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  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    August 21, 2021 at 8:19 pm in reply to: Navigating the negative effects of technology with students

    I’ll second the airplane mode suggestion. I’ve had a number of students say that this is what they do, so my impression is that there isn’t too much resistance to doing this sort of thing?

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    July 23, 2021 at 8:15 pm in reply to: Pre-performance routine before recitals

    Hi Augustas,

    The idea is to have a quick centering routine before each excerpt, each piece, each movement. It’s a way to get yourself all lined up for the beginning of each piece/movement you’ll be playing. In the same way that you’d probably try to cue up the right mood or character of each movement anyway, even if you had never heard of the idea of having a pre-performance routine. It probably will take a little time and practice to be able to do this, but it’ll be pretty quick and natural once you get the hang of it.

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    July 20, 2021 at 10:40 am in reply to: The tempo that one should do practice challenges in

    Hi Augustas,

    Good question – it depends a bit on which practice challenge specifically, but in general, I think of the practice challenges as being something you would use a passage/excerpt that’s reasonably well-learned with. So something that you can play more or less at-tempo already, even if not perfectly.

    You can certainly slow things down and practice the passage in any number of ways during the week, but the idea with the initial one-take recording is to get the most honest version of what that passage sounds like, if today were a performance.

    And yes – slow practice is an essential practice tool, but there are inherent problems with slow practice as well. A few musicians have spoken about the limitations of slow practice in recent years – like percussionist Rob Knopper and trombonist Jason Sulliman. Are you familiar with some of the structured at-tempo learning methods they teach?

    If not, Jason’s video would be a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9X4h-cY1uw

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    May 17, 2021 at 1:14 pm in reply to: [Interleaved Practice ]Minimum Dosage and Maximum Buckets

    Hi Mark,

    Sorry for the delay in responding! This is a good question, and a very clear, concrete one, but I don’t know if there’s an equally concrete answer or set of “best practices” that addresses this.

    Mostly because I think it’s all kind of a moving target. I think a helpful way of conceptualizing interleaved practice is to think of it as one way to increase the difficulty of a task. So in the early stages of learning a new passage/skill, you want to reduce the difficulty, so you can stay in your “zone of proximal development” as it were. Or that slightly uncomfortable place just outside of what you can do currently, so it’s not too overwhelming, but you’re still pushing yourself slightly.

    And as you get more skilled and comfortable with the passage, you can start adding in more interference, or additional challenges, whether that be expanding your dynamic range, or phrasing something in a more extreme way, or using a different type of vibrato, aiming for a more specific type of sound, etc. And interleaving your practice can add more of a challenge to this too, as the interference from other passages/pieces can make it harder to get things right the first time.

    Different passages/skills have different levels of difficulty, and different trajectories of change/improvement, and we each have different rates of improvement too on different types of skills/tasks. So it’s a lot fuzzier and messier than I think we’d like it to be, but I suspect the answer is that we have to monitor each passage/skill that we’re working on, and be responsive to what that particular passage needs at this moment in time, relative to where it needs to be, for whatever performance we have coming up.

    Hope that helps to answer your question!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    May 8, 2021 at 7:29 pm in reply to: Sharing worksheets?

    I’m glad to hear you’ve found the worksheets helpful. =)

    Thank you for being so thoughtful about this. I have to confess that I haven’t really thought this through very much, but I’m inclined to say that you’re welcome to use the worksheets however you’d like with students. I think the only thing that makes me a little uncomfortable is if people are pulling a “Netflix” – as in sharing username/passwords across studios/etc., but if you want to print worksheets and bits and pieces of things for students, please feel free!

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    April 12, 2021 at 5:18 pm in reply to: Retrieval practice

    Hi Luis,

    Absolutely – you can take different sections of the same piece, or even perhaps from the same movement. It might help, especially as you become more comfortable with the notes, to work on contrasting sections that require different types of motor skills (like soft vs. loud, fast vs. slow, different articulation demands, etc.), so there’s an extra bit of challenge involved in having to switch back and forth between dissimilar things.

    Also, in terms of injury prevention, it might also be useful to think of varying the difficulty or physical demands of the things you rotate between, so you’re not only working on the most physically demanding passages, but giving yourself a physical break too with the chunks of music you choose to rotate between.

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    March 27, 2021 at 9:50 pm in reply to: Interleaved practice

    Hi Eva,

    This is a great question, and I wish I could provide a more straightforward, structured answer, but the tricky thing is that it all kind of depends. =)

    A diving coach once explained to me how they structured their athletes’ practices, and their focus was often on trying to keep everyone in their “zone of proximal development”. As in, that sweet spot of being just out of your comfort zone, but not too far out. And this zone continuously changes as your skills grow, so it’s a moving target.

    A volleyball coach once also spoke about this a bit, and basically sought to add increasing amounts of interference via interleaved practice, variable practice, etc. whenever it seemed the players were getting a bit too comfortable with what was being asked of them.

    My take on interleaved is that it’s a really useful tool for adding more interference, and for getting better at retrieving skills. So you’re right that I don’t think it’ll be possible to do interleaved with everything, all the time. I think the challenge is to figure out what is at that stage of learning, that interleaved helps you achieve your goals more than some other kind of practice.

    So I think interleaved probably makes the most sense as you get into the middle stages of learning a piece, where it’s sort of in your fingers to some degree, and it’d be useful to start practicing getting things right the first time.

