Post your WOOP – Week of March 27th

[Seth Adelman (piano)]

Last’s week’s WOOP – to engage in some deliberate, problem solving practice each day – went well! As Noa suggested, the act of working out in detail the specific problems and possible solutions, and writing all this down, doesn’t take long and allows me (or forces me) to come up with effective strategies! I wound up creating a separate worksheet for each piece I’m practicing, so that I can list the entries in the same order in which they occur in the piece. And if I do this sort of practice first (after warming up), I’m less likely to drift off into ‘mindless’ unreflective playing (as opposed to actually trying to improve ???? ).

For this week’s WOOP, I’ll again choose something modest but attainable, for which I just need to commit to in writing and in public:

Wish: to make time for two open-ended practice sessions each day. I’d like to improve on my default tendency to fit practice into short blocks where my time is limited, or to save practice for the end of the day when I’m tired.

Outcome: as with last week, if I can ingrain this as a habit it will enhance my general sense of self-efficacy, which is always a good thing… ????

Obstacle: it would be easy to get sidetracked with other early routines, then all of a sudden I need to leave the house and what happened to my practice time?

Plan: “When I plan my day (either in the morning or the night before), I will time-block these two practice sessions so that they’ll take priority over other activities.”

And: I’d like to continue last week’s WOOP (daily deliberate practice) as well. It all seems doable! ????

[Margaret Marynowski (violin)]

Last week’s wish was to memorize the first half of the Meditation from Thaïs and get the rhythms right. Practicing throughout the day did help with memorization, but I couldn’t achieve both goals because work got in my way!

So for this week:

Wish: master the rhythms more solidly

Outcome: lovely transitions!

Obstacle: finding enough time to practice

Plan: take mini breaks throughout the day to work on the piece

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi @MaggieM Curious to hear how you’re working on the rhythms. It might be that if there’s a way to make this like a game in some way, or apply some interleaved practice to this, it might be easier to do little tiny “doses” of rhythm practice in shorter blocks of time throughout the day?

[Liz Uzelac]

Wish: Record one mock round with the recording setup and location I use for audio/video applications. (I tentatively plan for this to be a weekly goal through early May.)

Outcome: I’m working toward long term goals of making self-recording a habit, improving my comfort using my recording setup, and preparing for multiple auditions. I’d like to know I’m doing the uncomfortable work of facing how I sound, and having that inform my practice. I’d also like to feel like I’ve practiced performing full rounds by the time I get to the auditions I’m taking.

Obstacle: I’ll likely feel a pull to stay home and just use my phone and usual practice location (or not record at all). I might also find it very difficult to listen back to the recording.

Plan: I have arranged a recording partner who will also use the same setup/location, to discourage bailing at the last minute. If I am truly reticent to listen back to the recording, I will ask my spouse to listen first or alongside me.

[Noa Kageyama]

@ebuze A recording buddy sounds like a great idea. How is it going with listening back? Have you tried a listening rubric? Where you listen back, but only for one thing in each pass? Like rhythm only, or attacks only, etc. I wonder if that might make listening back easier or less aversive/overwhelming? Or, you could allow yourself a treat only when listening back (aka temptation bundling). Like you’re only allowed to drink your favorite kombucha or eat chips/salsa while listening back to recordings?

[Liz Uzelac]

Thanks, @noa ! I had gotten okay with listening to the 30-second or so clips I record in my daily practice, but listening to a whole round was a tougher prospect. The aversion is real. The listening rubric is already proving a helpful suggestion!

[Angela Alves (piano)]

No WOOP last week.

WISH: To play through project piece (Forest Whispers – Dennis Alexander) I’ve been working on for 10 Weeks without hiccups so I can focus on dynamics and rubato.

OUTCOME: Yay! Finished project piece teacher gave me and moving on to playing more musically and applying dynamics and rubato. Have seen some progress lately and would love to get further along. Also, do really enjoy this piece and plan to keep it in repertoire – would be happy to do it justice.

OBSTACLE: Time – not getting to the piece regularly because of other practice and lesson pieces. Practicing mindlessly and not really zeroing in on the issue.

PLAN: I have 3 problem spots I identified when I recorded a playthrough. And after listening and following the score, they are definitely the same ones that have come up over and over. I am going to use post-it notes to zoom in on the exact note/beat where the problem occurs and then move out a beat on each side until I reach the adjacent measures and work each beat with deliberate repetition to find the problem and a solution. I will set a timer for 10 minutes and I will keep a tally of correct vs incorrect repetitions (that really helps me to focus and be deliberate).

[Tricia Snell-Flute]

Last week’s WOOP was mostly accomplished, not all. I have memorized Inisheer and Iris, but I didn’t teach Inisheer to my students (am delaying that). This week:

Wish: By end of week, have memorized: “Morning’s Tide” on silver flute; The Carigkerry on high whistle; and harmony part for Iris on low whistle. Play the whistle pieces on my Irish flute to get my hands accustomed again.

Outcome: Further progress on memorization, plus improved ability to quickly switch from instrument to instrument.

Obstacle: Hazy thinking that makes me procrastinate. Not just jumping into practice. Tiredness. Perhaps not really believing I can develop my memory and abilities further.

