Mindset: Success Begins Here

Here is one last post of 2020.  It's an important one as you think about your goals for 2021.

One of my revelations over recent years is how important it is to understand the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.  This year, it occurred to me that when it comes to friendships and relationships, I just don't connect to the fixed mindset.  Whether we're talking religion, politics, health, or music... If you don't have a growth mindset, then we're practically on different planets.  And if you want to succeed even a little on a musical instrument, you HAVE to have a growth mindset.

Okay, let me back up.  What is a growth mindset compared to a fixed mindset?

Someone with a growth mindset is always looking for self-improvement.  They are open to new and better ideas.  They are open to criticism and, especially, self-criticism.  This is not to say that accomplishments aren't fully celebrated along the way, but those are pit stops and not an ultimate destination.  When it comes to non-musical things such as personality, world views, and just about anything else...there is an eagerness to explore new ideas,  try new things, and understand that change is possible for anything or anyone.

Someone with a fixed mindset believes that they are the way they are, and it is what it is.  Opinions are absolutely right or absolutely wrong.  They don't try different foods.  They don't try a new routine.  Change is an ugly word.  When it comes to music, it either comes easy or it's not worth it.

How the two types react to practice

Someone with a fixed mindset will either not practice, or not practice with any depth or struggle, or gravitate towards only playing favorites or what comes easily.  The first sign of struggle with a piece will send the player into retreat.  Either the practice session is over, or out comes the easy music.  "It's hard!" is said as if it's a terminal diagnosis.

Someone with a growth mindset WANTS the challenge.  If it's comfortable, it's not giving you growth. The first sign of struggle with a piece will cause the player to pause and rethink what's possible in a sitting, to calmly look at why something is hard and what can be done about it.  "It's hard!" is said as if it's dessert.  This is good!  This is how I get better!

You're not stuck with being one or the other.

It's far more natural to have a fixed mindset than a growth mindset.  But switching to a growth mindset changes everything about your life!  To make the switch, all you have to do is get yourself to agree with this one statement: "I'm a long way from where I want to be, and that's okay."  There's two parts to that statement, and both are important.  "I'm a long way from where I want to be" is simply to say that you are NOT where you want to be now.  So don't keep playing the easy music, and don't keep bringing out the favorite past pieces to avoid the challenge of your current music.  "And that's okay" reminds you that it IS okay to struggle.  It is okay to have a long way to go.  Do you know what successful people do (in any field) when they reach their mountain top?  They find another higher mountain.  Think about it like this.  You're climbing the stairs of a 200-story skyscraper.  Each floor has a window with a view.  You can celebrate each floor, but at some point you have to resist thinking, "This is good enough.  I don't have to keep climbing those stairs."  Keep climbing.

Couple the growth mindset with intrinsic motivation (as I discussed in the previous post) and you WILL succeed in 2021.  It helps you focus on what matters, and that are your HABITS and your MENTAL DRIVE.  It's not about how many pieces you learn, or even what pieces they are.  The side effect is that by focusing on habits and mental drive, the results will be much better than they would be otherwise.

One last thing, and I promise you that you'll need this reminder at some point this year.

Growth mindset is forgiving.  You'll forget to practice, or feel bad about how things are going.  Remember the second part of the growth statement?  It's okay.  Breathe and regroup.  You will get frustrated, but remind yourself...it's okay.

If you want to read more about the growth mindset, I cannot recommend any book more than Mindset by Carol Dweck, which has an updated edition coming out on January 1.

Are you ready to do great work in 2021?

What's Your Motivation?

It's my first post in a while, but I will hopefully make up with it by giving you two new ones this week.  I think it's a safe bet to say that one of the best words to describe 2020 is "unexpected".  Thankfully, not all of it was negative!  Since my last blog post, I've had 4 film scores, 2 shows, and a bunch of other projects including starting a new podcast about musicians who play for theatre (called Life In the Pit).   I've even started a BIG project for hopefully mid-to-late 2021 related to teaching that I can't discuss yet, because it has a LONG way to go!  It may be 2022 before it's going, but all that to say... it's been tough to get around to blogging again.  Anyway, I can't promise to be very regular on here, but I will do my best going forward to not let a month go by without posting at least once.

