Thanks to Grey’s book, listening to good CDs, and watching/listening to others in session, I find myself periodically evaluating my playing technique, and then I’ll often try something different (cuts with different fingers, focus on good posture, etc.).
I’ve noticed whenever I do this I nearly always loose the ability to remember tunes, hit notes cleanly, etc.
Anyone else have this problem?
It’s not that these ventures into new or different technique are not valuable, but when I’m playing my best it’s almost meditative in nature - I tend to lose all thought about what I’m doing. However, whenever I’m thinking instead of just playing - it’s really noticable in my playing.
I’m often amazed how many variables go into playing a simple flute, and how the more I play the more I realize how much more I need to learn and improve.
Eric
Amen, brother!
Be the ball.
Wax on, wax off.
This came up for me recently, I was playing a tune and making clumsy mistakes, at the time I was standing at my window, my attention was taken by some kids playing outside and the next thing I knew was I was playing the last bar. The whole tune had come out with little effort and no mistakes!
By coincidence the next week I was painting at the theatre when I got talking to some of the wind players in the orchestra. They were talking about internalisation and silent singing. They advised me to get the tune going in my head first entirely mentaly (no singing) and then play along with myself on the flute keeping the mind tune going. Keeping the tune going in your mind helps prevent thinking about the tricky bit coming up amongst other things. They said it was a particular problem for wind players because you were using the same parts of your body that you speak and sing with to play. I hope I’ve described this all correctly!
I have been trying it and though not easy, it does seem to work. One thing it does seem to help with is to drop in and out of a tune ie play a few bars leave a bar out and come back in spot on.
Goodness a long screed!
Rob