Noa Kageyama
Forum Replies Created
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Glad to hear things are coming along, Heather! Indeed, the attention control part can take a while, as our minds are quite squirrelly indeed, but it sounds like you’re starting to feel that difference weren’t we can keep things quieter up there – yay! 😁
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Hi Margaret,
Yours is a very straightforward and seemingly simple question, but can actually get quite complicated pretty quickly!
Carolyn Christie talks about this a bit in her recent podcast episode here: https://bulletproofmusician.com/carolyn-christie-on-overcoming-nerves-with-healthier-internal-dialogue-and-phrasing/
Challenge #1 is figuring out what to spend time working on. One way to do this is to record yourself at the beginning of a practice day, listen back, and put together a list of problems you’d like to find solutions to.
Challenge #2 is deciding which of these spots to spend time working on, because there’s never enough time to solve them all! Carolyn talks about assigning each a priority, in three levels – like red, yellow, green, or difficult, medium, easy, etc.
Challenge #3 is figuring out how much time (or how many repetitions) to spend on each. Carolyn talks about this as well, and recommends a mix of difficult, medium, and easy. I agree with this mix and don’t recommend only working on the most difficult things either. For one, this can be discouraging. And if by hard, we’re talking about physically demanding or really technical passages, this could also increase the risk of injury, if you don’t balance this out with passages that are either physically less demanding, or just easier.
The tricky thing with interleaved practice, is that how long you spend on each trouble spot, or how frequently you come back to it is constantly changing. Just like how when you start studying vocabulary words with flash cards, at first, maybe it’s helpful to spend an equal amount of time on each word. But very quickly, you start to remember some words than others. And once you start to have an easier time with some of the words, it helps to start coming back to those words less often, and return to the words you struggle with more frequently.
Some folks will do this relatively intuitively, jotting some notes down on paper to keep track of what they’re working on. Others will use spreadsheets and develop pretty sophisticated systems with formulas and ratings and logging minutes and timeboxing strategies and such to keep track of where time is going, and making it easier to budget time across repertoire, but it can be easy to spend too much time coming up with a perfect system, and not enough actually doing the work. So I’d suggest keeping it as simple as possible for now, and tweaking it as you go. Hope that helps to answer your question!
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Hi Lan Shu! One of the toughest challenges is always trying to expose the things that are most likely to be most uncomfortable/unreliable on stage.
To that end, you might consider trying to orient these next 3 weeks around performance practice. For instance, you could plan to do runthroughs of your piece (or program) at or near the same time that you’ll be performing exactly 3 weeks from performance day. And then 2 weeks away and then 1 week away.
In an ideal world you’d be able to do this in the same venue on the same piano as you’ll perform on – but this pretty much never ever happens, so the next best thing would be to play on different pianos and in different places for each of your practice performances, so that you develop this flexibility and get accustomed to playing in (ideally) larger spaces more like the performance venue.
This will help you clarify and identify goals for each week’s practice, as you can listen/watch the recording and decide what needs the most work.
During the week, I’d recommend recording a short runthrough of at least some of your piece/program each morning, so you can practice your mental script and staying focused (singing brain, pulse, etc.). Maybe even try to play for others for a few minutes here and there during the week as well, to practice being in performance mode.
I’d also encourage any work you do to be oriented around interleaved practice, so you are practicing getting things right the first time, rather than just doing repetitions.
I’d also recommend more variable practice, so that things don’t get stale, but also so that you’re constantly experimenting and doing new things to stretch your technique and give you the confidence to take risks on stage.
Three days out, it’s typically helpful to do less practice practice, and perhaps just some runthroughs, and perhaps some mental practice, either away from the instrument, or without any audio, or even while listening to the recording, imagining yourself playing.
A day before, typically, you don’t want to do too much playing. Certainly not a ton of practice practice. But you could certainly do a runthrough of some of the piece or repertoire, just not so much that you feel drained and lose the energy that you’ll want on performance day. And to stay connected to the piano, you could play other things instead.
Getting good sleep the week of the performance will be helpful too.
And the day of, plan to do some light playing, but at that point, hopefully all of the runthroughs and interleaved and variable practice will enable you to feel a little more confident, so there won’t be the need for the typical “panic practice” that we tend to otherwise do on the day of. =)
Hope this provides some general guidelines to help you structure the time between now and then!
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Hi Helen! You know, that’s a good question. I actually haven’t looked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was one of those realities of motor learning and performance that’s so evident from experience and theory, that there isn’t much research comparing performing a motor skill with excess tension vs. performing it with more physical ease and freedom.
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Hi David,
Yeah, sometimes “choking” under pressure is relatively easy to link to aspects of our preparation, but sometimes it’s a little trickier.
I wonder if you could share some more details about how exactly this manifested in the auditions? Like, what specific things happened in your playing? This might help with figuring out what sorts of things to tweak in preparation.
