February 01st, 2013

Groundhog Day!

 At the beginning of February we are always concerned with how many more days of winter are left and whether or not the groundhog sees his shadow: I  am always reminded of the movie Groundhog Day where a single day repeats itself, until the protagonist gets it right. Make sure when you practice you are not creating these kinds of Ouspenskian Recurrences: where a passage might be 'practiced' but is instead repeated endlessly without any changes. Practice thorny technical passages as slowly as possible to play them correctly, employing any one of creative 'add in' solutions: play the passage from right to left, use octave displacement, practice with different rhythms/articulations, say the note names out loud. It is only through careful analysis of what is NOT working that you can fix the passage and KEEP it working.

So leave Groundhog day outside of the practice room and find solutions to your technical problems.