Being a doubler, I see the differences in piano and flute theory definitions. I’d like to share them with you.
I’m a little bit of a music theory nerd. I love the math inside of the music and seeing how it all fits together. Once you know your music theory, a piece of music looks like a beautiful puzzle.
Because of the way that different instruments make different sounds, the definition of some of the terms are different. Being a doubler, I see the differences in piano and flute definitions. I’d like to share them with you.
The Slur vs Legato
In flute, legato means to lightly tongue the passage, using a “la” syllable in your mouth. It sometimes says legato in the music and sometimes the composer uses a tenuto.
In flute, a slur means to not tongue at all in the passage indicated.
In piano, legato and slur are the same thing – smooth and connected – because every note is a strike of the string(s). There’s no way for the piano to not articulate every note.
The Accent
In piano, an accent simply means to play that particular note louder.
In flute, an accent means to play that particular note with a hard, somewhat explosive attack. The accent is all about the attack.
Piano as a whole is all about the attack. That’s why some consider us percussionists. We don’t have very much control over how the entire note is played, we only have control over the attack.
In the flute, we have control over the attack and the duration of the entire note, so if we were to play an accent the same way we were instructed on the piano, we would just play that note forte, which would sound funny.
Tone Color
In piano, people talk about tone color as purely the emotion that you want to portray.
In flute, tone color is involved with the emotion, but not the whole thing. We can have both purple noble and blue noble sounds. I talk more about tone color on flute here.
Let’s Work Together.
These are the differences that I see the most often, I’m sure there are more. I feel that when we know the differences, it helps us to come together more as musicians. We play together. If we know how our vocabulary differs, we can understand each other better.
Some students come to lessons perfectly prepared every week. Some don’t. Those not perfectly prepared don’t prepare for various reasons – schedule, burn-out, going through a low time in the music progression, etc. Not everyone is able to practice perfectly every week. Even those who are normally prepared have off-weeks sometimes.
Expectations
In a normal practice session, you would play each of the following things, depending on your level and instrument:
Tone
Scales
Technical Studies
Etudes
Sight Reading
Repertoire
If you’re curious about this list, I go into more depth about it here.
What Do Good Practicers Do?
A student who is really good at practicing basically works up all their pieces really well the first two days or so of practice, then coasts for the rest of the week.
Coasting looks like them playing through everything once, maybe working on a problem here and there, then finishing practice with things they have already learned and enjoy playing.
This takes a lot of drive for the first two days, but the benefits are fabulous. It makes practicing fun. It saves time in the long run. It makes it so the student can perform better in the lesson.
What if I Don’t Have the Drive to Do That?
You may not have the time, energy, or drive to focus on everything on your practice list any given day. This can happen for various reasons – schedule, feeling burned out, etc.
Focus on one or two categories per day. I’m not saying that you should skip a category. You should at least run through every category at least once, unless you’re in big trouble. Then I would recommend using my time crunch technique.
Take a look at your categories. If your technical studies book is really easy, you probably won’t have to focus on it all week. Just play through it once a day and call it good. If you just got a new section for your repertoire, you might have to focus on that a couple of times that week.
Burn-out
If you are going through a burn-out phase, try using the two-stand method. It will insert some fun and joy into your practice and pull you out of your funk. The two-stand method takes more time, but it works.
If you’re having scheduling issues in addition to the burn-out, then go ahead and focus on one or two things per day, as described above, but make sure you’re playing music that you’ve already learned at the end of your practice session. Pull out an old lesson book. Pull out an old piece that you learned for a recital or contest. Goof off on your instrument. Discipline is great, but remind yourself why your play.
You will find yourself coming out of your burn-out quickly.
Conclusion
Everyone goes through times when they can’t focus as well as normal on their practice. Everyone goes through times when they can’t practice as well as normal. It’s good to have more than one way to do things. It keeps things fresh.
I have a story about my life that is bursting to come out because it will help so many people. It may be about music, but it’s not about flute or piano. It’s about singing.
I have always loved to sing. I sang before I could talk. My mom told me that I would sing in my sleep when I was a baby. When my mom told me that, my husband said that I still do. Poor guy.
All my childhood, I was told to not sing by everyone except for my parents and a select other few. This was not because I was singing at inappropriate times. It was because almost everyone around me hated my singing voice. I sang, anyway, because I loved it.
Every choir director that I had from 5th grade through 12th grade took me aside and said, “Tarah, please, just don’t sing. Please, Tarah, just don’t sing.” All but two said exactly those same words.
