Theme of the Year

 

Each year, I chose a theme on which to base many of the lessons to be learned- something that we can always revert back to as a way of tying everything together and having a unilateral concept for study. The following are the themes from this year and the two years before that.

2008-2009

"Make it Work (It's all in your hands)"

Explaination coming soon, as this one may involve a photo...

2007-2008

"Eyes on the Prize"

This year, I am keeping my eyes on the prize. I am always thinking about the end game. What do we want to end up with in playing, in practicing, in life? In reference to viola, we ultimately want four very broad things. We want to play musically, in tune, with beautiful sound and with excellent rhythm. Seems overly simple. But the idea here is that if we are always thinking about that, and about how we want it to sound in the end, we can approach every step of the learning process with this perspective and therefore also hold ourselves to the "Carnegie Hall Standard" even from the very beginning. Ultimately we want a pay-off, and we want our audience to have a pay-off as well. If we practice with this in mind from the very beginning we are exponentially increasing our likelihood of success on all fronts by implementing this for a longer period of time. Build all of the concepts in from the foundation of the practicing up, and it will be a part of the foundation all the way through the process.

Practical Application of Eyes ont the Prize:

1. Hold yourself to the highest standard, and don't make excuses for yourself, or let yourself get away with anything you wouldn't want to happen on the stage, in the studio, or at Carnegie Hall.
2. Listen for what you like- if you really think something is only OK, then it's going to only be OK, and not great or wonderful, or fulfilling. Find a sound you love, and you then will be sharing that sound with your audience (and inso be more likely to play something for them that they too will love). Listen closely to the intonation in those double stops- if it's close, it will only ever always be close and not right on the money.
3. Don't get overly frustrated. It is possible to do anything if you do it slow enough. The slower you go, the more you can think about while you do it, therefore practicing in more and more points at once earlier on in your practice process. In other words, if it doesn't work, go slower. Go as slow as you need to to get it done right from the very beginnning. This will also reduce the amount of practice you actually have to re-do. Imagine if you play a section of music for intonation, play it again for rhythm, play it a 3rd time for tone, and once more, "with feeling." Then think of the other option: play it 4 times slower while thinking of intonation, sound, rhythm, and phrasing. You've done all 4 things at once and are actually being more efficient with your valuable time. Besides, slow practice is meditative and a great way to get lost in the right side of the brain.

None of the above is meant to replace the valuable practice tool of isolation of problems. I still put a huge amount of weight in the importance of finding the problem, Diagnosing the problem, Isolating the problem technical issues (Shifting, LH, String Crossings, Hand patterns, Double stop distance issues, you name it!), fixing the issue, practicing it more times than right, and then putting the problem back into context. One thing that I always reiterate to my students, however is that it is always very important not to practice in other bad habits when isolating problems, ie., don't practice the notes around a shift that you are fixing out of tune or with a bad tone or you will be practicing in whatever bad thing that you're not noticing or not fixing. Keep your eyes on the fact that what you're working on , while focused on the problem, is not an island in and of itself and other factors must come into play. And think about it, when you're practicing for intonation (isolating intonation problems), it always helps to do it with good sound. You can hear it better!

2006-2007

"Every Note Counts"

Students (or even professionals) often don't realize how everything they do effects them. Every note counts- whether it be your career, your practice, your networking, your professional development, your own love of what you do, or even your physical side of playing. If you think of every note you play as being a contributor to your overall accomplishment in everything you do, you realize that maybe you should be more careful with these notes! There are a number of ways this applies to life in the musical world and life in general, and the following are ways you can think of how "Every Note Counts:"

1. When practicing, every note that you play is part of what you are building out of that practice. If you play something wrong 3 times and then play it right 3 times, you have practiced it equally wrong as you have right and inso have not really increased your likelyhood of playing it correctly in the end. These wrong notes count! When practicing for intonation, and you play an out of tune note and then adjust it, all you have done is practiced adjusting bad intonation! What counts here is that you have worked on the adjusting and not on playing the note in tune from the beginning. This kind of wrong practice counts because in the end, you're going to be someone who plays out of tune, even if you can hear it and fix it. Out of tune is out of tune, no matter which way you face it. These notes count. It is better to play it right from the beginning, or even fix every mistake (and play it more times right than wrong), because as much as playing things incorrectly counts towards being more likely to make mistakes in performance, so does playing it right more times than wrong. Even the good notes count....