    Does that help to clarify a little bit?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    July 19, 2020 at 7:11 pm in reply to: Memory, Music and the Aging Process

    Hi John,

    A couple thoughts come to mind. One thing I’d be curious about is whether this might be related more to encoding or retrieval.

    Because on one hand, I wonder if there are ways of practicing them that might help them stick a bit better – like trying to retrieve them out of context, by trying to jump from one to another randomly with flashcards. Or “interleaving” your practice of them, by switching back and forth between them.

    I’m also wondering if the stress or pressure of the moment, might also play a role. In which case perhaps the section on focus and attention control strategies might help too, in terms of quieting the mind and being able to focus more effectively on the present moment.

    But maybe let’s start with the encoding/learning/retrieval part – could you tell me a little more about how you learn the various modes? And also how you practice retrieving them in practice?

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    July 18, 2020 at 8:54 pm in reply to: Question about mental practice

    Hi Tianhui,

    Hmm…interesting. This isn’t too uncommon, for what it’s worth. Like, if you were to try to visualize swimming or riding a bike or even running really fast and tried to imagine every single muscle movement, you would probably have a difficult time with that too since much of this is already in muscle memory and at a pretty high autonomous level of skill where you don’t have to think consciously about every single muscle movement to execute the task successfully.

    Whether this is a big deal or not might depend on what you’re trying to gain from the visualization. As in, if you’re trying to clarify your musical intention, the kind of sound you want, etc., then being able to visualize what your fingers are doing may not be quite as important. If, on the other hand, you’re trying to improve some technical aspect of your playing, then being able to feel/see the fingers in your mind might be more important.

    I wonder if having a model of some recording in your head might help to increase the speed/success of your mental runthroughs? Like, would it help to listen to a recording you like, while visualizing the feel of your fingers playing along as you listen? And then start weaning yourself off of the recording while still hearing it in your head while feeling your fingers move?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    April 14, 2020 at 5:30 pm in reply to: Performance Practice Structure

    Hi Akira,

    Great question – that’s kind of the million-dollar question, right? I wish I could say that there’s a single best way to approach this, but I don’t know if there’s an exact right way to approach it.

    For instance, some people do tons of mocks leading up to audition day for weeks. Others do more slow practice. Others do a bit of everything. Some prefer to go into audition day well rested, while others like to be physically worn out a bit (though I think the research tends to suggest that well-rested is the way to go, there are always some exceptions). Etc., etc.

    The general recommendation is to do more high-intensity performance-like practice as you get closer to audition day, and less low-intensity woodshedding as you gradually start cutting back on the amount of time on your instrument. But the exact ratio and formula depends on the person. This is where keeping a practice log can be really helpful, because the way you figure this out is you start with a theory about what might work best for you, and you log exactly what you do, and then you listen back to the recording afterwards, reflect on how it felt confidence-wise, physically, etc, and then decide what parts of your last week you might want to adjust or tweak for the next one. And then you keep track of all of the variables for the next one, and reevaluate your plan for the next one. And so from each experience, you’re able to get closer and closer to your ideal preparation formula, based on actual evidence and data that you collect over time. Kind of like going to the gym, and figuring out what works best for you based on collecting data and results over time.

    My guess would be that a good place to start would be to err on the side of more run-throughs and less woodshedding in the week of, and even cutting back quite a bit in the last 24-48 hours, where in the last 24 hours you might not play the excerpts or touch your instrument much at all, but just do some long tones, or easy warm ups, or exercises to stay connected to your instrument, and some mental practice and visualization, but not wear yourself out too much physically.

    It’s awesome that you’re doing this now, and get to use these mocks in school to start honing and refining your optimal process. You can be as nerdy as you want about tracking your training and results; I know some folks who just keep a notebook, while others have a pretty detailed excel spreadsheet and so forth, but whatever works best for you and makes sense for you and will therefore be easiest to sustain is the best. I don’t know to what degree he has laid out his own system, but if you haven’t read Jason Haaheim’s blog, you might get some general ideas on the idea of tracking process and results, you might find some there too (he’s the principal timpanist at the Met, and also worked as an engineer before getting the job, so has a very analytical, science-based thought process).

    Hope this helps to give you some ideas!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    March 6, 2020 at 7:07 am in reply to: Speeding things up

    Hi Luis,

    Yes, there’s something to be said for super slow practice – but only if you’re using motor skills that are viable at tempo. So that’s where at-tempo practice can be useful (Nathan’s note-grouping technique is a subset of this, and I think could work across instruments, and not just with scales, as it’s about practicing short bursts of notes at-tempo, regardless of what the notes are – but don’t worry about that for now).

    I found a video recently that I think might help explain the at-tempo practice specifically for guitar; let me know if this helps to give you some ideas:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPVpw2seK9E

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    February 12, 2020 at 9:59 pm in reply to: Practice Schedule Example using various exercises?

    Hi Carol,

    Yes, exactly! Some things you may find relevant and helpful, and other exercises perhaps not at the moment. So picking and choosing as you describe is often the best way to customize and create your own toolbox for improving the particular aspects of your playing that are most relevant to you at any given moment. It’s always going to be somewhat of a moving target, which can be frustrating, but also makes things endlessly interesting…

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    February 11, 2020 at 7:37 pm in reply to: Practice Schedule Example using various exercises?