I won’t mention what the other two said. One was much more kind, and the other was much less kind.
Guess what I did? I sang, anyway.
When I Realized the Lie
I realized early in life that if I am in choir, I get flute solos. Therefore, I’m always in church choir. About five years out of college, the church choir director asked me to do a singing solo. During the rehearsal. In front of everyone.
I said, “You don’t have to be nice and offer me a solo. I know I don’t have a good voice. Go ahead and give it to one of the better singers.”
After she picked her jaw up off the floor, she said, “What makes you think that?”
I said, “Every choir director I had from 5th through 12th grade told me I shouldn’t sing.”
Still flabbergasted, she gave me the solo.
That Was Then, This Is Now.
I’m still in a church choir that’s adults only. If I’m sick or can’t make it to a service, everyone is upset because I’m such a good leader.
I get compliments on my voice all the time. I’m one of those people who sings if there’s a song that applies to what we’re talking about.
On nice days during November and December, I’m tempted to stand next to a bell ringer and sing, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” and continue on with my day as if nothing happened. I’ve never actually done it. Someday maybe I’ll do it. Maybe.
Your Takeaway
Now it’s time to apply my story to you.
If someone isn’t very good at something, encourage them. They just need practice.
If someone is very good at something, encourage them. They may not have any encouragement in their lives.
If someone tells you that you’re not good enough, don’t give up. Keep going. Do it because you love to do it. Don’t let them take away your joy.
It’s December. Our fast-paced world just got a million times faster. What with holiday parties, extra gigs, Advent services at church, and getting ready for Christmas, everyone is walking around in an exhausted stupor. How will you fit in practice?
Here are some ideas.
Get Up Early
Get up earlier than normal. If you do all your normal stuff, quietly, earlier than normal, then you can practice during the time you normally would get ready. It’s late enough that you aren’t disturbing the household, and it checks that item off your list. Woohoo!
Alternate Practice and Something Else
I talk about this a little more extensively in this article. I personally like to use the timer and alternate between housework and practicing. My oldest daughter likes to do this kind of practicing while she’s cooking supper. I endorse this kind of practice to help make homework go faster.
The Time Crunch
Normally you would practice for an hour, but you only have half an hour today. What do you do?
Do a Five Minute Warm Up and run through the toughest pieces that you’re working on. It might be your etude (lesson book) and bits and pieces of your repertoire. Start with the toughest stuff and work from there. That way, if you get to everything, great! If you don’t get to everything, at least you did something.
Mental Practice
This is a good one for during a commute or something like that. Run through the piece in your head, all the way down to what your fingers are doing on each note.
This article explains in better detail how to do it (not an affiliate link, just a fan) and how much it helps.
Practice on a Pencil (Flutes Only)
Sometimes you find yourself waiting or with some dead space in your schedule, but it’s not socially appropriate to whip out your flute in the middle of the Doctor’s Office or the Laundromat. Believe me, I’ve been tempted!
You can still practice your fingerings on a pencil. It’s advisable to also breathe as if you were playing the flute and try to articulate the notes, too.
What’s great about this technique is that it takes out some of the factors that may have been troubling you, like making sure you’re still making a good sound or balancing your flute. In other words, it simplifies things so that when you go back to your flute, you can rock it out.
Listen to your Repertoire
This isn’t practicing per se, but it does help you play things better. It helps your musicianship, your articulations, your dynamics, your phrasings, I could go on and on, but you get it. It helps.
I recommend that my students listen to their repertoire (recital pieces) at least five times per day. Get it stuck in your head. Have the biggest ear worm of all time.
Conclusion
These are all my tricks! If you have a way of fitting in practice that I didn’t think of, feel free to share.
It’s the time of year when you start getting more gigs. People like to have live Christmas music played at events and as ambiance. It’s not December yet, but starting in October, everyone wants to fill up their December calendar. They might just call you. It’s a great time to be a musician.
Simple Music
One nice thing about all these gigs is that the music is usually relatively simple. You don’t have to practice much to get them to performance level, which is nice, because there can be a large volume.
Sometimes, though, you want to play something a little harder than what’s available. That’s when it’s good to know how to add some sparkle to the pieces, the way the people of the Baroque period did it – with ornamentation.
Ornamentation
It’s rather ironic that we can decorate Christmas music with ornaments just like we would a Christmas tree. On a tree, ornaments make everything sparkle and look impressive. In music, you can use ornaments to change the feel of the music, making it sound more impressive and fancy. You can use the musical ornaments to emphasize notes (that usually go with words) or just to create a cool ending to a phrase.
