How to Practice Episode 8 : Don't freak out over a mistakes!

Hey guys! Sorry the page has been a little dry lately but final exams are just around the corner and I've been busy studying for them! I sense my older viewers are laughing right now but the younger ones don't get this at all but that's fine with me! Anyways today I am here to talk about one of the bigger hindrances to performing in front of a crowd or simply playing for your family around the holidays; the fear of making a mistake! This doesn't seem like that big a deal but it really does mess with your performance if you don't know the proper way to deal with this situation. Before I start talking about this topic, I wanted to announce a contest! I'll be giving away some Magic Rosin (3G and 3G Ultra) and some advertising space on here if you want to recommend your page to my viewers! I will post an official announcement after I talk out all the details and such. Also, for those who aren't aware, I do a vlogging series on Youtube and I am about to start a full video series on Finale! If you aren't aware of Finale, it's a program which you can write music in and I was thinking about doing a series on teaching the basics to it. If you are interested in the series or have ideas for me, then let me know by tweeting me on Twitter (@sulliadm), or join the Facebook Fan Page!

Now, have you ever felt very ill about playing to family or friends because you were afraid of messing up. Or have you ever been on stage to preform and felt stage freight from being afraid of messing up? I will admit that I had the exact same feel with my recital last Thursday and I got a good taste of what it's like to go through a mini panic attack from actually messing up... But there is a way around that. You have to learn how to continue playing after messing up. This might sound harder than it actually is because for the most part, it's all a mental state of thinking. You have to learn that messing up is just the way we are! We will make mistakes, but they shouldn't stop you in the middle of a performance. The big secret of music is, if you're playing to people who don't know the music as well as you do or are playing to people who aren't very "music savvy" then if you mess up then they probably won't notice. I'm not saying that you should mess up a song nor am I saying you shouldn't practice a piece and go on and mess it up! I'm saying if you mess up while playing a piece, then don't over react to it and either stop what you're doing or freak out on stage.

Here's an example from my personal life. For those who are new to the series, I am a freshman cellist @ Winthrop University. I've been studying with the cello professor there for a few years now  and she's been teaching me how to play the Saint Saens cello concerto #1 for around a year now. When one of the other cellist had to give a recital for the graduation requirements, she asked me if I would be interested in playing the first movement of the song for a "half recital" (a recital that doesn't count towards your graduation, but is more for fun and experience). Being the kind of person that I am (a little crazy but will take almost any opportunity to learn and grow), I decided it would be awesome to do it. I went through the usual feeling about the first time on stage "alone" would be good for my personality of being a little antisocial (which it did help). During the performance however, there was a disconnection in tempo in the middle of the song and we got off. When I noticed, I started to freeze up but I noticed I was near a break in my part so I kept going until the break and waited for my next entrance. After all was said and done, I talked to some friends outside who listened and said they only noticed my stopping because I was showing it.

It can be a difficult thing to learn, and there's not really a way to learn this skill besides experiencing it.

How to Practice Episode 7: Practice with a metronome

Hello guys and welcome back! I know that this is a fairly obvious thing but you would be surprised at how many people overlook this tip. Metronomes have been around before the times of Beethoven but they have gotten better over time. The reason why we use them is to make sure you're practicing at a constant tempo. One should learn a piece at a constant tempo even if it has stuff like accelerando or rubato and after learning it at the main tempo then add the accelerando, rubato or whatever changes the tempo. If you can't play it at the tempo given, then one should practice under the marking. The rule of thumb with myself when I'm practicing is if I'm having problems at the tempo listed I slow it down by 10 or the closest number to 10 below. Then so on until I have a tempo I can play it at well. Then I play it at that tempo until I have played it 5 times perfectly, which I then go to speed it up by the next marking on the metronome. I repeat that until I can get it back to the marked tempo and then a couple of clicks higher just in case the conductor starts the song off on the fast side.

I know this was a really short post but there isn't much I can say about this. If you liked it please follow the Facebook Fan Page (click here), the Twitter page (click here) or subscribe to the blog by email or RSS! I would like to get some people to start posting on the Facebook page about the music they use.