    Hi Carol,

    Good question – but kind of a tough one to give a simple answer to, because the answer is that “it depends.” For what it’s worth, the question of how to spend one’s time most effectively is always a challenge – whether you’re at the beginner/intermediate level or prepping for a big audition as an experienced professional. =)

    However, I would try to approach the question in reverse. As in, as opposed to asking which exercise to use when, ask yourself what your playing goals are for the day/week/month, and then work backwards to figure out what practice strategy would best enable you to reach that goal. Because the different types of practice you’ve just learned about are just different tools that help you get to where you’re trying to go with your repertoire, and you don’t need every tool every day.

    For instance, if you have a performance coming up in a month, depending on how long it takes to run through your repertoire, you might record yourself every other day, use that to plan out what to focus on in each practice session (with deliberate practice), and incorporate centering practice into your run-throughs. Depending on how things feel, two weeks out, you might start doing daily run-throughs, and less “woodshedding”, and incorporate more mental practice, and play more for other folks. And then a week out, more mental practice, centering, etc., and playing for other people, unless you’re feeling a little burned out, in which case you might back off a bit. If things are already pretty well learned, it might make sense to do more “practice performance” even earlier, though for some, this feels too early.

    All this to say, there’s no “perfect” way to practice, and much of it is trial and error to figure out what works best for you. In terms of the overwhelm, I wonder if it would help to think in terms of 1-week “experiments”? As in, start off the week with a short run-through to see where things are, use that recording to decide what your practice goals will be for the week, and then create a plan for the week, and then record again at the end of the week to see what adjustments you might want to try for the next week. Some weeks you might do more recording in the middle, other weeks less, sometimes you may work more on performance skills like centering, and then other weeks not as much, depending on what your goals are for the week. Might that feel a little less overwhelming?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    January 30, 2020 at 4:26 pm in reply to: Question about how to structure your practice time

    Hi Axel,

    Hmm…that’s a toughie. Too much rep, and not nearly enough time is probably one of the most common issues and frustrations that comes up when I talk to folks at pretty much all stages of their careers.

    For what it’s worth, I don’t know that a perfect system exists, and I also don’t think it’s possible to accommodate everything at the level you’d like to. =)

    For many folks, it comes down to finding a way to force yourself to prioritize. Some have found it helpful, for example, to take a calendar, and block out all the times when you would REALISTICALLY be able to practice. Meaning, if you know you’re not a morning person, don’t block out 6am-9am for practicing, because it’s probably not going to be sustainable. Or if you feel lethargic after lunch, don’t block out practice time for right after lunch.

    Once you have all your practice times blocked out, mark your performance dates (whether this means actual performances or auditions or even studio class/lessons) and what you’ll have to perform when.

    At this point, you will see the practice time you have available to you, as well as the rep you need to work on, and it’s just a matter of dividing up the time and slotting in rep in these blocks of time. Kind of like when you’re making a budget for your household finances, and you budget $50 for cell phone, and $20 for pizza, etc., etc. This is budgeting time for certain rep.

    You’ll find that there isn’t enough time to go around, and things will keep changing from week to week, but this will help you avoid getting bogged down and going “over budget” as it were in certain areas, and also make it clear what to prioritize and what to de-prioritize, depending on how close you are to any given performance.

    The only other thing I’ll say is to set a very strict time limit on how much time you spend on this time budgeting process too. Like, maybe 3-5 minutes per day. Or x number of minutes every Friday at 5pm, or something like that.

    Does this help give you some guidelines on how to create a general practice plan and avoid trying to make it too perfect?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    January 22, 2020 at 9:49 am in reply to: forgetting how to play long performed & practiced parts

    Hi Alan,

    Interesting…a few thoughts:

    1. I would be curious to know if there’s anything that happens before the little botched parts/forgetting moments in performance that might help to explain why it happened. There may not be any pattern, but it could help to identify if there are specific things that might precede these moments – like a particular kind of distraction, or a spacing out, etc.

    2. I also wonder if it might help to have a system for exposing potential areas in which this could happen, if you don’t already? For instance, Met percussionist Rob Knopper did daily, cold, recorded run-throughs first thing in the morning to try to identify the things that are fine when practicing but may not be securely enough in muscle memory to be completely reliable. He also did dozens of mock auditions for different people to add more pressure and try to simulate the worst possible audition scenarios so that these potential glitches would expose themselves in advance of the audition.

    3. I’m not sure what your drills look like, but have you experimented with interleaved practice of these sections, perhaps? Sometimes too many consecutive repetitions of the same thing can lead to a deceptive level of comfort/security and make it harder to know if something is really in muscle memory or not.

    4. It sounds like it might also help to have a mental script to keep your thoughts in the present and make it harder for your brain to start worrying about the section coming up. Have you experimented with singing brain or found other specific task-relevant details that are helpful and engaging to focus on during performances that could keep your mind from going into the future?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    January 7, 2020 at 4:46 pm in reply to: Test Your Mindset Quiz

    Thanks for the heads-up, Susan. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a replacement that doesn’t require signing up for something. It’s not quite the same, but in the meantime, here’s one that works: https://www.londonacademyofit.co.uk/blog/interactive-quiz-fixed-vs-growth-mindset

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    November 24, 2019 at 3:35 pm in reply to: How can CBT fit in?

