... but perfection isn't my goal.

Well, if perfection isn't my goal, what is?

For a while, in my practice, I'm going to focus on quantity of certain things and quality of others. I am striving for perfection in my scales and in the pieces I'm working on that I hope to perform. With my etudes I'm not going to sweat perfection so much. My goal with them is to increase the speed and accuracy with which I read. I hope to learn to recognize more patterns in the music I play and get more comfortable with keys and accidentals.

Sessions 25-32

Okay, I've been delinquent in writing about my practice, but I haven't been delinquent about practicing. I've been practicing every day for over a month. That's a milestone! At this point I feel no resistance to practicing - as if my habit is now TO practice as opposed to NOT practicing. I've found places I can practice when it's not appropriate to practice at my place. My friend with a house to himself and the night janitors at the school are getting used to me.

Today I'll be working on #5 of the Gambaro book. That means I've been doing a little better on average than my estimate of two days per study.

The new scale pattern I'm learning for the Van Hoesen scales is coming along nicely. I'm about to the point where I can play the notes in my sleep - I'm working hard on intonation of those notes and the connections between them. Unfortunately, I'm having a very very hard time with leaps to high Eb and E. Nothing new for me. Maybe I should change my reeds.

I need to figure out a strategy for my next step with Van Hoesen scales. Here's the issue: the work I need to do becomes exponentially harder for here on out. Whereas I've been playing one pattern in every key every day, my next step involves learning a chord progression of five chords in each key - 5 times as much work. The step after that involves seven chords in each key. Then I need smush it all together. The point is this: OMG!!!1! I'm going to need 12 hours a day just to get through my scales!

So these two guys are at a bar...

Guy #1: I'll bet you your IRA that I can eat that bicycle sitting over there.

Guy #2: That sounds like a great bet. Even if you do eat that bike, I just started my IRA. There's only $20 in there. It's worth twenty bucks just to watch you try. Snicker snicker.

Guy #1: Okay! whispers You'll be sorryyyyyyyyyy...

Guy #1 proceeds to a machine shop and has the bike ground into a fine powder. He then proceeds to his local apothecary and has them put the powder into millions of little capsules.

Guy #1 takes two of the capsules with each meal. 50 years later he takes the last capsule, and lives for free for the rest of his life off of the retirement account of Guy #2, who happened to be a savvy investor.

Moral of this story: I'm full of it. Dude would have died of iron poisoning after a week...

Real moral: Break your practice into digestible chunks and you can do just about anything.

Today I'll start working on those chords.

Day 3, Session 2

If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? - John Wooden

This afternoon's goal: do it right the first time. I had a tasty lunch and puttered around the house long enough to let it settle. It's time to do some work and do it right.

Work on CPE Bach. Did technical work on the third movement. Avoided the temptation to procrastinate on practicing flicks on D.

Tomorrow: Begin metronome work on scales - morning diagnostic work, to set goals for afternoon. Technical work on remaining two movements of CPE Bach.

Day 3

Resolve and Realism

Well, I never made it back to the practice room yesterday. How much should I fret about this? It's hard to say. Examining why I never went back to the practice room may be a better use of our time.

I ended yesterday's journal entry with this:

...I didn't make it through ten of them because my embouchure was tired and I was losing concentration, but I hope to have another session later today... As long as I'm challenged every time I practice I'll feel alright about my progress.

There are a couple of problems with this statement. The first falls in the italicized statement above. Hoping to have a second practice session is not the same as resolving to have another practice session. I also hoped that someone would hand me a fat sack of fifty dollar bills and a fully stocked retirement portfolio. My grandmother understands this concept. In her wise words:

You can hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which one gets full first.

Well, my hands are full of something and it ain't hope, people. If I had resolved to practice again, my day would have been very different. I would have made different choices about how I spent my time. I would have set a time in the evening to be alone somewhere with my instrument and I would have adhered to that.

The next sentence has a problem, too. Read in a wimpy voice "As long as I feel challenged every time I practice, I'll feel alright about my progress." Dear Readers, that is permission to be LAME. I don't want to "feel alright about my progress." I want to win auditions. I want to give stellar performances that make people laugh and cry and give me money. Feeling "alright" about my progress isn't going to get me there, but feeling like the best bassoonist in the world because I've done everything in my power to be that, just may get me there.

Session 1

Goals:

I have a busy day, but I'm resolved to practicing more than once. What I play this session will be similar to yesterday's session, only better. I've eaten a light, healthy breakfast and am moving forward with a great attitude and resolve.

I have some errands to do after this session is finished, but plan to be back in the chair by 2:30.

The Session

My chops didn't get tired until the end of my scales in thirds. I tweaked my reed a little and it feels pretty good. Has a brassy tone that I don't like, but that may mellow with time. I didn't notice any fatigue in my right arm, but did notice some tension when I began my reading session. I made it through seven studies, one of which was remarkably like a Milde study. I'm not too proud of my reading on that one - I'd like to come back to it and really learn it sometime. Its was #21.

Focus was much much better. Didn't lose attention until after about an hour when chops got tired. It was a good practice session. A couple more hours of that each day and I may just be alright.

Goals for next session:

I didn't pack up my bassoon - a sign of my resolve.

I need to do some technical work on my scales in thirds in certain keys. Not surprisingly, it's the highest range of the instrument that needs the most work. That kind of work is best done with a fresh mind and embouchure. I'm going to work on a piece of music this afternoon. In the next few hours I'll be thinking about my plans and what pieces it would make sense to spend time on.