The steps below show how to do this on paper. After about a year, you’ll be able to do parts of this without having to write it down.
Step 1
Look at the music and pay attention to the phrase endings – the cadences, to be musically correct. Compare the phrase endings with this list – grace notes, trills, grupettos (turns), mordents, arpeggios, and glissandos.
Step 2
Add ornaments to the phrase endings in the following order:
Grupettos
Mordents
Grace Notes
Trills
Glissandos (For melodies, leaps of a 5th or more, better on a wind instrument, sometimes sounds cheesy on a piano.)
Arpeggios (For block chords, arpeggiate them, piano only.)
I have this order for a reason. I start with the hardest thing to add and move to the easiest thing to add. I only add one ornament per phrase ending and I don’t add an ornament to every single phrase ending. Just the ones that jump out at me.
Step 3
There’s a very important note in each phrase. One of my old teachers called it the sunshine note. It’s the emotional apex of the phrase. If it’s a longer note, add a mordent or a grace note to it.
If there’s a word that you really want to highlight, add a grace note or mordent to that note, too.
Jean-Pierre Rampal once said that a grace note is like a flower pot on a window sill. What notes or words need a flower pot?
Step 4
Play through your new ideas. Did you overdo it? If there are some phrases where there’s more than one ornament, pay extra attention. Does it sound good? You may have to pick and choose what you want to subtract and you may want to add something here or there.
Becoming Fluent
After you’ve done this for a year or two, you won’t have to plan your ornaments ahead of time. You’ll just intuitively know where to add them. Your brain will go through this 4-step process, but it will happen in an instant without you realizing it.
In your head, you’ll go through the list in Step 2 backwards. Easiest first. You’ll find yourself just adding the glissandos or arpeggiating chords without thinking about it. A month or two later, you’ll add a trill, grace note, or mordent without thinking about it. Grupettos might take an extra year or two to be able to add without planning ahead of time.
Practicing This Skill When It’s Not The Holidays
If you know you’ll be doing a lot of Christmas gigs, it’s a good idea to practice the steps above until you can do them intuitively, even in June. If you’re like me and don’t want to play Christmas music in the summer, find a hymnal (not an affiliate link) or a folk song book (affiliate link). Look in thrift stores for folk song books. I find them for a dollar at thrift stores all the time.
You can do this once or twice a week instead of tone work, as described in “Other Options” here.
Listen
Another good tool to learn how to do this is to listen to symphonic metal bands, such as Trans-Siberian Orchestra or Epica. The lead guitars do this kind of improv all the time. By listening to it, you’ll be able to simplify it in your head and do it more naturally.
Conclusion
If you do the steps listed above, listen to examples, and practice at it all year around, you’ll find yourself doing this process intuitively. You’ll have a bunch of fun doing it and it will help you stay in the moment during your easier gigs.
This is a middle-to-late elementary piano piece for Left Hand with optional Right Hand part. If you wish to play the whole thing with the Left Hand, feel free to omit the first treble clef note in measures 4, 8, 14, 16, 18, and 20.
I wrote this piece for a student who broke a finger in her right hand. She can still play open fifths, but nothing else. I hope this helps you, like it did me!
The second lesson on tone and how to continue your study.
This article is designed to be read after this one. Please read the first article before you read this one.
Long Tones
The definition of Long Tones are to go up or down the chromatic scale very slowly. At first, it’s two notes per breath slowly.
The first step of Long Tones is to take that fabulous tone that you learned in the first step and extend it down to Middle C. In the second lesson on tone, you don’t go above the B natural in the middle of the staff.
One person once told me that each note should sound like pearls on a necklace. Another person once told me that you should imagine the honey dripping out of the end of your instrument. Whatever analogy works best for you, each note should sound equally great.
Stumbling Blocks
While going down, if you start to lose your best tone, go back up to the better note and play the two notes – the one with good tone and the one where you’re starting to lose the good tone – one at a time, until the second note sounds better.
While going down, if you get a note that sounds better than everything else, go back up. You need to expand that great tone from (usually it’s a G) back up to your B natural. Now your B natural is even more fabulous!
Why?
Why don’t you go up at first? Why only go down to Middle C? The reason you go down first is because you need to create a good base in order to have good tone in all of your registers.
Sometimes when you hear about a person’s tone, the experts talk about overtones and undertones. In order to have good undertones for the higher notes in your range, you need to have good notes at the bottom of your range. We work on undertones first so you don’t sound shrill.
The Book(s)
When I first teach tone, I teach it from this book (affiliate link), Trevor Wye’s Tone Book. We take one exercise at a time, bit by bit, until we’ve gone all the way through the book.
