Efficiency

The horn faculty and brass students at Wilfrid Laurier University

Well, it has been a busy fall, to put it mildly, and will only remain just as hectic! But busy is good, because it means doing what I love. I just got back from Canadian Thanksgiving (yes, we eat turkey up there too!) and two days of teaching at Wilfrid Laurier University. I left for Canada immediately after returning from my October tour with Bay Street Brassworks, and returned the day of our first Columbus Indiana Philharmonic rehearsal for our chamber orchestra concert. 

During this time, I learned several valuable lessons, maybe the most so being efficiency - on many levels! Doing so much teaching and playing, I found myself preaching and practicing to be efficient in what we do, and in what we think.  For me, this manifested in many ways.  First, I had to be efficient in my energy levels! When spending dozens of hours on the road and living in hotels, you have to figure out exactly how much energy to expend and how much to save so that you are at your peak energy levels for each performance. I found this balance by eating well and avoiding fast food when possible, exercising daily-especially when I was tired,  and maintaining a regular sleep schedule. 

Efficiency in playing was also important: with up to 3 concerts daily and many rehearsals surrounding that, I had to manage my chops and my endurance - I had to figure out how much I could give on each performance, and where I could give myself little 'breaks' in terms of mental and physical energy while still achieving musical excellence.  For me, this was the epitome of efficiency - let the air do half the work, let musical thought do the rest, and the tiny details take care of themselves. Being less lip-based and more voice and air-based in my playing also meant that at the end of a long week, I still had chops left to do what I needed to in the days to come. 

In my teaching at Laurier, I spent time talking about efficiency in practice sessions.  In lessons we often talked about strategies to be more efficient with our learning, our practice time and thereby maximizing results. In the brass masterclass, I spoke about being more efficient mentally with positive focus and thinking of fewer, better priorities while performing.  When we try to think of everything at once, we are inevitably overwhelmed! Finally, we talked about efficiency in performance preparation, and how to maximize our training by performing more in the practice rooms and more frequently to improve our final product.

It has been a great month teaching and playing, and I am happy to have shared so many wonderful experiences with so many fantastic people - I can't wait until the next round!   Hoping you too have a happy, efficient, day!

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