In terms of simulating the stress response, this can be a challenge as well. In studies, there are usually a limited number of things that can be done, like adding competition, putting prizes/money into the equation so there’s something tangible at stake, videotaping, etc. – but the big one is adding some evaluative component in, which you’re doing with playing for folks. I wonder if that would be the most effective element to tweak – by playing for folks who are less familiar to you, but whose opinions would matter to you? Essentially, finding more and more people to play for, who would help to trigger “fear of negative evaluation” or legitimately feel a little more stressful to play for, because their opinions would mean something to you?
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Sure! Depending on what model of iPhone, it’s possible that you might be able to get more detail if you use Twisted Wave Recorder (free version is plenty). In the settings, you can disable iOS enhancements, like dynamic compression, etc. which will provide a “truer” capture of what you played.
But in terms of leveling up your recording setup, here’s something I wrote a student of mine some time back. The gist, is that connecting a mic to your laptop, will give you more flexibility with storage, and also make it easier to make a higher quality recording for more detail, and also make it easier to put your mic further away, but not have to keep walking back and forth to hear each take (if you get longer cables).
So there are a few ways to go here, depending on what you’re hoping to do with the equipment, and how portable or easy you want everything to be.
EASIEST – USB mic
The easiest way to go is to get a USB mic, that you can plug directly into your computer.Audio-Technica’s ATR2020USB+ is $149, and that’s all you’d need to be up and running:
https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-AT2020USB-Cardioid-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B00B5ZX9FM/Pros/Cons: it’s easy, and I think it’d be something you could use to make recording tapes/videos. The one limitation, would be that USB mics can only go about 12 or so feet away from the computer, before the power drops out. In order to put the mic more than 12-15 feet away, you have to get what’s called an “active” or powered USB extension cable (something like this, maybe). Not that big a deal, just something to be aware of.
UPGRADE – XLR mic
If you want to go for a higher-end mic setup (like, if you wanted a better quality mic), it gets a tiny bit more involved, because the higher-end mics don’t connect directly to your computer via USB.In order to connect a “real” mic to your computer, you’ll also a converter/pre-amp that will enable you to connect the mic to your computer. Something like the Focusrite Scarlett Solo ($109), or the Blue Icicle ($45, more portable, but kind of plastic-y). You’ll also need an XLR cable to connect the mic to your pre-amp, but that’s not a big deal, as you can get like a 25-foot amazonbasics xlr cable for $12 or 50-foot for $17.
The benefits of going this route, is that you can basically choose any mic you’d like.
Audio-Technica makes other higher-end mics, like the AT4040, which goes for $299, and is what Met percussionist Rob Knopper uses in his self-recording practice setup here: https://www.robknopper.com/blog/2014/10/17/day-7-the-complete-guide-to-self-recording-part-two-and-tude-7-12daysofdelcluse
But there is a whole world of other mics you could explore too.
Pros/Cons: On the pro side, this setup gives you more flexibility in the long term, as the Focusrite is something you can always use to connect any kind of mic you’d like to your computer. The only downside is that it’s not quite as simple as a single plug ’n play mic. But it’s not that complicated.
In theory, if you want to use this to do more self-recording, you should be able to get better sound from a focusrite/AT4040-type setup. And it’d definitely be good enough to make recordings at home for screening tapes, etc.
But the ATR2020 is not so shabby either.
There are a few sound sample videos on youtube of each, but not a true comparison that i could find. So it might come down to budget, how simple you want your setup to be, and how much recording you want to do vs. using just for lessons/zoom.
Hope this helps!
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Hi Liesbeth,
That really does sound like a frustrating and unjust situation. I’ve heard of situations where freelancers are a big part of the orchestra, but I don’t think it’s as common (at least in the orchestras I’m familiar with here in the US) for subs to have to audition every year in order to stay on the sub list. Especially if you’re essentially a full-time member of the orchestra.
I can understand why it’d be hard to go into something like this with a positive mindset. Especially with so little of this in your direct control.
I don’t know if this addresses your question directly, but I’m reminded of a book I read recently. You may be familiar with the first edition of it, but there’s a completely rewritten 2.0 version coming out in 2025 to reflect how things have changed in the last decade or so. Have you read David Cutler’s “Savvy Musician” book? Is it possible that things with the orchestra might feel at least a tiny bit different if it were possible to build up other revenue-generating parts of your career, that you did have more control over?
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A couple thoughts come to mind:
1. I wonder where your thoughts tend to go to? Is there any specific thing that tends to interrupt your practice (external or internal distractions)? Or is there a specific period of time after which your thoughts wander (i.e. perhaps boredom or lack of clarity of goals or some mental fatigue)?
2. If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to experiment with interleaved practice. Because the short intervals and use of timer tends to help folks stay on task a little more easily. Relatedly, the rubber ducking can also help with staying on task. And if you are writing down your problems/solutions, that can often be helpful as well.
Let me know if you notice any patterns or themes in your difficulty staying focused – this could be helpful in identifying some strategies to help you stay more on task.