    Yeah, that’s tough – I don’t know if there’s a formula, per se. I think it’s a little different for everyone, and it happens over time. You may have seen actor Bryan Cranston’s video, which gets into this same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1WiCGq-PcY

    One helpful question to ask yourself, regarding the thoughts that pop into your head, especially on performance day, is “Is this thought helpful?” or “Is this thought useful?” You’ll see that many of your thoughts are neither of these things, and relate to things you have little direct control over.

    Over time, as the awareness grows, and you internalize the habit of focusing only on things you have control over, I think your experience of performance days can start to change, at which point your attitude may shift as well. So although this isn’t a formula, I think if you can control your thoughts, that can affect your emotional experience, which can impact your attitude towards performances as well.

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    November 24, 2019 at 10:06 am in reply to: How can CBT fit in?

    Hi Luis,

    Good question. I think it can vary a bit from person to person. As in, some people do seem to be able to adopt your friend’s type of attitude more easily than others. Some are more concerned with negative evaluation than others, as an example. But it IS something you can work on, and get closer to, and isn’t necessarily easy for everyone, so don’t get discouraged if it’s not like a light switch that you can just flip on one day. For instance, one thing that many athletes or coaches talk about is the importance of focusing only on what you have control over, and practice adopting this kind of mindset. In that you don’t have any control over how an audience will respond, or what they will think, or whether they are even listening, so it can be liberating to let go of these things and focus your attention on the things you do control (like breathing, staying focused on the present, keeping fingers loose, etc.).

    CBT can certainly play a role in this as well, if there might be some anxiety-triggering thoughts around self-worth being tied to performance outcomes, for instance.

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    September 4, 2019 at 5:24 pm in reply to: Making a highlight reel

    Hi Nicole,

    It’s great to hear you’ve had these positive performance experiences – where you’re able to walk off stage feeling amazing. Would it be possible to zero in on just a few specific moments from these earmarked performances that felt particularly good? It’s rare to have performances where everything seems to go perfectly well, in the same way that ESPN’s top plays of the day are tiny snapshots of a game, where something went particularly well (and often the player may have had a rather nondescript game other than that moment).

    If you could take little mental snapshots of those particularly good moments, maybe it’ll make it easier to see past the less than optimal moments in those performances?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    August 18, 2019 at 5:57 pm in reply to: Helpful things and tips

    Great idea, thanks Ernesto!

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    August 12, 2019 at 2:56 pm in reply to: About super fast practicing

    Glad to hear – thanks for the update, Ernesto!

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    May 8, 2019 at 8:42 am in reply to: About super fast practicing

    Hi Ernesto,

    Lots of good questions. Percussionist Rob Knopper has an approach that might be interesting to experiment with. Essentially, he learns things at tempo from the very beginning – but minimizes mistakes or “incorrect” repetitions by adding only one note to the phrase at a time. So much like how you found success in “chunking” phrases, he’ll take a tricky passage, and start by getting the last note into a comfortable groove with a metronome set at the desired goal tempo. And when that sounds exactly like he wants (maybe 8-12+ consecutive repetitions, on each “downbeat” of the metronome), he’ll add the second to last note. When those two have settled in, and he can play those notes consistently the way he wants, he’ll add the note before that, and so on, until he has built up the phrase all the way to the beginning.

    It’s time-consuming, and you do have to be sure to focus on making sure you’re playing with physical ease and maximum efficiency so as not to cause any overuse-type injuries (on the flip side, this will expose any physical inefficiencies or excess tension that might be getting in the way), but does tend to lead to pretty stable skills, and in the long run may be more helpful than learning a tricky passage like this at slow tempo with habits that don’t work at tempo, and then having to unlearn these habits when the tempo reaches a point at which they no longer work.

    Does this make sense?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    April 22, 2019 at 4:43 pm in reply to: how to break bad habits and avoid low periods

    Hi Patrick,

    Interesting situation. So if I’m understanding correctly, things seem to fall apart and revert to old bad habits after you’ve gotten things up to tempo, and add in the musical nuances?

    Leon Fleisher once said something to the effect that it’s easy to play a note, but much harder to play it musically. I wonder if that’s what’s causing the regression?

    You might experiment with something that music ed prof James Byo once wrote about. Essentially, the idea is to make sure you are adding musical details and nuances AS you get things up to tempo, not afterwards. Because adding musical details changes the motor skills slightly (or quite a bit), so you want to bake these in much sooner in the process, before the motor skills are too well ingrained minus musical details.

    So you can start at a slow tempo, with metronome, and get things to a good place. But before turning the metronome up a notch or two, make sure you can play that passage with full musical inflection (if not amplified musical detail) at that same tempo, exactly the way you want. Only then are you allowed to increase the tempo.

    Does that make sense?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    April 7, 2019 at 5:46 pm in reply to: Is centering supposed to be "enough"?

    Hi Luis,

    Yes, the breathing, releasing tension, etc. are important before playing, though it can be useful to release tension in rests, or in moments where you can, to make sure the tension doesn’t grow and increase as the performance goes on.

    And yes, the mental script is about choreographing your attention while playing. I like your phrase “musical intentions script” – because yes, it’s about keeping your mind focused on singing, phrasing, rhythm, pulse – all the things that are relevant to what you are trying to convey in the music, and keep your mind focused on the present, not on the past, or the future, or obsessing about micromanaging technical details, etc. So an example of one type of mental script is the singing brain concept in the focus chapter. It’s not as detailed in a nitty-gritty way as the word script might suggest, but it’s a specific attentional target that helps to keep us focused in a performance-enhancing way. Does that help to clarify?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    April 5, 2019 at 11:22 am in reply to: Is centering supposed to be "enough"?

