Practice Tips #2: Practice Slowly

Hey everyone, Sulli here and I'm back with episode 2 of the Practice Tips series. Today, I'm bringing back an older topic from the previous series and mixing it up a little bit. As the title says, one of the best things to do is practice slowly. If you want to read the original article(and it's worth a look over, but nothing great): http://sulliadm.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-to-practice-episode-1-start-slow.html

Back to the topic, one of the more common problems in musicians is the desire to keep things fast, especially while practicing. While that is not a bad idea if you know what you're playing, the better option is to play slower than you think. The overall objective of practicing is to know what the music you are learning is, not just recognize it through finger motion. Learning it involves not only being able to play it, but to be able to play it starting from anywhere. In order to get that deep of learning something, one must practice slowly.

Another thing to remember when practicing slowly is everything that goes in behind the music, such as bowings/breath marks, articulations, the style of the piece, etc. Run through the piece multiple times at that tempo and do the following: 1st focus on the note accuracy; make sure you can play every note at that tempo and the pitch is correct. 2nd focus on the articulations and bowing/breath markings and enforce those because they are there to make the piece easier or to sound a certain way that the composer likes. Finally focus on the stylistics if there is a style listed.

The way to tell if you're starting off too slow is if you can follow the checklist above and not have any errors. Usually when I'm deciding where to start the tempo at, I usually start with the tempo as written, then dial it back 20. If that's too fast, then I go back in intervals of 5 or as close to that as you can get. After you have completed the song or section several times and feel comfortable speeding up, then do so slowly. Only make tempo jumps in increments of no more than 5 BPM (beats per minute). This insures you are sure you know what you are playing. This process is a long way, however the payoff is you are creating beautiful music. There will be times this will be cumbersome, annoying, and possibly time consuming but I promise this is the way professional musicians like to practice.

So, as you have hopefully seen this thought can be used as a good mentality to practice with whenever one may need it. If you like what you have read then don’t forget to Subscribe to the blog via email (to the right), YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or SoundCloud. As always, thanks for reading and remember to fear the cellos!

Practice Tips #1: A Musician Should Live by Frizzle's Law

Hey guys, Sulli here with the first Practice Tips in a while. I'm going to make this an actual series now, and will have its own tab and picture soon but let's start off slowly. First, let me say I am a 90's kid, so I will use a lot of 90's-00's references when I'm writing these tips so bear with me if you don't quite get them at first. Anyone who has been in a science class at all since the mid-late 80's will recognize this first reference.

                                                  

So, let me go ahead and say one of the biggest problems that I see in students that I've taught or have studied with. They aren't confident enough with their instrument and/or not confident enough with their playing. I, too, have had my fair share of these sorts of mishaps and still do from time to time as well, however what got me through that was with a little saying; live by Frizzle's Law. Now, as you can probably guess I'm referring to Mrs. Frizzle from "Magic School Bus". Her most famous saying is to "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy" and I see it as the perfect example to practice and sight read by.First we have “take chances”. I see this as, "Don't be afraid to take a chance on something new. Do it because you know no matter what, you will benefit from it.” Use this as a way to see a mistake in the practice room or from sight reading as menacing. One will never grow as a musician, or a human being, if they don’t ever look at something new and say it’s too hard. Personally, I love to go for new stuff. I look for the most challenging pieces I can find and try to play through them. If they are completely out of my league then I put it down and come back to it whenever I think I think it’s just the right amount of challenging. That, too, is another point I need to stress as well. If it’s entirely out of your league then don’t force yourself to play it. One should know his or her strengths and weaknesses however don’t ignore it because you think it’s too hard. Give it a look over, or try to play through it. If you can’t make it through, then don’t push yourself too hard.

Next we have, “make mistakes”. Now, in this case I don’t mean to make them intentionally while performing or repeatedly make them when you should have fixed them in the first place. By this part, I mean “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake when practicing because something is too difficult”, or “Don’t let making a mistake in a performance throw you off your zone”. Don’t let a mistake make you frustrated while practicing. Remember that you are simply practicing a piece, not performing it so should there be one then note it and work on it more. A good musician knows when a mistake is from not practicing enough, and when it’s an honest mishap (yes, they will happen whether you’re ready or not). When it is an honest mistake, and you are in a situation where it would not be in the best interest to stop playing then don’t stop. Don’t let a mistake throw you off your zone.

Finally, we must remember to, “get messy”. This doesn’t mean to get messy with your technique, but “Don’t be afraid to sight read music because it might sound messy”. Don’t forget that you are practicing for a performance which shouldn’t sound messy. One should get messy when it comes to practicing and sight reading because the piece shouldn’t be performed messy.

