So...I'm not much of a practicer by nature. God has blessed me with musical talent which has taken me further than I ever could have imagined; I think that, if my flute had a voice, it would yell at God and ask Him or Her "Why the HELL would you give that talent to a girl who has NO practice ethic!?!?" Well, he did...and thus I'm left to bear the consequences of my decision to be a music major all alone, without my flute's consent. Maybe I should think about cleaning her more often???
Anyways--so over spring break, I've vowed to practice all three of my current "main" instruments: flute, piano, and violin. I figured that practicing couldn't hurt my playing...it could only help, right? Well, I can tell you right now after finishing another RAVISHING practice session with my buddy la flute that she's PISSED at me. Or...I'm pissed at her. Or...we're just not speaking right now. I HATE sounding bad. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my music (perhaps this is why I don't normally practice?). Practicing just breeds anger for me most of the time. I try to use a metronome and take it slow. I do my tone exercises (thank you, Trevor Wye, for the ever-riveting "RED BOOK" that has been the bane of my existance for the past year...). I ACTUALLY ATTEMPTED TO PRACTICE!!! And you know what happened? My tone was the crappiest I've heard it in a LONG time, my fingers didn't want to work, and suddenly, I've somehow managed to forget how to correctly hold my instrument...my wrists are all weird and something's off. I prayed to the flute gods to pleeeeeease help me out--I even took the whole "God helps those who help themselves" approach and picked up the stupid instrument over BREAK. WHYYYYYYY am I so crappy today??
Come on, now. In all honesty, I know it's not the flute that's doing the screwing up--it's me and my mouth, my fingers, my hands, my wrists, my lungs, my body alignment...the whole 5 and a half feet of me. Flute is something I'm naturally good at. I like that. It's something I cling to...like a security blanket. When my swimming feels off, at least I'm still okay at the whole musical thing. My swimming ended on a high note with the meet last month at UVa, but I haven't been in a pool since because I've been sick. So...I turn to my music, hoping for some crumb to sustain the grumbling in my self-esteem stomach...and I find dust bunnies. Maybe I'll try eating them...then I'd feel like a bad vegetarian. :(
So...to all my musically inclined friends--is this something that I just practice through and, in time, it'll go away...like writers block but flute block? How do I shake this? It's like my flute caught my sickness and it festered in there and is now manifesting itself in my playing. I hate it! I want to play beautiful music. I want to have a reason to keep pounding my head against the brick wall of crappy-music-making. Annnny advice would be welcomed. My musical tummy's hungry.
So--here's my current plan while I await the flood of responses I know I'll get (Nikki!!!! :)), I'm taking a fairly proactive approach--I'm going to read for music lit. This can't hurt, right???
DUNDUNDUNNNNNN.
Adieu!
1 comment:
Sometimes practicing and playing really makes you want to quit it all! But what I found is that when I hit a major hurdle in my playing (and the rut can last from a day or so to a few weeks even, so hang in there and keep practicing), I usually come up with some major breakthrough. I remember when I sang, my voice suddenly started cracking and I couldn't get up into my high register. I cried and cried for like 3 weeks, when suddenly, during an exercise my voice started coming back...with some coaxing, it was almost back to normal--the only reason I say almost is because it was better than ever before!
John is really into the whole envisioning process of practice and performance and I find it helps. Take a few minutes each day to look at the score and imagine yourself playing; imagine the difficulties you might encounter and try to hear yourself playing through the problem spots. It doesn't totally fix things, but the envisioning process usually helps you gain a clear idea of your end goal.
I love listening to radio interviews with famous performers because they usually discuss their process to some extent. It's really fascinating to hear that these people really are normal human beings with normal human worries, and sometimes you come out with some great advice when it comes to your own playing.
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