    Hi Luis,

    Good questions. I think of quieting the mind and getting into an optimal “headspace” (ha!) for performing to be related, but not necessarily the same place. In that the goal when performing optimally isn’t just to quiet the mind, but then use that mental bandwidth to focus on “the music” – i.e. sound, phrasing, pulse, etc.

    I’m ok if you struggle with the “be hear now” exercise, in that I think this is really just about cultivating awareness. So if you notice your thoughts wandering as soon as that happens, you’ve really accomplished the goal of that exercise.

    The goal then, is to figure out what is most helpful to keep your thoughts occupied with. Where, for instance, if you are able to keep your thoughts really engaged with “singing brain”, there’s not as much mental bandwidth left to be able to think thoughts that aren’t relevant or performance-enhancing. So the skill isn’t to not have thoughts, but be so busy thinking relevant and helpful music-related thoughts, that you can’t think unrelated/unhelpful thoughts. It’s like if I asked you to sing old macdonald had a farm in your head, while asking you to count backwards from 100 by 3 out loud. It would be really difficult to keep the singing going as you did the math. Same sort of thing with performing – you want to be so busy engaged in the music-making thoughts, that you can’t also self-monitor/analyze/critique/worry, etc. at the same time.

    And the reason why this is so much more difficult with rep you know well, is that it’s because your brain doesn’t have to work as hard to play something you know really well. So focus becomes more challenging, hence the importance of creating a mental “script” and practicing sticking to that script even when your mind wants to wander to other things.

    Does that help to clarify?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    March 28, 2019 at 1:21 pm in reply to: A Blank Mind

    Reaching out to an aural skills teacher at a nearby university might be one place to start, but I also wonder if there might be some apps, etc. online to give you some practice opportunities at this sort of dictation? I came across this page, which links to a few other online apps/websites that might be helpful: https://www.musical-u.com/ear-training-exercises/

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    March 28, 2019 at 8:15 am in reply to: Is centering supposed to be "enough"?

    Hi Luis,

    A few thoughts come to mind. I do think that practicing getting centered could help. It might involve simplifying your centering routine, or tweaking it a bit – but also practicing getting centered in less-than-ideal situations, like the phone call one described above. So that way you’re accustomed to getting centered when you’re pretty unfocused or scattered, instead of only when you’re already in a pretty good headspace.

    It might also help to only give yourself one or two chances to get started at times, so you don’t get accustomed to being able to start multiple times. A daily run-through (even if just 5 minutes of your piece), recorded, after a short warmup, but before you’ve done any work on the piece, could also be a helpful way to practice getting accustomed to the demands of a performance and not rely on an extensive warmup or multiple repetitions before starting.

    For a real performance, it would be helpful to think of your pre-concert routine too, whether it’s some sort of relaxation or meditative ritual to get into an optimal place, before you even get backstage moments before you walk out on stage. And to practice this, so it’s not something new on the day of a performance.

    And while a pre-performance routine like centering can be helpful in starting off in the right mental and physical state, it’s also really just for getting started. Once you’ve gotten past the first few notes, this is where all the other stuff related to focus comes into play. Whether it’s singing brain, focusing on subtle nuances, pulse, etc., cultivating that ability to be relentlessly focused on the present moment and only those things that will enhance performance becomes paramount.

    More mock performances too, as realistic as possible, can help ensure that all of these elements come together and feel internalized. Because no matter how good you get at centering, etc., there will still probably be lots of things competing for your attention, and it’s likely that you still won’t be feeling totally comfortable physically, at least. So being comfortable with being uncomfortable is an important factor that can keep your mind from latching onto these things too.

    So to sum up, a) practice centering, b) practice other attention control strategies, c) in the context of 1 or 2 repetitions or recorded run-throughs after a short warmup in the morning, and d) in realistic mock performance/audition-type settings too, so that you get more comfortable and confident with performing closer to your full abilities the first time.

    Hope this helps to clarify things!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    March 25, 2019 at 4:58 pm in reply to: A Blank Mind

    Hi Pauline,

    Oof, that’s a really good question. I have to say that this was never a strong suit of mine, and I’m not really sure where to begin with this. I suspect that ear training teachers might be able to speak to this a bit better – do you know any aural skills teachers whose brains you might be able to pick? Especially who work with adults, as opposed to college-age students? Sorry I didn’t have any more specific info on this!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    March 19, 2019 at 8:14 pm in reply to: Problems with a tricky passage

    Thanks for the update, Ernesto. I’m glad to hear the exam went well. And some passages might always be a little uncomfortable – like for pianists, the Franck violin sonata has some parts that are just always a little uncomfortable, no matter how many times you play it. If you can get through it and still make it sound like compelling music, it might be ok that it doesn’t feel as comfortable as you’d like!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    March 18, 2019 at 2:23 pm in reply to: The immune system pre-concert

    Hi Will,

    Yeah, it could just be coincidence, but it could also be from stress, or changes to sleep, or increased “training load,” etc. In the weeks leading up to auditions, I think it’s helpful to make sure you’re also getting plenty of sleep to offset the additional high-pressure mocks, practicing, etc. that you’re doing.

