Music and Practicing
Music
is a Parallel Reality. Music a refuge.
Music
expresses beyond words.
Paul
and Brenda Neal
Suggestions
for Practice
Recent
studies have shown that practicing a musical instrument regularly may
outweigh inherited aptitude in determining who is talented.
When
we started in our late 20s to learn harp, we could not read a note of
music. We made ourselves practice a half hour a day. Even it we had
put it off until time to go to bed because we couldn't stand it. It
was that bad. Even if we felt more like chopping up our harps for
firewood. Slowly, by practicing, some notes began to group together
and to actually sound like a cohesive melody.
Even
10 minutes a day or 10 minutes five days or two days a week will make
a difference.
Playing
an instrument is like meditating. One must focus. However, other
thoughts float in or even intrude. It is a not a matter of combating
the sneaky phantom thoughts but learning how to let them slide by,
not fighting them but bumping them to the side.
Some
musicians are all around geniuses. And some of us have different
aptitudes and weaknesses. Personally we find that memorizing music
is easier than the decoding involved in reading notes. For us
memorizing the melody frees us up to be more expressive with the
music, feeling it as a whole.
Is
Practicing a Chore? Or is it vacation to a parallel reality?
Probably
both and often in between.
There
are days when practicing flows with one's day and, on the other hand,
there are the mundane tedious, frustrating, once in a while even
infuriating practice interludes. A voice in one's mind can ask, why
do you bother? The voice can ask many disparaging and undermining
questions. Over time the voice dims to a cricket in the background.
The
fabulous benefits gained from playing an instrument are outlined in
articles on the internet. Just hearing music causes “fireworks in
the brain.” Actually playing an instrument draws on multiple areas
of the brain. Three articles -
http://dana.org/News/Details.aspx?id=42947
Two
Secrets to Keep Interested
Have
a large enough repertoire with enough variety.
Divide
the repertoire list into two, three, four, or more groups to rotate
daily. Try to vary each smaller list by mood, speed, key, tempo,
major/minor, lively/lilting, difficulty, and etc.
Occasionally
weed out one or more songs that are not moving you and seek a
replacement.
Expressive
Playing
Play
boldly. Recently we compared two versions of a Bach composition.
Much to our surprise, we found that a lesser known musician played
the Bach composition more expressively, more to our liking, than did
a world renown musician.
Strive
to use the whole dynamic range of your instrument.
Make
a piece your own. By all means, play a melody differently from what
the usual interpretation is if you feel it another way.
Nuances
make a difference. Several years ago we heard bit of advice about
playing music. This may have even been before we started harp
lessons. On a public TV program about the Van Cliburn Piano
Competition one woman judge said that in comparing musicians she
looked for nuances of expression. She gave the example of if there
is a series of four triplets, did the musician vary the emphasis of
the beginning notes of the triplets? For some reason this view
stayed with us. If a melody or passage is repeated, we try to at
least subtly play something differently for the listeners, even if it
is just ourselves, so the ear has a different experience. [Or when
playing with one or more other musicians, the backup or accompaniment
can vary and change also.]
Why
do we bother with the repetition of practicing?
There
is no getting around the fact that practice is repetition. So why do
we bother with the repetition of practicing?
Because
music expresses. Because
music uplifts, transforms, soothes, embraces, enriches.
The
most joy has come to me in life from my violin.
Albert
Einstein
Music
heard so deeply that it is not heard at all, but you are the music
while the music lasts.
T.
S. Eliot
There
is no truer truth obtainable by man than comes by music.
Robert
Browning
Music
is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Rhythm
and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on
which
they
mightily fasten, imparting grace,
and
making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful.
Plato
I
know that I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music.
Albert
Einstein
...
only music may span that space between the finite and the infinite
... music may be the means of arousing and awakening the best of
hope, the best of desire, the best in the heart and soul …. Is not
music the universal language?....Is it not a means, a manner of
universal expression! Thus may the greater hope come.
Edgar
Cayce,reading 2156-1
If
you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of
energy, frequency and vibration.
Nikola
Tesla
What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be
perceptible
to the senses. There is no matter.
Albert
Einstein
Each
celestial body, in fact each and every atom, produces a particular
sound on account of its movement, its rhythm or vibration. All these
sounds and vibrations form a universal harmony in which each element,
while having it’s own function and character, contributes to the
whole.
Pythagoras
All
that matters is that we continue to persevere and practice.
