I am only practising for 15 minutes, three or four days a week right now, with a half hour lesson with Emily weekly. I wondered at first whether it was even worth picking it up again until I could devote more time to it. But for one thing, what is 'more time' and where do I get this mythical substance? It's all relative, and I can make excuses until the end of the world about having enough time to do this 'properly'.
And I desperately needed to have something to do for me, just me. Especially as I quit my job the other week to stay home with Elliot full time. Elaine Fine mentioned this in a comment awhile back, after Elliot was first born, that I would be grateful for something of my own. She was very, very right.
Even though sometimes those 15 minutes aren't even 15 together minutes, I'm managing to get work done. Emily helped by devising very short, very focussed goals each week: one scale, working on two difficult measures 10 times in succession, Breval first section play through, one shift to get a three-octave C scale in the works. Shockingly, I feel like my practice habits are better now than when I would spend an hour or so rambling through things, flitting from one piece to the next, getting frustrated, spending too long just playing and not enough time working on issues. I don't have time for faffing around now.
That do something 10 times instruction is interesting. I realised I never really played anything 10 times in a row much. At about the sixth repetition my mind starts thinking: 'Surely that was enough. You can't possibly need to do this again.' Around the eighth my mind wanders entirely: 'Chicken for dinner? Or maybe if I go to the shop I can get some of that fish…' By the ninth and tenth times I am being strict again, and the notes are no longer notes but just muscle memory and I can get to the meat of the problem. Or if the mechanics of the notes was the problem, it's very often nearly solved. Ten times works for relatively simple things, I suspect that number goes up when we're talking Haydn concertos or something.
One step at a time there girl.
Geoff
14 May 2010 at 8:05 pm
“Chuse one lesson thy selfe according to thy capacitie, which give not over by looking over others, or straggling from one to another, till thou have got it reasonably perfect, and doe not onely beginne it by going through it to the end at first sight, but examine each part of it diligently, and stay upon any one point so long (though thou play it over a thousand times) till thou get it in some sort.”
John Dowland – Varieties of lute lessons 1610
(This little gem has been taped to my music stand for a good while now.)
Glad you’re playing regularly again. Rock on. Geoff.
Erin
14 May 2010 at 8:37 pm
Oh how hilarious! John Dowland speaks the truth, as usual. Nice to know what we struggle with practising has not changed for four hundred odd years. Probably more.
Geoff
27 May 2010 at 8:22 am
Horrible error warning!!!
Although the source I found this in gave it as a quote from John Dowland, I believe the Varietie of Lute Lessons 1610 was compiled by Robert Dowland, John’s son. Maybe he got his dad to write the intro since he was only 19 at the date of publication and what 19 year old is going to practise anything 1000 times when you can just look at it on YouTube.
I’m amazed no-one has picked me up on it and I’m glad I got my admission of gross and misleading error in before they did.
Also, I realise now, I may have just implied that YouTube was around in 1610, but you know what I mean.
Still a great quote.
Geoff
Guy Aron
28 May 2010 at 5:47 am
I have had horrible impatience and anger recently in the practices I had (2nd movement from Bach 2nd Suite). Mainly it is with those *!@#%$* chords. I find the best thing when in a mood like this is NOT PRACTICE for a day or two; just let some space into the relationship. Often one can come back to the problem refreshed & look at it differently & problem-solve more effectively.
I agree with short practices too; I think several short practices better than one long one.
Geoff
28 May 2010 at 10:39 am
Right, to put the record as straight as I can. According to Matthew Spring’s “The lute in Britain” p220 it’s Robert Dowland who published “Varietie of Lute-Lessons” 1610. But Spring says:
“The music it contains is prefaced by two essays: ‘Necessarie Observations Belonging to the Lute and Lute Playing by John Baptisto Besardo of Visonti’ (a translation from Besard’s Thesaurus Harmonicus of 1603) and ‘Other Necessary Observations belonging to the Lute by John Douland, Batcheler of Musicke.’ The latter essay is limited to advice on stringing, fretting, and tuning.”
I found the quote in the preface to Stefan Lundgren’s Lute Calendar http://www.luteonline.se/lundgren-edition/preface_calendar.htm where it’s attributed to Besard/Dowland.
Without having seen a copy of the Varietie of Lute-Lessons, my best guess is that the quote’s from Besard, translated by Robert Dowland.
I feel much better now.