    Here are a couple articles that you might enjoy reading that get into this a little bit:

    1) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-athletes-flu-travel/athletes-may-need-to-work-more-than-the-rest-of-us-to-avoid-the-flu-idUSKBN13X2FN

    2) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/11/sports/olympics/common-cold-athletes.html

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    February 20, 2019 at 6:54 am in reply to: Where to look vs. keeping eyes closed

    Hi Victoria,

    Interesting question. I don’t think there’s anything definitive one way or the other, and you might enjoy reading this: https://bulletproofmusician.com/do-musicians-perform-better-with-eyes-open-or-ckosed/

    I think either eyes closed, or looking off in the distance can both work – and I wonder if perhaps the anxiety about trying to have the “right” visual focus is more detrimental than where your eyes are actually looking? I think your list of what doesn’t work is spot-on and similar to what most others describe, so that’s a good start. And it does seem to be pretty situational (sometimes looking at contact point helps, but maybe just for a moment, before switching to something else, etc.), and varies from person to person.

    I wonder if rather than trying to identify the most optimal location for visual focus, what might happen if you put more energy into trying to identify the most optimal target for your mental focus? And perhaps videotape yourself as you do this? I wonder if when you’re really locked in mentally, your eyes will naturally close or go to certain places on their own in a more organic way, rather than trying to choreograph your eye movements, which may or may not lead to better mental focus? Does that make sense?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    February 17, 2019 at 7:23 am in reply to: High notes on a brass instrument

    Hi Markus,

    Good question. I have a couple thoughts.

    1) Part of the challenge seems to be finding the right combination or “recipe” of technical adjustments that enable you to play the high notes – embouchure, support, etc. There’s this small body of research about a motor learning protocol known as “old way/new way” that involves consciously contrasting the incorrect and correct (or ineffective/effective) ways of doing something. I wonder if this might help to make the technical mechanics of effective high-note-playing a little clearer and easier to replicate on your own? There’s not a lot of “how-to” type material online, but here’s an article to get started with:

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235958312_Rapid_Technique_Correction_Using_Old_Waynew_Way_Two_Case_Studies_with_Olympic_Athletes

    2) If the other part of the challenge involves staying in a good headspace and physically loose and keeping fear out of the equation, I wonder if something like the subdividing/pulse that Julie Landsman describes in much of her playing/teaching might help keep your mind busy in a helpful way at those key moments. If you haven’t yet listened to her podcast episode, that might be a good place to start (and she has put together some training on the Caruso method which gets into this too):

    https://bulletproofmusician.com/julie-landsman-on-getting-into-the-zone-and-developing-trust-in-your-playing/

    Let me know if that helps!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    February 4, 2019 at 10:41 am in reply to: Audition planning

    Great – glad you were able to get a sense of the list from colleagues. Yep, it’s hard to overdo it on the mock auditions (speaking of Rob Knopper, he did 42 in advance of his Met audition), so it would definitely be a good thing to start setting up!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    January 29, 2019 at 8:15 pm in reply to: Audition planning

    Hi Michel,

    Hmm…that’s a toughie. I’m assuming you’ve already tried to find out what past lists have looked like in previous auditions for this opening (or instrument), and perhaps could make an educated guess about what you’re likely to see.

    Beyond that, I’m reminded of clarinetist Ricardo Morales, who has said that he spends a good bit of time working on fundamentals and basics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg6qKCQvHtY), so this might be something that you could spend the next 8 weeks on as well.

    As far as a schedule goes, I wonder how you would feel about establishing a weekly prep cycle. Let’s say, for instance, that you decide to spend the next 8 weeks working on a list that you think has a good chance of including most of the excerpts you’ll have to play. Since performing the list when not totally comfortable/warmed up is probably what you’ll have to do on audition day, you could start every morning with a recorded run-through, after the same warmup that you’ll use on audition day. During that recorded runthrough, you can practice all of the skills that you’ll need on audition day – like getting centered before each excerpt, practicing your transitions between excerpts (anxiety regulation lesson), staying focused during (the focus lesson), etc.

    Then, when listening back to the recording, you can use the list of issues that you come up with to prioritize your practice time for the day. And then, perhaps, you can do a more formal mock audition every week (or perhaps more often), as a bigger test of how your preparation is going.

    Might that work as a general template for the next 12 weeks?

    In the meantime, this is a great question to ask someone like Rob Knopper (auditionhacker.com) or Nathan Cole (natesviolin.com), both of whom I’m sure would have something to say about this.

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    November 5, 2018 at 4:50 pm in reply to: 4 questions

    Hi Luis,

    Great questions. Here are some thoughts:

    1. I don’t know of many resources in this area, but one way to experiment with subdividing is to play a passage you know well, subdividing it in your head with some sort of verbal representation of pulse (e.g. la, bum, da, ta, etc.), using the fastest note value that you play (e.g. 16ths). Then play the same passage subdividing in 8ths, then quarters, then halves, then whole notes, then maybe even over 2 bars. Each time feeling free to take liberties and not try to play in a metronomic, rigid way at all, but using the subdivisions to keep everything connected. Each one will probably feel different. And then, you can mix and match spontaneously as you play, switching back and forth between whatever subdivision units helps you the most.