As I mentioned, I am going to close out the year with 2 posts because I have some ideas I want to share about GOALS.  As we get ready for a new year, I can't think of a better week to think about goals.

Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Motivation

What motivates you?

Something I've become more aware of this year is the powerful difference in Extrinsic motivation vs Intrinsic.  In case those words are unfamiliar, this is what is meant.  EXTRINSIC goals means that you are motivated by something or someone.  If you're practicing because you get a reward such as a dessert, a fun outing, money, or anything else, that is extrinsic.  If you're learning music to impress someone, that is extrinsic.

INTRINSIC means that your motivation is internal.  You want to practice well, and achieve your goal because it's something you take pride in doing.  It's something that matters to you.  You're comparing your present self with your past self, and your future self with your present self.  It doesn't matter what you receive or don't receive from someone else.  It doesn't even matter if you get the approval you're looking for.

Which one is better?

If you're looking for a short-term boost, a quick win - then extrinsic is the way to go.  There's a story I've told for years.  When I was in high school, I was preparing for my annual performance for the National Guild of Piano Teachers.  What this involves is preparing a certain length program (10 pieces for me that year) where you receive a grade from an out-of-town teacher on everything from rhythm to accuracy, expression, use of pedal, technique, tempo, interpretation, and many other factors.  My last piano lesson revealed to my teacher that I was woefully unprepared for one of my pieces.  It was 3 days before my scheduled performance, and my teacher said, "We should drop this piece, and reduce your type of certificate.  There's no way you'll have this ready."

Well, my teacher had been with me for at least 10 years by that point, and knew me well.  By saying "there's no way", she knew how I'd respond - in anger and with a stubborn determination to prove her wrong.  I told her not to take it off the program.  I went home and practiced in a way that I don't think I ever had before, almost exclusively on that piece.  And it WAS ready!  And I DID prove her wrong!

So...Extrinsic is better??

Extrinsic is much easier, and is more powerful in the short term.  However...

Here's the problem.  That was great for 1 piece at 1 point in my life.  It didn't make me a better pianist.  It didn't make me a better musician.  It also wasn't good for me to see my piano teacher as a villain just to prepare a piece of music to a certain standard!

What happens when you're on your own as an adult, and nobody is going to give you that extra cash, or a trip to a theme park, or whatever it is for doing your job?  Who's going to pat you on the back for learning another piece of music to an excellent standard? 

If you must have a reward or appreciation from someone else to be motivated to do well at music, there WILL come a time when it doesn't matter, when you stop progressing, and when you just don't feel like it's worth it.  One of my biggest challenges for years has been to keep learning challenging pieces that I have no intention of performing in concert, but merely want to keep growing as a pianist.

If you haven't figured it out by now, learning music is a LONG game!  It's not about what you're doing next month, but what you're doing in 10 years.  That starts with doing well...today.  Then you do the best you can...tomorrow.  Your motivation?  Look yourself in the mirror and smile knowing that, even if it wasn't perfect, you gave the best you could on that particular day.  You measure yourself against yourself.  You can always go to YouTube and find someone who plays your music faster and maybe with fewer mistakes.  That's extrinsic comparison, and that's NOT your measuring stick.  "You Yesterday" is your comparison with "You Today".  "You Tomorrow" is your comparison with "You Today".

The difference between people who operate on extrinsic or intrinsic motivation boils down to one characteristic for each.

People who practice music for extrinsic reasons are motivated by RESULTS.  You learned the piece or you didn't.

People who practice music for intrinsic reasons are motivated by THE PROCESS.  Never mind the piece itself.  How did you do with practice today?  Were you fully engaged with your concentration, or were you distracted?  Did you practice just the right amount for your time that you got NOTICEABLY better on a few measures rather than sorta-kinda-barely better on a full page or 2?  Are you thinking about what you can improve the next day?  Are you always thinking of where you could be after practicing tomorrow?  After a week of practice?  After a month of practice?

