www.evawassermanmargolis.com
Practice makes perfect?
Practice reduces the imperfection:
Work =reward =more work = more reward= passion for practice = reward and confidence =perfection!
When you are passionate- Practice is not difficult
What happens if you don't get better?
1. Loss of confidence
2. Lack of passion
3. Boredom
4. Level of playing does not improve
5. When you work on pieces too long.... you can lose inspiration
Performance is practice WHY?
1 Entrance on the stage is practice
2 There's a psychological or spiritual preparation needed, without this, you can't understand what performance really needs
3 Control of all facilities are needed (different with each instrument)
4 Look on my blog for my stress steps of pressure... Did you pass?
5 How was the end result in your performance? Were you happy? Did you practice enough for the final result? Your expectations? Other's expectations?
6.How was the silence you created in your performance? Before and after too!
Here is a list of some examples where the practice is needed. If you think about it, almost everything needs practice!
Speaking Relationships
Religion Surgical Techniques
Meditation Experimentation
Writing Walking
Dance Thinking
Art Concentration
Cooking Love
Communication The ability to hate
Sports The ability to create rage
Yoga The ability to lie
Ballet
Photography
Yes, you need some type of talent but 95% of my students would not have succeeded as they did if they did not practice and practice and practice.
Can practice cause harm?
Boredom = inefficiency
Pain = over practice or incorrect practice
Anxiety and obsessiveness can come from over practice
A correct routine and correct ways of practice needed for superb practice techniques.
Great teachers are needed for this job!
What is needed for the best environment for practice?
30 minutes at least a day
Every day is better for exceptional brain function
No phone
No TV
No visitors
No kids
Quiet
Calm
Focus
Passion
Inspiration and motivation
How do you know when you have practiced enough?
How do you know when you are ready for performance?
One of my secrets is, I make students play a passage continuously five times that is difficult (or their solo piece) and if they can do it without making any mistakes, it means physically they're ready!
They also use my stress steps!
The secret to my personal practice routine on the clarinet for my students and myself.
a. Long-tones=warm ups
b. Thirds/ chords/scales (with metronome)
c. Articulation and technical exercises (metronome many times needed)
d. THE MUSIC! (Ensemble work, solo, musical passages in the music, etc…
More tips for practice:
Write on your music
Use markers… Music is not the Bible!
It is what you do to the music notes and what you create!
Identify problems! Don't just play over and over until it comes out right. That is a talent and also a challenge!
How do you work on it? Sight Reading should also be a part of your practice regime.
Hold competitions with yourself and others.
Healthy competitions!
Take up a sport! It improves musical memory, mental memory, mood and learning.
Analyzing music before practice: the structures, the measures, the form, the rhythm...etc. but be careful!
If you analyze too much, then you can become too scientific. Everything has to have a balance. Practice is about balance too.
SUMMARY
Motivation Passion and inspiration sometimes disappear.
Practice is your anchor; you can count on it.
You can schedule it.
You can plan it.
You can commit to it.
Practice is a catalyst for really realizing you can get more passionate!
If you believe in it, you can always return to it.
Fall in love with practice by understanding it could be your way to greatness. Find any way possible to fall in love with it! It is all about where your aspirations want to take you!
CONFIDENCE IS WHAT YOU NEED ON STAGE!
Practice is profound.
“Practice puts brains in your muscles”
“DON'T practice till you get it right. PRACTICE until you CAN'T get it wrong!”
Practices break boundaries in playing that you thought you would never arrive. You then go on to create another boundary for yourself to realize.
Practice empowers and enables us to become what our mind creates for us as humans!
What you practice in your mind is what you become!
Compare yourself to a record player. Its has grooves. Consider you as human being, a record player……...what grooves are you practicing to make deeper as your life continues to form? Grooves on a record-over time-are like your thoughts-they become who you are! Can you get out of your thinking patterns if they are unhealthy, at a ripe old age? With practice, you can!
“Practice is a universal language. “All practice takes hard work but not all hard work takes practice’”
Practice can become love.
Practice is your brutal honest friend.
Practice can take you from the mediocre to the magnificent.
YOUR MIND IS A PRACTICE MACHINE!
PRACTICE and what it defines won't bring front-page news! You will never see great players names written down with the amount of hours needed to perform a composition! I promise that all greatness comes from practice!