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Hi Lulu,
Yes – for singers (or even for wind/brass players), thinking in terms of syllables can be distracting indeed. Horn player Julie Landsman talks about an “internal felt sense” which essentially involves feeling a pulse inside your body, or perhaps even moving a certain part of your body, whether that’s the big toe on one of your feet inside your shoe, etc. It’ll probably take a bit of experimenting, but I think you’ll find that to work better for you than adding additional syllables on top of the lyrics.
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Hi Lulu,
The internal audition and actual singing should be pretty closely aligned, as the idea is to be more present in the moment, rather than thinking too far ahead, which can be distracting or disorienting. Experiment, of course, but most folks find it helpful to be audiating no more than a fraction of a beat ahead of what they’re playing/singing in the moment.
In terms of memorizing, that’s something we could spend a whole course getting into! But the short version is that it’s important to make sure you’re not only practicing getting the text into your head by encoding it in various ways, but that you’re also practicing retrieving it as well. Meaning, practice retrieving the lyrics without the music/pitches. Practice retrieving it in written format by hand. Practice starting at different places, in middles of phrases, ends of phrases.
And because our external surroundings also affect recall (i.e. context-dependent learning), do be sure to practice encoding and retrieval in different rooms and spaces, even if it’s just facing a different direction in the same room, or while wearing performance outfits. And because internal states also affect recall (state-dependent learning), practice recall when your heart rate is elevated, or when you’re feeling more excited/caffeinated, not just when you’re calm.
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Hi Dave,
Please do feel free to skip around as much as you’d like. From what you describe, I suspect the interleaved practice strategy might be helpful. As well as variable practice, perhaps. Especially if the problem has to do with the need for more retrieval practice.
But if the problem is related to mind-wandering, or focus that isn’t as engaged or continuous as it could be, or interrupted by task-irrelevant thoughts that pop in, I wonder if the section on Focus might be relevant as well?
In any case, yes, you can certainly skip around and use the bits and pieces that feel most relevant to what seems most pressing at this moment!
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Hi Yuki,
Good question. Yes, playing with less tension under pressure can be tricky. Just out of curiosity, have you done much exploration of Alexander Technique or Body Mapping or Feldenkrais? It’s one thing to try to release tension before playing, but it doesn’t necessarily transfer to performance, because it can be difficult to trust ourselves to play more freely/with less tension if we haven’t specifically practiced this or baked this into our technique.
Often, in the practice room, we’re not overly tight, but we’re also not playing with the minimum amount of tension necessary, or with the greatest amount of ease or effortlessness that’s possible. And under pressure, when the nerves kick in, everything gets a little tighter. So if we were at a 6 in the practice room, we might end up at an 8 on stage. And a 6 might be ok, but at an 8 we might feel like we’re too tight. But it can be difficult to let go on stage, because we’re not sure what will happen if we do. But if you can get used to playing at a at 4-5 in practice, maybe it goes up to a 6-7, and that will still be ok. I’m just making up numbers, but hopefully you get the idea. =)
So one way to approach this would be to practice playing with less tension/more ease in the practice room, progressively going up the scale from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, etc., and finding the point at which it’s just barely enough “tension” and helps you play in the most fluid, effortless way possible.
And then see if you can continue to play in this range as you increase a bit of pressure, by playing for others, etc.
But if you haven’t already, I do recommend seeking out some Alexander Technique/etc. lessons, as this will help you go much deeper into better understanding how to play as freely and as easily as possible, both in the practice room, and also on stage!
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Hi William!
Yes – I initially conceived of the course as being geared towards performance practice, or the parts of practice that we tend to neglect until it’s too little, too late. Which I think is what led to the idea of the name “beyond” practicing, though it’s been so long, I might be misremembering. 😅
Anyhow, I do think many of the aspects of this kind of performance practice ought to be integrated far earlier into the preparation process than we often do.
A couple thoughts come to mind regarding the memory challenges you describe. Your back-to-front and spaced retrieval practice sound excellent, but there are some additional elements that I think would help.
1. There’s been some really helpful research on memorization for musicians by Roger Chaffin. Who found that the use of specific types of “performance cues” is really helpful for musicians’ recall during performance. Basically, the idea is to divide the piece up into meaningful chunks and then create very specific cues/triggers that trigger the memory of the associated chunk of music. Many musicians do this on a sort of intuitive level, but it helps to make this encoding process really explicit. More details here: https://bulletproofmusician.com/regular-memorization-works-ok-but-heres-why-deliberate-memorization-is-way-better/
2. And then, well in advance of a performance, it’s important to test your recall of these and your other access cues in multiple ways too, in order to expose potential holes or weak spots in the various retrieval pathways you will be relying on in performance.
Testing your muscle memory, for instance, with no assistance from your aural memory or declarative memory (can you play a piece with zero sound coming out of your instrument – like air guitar). And testing aural memory, with no muscle memory or declarative memory (can you sing through or audiate through the piece, without your instrument). And then testing declarative memory, with no aural or muscle memory (can you write out the complete piece on blank staff paper without doing any audiation or air guitar to help).