My biggest idol in music is the film composer John Williams (who wrote the music for Star Wars, Harry Potter, Home Alone, and so much more).  He is a master if INTRINSIC motivation.  Even though he's won 5 Academy Awards and a ton of Grammys, and the most recognizable movie music in history, he doesn't even watch the movies when he's done.  He's always moving on to the next project.  He doesn't care what praise or criticism he receives, because he's just trying to do his best on the project he's doing at the moment and doing it maybe a little better than the previous one.  He's not jealous of other composers, because his only comparison is himself.

My challenge for all of you in 2021 is to have big goals, but your first goal is: Fall in love with the process of practice.  Become the best practicer you can each and every day.  And do it for the pride and love of doing it well!  It's not glamorous, and there's nothing for your wallet.  But it will last, and you will get better and better!

Last but not least:  It will make you a better person.  Your relationships and friendships will improve with an intrinsic approach, because it's no longer you just feeding off your environment.  It's you offering your best no matter how it's received.  It's you supporting others in their goals even if they're similar to yours, and maybe appear to be doing better.  Doing things intrinsically is a HARD switch to make, but try to get going that way in 2021, because the long-term results are so much better!

What's keeping you from being a GREAT pianist?

For the sake of simplification, we're going to say that there are 4 types of pianists in the world: Bad, Average, Good, and Great.  I understand that there are transitionary levels ("below average", "above average"), which do not need to be mentioned since these imply moving from bad to average or from average to good.  I also won't mention descriptions beyond great (such as elite) which represents a very small percentage of people who play piano, and honestly... If you're old enough to read this blog, and are reading about about how to improve your pianism, then you probably haven't started early and fast enough to become elite.  But don't be depressed.  Being merely a great pianist is not only nothing to cry about, but it is a laudable achievement that is something to strive for.

However, most pianists are not great.   Bad and average pianists probably make up way over half, maybe even 60% of all pianists in the world.  Of the remaining 40-50%, most of these pianists are good, with only a small percentage being great or elite.  Why is this the case?  For reasons you'll see, climbing up the ladder in pianist categories is hard.  This is very important before we go on.  It's crucial that you accept this fact before moving on with this article, because I'm going to make a big deal of it.

Being GREAT at piano is HARD!

Being GREAT at piano is HARD and takes A LOT of time!

Some of you might be thinking: Really? Okay.  I guess I won't be a great pianist if it's going to be really hard and take a lot of time.  I'll go be great at something else that isn't as hard.  So, let me go ahead and tell you this before you go away.

Being GREAT at ANYTHING is HARD and takes A LOT of time!

So if anything requires difficulty and time to be great, why not pursue that on the piano?  Let's proceed.

This article is about becoming GREAT, but we have to quickly talk about how to get from bad to good.

TO BE A BAD PIANIST

Simply play during your lessons, and hardly ever in between.  Practice, if it occurs, is unfocused.  Or...take a few lessons, and stop.  Don't practice at all.

TO BE AN AVERAGE PIANIST

Practice at least a few days per week with some focus.  Practice on new and challenging material doesn't have to be a high percentage of your piano time, but it needs to be something regular.  Do this consistently for at least a year or two, and you will be an average pianist.

TO BE A GOOD PIANIST

Practice needs to become a HABIT.  You need to shoot for daily time at the piano.  You need to be focusing practice on new and challenging skills and pieces.  You also need to be taking lessons, or have someone experienced who can give you feedback.  How much time should you be spending?  Honestly, it doesn't really matter.  Practice 15 minutes a day with focus, and you'll eventually be good, but it may take many years.  Practice several hours a day, and you'll get good faster.  But practice 8 hours a day with just what I said, and you'll never be great.  Sorry, but it's not enough, and that's because time and effort are only parts of what make someone great.

What's keeping you from being a GREAT pianist?

1. You're not GOOD yet.

This is a simple test.  Is practice a habit, a daily habit?  Are you focusing on new and challenging material?  Are you taking lessons, and applying feedback to your practice?  You have to do this to become good.  You don't go from bad to great or average to great without passing by "good".  Check your habits.  This is not requirement 101, but 099...something you must do before you can move on.