Because of my day job (which technically happens at night, but is none-the-less a necessity at this point in my life) I'll probably only get one more hour of practice in today. I'd better make it a good one!

The Experiment: Day One

Diversions

Summer is here and I'm having my typical motivational issues with practice. There are so many wonderful distractions this time of year. The weather is beautiful and I live in a place where I can drive a short distance in any direction to view scenic vistas and swim in sparkling mountain rivers. My garden beckons me every morning for attention, and, if I try hard enough, I can find a party or cookout to go to any day of the week.

This fall I'll be returning to school to begin work on a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree. I've landed a spot at an incredible school; I'll be in a true conservatory environment and I need to play at my best.

I've been out of school for about a year. This time last year I was playing the best I'd ever played in my life, but a lot can happen in a year. During the academic year I focused intensely on managing my first lecture format classes. I made a few performance opportunities for myself, but my biggest goal was to learn to navigate in the classroom and give my students the opportunity to learn that they deserved. Days of practicing got missed, but I was learning so much on the job that I allowed my playing to slip a little.

...okay. I let my playing slip a lot.

Wake-up Call

I watched a video of a recent public performance I was involved in. My playing was just plain bad. My intonation was spotty, I didn't have the dynamic control that I thought I had, and I missed a startling number of notes. Completely missed them. In obvious places. Ouch.

This simply will not do.

The Experiment

I recently read a blog post about the Public Humiliation Diet: http://deadspin.com/5545674/the-public-humiliation-diet-a-how+to (Warning: Strong Language). The concept revolved around the dieter publishing his weight daily on Twitter.

I need a little healthy external motivation for practicing, so I'm going to publish a daily practice journal in this blog. Just knowing that I have a great chance of making public what a HUGE slacker I am should give me a big push. It will also help me organize my thoughts and goals by forcing me to state them in clear language. When I have time and the inclination I'll also write about my experiences in practicing, practice techniques, frustrations, motivations, and anything else that I think will help myself and my readers.

I openly welcome comments, ideas, and suggestions. If you feel inspired to share your practice techniques, please do. They can only offer insight for myself and other readers.

Day 1

Goals:

1. Get back into the game. Begin getting my head and body prepared to be in a daily routine again.

2. Regain strength in my embouchure.

3. Remember what my body feels like in a focused practice session.

4. Scrape in a new reed and work on one that's in progress.

5. Have fun! I love to play the bassoon. That's why I do it.

The Session:

The first time I play in a day, I like to start with my major and minor scales. I find that I can focus very clearly for the first 15 minutes and often find myself in an extremely pleasant zone, where I can feel every muscle move and hear the tiniest flaws in technique.

I like to play the notes slowly so that I can compare pitches, timbres, and volumes between notes. It's a wonderful exercise, and especially enjoyable if I'm playing on a good reed.

My reed wasn't great today. Any problems it had were compounded by my wimpy embouchure. My lips were tired by the end of my major scales. Oh dear. I spent a few minutes scraping in that new reed to let my lips rest before leaping into my minor scales.

Teaching lessons can often illuminate issues in your playing and understanding of music that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. For instance, it was not until teaching minor scales to a gifted student that I realized how inadequate my ability to identify minor keys was. I was having to think too long to tell her what the key signatures for minor keys were. Because I know this, because my chops were already tired (ugh!), and because I needed to try out that new reed anyway, I decided to focus my attention during my minor scales less on intonation and more on note names and key signatures. Today I realized that I have always played my minor scales completely by ear. Even though I was going around the circle of fifths I forced myself to identify the key signature and raised seventh of every scale that I played. I plan to continue to do that until it becomes automatic - a skill that I feel I should have developed long long ago.

That reed was pretty good for a first day scraping. By tomorrow it will have hardened up and I can refine it a little.

After finishing my scales I was at a lack for what to play next. I felt so rusty and I wasn't particularly focused for technical work anymore. What could I do that would be a good use of my time? I have some vague ideas about a recital before I leave for school, but no distinct plans yet. Certainly no rep picked out.

Sight reading! I've always been a little tense about sight reading. I'm not terrible at it, but it could always use improvement, so I picked up my wrinkly old Weissenborn book and started in on the 50 Advanced Studies. My students often work on select studies for auditions, and I'm always taken by their charm. I also felt that I needed something that wouldn't frustrate me today. I read down the first six.

By the time I was done with that, I'd been practicing for about 45 minutes. My concentration was zapped by my tired mouth and a strain I was feeling in my right shoulder. I've always felt that it's best to only practice when you can focus, so I packed up. I'm confident that my focus will improve throughout this experiment.

Future Practice:

With more playing and reed scraping I'll be able to play for longer. Hopefully my right shoulder will build up some strength - I need to keep an eye on that and experiment with changes in playing positions if it hasn't improved by the end of the week. I've had problems before.

I'm going to play through all of the Advanced Studies. My reading needs to be in top shape when I get into ensembles in the fall. They're also charming and fun.

I need to be playing my scales in thirds. They're not in bad shape, but they are a step in getting fluent with my Van Hoesen Scales - I goal I hope to achieve by the end of June.

Other summer goals: double-tonguing, consistency in the highest range of the bassoon, a pile of good reeds, and increased general competence on the instrument. I'd like to end my summer with a solo/chamber performance that I can be proud of. I want to walk into the next phase of my education confident and ready to learn, with as little rehashing as possible.

Thank you for reading about the first day of my experiment! Was this helpful? What comments do you have?