malik@meteor.DEC (Karl Malik ZK01-1/F22 1-1440) (11/02/84)
Subj; How to practice For all you musicians out there; When you set yourself the task of learning a difficult (for you) piece of music, how do you go about it? From beginning to end? Concentrating on the difficult passages; repeating them over and over? Slow and loud (for pianists)? so as to get the 'feel' of the piece in your fingers? Do you study the score first? Looking for patterns, etc. Also, how do you keep your motivation up? Especially, if the piece is difficult enough that your first efforts are very unmusical/unsatisfying. I find that studying the score (without an instrument) is really worthwhile for me. How do you folks go about it? ,Karl
brian@ut-sally.UUCP (Brian Powell) (11/08/84)
> For all you musicians out there; When you set yourself the >task of learning a difficult (for you) piece of music, how do you >go about it? > > From beginning to end? > > Concentrating on the difficult passages; repeating them >over and over? Yes and yes. Mostly the latter, but it still helps to go over the whole thing from time to time. > Slow and loud (for pianists)? so as to get the 'feel' of >the piece in your fingers? Slow, yes; loud, never. You have to practice dynamics from the start. You have to get the feel of playing soft in your fingers, too. > Do you study the score first? Looking for patterns, etc. This is always desirable, but not a must. If I am confused by some passage, (why did the composer write it this way? or even if something about the piece just doesn't feel right.) then I take a close look. Generally, though, I don't take the time. > Also, how do you keep your motivation up? Especially, if >the piece is difficult enough that your first efforts are very >unmusical/unsatisfying. Listen to a recording of it played well (if available). I strive first for musicality, even if only in a few passages. I start out practicing the prettiest parts of the piece. Then, as I enlarge the amount that I can play straight through, and as I increase tempo, etc., I try to carry the musicality through the difficult parts. Basically, I am trying to make the initial period of terrible music as short as possible. What about the rest of the musicians out there? Brian -- Brian H. Powell brian@ut-sally.{ARPA,UUCP} U.S. Mail: AT&T: P.O. Box 5899 (512) 451-0739 Austin, TX 78763
greg@olivej.UUCP (Greg Paley) (11/13/84)
Since I'm a singer (tenor - recently "moved up" from lyric baritone), there are some aspects of practicing that are quite different from an instrumentalist. The primary difference is the mastering of a specific text with almost all vocal music (except, of course, things like Rachmaninov's "Vocalise") and, in the case of opera, stage movements that have to be integrated with the singing into a single physical act. I find that the worst thing I can do is listen to a recording, no matter how good, while I'm learning a work. It's tempting, particularly with a difficult, musically complex work. It not only makes it difficult to bring the freshness and clarity to the musical approach that you need, it also makes it very difficult not to imitate the technical solutions other singers have found for difficult spots. My own feeling is that I need to use my own training and instincts to work out these problems. I try to do a surface scan of the work, taking in as much as possible of the text and musical notations. Words and music have to be conceived as a single entity, since good vocal music is not just a poetry reading, or play, "set to" music but rather a work of art which uses the original play or poem as a starting point and evolves beyond that. Sometimes you have to choose between the two, when the metric and pitch patterns of the music conflict with those of the poem. This happens with Brahms, sometimes with Schumann, never with Wolf. In that case, I go with the music. That first scan should give a sense of the overall shape and contour of the work, and the structure of the individual phrases. It's amazing how often technically difficult passages take care of themselves when you concentrate on the overall shape of the phrase containing them rather than getting stuck on the individual hard spot. Finally comes the nuts-and-bolts work of applying your technique to the vocally difficult sections and finding out how to grade yourself dynamically so as to be able to preserve the correct proportions. Every singer has his own difficulties that have to be worked out individually. The aim is to have this mastered to the point that when you perform you can be as relaxed as possible and allow your own feelings and your communication with the audience to be spontaneous. - Greg Paley