Juries and Practice

December 15, 2008 at 5:08 AM

It would seem that every year I report here about Juries and how I thought they went well only to later find out the faculty didn't thing so. I honestly thought I did a fairly solid jury, not to say it wasn't chock full of comepletely enexpected errors...it really was. Things that only an hour before were terrific were not horribly out of tune. I had some very...interesting octaves at the jury and I apparently had countiung issues. I noticed a couple of them, but there were more than I thought. Although my teacher and I don't always get along all that well, I will agree with him that the mistakes I made should NOT have happened. Weird things happen in performance by mistakes like that are obviously from lack of experience with the accompanist.

So, here's what I'm going to do about it. I'm going to practice more often with an accompanist. I'm going to study the piano score so I know all of the places where I'm with the piano, where I enter after rests and keys (which I transer into my part). As far as my own practicing, I'm going to implement Kurt Sassmanshaus' method for practicing into my regime. I've already made up the plans for it MM-40-60-80 etc. to concert tempo. On top of the that, I'm going to incorporate drones into my rep practice and into my scale practice. Over Christmas break and J-term I should have plenty of time to do all of these things and I will come out of it ready for grad school audtions.

I discovered that my pitch is fine with a drone and that it wasn't a funtamental ear problem by playing various pitches on the piano and singing major arpeggios from the "tonic." Then, I grabbed my violin and my chromatic tuner, walked into the choir room, hooked the tuner up to the speakers and turned on a "G" to drone. I then played a G major scale slowly, locking in every pitch to the drone (even the dissonant ones). Drone really have a double effect on improvement of intonation. With a drone, the person eventually develops the ability to sing the drone pitch in their head so that all pitches can be related to that pitch. Also, it trains your hand (muscle memory) as the where the heck the fingers go for that note. After repeat practice with a drone, ones intonation accuracy without the drone should increase based on these two factors. Drones also really get you to think harmonically about a piece because it forces to to know what key you're currently playing in at that point in time. Hence, the need for analysing a piece of music harmonically. Additionally, I will include doing things in rhythms to my practice. They have been incredibly useful in my practice so far, but they're not having the full effect I would like them to have.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

From Tommy Atkinson
Posted on December 18, 2008 at 12:59 AM

Lately, I've been recommending to my more advanced students to do what I call "additive practicing." It's something I've been doing more and more of lately, and it's really helping me work more efficiently, especially now that I don't have the 4+ hours a day I had to practice while I was in music school.

I'm sure I stole (or shall I say "learned") this from somebody or somewhere. Anyway, for additive practicing I just increase the number of notes that I play by 1 until I can play the passage solidly. So I'll start with just one note until I can play it just like I want to, and then I add one more note (rhythmic value notwithstanding - I won't add one BEAT, just one NOTE). I play it at full speed with dynamics, articulation, etc. If I can't handle adding the subsequent note at speed, I'll first work on the connection between the two notes that is giving me trouble slowly for pitch, bowing, etc; then 3 notes - specifically the two notes preceding the one I'm having trouble with, and the faulty note itself. For example, I decided that I wanted to learn Ziguenerweisen, and am getting through it ok but I'm having a bitch of a time with that part in the fast section that shifts the octave up to the high B harmonic and then has a descending scale (about 2/3 of the way down the third page, I think). I tried starting on different notes, and realized that once I'm in position it's not a problem. It's just getting up and finding my bearings. So, I practice the note before the harmonic, the harmonic, and the subsequent A that really starts the scale in that position.

Anyway, I'm finding more and more that breaking it down really hard like this is helping my ability to control the way I play at tempo rather than controlling it way under tempo. Of course I still do the slow work, the metronome work, the drone work too. It sounds like you're having a similar issue of controlling your playing at speed. It's not so much about playing in tune as it is having control over your playing in performance. Maybe this method of practice will help?

Anyway, happy practicing and best of luck with your grad school auditions.

From Andrew Paa
Posted on December 19, 2008 at 12:02 AM

Thanks! I'll give that a try over the Christmas break as well!

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Juries and Practice

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