3. If you haven’t gotten to Lesson 4 yet, I think you’ll find this to be relevant as well. In terms of developing a mental script of what exactly to think about while performing. Because this will help ensure that you’re in the present moment, and not worrying about memory. Or, if there are certain cues that need to be integrated into your mental script, you’ll have practiced this in advance so it’s familiar and keeps you in the present moment and not worrying about what could happen.
If you haven’t already listened to it, the podcast episode with Molly Gebrian would also be a great help. She does a great job of outlining the three main phases of memorization, and some of the key elements within each phase. You can listen to that here: https://bulletproofmusician.com/molly-gebrian-on-efficient-effective-and-reliable-memorization-strategies-for-musicians/
Hope this helps to give you a sense of how to start conceptualizing how memory work fits into your regular daily practice even from Day 1 of a new piece!
-Noa
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Hi Johannes, a couple thoughts:
1. The idea with anchoring is to be able to retrieve a particular emotional state/mental state, and the goal is the emotional/mental state itself. So the source memory itself isn’t really that important, because the eventual goal is to connect the physical cue with the mental/emotional state, and not have to go through the memory itself to retrieve the feeling. For instance, if you’re trying to access the state of confidence, maybe the best memory of this was a completely non-music-related situation in which you felt this way. At first, you might have to recall the situation to access the mental/emotional state, but with practice, the goal is to take the memory out of the equation and just do the physical cue, and feel the mental and emotional state flooding back. All this to say, it should be pretty instrument-agnostic.
2. Also, anchoring can help you quickly get into a desirable mental/emotional state, but once you start playing, your focus should be elsewhere, on things that are more relevant to what’s happening in the music in that moment. So this is where the attention control training stuff in the focus lesson will come into play. So even if the feel of playing each instrument is different, this is where you can redirect your attention to singing brain, pulse, micro-improv, etc., and anchoring probably shouldn’t be an active part of your focus at that moment.
Hope that helps to clarify!
Noa
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Ack! I’m sorry for missing this @johnsonk056hawaii-rr-com !
Yes – you’ve got it! There can be some real benefits to learning something intuitively, without thinking of each detail consciously (implicit learning). Of course, usually, at some point, we have to break it down and understand the details of it more explicitly through deliberate practice-type work.
But as it becomes more fluid and automatic, we want to be able to perform that skill without consciously thinking about each muscle movement, in order to perform it more effectively.
So it’s often a continual cycle of going through implicit and explicit as we continue to hone and refine and improve our skills.
I’m not sure how I missed this, but feel free to email me directly if you don’t get a response in these forums within a day or two if this ever happens again! 😅
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Hi Fernando – good question. A couple thoughts:
1. Encoding repertoire more deeply and with greater elaborative detail can help (Molly Gebrian’s podcast episode on this will be of interest if you haven’t already heard it: https://bulletproofmusician.com/molly-gebrian-on-efficient-effective-and-reliable-memorization-strategies-for-musicians/)
2. However, there’s always going to be a natural forgetting process, especially if you’re adding new pieces to your repertoire. The saying “use it or lose it” relates to this, because it’s not very efficient for your brain to retain the capacity for something if it’s not going to be used. So I think you’ll probably have to do some degree of reviewing, either regularly, or at least before you play the piece you’re bringing back, in order for it to be reliable.
3. In addition to encoding, there’s also the retrieval aspect of things. You might have the piece in your memory, but being able to get it out of memory is a separate challenge that has to be practiced as well (Molly gets at this in her episode too).
4. And trust is a tricky thing too, of course. In order to trust that you can do something, it helps to have done something similar before. The more times you have been able to play something successfully in the way you describe, the easier it’ll be to trust that you can do so again in the future. So it might be that practicing playing things without much advance preparation would be a useful challenge to engage in, so as to develop that trust in your abilities. Being sure of course to try to manufacture as many successes as possible, so starting with very little at stake, to increasing amounts of pressure, as your trust and confidence grows.
Hope that gives you some ideas!
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Hi @Inspired . Good question, and I don’t actually know. I might be a little biased as I can’t wrap my head around movable do, but I just assumed he was referring to fixed do. Do you know what’s most typical in Europe? Whether they tend to default to fixed or movable? He teaches in Denmark, so that might give us a clue. Of course, I guess we could just ask him as well. Let me know if you’d like me to check with him. =)
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Hi Will – this is probably pretty basic, but my immediate thoughts were to wonder how long your practice sessions were, how much of a break you take between sessions, when during the day you practice, how much sleep you’re getting in general, and whether you’re hydrated enough. I wonder if you might be able to share some of these details? 😄
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Hi @joanna-smyk . Yeah, that’s never easy. A couple thoughts.
