve also set reminders to go off as encouragement to get started on various tasks (warm up, fundamentals routine, card pulls) by certain times of day.
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Sounds good! And maybe plan a reward for yourself at the end of the week if you are able to stick to your plan successfully some percentage of the time? Not 100%, but like 5/7 days, or 4/5 days or something like that?
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Thank you – great idea. (I tend to mentally beat myself up for any skipped days, but that’s not super realistic and gets unkind. Working on stepping away from that.)
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Last week’s WOOP was great… really focused me to get my practice done. The outcome I wanted has been achieved, re tone and articulation. Today (Mon May 13) my trio had a dress rehearsal and recorded ourselves (both for learning and PR), and it went very well. Our concert is this Wednesday at noon, and I feel prepared and excited.
This week’s WOOP:
Wish: Play well and enjoy my trio’s Wednesday concert.
Outcome: Leave concert feeling we’ve done well, done our best.
Obstacle: That nervousness hampers my focus and my playing.
Plan: Visualize positive outcomes (before concert, before each piece). At the concert, before each piece I will centre myself, breathe, visualize, and then stay focused on the music through each piece. I will let go of any mistakes, enjoy myself, stay inside the music, enjoy the audience.
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I followed my plan last week, to practice earlier in the day, which worked really well. My teacher suggested that I work more on some of the rhythms in the piece, so I didn’t quite achieve my wish to finish memorizing the first half of the piece.
So for this week:
Wish –finish memorizing the first half of Thaïs and nail the rhythm changes.
Outcome — a more fluid sound, and some mental bandwidth to focus on dynamics and vibrato.
Obstacle — I have a hard time practicing some subdivisions to tempo
Plan — work on some exercises from Robert Starer’s Rhythmic Training. Unless someone has a better suggestion!
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If you’d like to explore rhythm a bit further, here are a couple videos to give you some ideas:
Jason Sulliman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwDB7aBcWfw
Molly Gebrian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KBAnSOjWmU
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That’s right, you covered this in one of the classes. I already downloaded the metronome app. Thanks Noa!
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Thank you for the two links, Noa.
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Weekly Woop March 13-18
Last week’s WOOP went really well. I generated a number of effective problem solving strategies and feel closer to my long term goal of singing with less tension in my throat. A win.
This week’s WOOP:
Wish: To improve my breathing technique so that I can make it to the end of a phrase more easily. I’m tired of running out of air on the beat before the end of the phrase.
Objective: I would like to be able to express myself more comfortably with tempo expressions. If I can retain enough breath while singing I would have more options, particularly at the end of a phrase.
Obstacle: I have done breathing exercises before but forget to continue with them and they fall away in my practice. Since I can’t hear any sound while doing them I question their effectiveness. I will need to just do them and try to change my attitude regarding their effectiveness. I may also become frustrated that there won’t be any concrete feedback for my efforts.
Plan: Begin each practice session with an extended exhale, and breathing exercises. End each practice session with an extended exhale and breathing exercise. Sing longer phrases in my solo freely and with the tempo expressions that I want. If I run out of air before the end of the phrase, I’m going to stop singing and continue with the phrase in my head. I am going to write down my successes in my singing journal so I can see my progress.
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Yay!
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Jumping in here with my first WOOP…
W: Record a prescreening tape by Friday.
O: I will feel like I’ve taken a strong, measurable step towards my goal of having a job.
O: When it comes time to practice I’m often tired and do not feel motivated to do the work; I come up with all sorts of reasons why I should just let this go and not make the recording so that I can skip my practice session and take a nap.
P: If I’m tired when it comes time to practice, I’ll take a quick nap, and then go on a brisk walk around the block to focus on remembering why I want to do this and what I hope to achieve long-term by doing so.
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Sounds good – nap will help with maximizing learning in the practice session too.
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My first WOOP:
Wish: I will work on my worst 4 excerpts every day (and/or the concepts behind each one) for at least 20 minutes each without distractions stopping me.
Outcome: I will feel less stressed and anxious about these excerpts if I’m making consistent effort and progress on them. I’ll prove I can overcome the distractions and difficulties.
Obstacle: difficulty concentrating and focusing leading to difficulty pushing through the problems to solve and overcome them.
Plan: I will start practicing by putting my phone in the kitchen pantry and turning off all electronics I’m not using as a practice aid.
IF I still get distracted by a computer and I’m not using it as a practice aid/resource, I will turn it off and face away from it so I can’t look at it without turning around.If I get frustrated and feel stuck, then I will go outside for <5 minutes, breathe, think about something else, and get settled. Alternatively, if I need to burn off some energy, then I will do a set of 10 pullups and/or pushups.
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Sounds like a good plan!
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Thank you for sharing, Skylar. I like your plan of moving tech distractions, and also taking a little break when feeling a little stuck.
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Last week’s WOOP worked really well. I had a good first rehearsal with Peter und der Wolf last Monday. Just by putting my WOOP out here, I was motivated enough to actually do what I had planned. I’ll do the same WOOP for one once more, just modifying my action plan. I will practice the two hardest sections every day, and I will practice and record a page or two every day, checking where I stand with these sections. By the end of the week, I will play through the complete work and record. I have put the time stamps for each small group of rehearsal numbers on a YouTube video that I like (Leonard Bernstein), so I plan to play along to the video by the end of the week (or even in the daily practice sessions).
