Practice Tips #3: Don't Be Afraid to Play Outside Your Comfort Zone

Hey guys, Sulli here with the weekly Practice Tips. Before I continue though, I want to say that I'm sorry about the lack of posts over the past week or so. I've been having some major computer problems so expect a small delay on these and The Composer's Vlog. As always, don't forget to subscribe if you like what you've read and if you would like to enter our contest today on creating a name and/or logo then feel free to do so! There's going to be a special surprise for everyone Friday in order to make up for this!

Today's lesson is not be afraid of getting out of your comfort zone. As most people will know, that tends to be a very common problem with musicians, especially younger ones. The best thing to do is to not be afraid of what you're trying to do. Have the confidence to play what you think it sounds like, versus not playing anything at all. It is better to have learned from ones mistakes than never taking the risk and tried. Another thing to point out now is that some people may not realize they're stuck in a comfort zone "rut", but they may need that special push the get them out. In this case, you or your friend will need some motivation.

Some motivational ideas for younger students (this works on 20 year old college students as well... Trust me on that ;P) is holographic stickers. Give them stickers after going farther outside to learn something new as a reward. If stickers don't work then you can use anything that will get their attention from candy, to new music or simply praise. It's all up to you. For older students or adults who need that kick, then use whatever reward they prefer. The best for some would be going out with friends and having a good time or just spending a night to yourself. It is all up to you. I mean, if you really wanted to you could write a post about what you do and how it makes you feel! :D If you do then don't be afraid to leave a link in the comments! And as always click the links above to follow us on FB, Twitter, or Soundcloud!

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! 

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.