2. You place too much value on comfort and satisfaction.

As I said, practice 8 hours a day with the habits of a good pianist, and you won't be great...IF your material and technique doesn't stretch you to your limits.  A runner who isn't huffing and gasping every now and then knows they won't get faster.  A weight lifter who doesn't feel the soreness of muscle burn isn't getting much stronger.  As a musician, you must face the facts: Stretching yourself requires DISCOMFORT.  Practicing in a way to be great will not feed your ego.   If you want to be a good pianist with great self-esteem, then take that piece you learned last year that you already know and play it until it's fast and fulfilling.  Being a great pianist will not feed your ego.  The road to being great is chock-full of potholes.  It is constantly under construction.  There are detours.  You'll have times where you wish you could just go back to the land of good and stay there.  At the same time, the road to great does make progress, and you are getting closer if you persevere.  The next few points are related.

3. You waste time on easy sections, and ignore what is difficult.

Unless you're trying to jump many levels ahead, almost nothing you practice is totally hard.  It has easy measures and hard measures.  In most cases, it should be simple to figure out which is which.  The ego-driven good pianist practices what is easy every chance they can, because it's fun to hear the accomplishment and avoid the brain strain of what great pianists do:  Dive in, struggle, and wrestle with the difficult sections.  Commit a large portion of your practice to the hard places.  Tackle them first, and tackle them often.  If you have pesky measures, there's a huge advantage to doing 5-10 focused minutes of practice on the same spot multiple times a day.  Give yourself a break, but keep coming back.  Don't get mad or discouraged while it's hard.  You WILL win every match eventually if you simply don't give up.

4. Your music is too easy.

Here's an easy guide to the levels: To be average, play music that average pianists play.  To be good, play music that good pianists play.  To be great, play music that great pianists play.  Now this is tricky, because the road from Clementi's Sonatina op. 36, no. 1 to Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata (still regarded as one of the most difficult pieces ever written) has many, many steps in between.  Your music should always challenge you, but never overwhelm you.  You need to be practicing music that will advance you a few more miles down the Road to Greatness.   Practice easier music to stay in the land of good, but with more property. This is where a teacher is invaluable, to help you move forward at the pace that best suits you.

5. You ignore or underemphasize your technique.

 If you didn't already, please click on the link in the above section for Valentina Lisitsa performing the finale of the Hammerklavier Sonata.  To achieve the speed and independence required to play that requires many hundred to thousands of hours on specific scales and arpeggios, not to mention etudes and exercise that mix these together.  Here's a fact: The speed of your scales is the limit of how fast you can play music with those scales.  The same goes with arpeggios.  Learn your skills, then speed them up, then learn them in harder ways, and speed them up again.  This needs to be a regular part of your practice.

6. You neglect your theory.

I've met good musicians who don't know much about theory, but I've never met a great musician who was lacking.  Theory requires study, written study.  The more you know, the better you understand what you're playing. 

7. You haven't mastered the art of Deliberate Practice

This is the most important distinction between a great and good pianist.  A good pianist can work on something hard, but the goal might be: I'm going to start on measure 1 and play to measure 16 as many times as I can within 20 minutes.  The great pianist looks at the really tricky measure 12 (the one with the chromatic scale), and practices ONLY that for 15 minutes.  They practice it super slowly focusing on fingerings and absolute accuracy.  Then they apply long-short and short-long rhythms.  They also approach it from the end, moving progressively backwards from the beginning.  They notice that it's kinda chromatic, so they review a chromatic scale.   They then get out a metronome, and work on the tempo.  They'll also do this tomorrow and the next day and so on until it's mastered.

This blog was inspired by a book that talks about this 7th step, one that I highly recommend to those of all ages: "So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love" by Cal Newport

By the way, there is nothing wrong with being an average or good pianist.  If you enjoy the fun side of piano, but get burned out from the challenge, this is not something to find shameful or embarrassing.  Music should, in the end, give you joy and serve your needs.  This article is only if you're wondering: what's keeping me from being great?  And the answers are: only your time, your resistance to difficulty, and/or your approach to learning.   Master those steps, and you'll too be great!

Welcome Newcomers, and Happy 2019!

This is just a brief post to welcome the several new students who have started with me the past couple of months, share a bit about what this is, and what I post here.

