catsittingstill (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
catsittingstill) wrote2013-03-09 05:13 pm
catsittingstill) wrote2013-03-09 05:13 pm
Some thoughts on practice
So It is now about a year since I began daily instrumental practice--going beyond just "play a lot of things once through until you reach half an hour" to "play one thing over and over for five minutes, trying to improve the way I play it; when the timer goes off reset it and move to the next thing; repeat five times." Along the way I discovered that practicing on the mando was improving my octave mando playing, but only about half as much, and hit on the idea of doing twenty minutes on each instead of half an hour on one.
I also tried playing with a metronome, which was incredibly frustrating at first. This was because the metronome had never played with me before, poor thing--as I was patient with it and gave it more opportunities, it was remarkable how much better it got. I won't say it was ever really *good* but it got better. I was also forced to do without any instrument at all for a week, and went to purely vocal practice instead. In the process I discovered that the vocals, which I had been thinking of as a "gimme" were in fact improving with practice, which suggested I should be practicing vocals also.
And finally, recently it occurred to me that in addtion to practicing pure instrumentals on my instruments, it would be smart to do the same sort of practice on my countermelodies (melodies I play while singing a different melody against them in performance.). I had been doing this anyway for "Mayday" but I have started alternating instrumental practice with countermelody practice that includes other countermelodies.
Today I noticed that 1) I'm a lot better at picking out a tune-I-know-but-have-never-played-on-the-mando on the mandolin and 2) I'm a lot better at playing a tune-I-just-learned-out-of-a-book-this-morning. Not perfect on either one, but *way* better than I would have been last year.
So that is the State Of The Practice, or at least the State Of The Learning That Suggests What The Practice Should Be And Why.
I also tried playing with a metronome, which was incredibly frustrating at first. This was because the metronome had never played with me before, poor thing--as I was patient with it and gave it more opportunities, it was remarkable how much better it got. I won't say it was ever really *good* but it got better. I was also forced to do without any instrument at all for a week, and went to purely vocal practice instead. In the process I discovered that the vocals, which I had been thinking of as a "gimme" were in fact improving with practice, which suggested I should be practicing vocals also.
And finally, recently it occurred to me that in addtion to practicing pure instrumentals on my instruments, it would be smart to do the same sort of practice on my countermelodies (melodies I play while singing a different melody against them in performance.). I had been doing this anyway for "Mayday" but I have started alternating instrumental practice with countermelody practice that includes other countermelodies.
Today I noticed that 1) I'm a lot better at picking out a tune-I-know-but-have-never-played-on-the-mando on the mandolin and 2) I'm a lot better at playing a tune-I-just-learned-out-of-a-book-this-morning. Not perfect on either one, but *way* better than I would have been last year.
So that is the State Of The Practice, or at least the State Of The Learning That Suggests What The Practice Should Be And Why.
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