Time to Practice. Again.

Some days, it’s all about the sheer number of hours you have to put in.

When you’re preparing for any sort of performance, audition, or solo recital you need to practice in many different ways. Careful deliberate practice is where you tease apart the small transitions between notes and analyze what exactly is happening or, in many cases, not happening. And then once you figure out the nuts and bolts, there is a lot of repetition. Not thoughtless repetition, but repetition that reinforces a particular pattern of notes.

And it can be boring! Because even though I’m conscious and mindful while I do this, I know that what I’m doing is creating this pattern over and over so that when I get to it in performance, it is absolutely ironclad. Bulletproof. And it just takes a whole lot of time (at least for me!).

But an interesting thing happens while I’m doing countless repetitions of a passage. I start noticing other things. Fourth finger not working very well? Not the right kind of vibrato on that long note? A need to change the speed on the bow to create a certain kind of sound? New and different sets of observations start bubbling up. It’s a bit like meditation where when we quiet our mind, we give space for other observations to arise. Although in this case, it happens because of the noise!