1. First off, it’s great that you’re wanting to deal with this and let go. Not just because it’s not fun to feel this way, but also because your ability to risk “failure” and keep putting yourself out there will be a huge asset into the future. If we are too afraid of playing poorly in front of others, it feeds the tendency to wait to play for others and delay and delay until it’s “ready.” Which, of course, means we wait until the last minute, and don’t give ourselves enough opportunities to practice performing or auditioning or playing for others. Which puts us at a disadvantage in performance, because we haven’t exposed the things that are most in need of work, or are least reliable under pressure. Sociologist Brené Brown talks about shame, and also “daring greatly” as an end in and of itself in this TED talk that you might find helpful if you haven’t seen it already: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame/c
2. Similarly to #1 above, many of the best athletes train themselves to focus more on learning and improving, rather than winning or avoiding losing. Sure, everyone wants to win, but it can lead to lots of emotional ups and downs, and much of it is out of our control (e.g. you could play your absolute best, but a teacher/music director/colleague might not like your playing anyway). Focusing relentlessly on growth, will help you become the best musician you can be, and help make it easier to avoid getting too attached to specific outcomes or results. Along those lines, was three anything in these experiences that you might be able to take away that you learned? Even if it’s a small thing, like knowing what not to eat beforehand, or how to prepare differently, or what to think about or do while waiting to play? Former Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens talks about this, and demonstrates this focus on growth in this video that I really like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIbL3N8OU-E
3. You might also enjoy this other TED talk on embracing rejection: https://www.ted.com/talks/jia_jiang_what_i_learned_from_100_days_of_rejection It’s somewhat related to the idea of doing 42 mock auditions (as Met percussionist Rob Knopper did) instead of 4 or 5 mock auditions, with the goal of exposing as many of the things that could go wrong in advance (and doing all of your subpar playing in front of friends, colleagues, teachers, etc.) so that you can play better on the day of the audition.
Hope this helps give you some ideas!
Noa
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Hi Sarah,
Good question. I’m not sure if this exactly what you had in mind, but I wonder if this might be related?
Noa
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Hi Stephan – sorry for the delay! The one thought I had, which might help to address some of your concerns, is to try doing this through headphones, while recording yourself on a separate device. Playing with a recording can be a great tool, but you’re right that it can obscure a little bit what we actually sound like, so if you’re recording yourself on a separate device, you can listen back to see what might be happening. Perhaps you’ve already tried this?
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Good question. Any chance you recorded the 5-min segments as well? The other possibility is that the differences that you thought you heard may not actually have come across as clearly as you thought. Do you know what I mean? Like how you think you’re phrasing something really clearly, and then when you listen to a recording, you realize that the idea was coming across, but not nearly as clearly as you thought it was. Might be interesting to compare the practice segments with the practice performance segments. Of course, maybe you’re referring more to technical gains, which would be a different thing too…
Might also be possible that 5 minutes is too long an interval now? That perhaps there needs to be more interference during your practice to practice getting it right with more interference or space between attempts?
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It’s a good idea; I ought to create one someday. I think there may be some other teachers who have done something along these lines, but I can’t recall…
I’ll add it to my list of things! Though I have to confess that I may not get to this for a while. ????
But remind me about “PracticeLabs” in about a month – this might be slightly related to what you’re describing.
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1. You certainly can review your notes from the previous day, and doing so will probably help you record a better first take – but an additional challenge would be to see if you can remember them without a review as well (the self-testing effect). =)
2. Whether you listen back to the recordings or not is kind of a judgment call. It’ll depend on whether you can afford to do so time-wise of course, but also whether you think it’s necessary. You might already have a sense of what needs work without having to listen to the recordings, in which case there’s no need. But the thing you’re listening for may also be something that requires more careful listening. If it’s a subtle rhythm thing that you’ve been working on for instance, you may have to hear the recording in order to know for sure if it has improved. Whereas with something less subtle, it may be pretty clear whether it’s better or not just from your awareness during the runthrough. Often, you may have enough of a todo list from the first recording, that you don’t have to listen every day. Only when your original todo list starts to get shorter, or if there are specific things you want to check on in the latest recording to see if it’s truly been addressed.
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Great observations. FWIW, the need for a long warmup is pretty common of course – but it does seem to be something that one can train themself to be less dependent on (though I don’t know if there’s any data on this).
For instance, I’ve mentioned Met percussionist Rob Knopper before, and one thing he did before the audition is start every day with a cold runthrough of his list. He’d do a short 10-min or so warmup, sit for a moment, and then record a runthrough. He did this every day for months in advance, and noted that it feels awful at first, but you do start to get comfortable being uncomfortable, and are able to play closer to your best when this starts to feel more normal. As in, the sense of ease that exists when you’re completely warmed up, comfortable, etc. may not be there, but the ability to play the way you want regardless may be improved.
Maybe see what happens if you do this on a tiny scale for, say, 30 days? Like do a minimal, but still effective warmup, then record 20-30 seconds of something, and then practice like normal? And see if your confidence in the minimal warmup and your playing (on the recording, not necessarily how you feel) increases over time? It’s possible the warmup itself may evolve, as well as your mental script, pre-performance routine, etc. over those 30 days (which is just an arbitrary number too, of course).