    2. Yes, that’s exactly it. Couldn’t have said it better!

    3. I don’t know that it’s based on science per se, but I think the classic book in this area is Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, by Susan Jeffers. I read it a number of years ago, and found it helpful, and lots of others have too. Even though it can be a little self-help-y in the way you describe. =)

    4. Yes – ultimately, the goal is to focus on the musical intention, and trust the body. Which of course is the opposite of what we do in effective practice, and must also. be practiced, and trust cultivated well in advance. But yep, that’s the goal – to get into and stay in the optimal place for performing effectively!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    October 26, 2018 at 12:11 pm in reply to: Overthinking when practicing

    Hi Don,

    Sounds frustrating indeed. I like Mery’s suggestions and will be curious to hear how that works for you too.

    A couple more ideas:
    1. Have you experimented with subdividing? Not in a metronomic way, but like how Julie Landsman describes it – where everything you play has this internal rhythm underneath it – in the same way that shooting a basketball or swinging a golf club has a natural rhythm when it’s done right. She talks about it a little here: https://bulletproofmusician.com/julie-landsman-on-getting-into-the-zone-and-developing-trust-in-your-playing/

    2. Do you remember what it was like to learn how to ride a bike? Where you just kind of figured it out, as opposed to thinking too much about what you were doing? I wonder if it might help to spend a little time isolating tricky spots that you’re overthinking, and allowing yourself a certain number of repetitions with metronome – even just of a few notes so it doesn’t get too complicated – to see if you can feel your way or intuit your way to the sound you’re trying to get? It’s a form of “implicit learning” and not quite the same as mindless repetition since you’re still going to be mindful and aware through the process. Does that make sense?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    October 12, 2018 at 10:34 am in reply to: How do I download and open the audio and video files on an iPad/iPhone?

    Hi Darwin,

    Yes! Downloading videos straight to iPhones/iPads has always been pretty tricky, but there’s an app (at least, for iOS devices) called “Documents by Readdle” which makes this process work much better now.

    So here’s how to do this:
    1. Go to the App Store and look for “Documents by Readdle” (btw, their free email app Spark, is also pretty awesome, both for iOS and desktop)
    2. When you open up the app, you’ll see a “Documents” folder with all sorts of folders and files in it. And at the very bottom right corner, you’ll see a tiny blue compass icon for the Safari web browser. Click on that.
    3. Now you’ll see a pretty normal-looking web browser. Use that to go to members.bulletproofmusician.com, log in like normal, and then navigate to whatever page and video you’d like to download.
    4. Once you’re on the page with the desired video, click the “Download Video” link in the gray box below the video.
    5. That will take you to a “Save File” page, where you can then save the video to your device. It’ll save it to your “Downloads” folder by default, and let you know when it’s done.
    6. Once you’re done downloading whichever videos you’d like to download, you can click on the blue folder icon on the bottom left, to go back to your documents screen and watch the videos you’ve downloaded in your “Downloads” folder within the app.

    Hope that helps!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    September 26, 2018 at 12:55 pm in reply to: Problems with a tricky passage

    Good stuff, Mery, thanks for posting!

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    September 26, 2018 at 12:54 pm in reply to: Problems with a tricky passage

    Hi Ernesto,

    Not being a guitarist, I might be seeing something that’s not there (so take with a grain of salt), but it seems to me that:
    a) when you’re playing at a comfortable speed, your hands/fingers look more relaxed/loose/comfortable, but that as the tempo increases, they start to tighten up. Which I’m assuming will get in the way of both speed and accuracy, and also increase the risk of injury.

    Maybe you could try recording this in slow motion, and seeing if you notice anything else happening as the tempo goes up?

    b) Also, is it possible that your fingers are moving more than they need to? As in, are they traveling a greater distance than is necessary, thus leading to an increase in tension and also the time required to get them where you want them to go? There’s a fast Paganini Caprice (#5) that I found became much easier to play when I worked on making sure my fingers not only stayed as loose and floppy as possible, but also kept my fingers hovering right over the strings instead of lifting and lowering them as far as I had been. Where it became almost more like my fingers were twitching up and down a little bit as my hand moved around the fingerboard, instead of actually pressing down the strings.

    Perhaps you could try something like keeping the hand shape and fingers super relaxed, with the fingers as close to the strings as seems reasonable (so they don’t have to travel as far), and not worrying too much at first whether the notes speak correctly or not, but focusing more on whether it feels easy. And then as you play it faster, and the notes do speak, making sure to maintain that feeling of ease and effortlessness. Because both for health and technical reasons, I think one of the critical elements in practicing this will be to make sure there is no increase in tension when you increase the speed – in both hands.

    Let me know how this goes in the next day or two!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    September 4, 2018 at 11:26 am in reply to: ACT vs Replying to your inner critic

    Hi Luis,

    Yes, I think that’s a good way to think of it!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    August 16, 2018 at 10:42 am in reply to: Combatting Numb, Shaky, and Cold Hands

    That’s great to hear, Steve. It’s always nice to win of course – but I think it’s even better when we feel like we have control over how we do on stage, where nerves aren’t dictating how things go quite so much. Thanks for the update!

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    July 25, 2018 at 9:11 pm in reply to: ACT vs Replying to your inner critic

    Hi Luis,

    Really excellent question. I don’t know if I have all of the answers in this area, but I think you’re right in that to a degree it does depend a bit on the person and the situation.

    I think ACT is a really interesting area to explore, and can be a great way to avoid getting into a no-win back and forth dialogue with yourself. Whereas instructional, motivational, and other self-talk have their place in cultivating greater control of our inner mental experience too.

