Tag: practice

Starting with the end in mind

Nicole NealLeave a comment

The concept of starting with the end in mind can be applied to a range of aspects of our playing, learning and practice. Equally, thinking in this way can bring massive benefits to all of those aspects.

Why is the end in mind so important?

Well, the simple answer to that is we’ve got to know where we’re ultimately going to be able to (a) head in the right direction and (b) know when we’ve got a particular destination, acquired something that we wanted to have, be something that we wanted to be, or do something we wanted to do!

It also lets us kick back (metaphorically speaking, of course – we’ve still got to do the work!) and enjoy the journey more knowing that we’re headed in the right direction with the intention of reaching our goal. We know what we want to achieve, devise a strategy for getting there, revise the strategy or change course slightly on the way if it’s not working, and set sail!

Being mindful and taking 5 minutes out just to think perhaps “OK, what am I going to have acquired have the end of my practice session today?” can reap massive dividends with your learning. This tool is useful for any player or learner, but particularly so for the time-poor learner. It’s about making your practice session as effective as possible.

You can also break that idea down into the elements of your practice itself.

Have a think on these…

  • What are you doing with your scales and exercises? What are they serving in your repertoire or pieces? What are they helping you improve in a technical weakness? What are they helping you maintain? What are they helping you to learn for the first time? What do you want to have achieved by working on a particular scale or technical exercise?
  • What’s happening with your pieces? How do you want them to sound overall? How do you want the separate sections and phrases to sound? Where are the challenging spots and how do you want these to sound?
  • Lessons – what do you want to achieve from these? Is there something you’re working towards? What would you like to achieve in your next lesson?
  • And of course performances. Let’s not forget those. What do you want your next performance to be like? Who’s your audience? What’s their reaction? The venue? See yourself 30 seconds after the performance receiving rapturous applause!! What are you doing and feeling 1 minute after the performance? After 10 minutes? 30 minutes? 1 hour?

Hmmmm? Interesting eh? Give it a red hot go!

I’m going to leave you today with a favourite quote of mine for your to ponder on: A goal without a plan is just a wish. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French writer (1900 – 1944)

Why do we memorise music?

Nicole Neal1 Comment

Before looking at the “how” of memorisation, it’s important to discuss the issue of “why”.

So why do we memorise pieces?

Well, in the pop, folk and often the jazz idioms (ooh there’s a good word) it de rigueur to play without any kind of score. And that often reflects the way the music has been composed and brought together

Chopin trio partiture
Memorise this…..Go! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

with the musicians playing it. Not to mention we’d probably think it looked a little strange with Keith Richards turning his sheet music, or Pete Townsend scissor kicking his music stand (OK probably not likely found scissor kicking these days, but you get the idea). One may also argue that pop songs are a little less complex than certain pieces we as classical guitarists might play, and therefore arguably more easy to memorise. Having words to a song helps too.

So why do we classical musicians memorise?

One could argue that it “looks good”, or say “because that’s what we’re supposed to do, that’s the culture”. Well, yes. And also no. It is recounted that Chopin threw up his hands in horror when a student rocked up and played something from memory. He considered this the height of rudeness, very flippant and arrogant of the student, that they couldn’t be giving the due care and attention to this written instructions on the score!

You’ve got to admit he did have a point – there’s a lot of information on there, and it can really help in the middle of a piece (or start or end – I’m non-discriminatory!) when your mind wanders a little or you lose yourself a little too much in the musical moment.

Interesting. So back to the question. Why do we really memorise music, if we don’t need to as such?

1. It helps us to learn and really know a piece inside out, upside down and back to front. When you’re flying solo you’ve really got to know exactly where you’re headed, where you’ve come from, the melody, the structure of the piece and so on. Can you pick up in the middle of a phrase? Or can you skip ahead and start from the third or fourth phrase or some other landmark in the score? If not, you probably don’t know it was well as you could do yet. Really knowing something inside out is also going to help in managing performance anxiety too. If you’re not worried (or less worried) about whether you’re going to forget something or stuff something up because you’re not quite rocksteady with it yet, that is likely to significantly reduce the feeling of nerves.

2. Gives us the freedom to take a look at both our left and right hands for some of those more challenging sections and then not get lost trying to find our place on the page again.

3. Once we really feel we know the structure, technical requirements and mechanics of a piece inside out, it’s memorisation allows greater freedom in exploring tones, colours, dynamics, phrasing and other musical expression. Some say it removes a level of interference in playing the music from the heart. By knowing it by heart, it can perhaps more easily come from the heart.

4. Memorisation allows us to really LISTEN and be aware of what we’re playing and how we’re playing it. It allows us to focus on producing exactly the quality of tone and sound that we want at any given point in the piece.

5. By playing something from memory, even if only partially memorised, it’s a fantastically direct indicator of which bits you know very well and those that you don’t know so well. When you’re first committing a piece to memory which are the bits where you have memory fade? Ask yourself this and examine why? What’s going in the melody – can you sing it?, the harmony? The phrasing?

6. Last, but not least it’s good for the brain! It’s an excellent exercise for the grey matter, regardless of age. It helps build up your noggin’s cognitive reserves!