Plan: If I procrastinate/feel tired/think I probably can’t do it, I will immediately visualize a really positive person. (On Sunday night I saw Adam Sandler in the Mark Twain Award Ceremony! Wow, now there is a person who just goes ahead with confidence! But is kind, isn’t arrogant or trying to come off as a genius.) Also work on my sleep. Have now gotten to going to bed before midnight. This week will go to bed by 11pm. Longer yoga sessions this week too.

[Noa Kageyama]

@tricia-snell As Carol Dweck said in her TED talk, you can’t do it…yet. The “yet” is important to remind ourselves!

[Tricia Snell-Flute]

thank you for this! yes!

[Nora Torres-Nagel (classic guitar)]

A little late but I want to give you the feedback of my WOOP of last week . It worked extremely gut ! I have changed the distribution of my daily time with the music after suggestion of my teacher. I am playing again the beautiful prelude BWV998 (a few more lines each day…or repeating what I did the day before, always enjoying the incredible music of my friend JSB), and learning two new pieces. It works perfect.

BUT the slurs of Piazzolla are not yet consistently gut. This week I insist with my WOOK of week 13 th march. Only 5 min per day of those slurs. Don’t forget Nora!

[Anne Brüggemann (violin)]

I am so late that I will take a break this week. I love the five minutes on slurs.

[Diane Lipartito (bassoon)]

I have only done one WOOP and it was the second week. I wanted to pay less attention to the news in order to be less distracted in music and life. That worked exceptionally well that week and has continued and I feel much better and more focused.

I didn’t do a WOOP after that, but if I were to have written one last week, it would be to use some of the focusing and calming methods I have been learning here and from Play in the Zone along with a variety of upper back and shoulder release exercises I have found, recently, pre performance so I could perform a challenging piece with piano on a faculty recital last Friday after not having done any solo playing for about 5 years now and after having gotten pretty out of shape. Not only was I out of shape, but I was, this past year, trying to reorganize things for myself physically and mentally so I could play without arm and shoulder tension, my fingers wouldn’t tense up when playing fast, my breathing could be lower and more relaxed, finally (a lifelong quest of mine), I could be more focused on the music only and if lucky, maybe even find moments of the performance enjoyable. I also made some equipment and reed changes that I hadn’t performed on yet. It was a very slow and tedious process (still ongoing), but minus a few glitches, the whole thing went great and I did have some moments of enjoyment without distracting myself.

I also had to overcome a couple of oddball mistakes that I made in my last two orchestra concerts which shook my confidence and I am glad to now have another thing to add to my success reel. I did discover something the day of the performance which was that when I tried to come up with a reel of positive performances, the negative ones and my worries about previous unexpected errors dominated. Driving up to the concert, I came up with a way to deal with these negative memories and worries so that the more positive past experience would be free to help me. I put the 4 of 5 negative images that kept crowding my mind into a sack or trash bag which I cinched and tied, then I put them in a small trash can with the lid snapped tight and put the can on the far corner of the front porch where I have some potting soil in a similar container. After I did that the deep internal feelings of panic immediately calmed down. The negative experiences are there for me to take out and review again if I need to for any reason, so they are not thrown away and for some reason, that felt more appropriate.

[Diane Lipartito (bassoon)]

This Week’s WOOP

WISH: To begin an interleaved practice of a substantial concerto that I am scheduled to perform in the fall with two other pieces from the bassoon repertoire that I want to learn or relearn (I have a long term/continuing goal to learn as much of the bassoon repertoire as I can at a leisurely pace for myself and if, per chance, I decide I’d like to perform a piece down the road, it won’t be a stressful, crazy, ‘I don’t have a life and can’t stand this,’ kind of a process). I have chosen, besides the concerto, the Weber Hungarian Rondo and Jeanjean’s “Predlude and Scherzo.” Also, a little time, this week, devoted to a music memory course I am taking would be great.

OUTCOME: Getting through another preliminary wood-shedding of another 1/2 – 1/3 of a page of the concerto (It’s about 14 pages of mostly fast technical passages and I am about half way through) and combining that with the first 1/2 pages of the other two pieces along with warm ups and long tones. I also have some bocal/reed combo experimentation with recording to do on some newer bocals I have recently acquired. Beginning the music memory course.

OBSTACLE: My taxes and some neglected household chores that need attention.

PLAN: Devote at least two hours Thursday and Friday evening and 2 hours Saturday and Sunday afternoon and hopefully two more hours, Saturday and Sunday evening. Rest of the time will be devoted to taxes and work. Devote a half hour a day to the memory course.

[Noa Kageyama]

@jontoobie-yahoo-com Sounds like a great project. I assume the memory course includes Roger Chaffin’s research on performance cues? Either way, it sounds like the memory project and learning new rep could be integrated in a fun way, as performance cues can be identified and integrated into your practice from Day 1.

[Diane Lipartito (bassoon)]

Thanks, Noa. It’s nice to have this break in performing for a bit to get this going. I hadn’t intended to take a course in memorization initially when I decided I wanted to go back and relearn rep and then learn the things I never got to learn or which was written more recently, but Mark’s course came up and I thought that at least it would be nice to have better recall in difficult passages or for tricky page turns or for the freedom to look away where beneficial, etc, but now it seems like it will fit nicely with my previously inspired repertoire goals. It looks like I will be starting it next week, due to things coming up and taxes taking longer, so I don’t know whose work he is referencing yet, but I will let you know. ????