2. Every Note you play in front of others Counts: The musical world is very small. What you do professionally can effect you in more ways than you know, and you would be surprised about what comes up years and years after the fact. It is important to remember that how you carry yourself professionally (and even in school) can effect you positively and can come back to haunt you. You should be as careful with your public persona as you are with the details in your practice room. Say you cancel on a gig, or don't show up, or take a higher paying gig at the very last minute leaving that lower paying gig scrambling for a substitute. Someone, somewhere will remember that you are an ureliable player and either they will not hire you again (which you may not care about ), or they may recommend to someone else (anyone else, the musical world is small) that you are not a reliable hire. Think about how you act in school- if a teacher knows you as a person who skips lessons, doesn't come prepared to classes or lessons, or thinks that you are not serious or are a sloppy dresser (merely because you wear messy clothes to your lessons), then are they more likely to recommend you for the job or the serious student who comes prepared and dresses like they care about what they are doing? Even if the 1st is more talented, I am going to recommend the person I can rely on. Every note (and every outfit) can effect your hire-ability! If you take your job as student seriously, then your teachers will take you seriously and there is nothing better than having your professors be your advocates. The music world is indeed very small.

3. Lastly, every note that you play does effect you- not that there are a finite number of notes and you're going to run out of them, but if you think about playing the notes well as a bank account that you have and good notes are like deposits and bad notes are like withdrawls. If you consistently play bad notes, you'll find that you'll run out of account balance for good notes. This running out is connected to the pay-off you get from playing well. The less and less good feelings you get from playing, the less and less you'll want to play. It's just the name of the game. It's part of being an efficient practicer too. We all have gotten into the cycle of not practicing because it sounds bad and sounding bad because you are not practicing. Keep making deposits in the good note bank and you'll always have something to fall back on. Everyone makes mistakes- all of this is not to say that you should expect perfection- we all just need to make sure that the balance is in favor (very good favor) of the good notes over the bad in all aspects of what we do, from the beginning of the process to the end of the process.

2005-2006

"Less is More"

The Less is More concept is fairly self-explanatory. We want to do less and get more results, and often time, especially in viola playing, less can often produce more. With regards to sound, the more you press, the less good tone you get; the opposite is then true, the less you press and the more you let gravity play your viola for you, the more great sound you get. I decided that this Less is More concept applies to so much more than just sound. Often in teaching I find myself helping a student to undo a lot of extra and unecessary stuff that they are doing. For example, one student may be using their shoulder or their upper arm, or their wrist too much (if at in regards to that shoulder) when making a sound with the bow. I will teach them to really just do nothing and see how much more sound they get. This is an example of where less begat more! Or in practicing- a student comes into the lesson and doesn't play very well- they bemoan the fact that they practiced 4 hours a day and yet things sound like they didn't even touch the viola for days or weeks. I ask about how they are practicing and it turns out that they are just doing a lot of not very helpful stuff- they are being inefficient with their practice and doing more and getting less. We re-vamp the practice organization process and the next week the student gets done in two hours what they didn't even begin to get done in 4 (or 8 or 10 or 12!!!). It's a matter here where doing less of the right stuff is far far more effective than lots of the wrong stuff.

Less is more also is a good thing to consider when thinking about the physical issues of playing. If you are getting sore or some sort of injury, the first place to look (after consulting a physician, of course) is at where you are spending your energy and how you can do less to help you with your overuse problems or tention issues. I always find the less is more concept to help me when I'm feeling tired before I should be. Even in intonation- I know that if I consistently miss 4th finger, the first place I should look is at the tention in my left wrist.

Less is More applies to the left hand, the right hand, to practice, and to many other things. It is important to think about not wasting our energy on the wrong things, but in fact saving it for the right ones. Wouldn't you much rather spend the energy on phrasing and musical aspects, rather than being tight and wound up, exerting all sorts of energy on the double stop passage? It's better for the audience and better for you to put the energy where it matters most! Practice slowly to make things easier for yourself. Figure out how you can do less and you will end up with more in the end.