Hi,
I am wondering if sometimes in our gusto
to play the best we can, that we practice
a tune too much?
When we start tripping over our tongues
and our fingers are doing their own thing,
does it work for you to skip that tune for a few days and then go back to it?
It seems to work for me. After ignoring it,
I seem to go right back to my original mediocre playing of the tune.
Red-Haired boy is the one that does that to me…we play a fast, but simple version, and
some-times I can’t even remember the first note.
So, is it a true statement, we can “over-practice”???
Lolly
I am very far from being an expert at anything except ‘teaching’ children. I got good at this because I rebelled against the common understanding of the term, ‘teaching.’
So here is my opinion on what is too much practice: if you are practicing whistle to the extent that you are doing yourself bodily harm, take a break. If you are frustrated with a task, but you have the desire to push on, slow down and approach the task in smaller units.
In a thread debating this question awhile back, some people argued for discipline and endurance, while others said stop doing something that stops being fun.
I like your choice of words when you described returning to mediocrity. I think you answered your own question…
Lisa
I sure hope so..This is what I tell myself when I start tripping over my fingers. Actually what happens to me is that I get to a place where I stop “thinking fingers” and it just happens..the music is fun and mindless,just happening..then I realize it and start thinking too much,that’s when it starts. ]
So I’m working real hard on staying out of the way of the music.
For me, I have to forget a tune before I really can remember it. That means learn, over practice, leave it for a few days or a week, come back, not remeber anything, practice for five minutes and BAM, everything comes back plus more. Most cognitive psychologists will tell you that brief (5-10 minute) and frequent sessions are better for learning than one long session. So try breaking it up, work on several tunes, switching back and forth. And don’t forget your daily review of learned tunes.
I had the unique experience this past school year of telling a student to quit practicing so much. (How’s that for a great problem to have?) She had heard me telling another student that, while preparing for my senior recital in college, I was putting in four to five hours per day on my horn because I wanted to play superbly.
With typical selective hearing, she heard “To be a superb player, practice four to five hours per day.” Being a very motivated sixth grader, she took this misunderstood message to heart. Her technique was absolutely superb–I’ve never heard a second-year player play like that.
Trouble was, she hated it. She told me she wasn’t having fun playing the flute anymore; it was an obligation rather than a release. So yes, I actually had to tell her to back off: No more than one hour per day. Problem solved.
I believe that enjoyment is more important than technical excellen1ce.
Sometimes that means hard work, of course. When I used to run 5 and 10 Ks competetively, I HATED speed workouts. They were no fun whatsoever. Now being able to kick someone’s rump at the finish line because I was in better shape than they were–THAT was fun. Sometimes you can’t have one without the other, and training yourself to do the impossible can be fun in itself.
So, there’s a place for both views. Discipline and endurance can get you where you want to go. But enjoyment can be and must be the goal. Music is about life, and if you deprive yourself of a life for the sake of music, what will inspire you to play?
Personally, I find if I stop playing a tune as soon as I stop making progress learning to play it and I’m no longer having fun, I play it much better the next day. If I continue to struggle with it and try to learn it past the point it gets aversive, I’m right back where I was when I try it the next day. I just go on to the next song and work on that one in till I stop making progress and just go on to other songs. I practice a lot of songs instead of concentrating on one in till I am sick of it. I understand this is a psychologically sound way to study most subjects. Review a lot of different stuff, so it all stays interesting and return to it after a day has passed, rather than try to force yourself to memorize one set of facts before moving on to the next set.
A trick musicians, as well as athletes use is to relax while you are doing a task to improve performance. Tensing up also makes it harder to learn as it makes the task more aversive, making it harder to get and keep your mind on the subject. If you tense up, the tension is wasting energy you could be used by the rest of the body to do the task at hand better. Fingers move faster as the unused muscles no longer fight against the ones doing the actual playing, for example. I remember my mom, an operatic soprano who sounds like Beverly Sills, telling voice students to relax as she gave lessons. I would then hear their tone go from constricted to a ringing open sound as their more relaxed bodies resonated like fine instruments.
As far as building stamina goes, when a task is repeated past the point it starts to hurt, you are no longer building stamina; you are doing damage. Despite what most people think about physical training, pain is still nature’s way of telling you to slow down. Athletes that do well by over training simply have learned how to push themselves harder in competition, despite the pain. It’s a strange character-building thing, not proper physical training.
I find that if I’m getting frustrated or bored with playing something, it’s much better to just drop it a while and go do something else, or you’ll just end up driving yourself bonkers…