Playing and Practicing

So. Day 2. I know for sure that I've had one visitor because they sent me an email. So that's a good thing. Not a whole lot has happened in the past 24 hours. It's snowing outside, and it has been a perfect day for practicing. It's too bad I've only gotten 1/2 hour in so far. Not enough, but it isn't 6pm yet, and seeing as how I usually get in bed around midnight, I still have plenty of time.

Playing and Practicing. These are two very important, yet very different things. Furthermore, each of them are multi-faceted and can mean many things aside from the physical use of one's instrument.

You must PLAY. You must enjoy the act of using your instrument to create music. Your instrument is the vessel that you use to send your inner voice out into the world. And it must also SOUND like you LOVE it. A good friend of mine (who is an oboe professor) once knew a lawyer that was also a professional timpanist. The lawyer was going into a big court case (one that could alter her career) and someone asked her if she was nervous. She said, "No. Are you kidding? I just finished a Timpani recital, and NOTHING is scarier than that!"

But what she meant was not that giving a recital was terrifying. It was that putting her soul in front of the audience was terrifying. When you play, you can't play in a sense that is only technical. To do so is to create sound that is devoid of that special spark of humanity. That is what makes music. Colonel Arnold Gabriel of the Navy Band once said something to me along the lines of, "What is this? Music? No. This is a piece of paper with ink upon it. Music is what we make using this map, this blueprint. Music is what we give to the audience." And in the same vein, Leopold Stokowski addressed an audience in Carnegie Hall by saying that "Artists paint their pictures on canvas. Musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence."

When you play, you must create something. To focus only upon technical clarity will only carry someone to a certain extent. But all the same, you must practice.

If you want to gain admittance to a top conservatory, it goes without saying that you are expected to have already completed years of private study and thousands of hours of practice. If you haven't done that already, and you are within two years of your auditions, you need to get on the ball. When practicing, you must be patient and be relentless about playing flawlessly. A mistake that is overlooked is a mistake that is memorized and ingrained into your playing. Never be satisfied with your playing. Make sure that you focus on all aspects of your playing, and emphasizing your effort upon your weaknesses. Turn your weaknesses into your strengths. I could go on for days about practicing, but it would be futile. For a serious high school player, I would recommend at least 2-3 hours of practice daily, and for an undergraduate (going into their masters) at least 3 hours a day in addition to other rehearsals.

But lastly, you need to practice playing. You need to be as a child, and play. Get outside of the practice room and engage in life enriching activities. Don't be a starving artist, because ultimately you are starving your art. Spend time with friends, go on adventures, and explore the joys and sorrows of life. We are musicians, and as such we have to feel things in a different way. We must feel things in a way that we can internalize them, then channel them through our music. Feed your art. There was once a great flutist in France (but not Taffanel, Gaubert, Moyse, or Rampal... I don't remember who it was. It might have been Marion) who listed the three most important things in flute playing. I forget what one of them was, but the other two were living life, and exercising. When asked about practicing he said: "Practicing is less important."

Live life, and channel it into your music. If you don't then your playing will be lackluster. And in an audition that will last only a few moments, you must convey as much about yourself as possible. The only way to do that is to say something about yourself and your experiences through your playing.