The Art of Practicing

Last week I had the pleasure of teaching the wind and brass colloquium at Valparaiso University for Dr. Ericka Grodrian, Dr. Jeff Doebler and the music students.  Ericka and I performed an Oscar Franz duet to start things off, showing the students 'Magic Line Performance' in action! Then I jumped into a big topic I have been thinking about a lot lately: Practicing!  I have been working with many of my students for quite some time now, and though we have huge growth every week, I know that there could be even more room for improvement at home between our lessons.   I put together a presentation for the students of Valparaiso, including long term goal-setting and in-the-moment strategies.  We discovered that we have many great resources within ourselves to find new life in our music and to improve our practicing habits.  We literally danced, we sang and we found great sounds! I also brought my practicing strategies into my lessons this week - what fun to try new ways to get around those big obstacles!
Contact me for more information on my practicing presentation, but in the meantime, here are a few pointers to get yourself started:
- What are your short-term and long-term goals? Figuring those out will help you decide where to focus your time.
- Are you working on technique or on repertoire? Sometimes there is a faster way to tackle your music by working away from it
- Practice in small sections: concentrated work on shorter segments will be more productive and rewarding
- You can either tackle an obstacle head-first or try and go around the the obstacle: both ways may help you find a great solution. 
- When something goes awry, first ask yourself "what happened?" then ask "why?" until you get to the root of the issue! Asking "why"- even a few times can be much more effective than "don't miss that note!"
- Eliminate variables that might be making it even trickier! Is the rhythm difficult? Then get rid of the melody! Singing and buzzing your music can always help!
- Have fun while you practice! There are many great ways to practice and have fun with your music, don't be afraid to try new things, fail miserably, sound bad and celebrate successes on your path to greatness! 

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