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Great observations, Steve. A couple thoughts:
1. In terms of identifying goals, have you tried recording and listening back with the aim to identify a bunch of problems you’d like to find solutions to, but only being able to select a limited number (say 3) to work on? That way you’re forced to prioritize and be more choosy? I think the recording might also help with establishing a shopping list of problems, without having to keep adding to it as you go through the store, as it were. Start out with a recording a couple/few times a week, and use that to determine which problems are most worth your time to address. Especially if they happen consistently. The other random things that pop up while you’re practicing may or may not be “real” problems that you have to worry about but just flukes. But then if they do happen in run-throughs, and are things that you do worry about/feel uncomfortable about, then it might be worth adding them to the list.
2. Another thing to experiment with is limiting the number of repetitions you’re allowed to do to solve a problem vs. limiting time. So instead of 5-min chunks, you might allow yourself to spend however much time you’d like, but only allow yourself a maximum of 10-12 repetitions to try to solve a problem. There is some research which suggests that you might actually make better progress when each repetition is more precious.
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I always found that this forced me to be more intentional about each repetition when practicing. Or at least be more mindful in general, from moment to moment.
On a related note, you might have to try the two terms out to see how you feel about it, but some folks find it helpful to think of it less as a laundry list, and more as a shopping list. The latter having fewer associations with the idea of doing chores. ????
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Hi Lisa,
The short answer is it depends. =)
As in, it kind of depends on what the goal of mental practice is in that moment. For instance, if you’re in the early stages of learning a new piece, and by mental practice you include things like singing through the score, solfeging, visualizing how you want it to sound, etc., it could be that mental practice could take up as much as 75% of your practice time. Danish trumpet player Kristian Steenstrup, for instance, encourages students to solfège through a couple lines, do some imagery through the same bits, then imagery while moving the body and/or listening to music next, and then actually play the lines physically.
In the middle stages of learning, you might do some mental reps away from the instrument while driving, etc., but not that much during the core part of your practice unless you want to save yourself some wear and tear and figure things out between physical repetitions.
And if you’re in the latter stages of learning, and preparing for an audition, it might be that your mental practice is more about visualizing full run-throughs, or anticipating things that could go wrong, and practicing contingency plans.
It’s really tempting to want to come up with a formula for how to practice that works all the time for everything, but for better or worse, things are pretty fluid and changing. The biggest constant, is the value of having a way to assess where you’re at (recording, run-throughs on a regular basis), having a way to set goals and prioritize which things need the most work (listening), and then having a set of tools to help you achieve those goals (the various skills in the course). Some days it might be more nuts and bolts of practicing, other days it might be more about confidence, or cultivating a routine, or honing focus.
That’s probably way more detail than you were asking for, but hope it helps to clarify!
Noa
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Yay – that was exactly my experience as well. There wasn’t one single thing that changed everything, but an integration of a lot of things that all seemed to come together eventually. 😁
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It can be simultaneously easier or more difficult in an orchestral context as there are more potential useful targets for your attention (conductor, other sections or instrumental parts to connect or blend with, a little like chamber music perhaps?), but also distractions and non-relevant things that your mind can go to as well (what colleagues might be thinking, worries and doubts, non relevant parts of the orchestra, audience, etc). I imagine with so much repertoire over the course of a season, one may not get as much time to really develop a script for attention like one might for a solo performance or audition where there’s much more time to prepare too…but hopefully even the awareness of there being useful and less useful targets for attention will make it easier to start redirecting attention to more task relevant elements from one moment to the next, as each moment is a fresh new opportunity to make a new choice. 😁
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Hi David – a couple thoughts:
1. If you’re not experiencing much in the way of nerves on a regular basis, it’s possible that you’re less prepared to handle them in auditions when they arise. It reminds me of a story of the violinist Pinchas Zukerman, where at some point in his career he took a break from performing for ~6 months or so. And he said that in his first performance back, he was more nervous than he had ever been, and didn’t know how he could ever handle nerves like this. Which made him decide that he should never take a break from performing, so that he would never experience this again. He said something along the lines of how (at least for him), performing had to be as routine as brushing his teeth, where no one performance could ever be that big of a deal, and evoke this kind of anxiety. So I’m wondering if part of the answer might be to find new ways of creating nerves? Like playing for new people whose opinions matter to you?
2. The other thing that I’m wondering, is if anything has changed? Sometimes we have a new/different experience, or something happens, and our experience of nerves can change as well…
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Hi Dorothy,
I wonder if it might help to write out some specific practice goals before getting started? Kind of like a to-do list of specific problems that you’d like to find solutions to – and to limit the amount of time or number of repetitions that you’re allowed to spend on each one before you have to move on? This could help to create a little more urgency and intention perhaps around what you’re hoping to get done in each practice session.
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Hi @lmharkgmail-com . I don’t get too much into the specifics of how to release tension, as this goes a bit out of my area of expertise. Do you have any experience with Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, or Body Mapping? There are some podcast episodes on the main site with practitioners of these various modalities that can give you some sense of which might be the best fit to explore further. Let me know if you need any help finding these!
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Thanks for confirming, William. Sounds like I have some troubleshooting to do…
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Feel free to skip around if you’d like! Depending on your particular needs/goals, it may make more sense to jump from section to section, as in this particular example.
