Words of Wisdom: Effective Practicing, Part 2
The way we practice underpins everything we do as we develop our skills. Sometimes developing our own method of practice, rather than following an existing system, can be essential for helping to maximize progress. Of course, we always need to learn from existing systems too. It is, however, also necessary to think outside the box to practice effectively by discarding the notion that ‘I’m practicing scales because I know that we all need to practice our scales,’ and instead ask ourselves to search questions as to why we practice in certain ways and not in others. After all, if we can’t answer ‘Why am I doing this?’ in a convincing way, then it cannot be worth doing. Developing our own methodology or framework of understanding is a creative process in itself once we understand the concept of effective and essential preparation.
I often sense that there is too much vagueness by students in the practice room, with a reliance on repetition without clear purpose. Without knowing which training methods build reliable technique, the student gets locked into a frustrating cycle and can easily believe it is a lack of talent that is holding them back from attaining virtuosity, rather than a matter of how to use practice time effectively.
Honesty is usually a big issue. Micro-adjustment in shifting, for example, is a form of pervasive dishonesty, where players can kid themselves by means of a twitch of the hand into believing that they found the note they were shifting to securely. Appropriate shifting skills will be discussed in subsequent documents.
I find, too, that there is a focus on linear practice – by which I mean that students play what is in front of them, rather than creating a series of versions of what they see (each version taking a different approach). To get from A to B, it is often most efficient to be imaginative and to go via X, Y, or Z.
This reliance on the written page is one of the massive drawbacks to the learning culture of the classical tradition. Having a fluid facility on the instrument has nothing to do with the written page; to be at one with your instrument you need to know why certain finger patterns and bow technics work. The respected and recognized violist, Joseph DePasquale (principal violist of both the Boston Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra was a stellar example of pure greatness as people would describe his playing by saying that “he plays as though the viola is growing out of his neck”.
The mindset
We tend to think of playing as a single activity, but for the purposes of learning a stringed instrument it makes a lot more sense to think of it as a system – one where there are many different skills that interlock and happen simultaneously as these skills are interdependent.
Take the left and right hands, for example. They are effectively two systems, with very different skillsets, working together, and effective practice involves zoning in on these and, at the same time, isolating them. I like to use the analogy of a car to explain this. A car is a single machine in which there is a brake system, a gearbox, suspension and so on. When you isolate the parts to repair each one, they become separate entities. But, when you put them back in the car in their respective places, they are all working together.
Exercises
Practice left-hand exercises in guitar position without the bow. This will give you the opportunity to observe what you are doing with the objectivity of a teacher (essentially you are trying to teach yourself when you are practicing well).
Practice left-hand shifts, scales and arpeggios without the bow. Feel the physical sensation needed for accurate intonation as a clean, gliding motion for shifting that will help free you from micro-adjustment and allow you to focus on good left-hand technique.
Guard against excessive tension in the hand, practice left-hand exercises where your fingers go down to the string and they feel the tension on the fingerboard. There are five levels of string tension. Do this in guitar position (where it is easy to see exactly what your fingers are doing), then in normal position. Start with something slow, then build up speed.
For fast passagework with long slurs, break down the task by first practicing the notes separately, and then practicing the string-crossings on open strings without the actual notes being fingered.
Practicing Chords
The linear way to practice chords should be to play the chords, note by note, slowly in sequence. You might think you are practicing well, but why not play them in reverse order? In effect you are reading them from right to left. Increase the challenge (and fun factor); when you return to the original you should find that they seem comparatively more familiar.
Now with the left hand only, map out the finger patterns needed for the chords by playing those fingers only on one string. Be careful to observe where the ½ steps and whole steps would be on the strings where they are actually written. Repeat them, but this time place the fingers on the strings where they are written. This will also require some adjustment of the shape of your left hand as you “lift” the appropriate fingers over the strings. Because you can visualize the patterns on the one string, this should help with intonation.
Think in terms of finger patterns. Make sure that the left hand is “ready and waiting” with each relevant note as you play the chord patterns on the multiple strings. Give the passage a shape and then experiment with different shapes to see what works best musically.
Shaking up your practice routine
Sometimes a cycle of anxiety develops over time because ineffective practice might lead to a compulsion to practice harder (but with no improvement to the method). This discouragement undermines the sense of what IS possible. It is important to consider different ways to practice but always remember that if you practice things too fast, you will also forget the plan really fast. Practicing slowly helps you to remember longer.
In order to prepare efficiently, mix up the order in which you prepare your practice plan for each day.
Remember that scales and arpeggios are necessary to feel the full range of fingerboard. Practicing Sevcik, opus 8, slowly and without vibrato, will also be an important aid for learning the complexities of the fingerboard.
A routine is important, but you must create a practice plan to determine the routine.
Decide on your specific targets.
Tone control is important by working on different combinations of bow speed, contact points and bow pressure.
Explore different ideas to see where you arrive. Impulse is also useful in all sorts of situations.
In string instruments, terms like this translate to shifting, vibrato, finger action, bow strokes etc. If you think of your practice options as tools in a toolbox, it puts you into a creative and problem-solving state of mind. Some tools you return to, some you might adapt for different purposes, and there are always new tools to discover to suit fresh challenges.
Here the car analogy is useful again. If you want to fix the gearbox, for example, you might clean and fix the component parts but there is a time during that process when it bears no resemblance to a gearbox, because all the bits are everywhere in your workshop. It is only when it is reassembled that it takes its complete form again, although now it works better than it did before.
General Tips
From early on, each note on the fingerboard has an absolute and also a relative location depending on the key in which you are playing and which accidentals occur. Both ways of thinking about how to fit each note into a pattern helps to develop and solidify the ‘map’ of the fingerboard.
Whatever your level, by taking the reins for yourself during your practice sessions will also assist your learning and how to think independently.
You can also invent exercises for yourselves to tackle something you find tricky
Break down difficult passages to help learn how to make this one of your practice tools
Watch a YouTube video to see the hand shapes that are drawn when we cross strings; it will show you that the shapes that you draw while playing aren’t necessarily the shapes you would have imagined.
If you watch something on YouTube, I suggest that you sometimes watch at a slow speed on that YouTube feature.