    Perhaps one way of thinking of it is that one aspect of self-talk is actively initiating what we say to ourselves and cultivating a more constructive, instructional, and self-enhancing inner voice, with exercises like the Identity Statement. While ACT can be useful as a strategy for more effectively handling the self-defeating thoughts that spontaneously or automatically pop into our head.

    Does that make sense?

    Noa

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    June 22, 2018 at 12:00 pm in reply to: Singing Brain and Intonation

    Hi Patricia,

    Hmm…interesting. A couple thoughts.

    In terms of intonation, I wonder if it would help to experiment with staying attuned to singing brain, but also being aware enough of your sound (in a non-judgmental sort of way), that you can also make super-quick adjustments in the moment as you continue to stay present and focus on creating each moment?

    With regards to blending or being really in tune (pun not intended!) with your partner, it might also mean switching back and forth between singing brain and focusing on the blend of sound and interactions between you and your pianist. Or alternately, thinking of the “singing brain” sound itself as a blend of the two voices instead of thinking of yours, thinking of your pianist’s, and going back and forth.

    So ultimately, when you start getting more comfortable with singing brain and can flip the switch on and off, it might be that you’ll want a slightly “messier”, but more complex kind of focus where almost like the conductor of your focus, you’re devoting resources to one section of the ensemble at some points, another instrument at another point, etc. Does that make sense?

    Noa

  • This makes me think of platform/springboard divers, who develop an internal sense of what they are doing, but have to look at video replay to see if they are actually doing what they think they’re doing.

    Have you ever tried practicing with a mirror? Or perhaps, especially in tricky areas, videotaping (which, if it throws things off, might be particularly useful to use in this way) in slow-motion mode to see if you can identify what is happening when things get tangled up?

  • I think visualizing practicing the scales would certainly be an interesting thing to try. I’m also wondering though – are you essentially saying that in order to play the scale, you need to actively think about what your fingers need to do?

    If so, that would seem to be an indication that the scales/arpeggios aren’t learned well enough that they’ve reached the autonomous stage of learning. And so in a pressure situation, these skills would be more likely to fail, because the underlying habit strength (i.e. “muscle memory”) isn’t quite robust enough.

    Could that be part of the issue, perhaps?

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    June 8, 2018 at 9:54 am in reply to: Cody's Open Mic Progress Thread

    Thanks for the update, Cody! I like your decision-making/thought process/adjustments in May. All make sense to me. Love that you were able to record your performance, be in the moment while on stage, and then evaluate afterwards. Hope that’s something you’ll be able to do in subsequent open mics too. And I’m really glad to hear you found that your internal experience did not match what you saw and heard on the video afterwards. Indeed, it’s possible to perform really well even if we don’t feel like we’re exactly where we need to be on the inside.

    Have a great June!

    Noa

  • I’m not sure why this happens for some, but a) it happens in varying degrees to more people than you’d think (to the degree that I think a bit of discomfort when recording yourself is pretty normal), and b) I think getting nervous for recordings is actually a more useful phenomenon than being totally calm for recordings, in that it gives you an opportunity to practice the skills you’ll need in a performance/exam situation. Not fun, perhaps, but useful!

    Do you have a sense of what thoughts are occupying your attention as you play for a recording device? This might be the place to start – i.e. experimenting with singing brain, or seeing how effectively you can get “centered” before even beginning to play. And does the panic/forgetting start to dissipate at all the longer you keep playing, or does it stay the same or even get more pronounced as you continue to play?

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    September 12, 2021 at 8:47 pm in reply to: The Claw (bow hand tension)

    Hi Nicholas,

    I’m afraid I haven’t come across anything on the research side of things, but I was reminded a few months ago about a book by Tossy Spivakovsky that I read in college, and ended up experimenting a bit with. I didn’t go to the extremes that he went to, and I don’t know what a biomechanist or Alexander/Body Mapping person would say, and it doesn’t work with all bow strokes, but I did find some of the concepts in the book helpful, at least for certain passages and pieces: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015018100274&view=1up&seq=1&skin=2021

    I also think Jennifer Johnson (body mapping) might have some interesting insights on something like this and would be worth reaching out to: http://jennifer-johnson.co

    Hope this helps!

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    July 26, 2021 at 7:34 am in reply to: The tempo that one should do practice challenges in

    Hi Augustas,

    Yes – ultimately, I’d experiment with this a bit to see what ends up working the best. Because in theory, if you’re working on something new, it might help to start with at-tempo practice of the tricky passages first, to get a sense of what the demands are going to be, and then slow things down afterwards, to ensure that when you are doing slow practice, you’re still doing slow practice in a way that’s informed by an understanding of the constraints that you’ll have to work under at the goal tempo. Does that make sense?

  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    May 19, 2021 at 3:21 pm in reply to: [Interleaved Practice ]Minimum Dosage and Maximum Buckets

    Yep! I think as you continue to experiment with it, you’ll have a clearer sense of when a passage/piece is at a point where it would benefit from more interleaved, and when there might be some other approaches that might be more relevant for that particular stage of learning.

Page 5 of 8

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Starting Thursday, February 3rd, we’ll meet via Zoom once a week, and go through selected strategies related to effective practice, managing nerves, and achieving flow states under pressure. We’ll do some in-class playing experiments (don’t worry – you’ll be muted!), short weekly homework assignments, and small-group breakout sessions to help you integrate these new skills into your teaching.

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