And yes – it’s easy to just read and put off the “putting into action” part, but I’m glad to hear you’re taking the time to do some implementation. That’s really where you start figuring things out and being able to translate/adapt things to your own needs as I’m hoping you’re finding out!
BTW, random tech question, did you receive an email with a nicely formatted version of the response I sent above in your inbox? I’ve suddenly stopped receiving those to my admin account, and am trying to figure out if it’s just me, or if this is affecting everyone. Thanks!
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Thanks for sharing, Gonzalo – will look forward to checking this out!
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Sounds like you’re doing really well with the fundamentals! Is it possible that you might need a longer break between practice sessions? Or perhaps the 3rd and 4th sessions are just inherently not going to be as focused or productive as the first two? Perhaps you could save more cognitively intensive tasks for your more naturally-focused periods, and save less demanding passages/issues for your less-focused times?
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There was a study some years ago which found that participants who listened to a model recording before practicing did improve faster (at least in terms of overall tempo and accuracy) than those who didn’t listen to a recording, so there could be something to the idea of imitating a recording in the early stages. Have you listened to Keith Underwood’s podcast episodes? He gets into this a good bit too, and you might find it interesting.
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Ha, yeah, I remember a study which found this sort of effect with golfers – that watching pro golfers’ swings, helped boost the participants’ performance. I want to say that the effect lasted for something like 24 hours, before fading. But don’t quote me on that number!
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Hey Bill,
Actually, the old habits thing is good – as in, the goal is to retrieve the desired new habits on the first runthrough, instead of needing a few minutes to “recalibrate” to the new habits. I wonder if it would be possible to do even a mental runthrough or two before your recording, to remind yourself of some of this, before doing the actual runthrough?
This goes back to our previous exchange about habit correction and protocols like old way/new way and amplification of error. I’m working on setting up a workshop for this in March – will let you know when there’s a date.
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That would be great; one thing I’d love to do somehow is create an archive of documents that teachers have created for their own studios that they’re willing to share. This platform allows for that; I just haven’t really “unlocked” the feature thus far…
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Oops, sorry for missing this. A couple thoughts:
1. The habit issue is an interesting one. There are actually some protocols for rapid habit correction that can be interesting to try. I’ve written about them a tiny bit on the blog (e.g. amplification of error, old way/new way), but haven’t really done a deep dive. Molly Gebrian is coming out with a book in 2023, and she does do a deeper dive into this. You might be interested in checking this out when it’s released.
2. Yes – keeping track of problems/solutions on paper is not ideal after a while. I know folks will use various online systems like spreadsheets, etc., but that can have its own downsides as well…
3. That sounds like a perfect balance of referring to notes and practicing retrieval (first runthrough without referring to notes, but referring to notes after the runthrough, before you start practicing).
4. A master solutions file sounds like a terrific project. Sounds like the sort of thing that would work well if structured as a database…
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In case you may have missed it, cellist Astrid Schween describes her warmup routine here: https://bulletproofmusician.com/astrid-schween-on-cultivating-routines-curiosity-and-800-different-spiccatos/
I have to confess that I forget the specifics of her routine, but it’s near the beginning of the episode!
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Good question. It seems to depend on the musician – some like to do long easy bows with scales, or different types of articulation exercises, dividing up the bow into different segments, etc. I wonder if it might help to supplement on-instrument warmup with an actual physical warmup away from the instrument? Whether some yoga flows, or something that gets the blood flowing more generally in your body, so that your body is more physically warm before you begin your instrumental warmup?
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To your question about “is that 1 problem? 4 problems?”, one thing to keep in mind, as you get to the polishing stage of things, is WHY these things are problems. As in, why is it important to keep up the energy? Why is important not to rush them? Why are non-flubbed trills important? Meaning, what is the character or mood and what are you trying to say, that requires these things to be a certain way? That might help to organize not just your problem-solving, but also what you listen for and how you think/focus during performance.
Yes to goal-based rather than time-based practice!
And yes, effective practice is definitely more tiring. =)
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That’s a great observation. Yeah, I think it’s easy to forget the overall goal of these smaller problem areas, and why we consider them problems anyway. Perhaps it’d help to add a column to the left, where you remind yourself the overarching character or mood or expressive goal with some key words, or something along those lines?
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Hi Liesbeth,
Good question about how to mic your audition recording. You’re right that it’s helpful to record from a distance when preparing for an audition, so that you can practice hearing what the committee will be hearing, but I’m not sure what the best thing to do is for a recording that you submit to the orchestra. I wonder if you could ask folks who have been on the listening committee to ask what their preferences have been?
I’m reminded of something that pianist Stephen Hough said in a podcast interview – that he actually approaches recordings in a more creative way (in some ways) than a live performance. If I understood correctly, it’s like he tries to approach each take in a slightly different way, and he tries to do new and different things in his recording, so that he has various options to choose from, and actually seems to enjoy it more than if he were to approach it as an exercise in getting one single “perfect” take. Does that make sense?