So first things first... Welcome new students!  Welcome long-time students!  Without you, I'm talking to myself and can't pay my bills.  I'm thankful for all of you, and wish you great musical progress in 2019.

Now, what is this blog?  While I have passions for composition and music theory, this blog focuses on piano.  When I mention something else like composition or theory, it's always in context of playing piano.  This blog is for my piano students, and anyone else who stumbles across it who is just interested in my take on the instrument.

If you look at the past several articles I've posted here, you'll find a trend:  I don't post much about technique.  You'll need to take with me privately to get the hands-on advice.  I post every now and then about something fun or trivial.  But this blog has found a home for me to share what I think is one of my specialties as a teacher: the art of HOW to practice as well as setting and achieving goals.

From age 6 to 18, I had a teacher who was great for challenging me and pretty good for technique.  However, her entire instruction for practice was..."you need to practice."  This was echoed by my parents.  I was encouraged to slow things down when I practiced.  It wasn't until college that I had multiple teachers who discussed how to approach music strategically and how to conquer difficult sections that I was able to understand that practice wasn't simply "play, try again, try again, get angry, try again, take a break, try again, hope it gets a little faster, try again, and get a little lucky."

The fact is: If you just play a piece often enough carefully enough, you will get better.  It may seem like it takes forever, because sometimes it does, but you WILL get better.  Here's an honest confession:  I'm a bit lazy.  I'm also quite busy.  I don't want to spend 2 hours practicing something if there's a way I can accomplish the same result in 30 minutes.

To practice well, you must first commit to the HABIT of practice.  This is why I tell every student the 5-minute rule: "5 minutes are better than no minutes".  Don't skip a day if you can help it.  The habit of practice is the foundation of learning and improvement.  After you've developed the habit, you need to work on your quality.  In private lessons, we address practice for your specific pieces.  This blog will hopefully give you general ideas and motivation in addition to your lessons.

There's 11 months left this year.   Remember this rule.  "Practice makes perfect" "Perfect practice makes perfect!"

Understanding the Reality of Trade-offs

I had time between lessons yesterday to walk over to the nearby mall and do some quick browsing.  I happened to walk past a gourmet cookie bakery.  I went in with the intention of just getting a simple modest chocolate cookie, but instead I got a giant cookie with lemon icing, a $2 cookie!  This photo isn't the very same cookie, but it's pretty close.

The first bite was GREAT!  Soft, sweet, lemony.  I started eating it the moment I walked out of the cookie store as I headed towards the other end of the mall.  I continued to eat as I walked.  By the time I had passed 5 stores, let's say 200 feet at the most, the thrill was GONE!  I was left with a few tremors and a feeling of guilt for shoving that whole thing in my mouth.  It was a matter of time before I felt a total lack of energy after the sugar crash set in.  Worst of all, the pleasure of the taste (the WHOLE reason I got it in the first place) was over!  With this experience in my memory, I could approach a cookie like that right now, and ask myself one question before buying it.

Is the 2-minutes of joy this cookie brings worth the hour or more of misery that will follow?

Well, that's an easy answer when I phrase it like that.  But when I want the easy craving at the time, I forget to step back and just ask: What's the trade-off here?  And is it worth it?

Wait! Isn't this a PIANO blog?  What does eating a giant cookie have to do with piano?

Bear with me.  I'll get there eventually.

Every decision...not nearly every decision, but EVERY decision in life comes with at least one trade-off.

You keep using that word "trade-off".  What do you mean?

A trade-off is also known as the flip side.  You can't do everything at once.  Making a choice to do something denies you that chance to do something else.  Back in the early days of TV, before streaming, before internet, before DVR, before VCR or other video recording, if you had time at 8pm to sit down to watch a television show, you had to choose which one to watch with the knowledge that you were not watching the other choices (at first, only 2, but later more).  Here are some more examples.

• Staying at home means you can't go to the beach.  Going to the beach means you can't just stay home.
• In NC, going to the mountains means you don't go to the beach (at least at the same time), and vice versa.

