Yolanda’s Insights to
Success from her Book “On Playing the Harp”
“There
is an old joke where one mans who is lost asks another man, “How do you get to
Carnegie Hall?” The other man replies,
“Practice, Practice, Practice.” As corny
as the joke may be, the message is quite true. But exactly how does one practice?
Do you just play the same thing over and over until you can do it, or is
there some kind of secret routine that only the really talented people
know? As with everything in life, the
answer lies somewhere in between these two extremes. Here are some ideas that I
recommend for developing good practice technique:
- Think
Like an Athlete in training -
Daily consistency and accumulation of strength, endurance, and control are
essential to making progress.
- Set
Goals for each practice session, each week, each month and each year. If you have a clear vision of
what you expect from yourself, you will have a much greater chance of
making it happen.
- Keep
a practice log. Track your practice patterns and see how
often you meet your practice session goals, Are your goals too high, too
low or just firth?
- Don’t
let practicing be the thing you do when everything else is finished.
Make it a regular priority.
- Always
begin work on a new piece by practicing slowly. Do not try to bring a piece up to temp
prematurely.
- Don’t
keep plodding through a difficult spots.
Stop, take a close look at the trouble spot or passage then slowly
work through it at the practice it many times separately until lit begins
to feel more comfortable.
- When
you have been working on a difficult passage separately, be sure to
practice attaching it to the parts directly before and after.
- Make
sure you aren’t reinforcing mistakes by trying to play through things
“just to get the overall idea”-
practicing without attention to detail can ingrain band habits that will
be difficult to reverse.
- When
you are learning a piece worth many page turns, make a copy of your music
so that you can spread out the page turns appropriately during the learning
process.
- Don’t
waist energy getting frustrated or angry when you make a mistake.
This will wear you out far sooner than necessary and develop habit
of showing a mistake with your behavior or facial expression
- If
you reach the point of fatigue and diminished concentration, never
underestimate the benefit of a short break.
- Remember
that the more you know about the music you are practicing the more
interested your practice time will be.