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Hi Liesbeth, indeed, luck unfortunately does play a role in these things (though honestly it can go both ways – we can sometimes be the beneficiary of good luck which is helpful to remember too!). I have a student who was in the finals of the same top orchestra 3 or 4 times, and each time it was a no hire result, and then the final time, the panel had a few different people on it, and they got the job.
And just to clarify, because playing the average of 20 different recordings does indeed sound kind of dull, the idea is to identify the middle ground as a starting point, and then figure out what the extremes are, so you can figure out how to play within the space between the extremes. Kind of like in tennis, there are definite lines that you have to keep the ball within, but there’s a ton of room inside the court to play with. And you see so many different styles of players who find creative ways to use that space differently. And of course there are those who aren’t very creative with the space and just try to hit hard/accurately. =) Hope that makes a little more sense!
As far as making a tape for pre-screening goes, I wonder if you have any specific questions about the preparation process? Like, how are you inclined to prepare? That might give me a way to suggestions some little tweaks to your existing process, instead of making too many changes that might not be necessary!
Noa
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Ack, Liesbeth – I’m sorry I didn’t respond! I forgot to “subscribe” to this thread and didn’t notice that you had posted updates.
So a couple thoughts. The purpose for recording your auditions is actually two-fold.
1. One reason is so that you can compare it with your most recent mock auditions, to see how similar or different they might be. For instance, maybe there is a tendency to rush slightly in certain places, or clip rests, etc., and unfortunately, getting feedback from folks on the committee can be less precise, because they can’t tell you what exactly changed relative to your last few mocks. So even if they say it sounded great, it’s hard to know what exactly that means, and what you can continue to hone and refine in your preparation, and where you can continue to grow in general as a musician. Which can sometimes help with motivation too, in terms of knowing what exactly you want to work on.
2. The other reason is perhaps more important, and it has to do with helping out with attention control. When you’re not recording, it’s tempting for most folks to devote some of their attentional resources to self-monitoring, and keeping track of how things are going in the moment. Which is a good thing to do when you’re practicing, and you’re listening for imperfections and paying attention to what needs work, but makes it really difficult to fully engage with your mental script, and all of the things that bring you into the present, and into “the zone,” like singing brain, pulse, micro-improv, imagery, etc. Recording your audition, even with a phone in your pocket makes it easier to give yourself permission to just play, and to be fully present with zero resources devoted to evaluating your performance in real time.
Some folks can switch things off like this even if they’re not recording, but for most, it’s easier when they know there’s a recording they can listen back to later.
As far as motivation for this season goes, and staying engaged in the process with the same excerpts, a few thoughts there as well:
1. the micro-improv strategy can help with this sort of “staleness”
2. the other thing that can help is a two-pronged strategy:
a) If you haven’t already, it can help to listen to more recordings (like, not just 5-10, but 20-30 different recordings), to establish the ballpark of what is stylistically appropriate for each excerpt, but expand the range of possibilities you can experiment with. For instance, one of the percussionists at the Met (Rob Knopper) would take a week to listen to dozens of recordings for each excerpt, tapping out the rhythm of each section, determining the mean and median tempo of each section, the dynamic range, phrasing, etc., and throwing out the outliers. This way, you can experiment with different new ways of playing each excerpt, but be assured of playing in such a way that isn’t extreme, so you don’t risk alienating any of the committee members. Which is related to the second thing.
b) The goal is to get as many votes from folks behind the screen as possible, which I’m assuming includes people other than those who play your instrument. So the goal is to play in a way that does feel like it’s your own take on the excerpts, but also aligns with their experience of the excerpts. It’s impossible to know though, what the overall committee’s preferences are, not just those who play your instrument, or a select few whose votes count the same as the others. Some may have gone to music festivals and played the pieces in a very different way, or studied abroad and had teachers who had varying preferences, etc.
In an ideal world, you’d be able to play for every single member of the committee multiple times in advance to see what version of the excerpts resonates most with every single person, but that’s not possible, of course, so the best we can do is try to assemble a representative sample of the committee by playing for other musicians who are like them. But here too, like listening to recordings, playing for just a few people leaves you susceptible to “sampling error” where if you play for just a few people, if they’re not representative of the people behind the screen, you can be unduly influenced to play in a way that won’t get you the maximum number of votes. Like, if you play for 3 people, and two encourage you to take a little more time in one passage, those two may actually be advising you to play in a way that alienates the folks behind the screen.
Whereas, (and this is something Rob did as well), if you play for 30 people, and two people encourage you to take a little more time, but 28 don’t, then you can ignore that advice, because it doesn’t fit with the overall trend of the musicians, and probably won’t be representative of the way the committee will see things either.
This can make playing for other people funner as well, because it means you can try new things and see how far you can take things before it starts to become too much or too far outside the ballpark of what listeners’ expectations might be.
It can be more of a commitment to get this many different folks’ opinions on things, but even if it’s just a dozen or 20, it can hopefully make the process of preparing more interesting and fun, rather than just playing the same excerpts the same way for yourself, over and over.
Hope that helps – and I’m subscribed now to this thread, so if you have any questions about any of this, just let me know!