But those aren't great examples, because you're not making a hard choice in any case.  What about when there's a harder choice?  You have to address the decision in a way that lets you know the flipside and the consequences if any.  For example:

• I love the taste of sodas, and sometimes I just CRAVE one.  I also happen to know that soda-drinking is one of the biggest triggers for causing me to get canker sores in my mouth.  I almost never get them when I stay away from soda.  So, would I rather have the few minutes of sweet taste, or avoid the not-certain-but-more-likely days of pain that will follow?
• I like eating out.  I also need to save money, and don't particularly like taking time to pack a lunch.  What do I want more, the convenience of eating out or saving some money for something more meaningful?
• This video I'm watching is really interesting, but it's getting very late, and I have to get up early in the morning.  Is the enjoyment of the video worth the price of not getting much sleep?

You see where this is going?  Any decision has at least one trade-off if you take time to think about it.

SO, what are the trade-offs related to your choices regarding practicing your music?

• If you watch a television episode instead of practicing, you're making the decision that the entertainment and escapism is more important than the opportunity to get better at your instrument.  Is that true?
• If you play a video game instead of practicing, you're making the same choice.  Is your goal to be really good at video games, or really good at piano?
• Time at the piano spent just playing old favorites is time that you could be spending working on your more challenging new music.  You're choosing comfort over challenge.  It's a common choice, but the trade-off of comfort is to not make progress.
• If your time is diluted with such a variety of extracurricular activities other than music (martial arts, sports, church, drama, etc), you are accepting that you will most likely be acquainted with many experiences, but be less likely to get really good at any of them.  I'm not attacking this lifestyle.  It's certainly possible that you are okay with this.  For many people, knowing a little of everything is more important than being selectively focused on a very few things.  But have you at least considered this trade-off and decided if it's what you really want?

In summary: You can't do everything you want or even need.  Giving your time to one thing means not giving it to something else.  Striving for comfort denies yourself the struggle that makes you better.  Sometimes, you may want to dial it down and enjoy that video game or TV show because the pleasure is worth missing the chance to improve at piano, at least for that one day every now and then.  Sometimes you need the satisfaction of affirming your favorite pieces you've already learned more than learning something new.  But I challenge you to at least BE aware of it.  You can do just about anything you want, as long as you recognize what it is you're giving up in exchange, and are convinced that you've made the best choice.

The Blog Returns/Learning Difficult Music (10 Steps)

Hello Again

Part of me is tempted to use my absence from this blog as a metaphor for how bad practice habits can become catastrophic.  My previous post was from November 2015, well over 2 years ago.  Did I mean to take a 2-year sabbatical from this blog?  Or did I mean to quit the blog entirely, and just came back early?  No and no.  Right after November, came Christmas.  In January 2016, I was preparing a show.  After that...  Okay, there aren't any real excuses except that it became easier and easier to move this down on the priority scale.  It's easy to say:  I'll just keep what I've already posted active, but there's no hurry on getting any new posts.  Then it becomes a habit not doing new posts.  Then it becomes hard to get around to it.  Practice is like this.  One excuse becomes two excuses, becomes multiple excuses, becomes the habit of not practicing.

Okay, so I did give into that temptation.  I don't have a fixed schedule for this blog, but I still have plenty more to say that doesn't need to be limited to individual lessons.

Learning a Difficult Piece or Passage

I was in the midst of practicing Cesar Franck's Prelude, Fugue et Variation, op. 18 - originally an organ piece that has been transcribed for piano by Harold Bauer - with a "business as usual" approach.  I got to a 11-measure section that was difficult, 5 measures which I found VERY challenging.   I also was working on a piece by Prokofiev that starts sight-readable (see my definition below under step 3), but every 8 measures gets more and more difficult. When this happens, and it WILL, you have to modify your approach, but can still have a very productive practice session with it.

1.  RELAX
This is a lesson that I didn't follow as a child (or even young adult).  Decades of experience have taught me that getting frustrated is never the cause of success and is usually an impediment.  Just relax and take a deep breath.  Also, try this:  Shrug your shoulders and give yourself an amused smile.  Try a chuckle.  Think or say, "Oh well.  Here we go."  This is the first of 2 attitude adjustments.  The second is...

