So with COVID-19 happening, I've had more time to practice. Which has made me think about practice habits and just habits in general. So here are a few things I've been pondering and am seeking to incorporate more into my personal practice time.
1. Recording myself. And then actually listening to the recording later, no matter how personally painful it might be.
I didn't actually start recording my lessons until I was in grad school, and even then it was because my professor (the esteemed Mr. Alan Bodman) had a fancy thingamajig recording machine in the studio that could burn directly to a CD. I would walk out of every lesson with the honest intention
of poring over the recording to glean every last bit of wisdom from the depths of the compact disc. And then the week would happen. Or I would forget. That was a mistake.
Recordings are like mirrors and show us as our “true” musician selves. We can't hide and pretend that the passage we've been fudging for two weeks sounds better than it actually is. So maybe we should consider recording ourselves more, which is admittedly more efficient and may help us avoid the trap of self deception (i.e., pretending the intonation on those double stops was flawless just so we don't have go practice them for ten more hours...).
2. Practicing consistently.
I'll admit, I have a nasty habit of trying to learn too much music in too little time. Artists like Hilary Hahn learn repertoire a year in advance; that should tell us something. Although it can't always be the case, we really need to regularly practice THE SAME sections of music day after day after day, instead of assuming that we can master that really hard passage just a few days before the concert. Therefore, while we may practice daily, we really need to give attention to the same passages of music each day and allow our mind and body to build on what it learned the day before. I read somewhere about the development of brain networks and how important it is for consistent, regular repetition of whatever it is I'm trying to learn...
3. Being gracious. And Patient.
Building on the above, we should acknowledge that learning an instrument takes time and that we will ideally always be learning. Unrealistic expectations and an attitude of demand can steal our joy. We need to recognize and be grateful for even small amounts of progress instead of being focused only on areas that need improvement. I was reading through the Practice Monkeys website the other day and, while this is not necessarily a full-fledged recommendation for the program, I did appreciate the incorporation of two “fun” days of practice for every four days of “practice monkey” practice (I understood this to mean focused practice directed at learning lesson concepts). Sometimes we just need to have fun. So when we find ourselves losing a bit of the joy due to trying to do too much at once, we should consider taking a little break to play the old familiar songs. Allowing ourselves to improvise on familiar melodies and giving our brain a break can reignite our joy and leave us feeling refreshed, ready to tackle the next “practice task.”
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