So, as you have hopefully seen this thought can be used as a good mentality to practice with whenever one may need it. If you like what you have read then don’t forget to Subscribe to the blog via email, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or SoundCloud. As always, thanks for reading and remember to fear the cellos! 

Composer's Vlog Ep. 4: Let's start wrapping things up... Or are we??

Hey everyone, Sulli here with the 4th installment of The Composer's Vlog. This episode is about finishing as much as we could get this time. Also I introduced Tevarus, a friend of mine who has helped me with this composition. Don't forget to leave a like and a comment if you enjoyed this! Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already! Subscribe via email (to the right) or through YouTube. Thanks for watching!

Quick Announcement and Unboxing video

Hey guys, sorry about the lack of interaction lately. I've had a lot going on between personal stuff and tech issues but I'm here to say there will be a Composer's Vlog episode tomorrow! Including into that technical difficulty problem, there appears to have been a massive glitch among subscribers so if you have previously subscribed and would like to remain subscribed then please enter the email again to the right. Also, there appears to have been some posts that were suppose to have posted automatically over the week but didn't go out so I'll have them up at their normal times next week.

If you would like to watch an unboxing of the new Iron Man soundtrack then click on the preview window below. Thanks for reading and subscribing! See you tomorrow everyone!

World Music Experiment is coming.

Hello to all. Hope all you readers have been well, I know I have. I just would like to give a heads up to everyone who is just dying (not really) for the latest installment of the ''world music experiment''. It is coming! I promise! I am just an extremely busy person on the go a lot, so sitting down to write a post is sometimes the farthest thing that's on my mind. Although there will be some gaps in between episodes, I have made a commitment to post and will do so when time allows me. None the less, you all can expect an episode on Bossa and Samba on Sunday and I hope it will be quite knowledgeable. If there is anything particular you would like me to cover, post a comment and I will get on it. If not, I will continue as I please. Reader feedback is nice so let me know( or not its your lives).
                                                                                    -Lester

Caption Contest and some announcements! There's a great prize this time! :D

Hello everyone! Sulli here, and I have a few announcements:

First off, I caught a cold which led to my voice being completely gone so no Podcast today however I am going to post the interview in the next Podcast along with the next series. If you have a suggestion for the next series, then let us know by contacting us through Facebook, Twitter, or through email. I have something planned for it as of now but after that is open to what the viewers would like to see. For those who want to know the schedule, tomorrow will be a "How to Practice" episode by me, Thursday will have the next episode of "Organ: a Dissertation in Umpteen Parts".  Friday will be the next World Music Experiment episode, and finally after the lack of entries to the "Song of the Week" series, I've decided to put it on hold and will move the Composer's Vlog to Saturday. Keep submitting songs, because it will come back later on just don't expect anything immediately.

Secondly, I wanted to let everyone know how much I love and appreciate the support that you've been giving us. We finally hit the 8,000 viewer mark on May 30th and I have been talking about it on my personal Facebook but not on here, so thank you. If you haven't already subscribed to us then please do! We're working very hard to keep content on here up to date and entertaining.

The last thing is we are hosting a Caption Contest for an ASMTB "ParaChord" Bracelet (picture below). Shout out to Wayne for making it! Using the picture provided and either a meme generator or Photoshop, create a caption to go along with this picture and post it to us on either the Facebook page or the Twitter page. Best entry wins the bracelet and a shout out on both pages. If you can't think of anything, but you still want a bracelet you still have a chance! Just go onto either page (links are at the top on the Nav. bar), like/follow the page(s) and share the contest picture. If you can do that, you will be entered into winning one! So, let's start seeing some entries!! Good luck!

Here's the picture for the contest:

And here's a picture of the prize:

One ASMTB Para"Chord" Bracelet

Composer's Vlog Ep. 3: Time to Take a Step Back for a Brief Moment

Welcome back to the 3rd installment of the Composer's Vlog. Sorry about the delay but this one was a bit of a tough one to edit this week because of a few bugs I had to deal with. Today's episode started out as a test for recording audio a new way, but wound up not working so sorry for the technical difficulties. However, I left the first full "rendering" of the song for you to enjoy at the end. Take a look at the video and let us know what you think. For those who actually read this, I'm starting season 2 soon without any more screw ups like I have in this season, so stay tuned for at least one more season of this show ;)

If you like what you've seen then leave a comment below and subscribe for more Composer's Vlog episodes.

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