2.  ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE
You can do four things with difficult music.  (1) Don't try it.  Quit.  (2) Practice it with carelessness and/or apathy.  (3) Practice it carefully while dreading it.  or (4) Practice it with calm delight.  Please tell me you've never seriously considered the first two.  I can't help you there, but hopefully I can encourage you to move from the third approach to the fourth.  Accept it!  This music (piece or section) is hard.  You're not going to be able to just plow through this or sightread it.  You're going to have to dissect it, slow it way down, concentrate harder, and struggle...yes struggle.

There's a great quote that is the basis for many memes: "Embrace the struggle. It will make you stronger, and it won't last forever."

This will be hard, but this will be fun.  And in the end, you'll learn this just like everything else, and you will be SO proud that you stuck with it.

3.  CUT YOUR MUSIC IN SMALLER CHUNKS
Here's a good scale that I use.  EASY - means I can just about sightread it up to tempo, or at least 2/3 of performance tempo.  SIGHTREADABLE - At a slow tempo, I can keep playing without much difficulty.  NORMAL DIFFICULTY - Too challenging to sightread well, but I can work for 20 minutes or so within an 8 measure section and make significant progress.  DIFFICULT (what we're talking about) - Need to cut to 4 measures, or maybe 2, or maybe JUST ONE measure at a time.  Review the steps RELAX and ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE, and just go ahead and do this.  Trim your music until it gets to be an appropriate section for the challenge.

3a.  Identify what are truly the most difficult passages within your section and work on those first.  Often, it's a few beats here and there.

4.  ENGAGE THREE SENSES with INTENSE FOCUS
(1) SEE the notes on the staff.  SEE the keys you are playing.  LOOK at your hand-shape and finger alignment.  Are you hitting each note or chord squarely?  (2) LISTEN to the sounds of each correctly played note or chord.  (3) FEEL the shape of your hand.  MEASURE the distance from one jump as you do it repeatedly.  Pay hard attention to each of these.  Don't play them while your brain wanders off somewhere else.  If you want to learn difficult music, you have to give it your FULL ATTENTION.

5.  REPEAT EVERYTHING MANY TIMES.
Get it right once and it's possibly a fluke.  Get it right 5 times, and you're on the right track.  Get it right 10 times, and you probably have it.  Get it right 20 times, and you've probably mastered it.

6.  SLOW TEMPO, NOT SLOW MOVEMENTS
This is crucial.  Slow the beat way, way down.  If it's 1/10 performance tempo, who cares?!  Slow it way down.  However, move from one position to another with deliberation and full speed.  Play the keys full speed and with emphasis and confidence.  Trills, grace notes, arpeggiations, and other ornaments all go at full speed ASAP.

7.  MAKE A TECHNICAL EXERCISE
This can include practicing in varying rhythms.  If it involves broken chords, block them.  If it involves scales or arpeggios, try some that are similar to your passage.

8.  SEPARATE THE HANDS
If two hands are hard, try just one until that gets easy enough.

9.  STOP WHEN YOU NEED TO
If it's truly difficult.  You probably won't master it in one sitting.  Make progress, and know when to move on.  Don't be surprised if the next time you practice feels like you've regressed a little, but you should quickly get back to where you were and be able to surpass it.

10.  PRACTICE DAILY UNTIL MASTERED
Don't get this started (like I did this blog), make some progress and leave it alone.  Leave things alone when you cannot overcome frustration.  If you're making progress, no matter how slowly it's coming, and can stand to face it again.  Keep coming back.  Eventually, you will have it and may soon forget why you found it difficult.

Welcome 2015, Becoming Observant

Yes, I am still here.  In 2014, I was involved with 9 shows.  That was more than I did in 2012-13 combined.  Also, I spent the year teaching at a local community college.  Needless to say, many things fell by the wayside including this blog, but I'm not at all short on things I want to share, so I hope to be giving you more frequent things to read.  I am doing fewer shows and only teaching privately, so hopefully this will help.

Coming soon: I will talk about suggested goals for this year.  In the meantime, you may want to read what I suggested for last year.