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Yay!
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Wish:
I am looking for new-to-me music to play for dance classes.
I have some music which I play for one to two terms, for repertoire and character dance classes. Some of these have choreographic notes from multiple teachers and classes over the years.
My wish is to re-type one piece in each category so that it is easier to read during dance classes. My mind is freed up to concentrate on other things I may not have had the bandwidth to tackle.
Outcome:
Cleaner score, less confusion. Frees up my mind to concentrate on more important things, both during practice and during dance classes.
Obstacle:
Typesetting takes time. I am tempted to switching to more pleasurable tasks, and eventually run out of time to create more workable scores from which to play.
Plan:
If [ I find myself steering away from typsetting ],
then I will [ open Dorico and type one measure of either new music, or rep / character music ]
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Nice, Dorico. =) I wonder if it might help to just keep Dorico open on your computer, so there isn’t that tiny extra little speed bump of having to launch it and wait for it to open to the right file?
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I think I am doing the opposite.
I shut down my Mac mini when I am not using it.
When I feel like looking things up, I open Dorico first. Since nothing else is running, I type my one measure (often more than one measure), and then I open the browser or whatever else I was going to do. A bit like paying an entry fee, perhaps.
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My biggest obstacle, I discovered this week, is that I create goals that are just too big. It doesn’t help that the pieces I am focusing on are so big and long with many issues I would like to improve/fix/survive. So I CAN control this factor.
The second obstacle is that if the goal is TOO small I blow it off saying it ain’t good enough for my inflated ego. OUCH!! That hurts because I am working so hard to help my students create smaller goals.
So my wish is that I am gentler with myself as I practice and reward my progress when the progress is infinitesimal.
The obstacle is allowing me to do this.
Plan: Create smaller recordings. stick to ONE section, one issue and focus on it. I know what the issues are.
Reprogram
Ellen
Saw an old film on Netflix called Zarthura and at one point a character gets a game card that says “REPROGRAM”. He can’t figure out why he got the card or WHEN he should use the card. Of course there is a point where it becomes very apparent.
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Hello, Ellen,
What pieces are you working on, please?
If you would like to share any videos, I would be interested to watch.
Cheerio,
Ming
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WOOP
W: to play a ‘Neil Young&Crazy Horse’ style guitar solo on the new piece I wrote, Breathe Into Me.
O: to say something coherent and interesting within the specified measures.
O: forgetting about the time and doing something frivolous and cliche.
P: identify the number of measures, what I want to put forth as the center to create the whole.
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Last week’s WOOP (3/13): I definitely exceeded my goal, but I was not happy with the result—I still had the experience of feeling during the event that the person playing wasn’t the one who practiced. I made far more big mistakes than I was happy with, and often felt really outside of myself in an unpleasant way. In part, the problem may have been being too “in between”–in & out of playing from memory, and not really having memorized the music. Reading on the harp is particularly difficult (ask any pro), so I may have set myself up for a bad time.
I’ve also become aware of how sloppy my practice is, especially in terms of allowing incorrect repetitions, and not taking the time to assimilate. Even with the intention to practice differently, I caught myself over and over slipping into old habits–particularly when I could “already play” a passage.
WOOP: 3/20 through 4/2 (two weeks)
Wish: Refine and memorize my arrangements for The Keel Row and Brian Boru’s March.
Objective: to feel ready to record and have the satisfaction of playing them with ease.
Obstacle: careless practice habits—primarily allowing too many mistakes and not taking the time to stop, review, and say out loud what is needed to play each section correctly.
Plan: Insist on taking time to speak with my “rubber duck” before starting practice on each passage, as well as using the interleaving method for the tricky spots and taking more short breaks to assimilate.
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My WOOP went very well last week! My focus changed a bit as I realized that I pick up my violin and immediately start playing without too much thought. So, I made a point to put my violin in my lap, think about what I was going to do and how I was going to sound and THEN pick up my violin and play. What a habit to break!! I was able to practice so much more this week than last.
This week’s WOOP
Wish – To continue working towards the Chamber Music Night at the musicians’ union. Getting my rhythm back in business. (Whenever I take a break, breaking up note values while playing seems to be the first thing I lose.) I am going through my music while listening and counting out the beats and then playing alone with the metronome and then playing with a recording.
Outcome – I will feel more confident when I play with these people.
Obstacle – Continue to work and stay focused. I was very good at staying off of YouTube this week. I am also working to break a habit that I realized that I have and that is not thinking before I play. I didn’t realize how much time I spend on autopilot while playing. So, I am breaking that mental habit. I am considering using the old way/new way method.
Plan – Taking my dog for a walk first thing in the morning definitely helped me stay focused and clear during the day. Following my schedule (that I didn’t write down) worked but I will keep a written schedule by my music stand to help stay on track.
My big win for the week was that I practiced and was more focused waaayyy more than usual.
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