IMPROVING OBSERVATION

One general way that nearly all of my students need to improve on for becoming better music students is to sharpen their powers of observation.  In music, you need to notice several things:

• Familiar chord progressions and voicings
• Key signatures
• Melodic patterns
• Repeated sections and their variations
• Textual instructions (slow down, up an octave)
• Dynamics
• Fingerings

...and so on.  I can't tell you how much lesson time is spent pointing out to a student that they simply need to look more carefully at what they're playing.  They know what the note is, but they don't notice it until I say "check it again."  They get to a repeated section of something they played well the first time and approach it like it's new material.  Musicians are people who are very observant.  They notice things they see and things they hear.  When my wife logs off on her wii, she tends to do it at the same rhythm to get 3 distinct patterns of 2 notes, 1 note, and 2 more notes.  I went to the piano and found that they make a great waltz.  Did you know that cylindrical fluorescent lightbulbs constantly hum on a Bb?  Have you ever listened to the rhythm of a car alarm, or the complicated songs of birds?

There's late '90s British television show called Spaced that has this one scene that nails how many musicians think.  This minor character, Tyres, is visiting his friends.  He's usually wearing headphones, frequently visits a lot of clubs, and basically transforms everything into music.  Watch what happens inside his head as soon as the phone starts ringing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ0zGZ2t7xE

One exercise I've always suggested to people for improving observations is to select a mundane object, like a clock on the wall, and write down 20 things about it.  Today, I found this article about How to Boost Your Observation Skills and Pay Attention.  Please read it, as I think you will find a lot that will help you with your music and with life away from your instrument as well.

Resuming this Blog, Recital Reminder

Updated to include the date

Students and other readers,
First of all, please accept my apology for letting this blog go for so long.  I won't divulge all that's been going on, but being busy is a part of the long time between posts, but only a part.  The other part is simply "out of sight, out of mind".  I'm hoping to work blogging into a schedule, so that I get you one post a week.  Thank you if you're still following this.

With that said, the first thing is to remind everyone that our Spring Recital is Sunday, May 4 at Pfafftown Baptist Church, 4336 Transou Road, Pfafftown, NC 27040.  The recital begins at 3:00pm.  I encourage those participating to arrive early enough to assure you can be there AND relaxed/acclimated by 3:00pm.  It will not be a long recital, but thanks to all of you who are participating.

I've typed up three posts here before that I encourage EVERYONE to please read again.  Click on each link below to review.

Recital Etiquette, Where to Sit, Etc

More recital basics.

and finally:
How to ensure you'll play your best.

Why Good Practice is Uncomfortable, 6 Benefits of Music Lessons

Good Practice = Outside the Comfort Zone

Running is something I've done for recreation the past two years.  I've run in two 5k races, and was training for a 10k when I had three minor injuries (not all running-related) crop up at about the same time.  That was in August and, since then, I've run once or twice a month, always with a little pain and not with any consistency.  This weekend, I decided to commit to running again now that my nagging pains were gone.  My most recent run was just two miles, and it was pain free, but even that was very challenging and at a slower pace than normal considering I hadn't run in a full month.  My conditioning is not what it used to be, and it was definitely pushing myself to run even two miles without a walking break.

As my lungs were still trying to process the cooler air, the thought occurred to me afterward, "I hope I didn't push it too much.  Maybe I should have walked some and taken it easy since I'm clearly out of shape?"

Then I answered my own thought with another question:  "But how can you expect to get in shape if you don't push yourself?"

It's the same with music as with fitness.  If you do only what is easy and experience no frustration of your own barriers, then you can't expect to get better.  The best you can do is the equivalent of treading water.  Growth requires discomfort.  Practice that leads to you being a better musician will feature most if not all of the following elements at some point:

• A challenge you can't solve in one sitting, or maybe even a few sittings.
• The urge to give up (because pushing yourself can be humbling).
• Frustration
• Many rounds of failure before that breakthrough of success.

You don't have to struggle in practice.  You can just play music you already know and keep your techniques where they are now.  This is fine...provided you don't desire to get any better than you are right now.

If you want to improve as a musician, embrace the struggle that will come.  DO push yourself.  Don't fight it.

6 Benefits of Music Lessons

A parent of one of my students sent me this article on 6 benefits of music lessons from Parents magazine.  I thank him for sending me this, and hope you'll take time to read this article of what music does for you beyond simply learning an instrument.