After we learn the Trevor Wye book, we start on this book (affiliate link), De La Sonorite by Moyse. It may be old, but you know what they say – if it ain’t broke…
Other Options
The two books listed above are kind of like eating your vegetables. Not fun, but necessary. There are days that you can’t make yourself do it. Once or twice a week, you can give yourself permission to play something beautiful and simple, instead. If you’re having a hard time practicing in general, take a look at this article.
I love Disney and all things geek, so I like to play along to this Disney book, with the recording, so I know I’m working on intonation. I can pretend I’m James Galway by playing Lord of the Rings with the recording, for the same reason. Of course, there’s always Harry Potter and Star Wars, too (all affiliate links). If pop music is more your jam, those books exist, too.
Depending on why I don’t want to work on tone, sometimes I’ll pull out my hymnal (not an affiliate link) to work on tone, too. One nice thing about using the hymnal is that sometimes when you’re not in the mood to work on the tone books, it’s for a good reason. Playing hymns sometimes turns those things around. Also, if you’re having a bad day, take a look at this article. It might help.
Conclusion
This article isn’t intended to be used instead of having a private teacher. Sometimes it’s nice to see everything all laid out in an article so you can see the hows and the whys. Sometimes it’s nice to see an explanation that’s in someone else’s words. Sometimes it’s just good to have a review.
This is my path of how music has helped me over the years.
Music has always been there for me during the tough parts of my life. Over the years, I have discovered how to use music in several different ways for the music to help me.
I’m not saying that you should only use music when you’re going through a tough time. It’s just part of the whole picture. Please continue to use medication, professional counseling, journaling, reading the Bible, etc. What I’m showing you is to be used in conjunction with those things.
Disclaimer: I’m not a medical professional. I am showing my path of how music has helped me over the years.
Just Play.
I’m going to be a little more vulnerable than normal and share some things that usually makes others uncomfortable. They’re no secret, by any means, but things like these don’t really come up in casual conversation.
4th through 8th grade were a living nightmare for me. My classmates constantly berated me, punched me, threw rocks at me, and sexually harassed me. I’d rather not go through the nitty-gritty details of what I went through at the time, and I did work through those things that happened to me. I’m grateful that I had a stable home life.
Half-way through that time of my life, in 6th grade, I learned to release the emotions that were weighing down on me through music. I did this by ending my practice with a piece of music that spoke to me on whatever level I needed at the time. This piece of music was usually something that I already had learned. It was such a relief to release those emotions, and then, in turn, be comforted by the music that I was playing.
While I played, my subconscious mind would also present me with solutions for some of the smaller problems that I was having to deal with. This was also a relief. Anything to make my life easier at the time was very welcome.
My go-to music at that time was I Do It For You by Bryan Adams on the piano and Kohler’s 25 Romantic Etudes on the flute. In 8th Grade, I added Phantom of the Opera to the piano portion of my music therapy, and in High School I bought some Disney books that really helped. While the ones that I bought are no longer in print, here are some similar options for flute and piano. These are all affiliate links.
I impressed my music teachers because I was able to play with such great emotion, even though I was just a beginner. I needed that emotional outlet, and it made me a better musician. Beethoven once said, “To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.”I had a lot of passion to get out of my fingers.
This situation that I went through is why I make sure that every one of my students has a sad piece and an angry piece after they’ve been playing for a few years. Everyone has bad days, months, or years, especially in Jr. High. Having an emotional outlet like this is very valuable.
Performing
I was never good at any sports. I was such a klutz that my PE teachers even made fun of me. Even though I moved 18 times by the time I was 24, I was almost always in farming communities. Farming communities tend to put a lot of emphasis on sports put down those who aren’t able to do them.
Music was where I could prove to myself that I had value as a person. I may not have proved myself to those around me (because sports), but it felt good to get those ribbons and medals at the competitions. I even got to State twice in High School Solo & Ensemble, getting one gold and one bronze.
This is one reason why I make sure that I offer entry into the local and state competitions to all my students. In addition to helping them learn how to handle themselves in nerve-wracking situations and getting feedback from a judge to better their skills, they get awards and prizes to give them a boost, right when they might need it the most.
As an adult, performing on the flute energizes me for weeks (I have stage fright on the piano, so that not so much). I love to move people to tears when I volunteer to play for church. I love the give and take of the ensembles that I play in, because everyone’s tone and musical ideas meld into one.
Listening
We all listened to sad songs in high school to try to feel better. We’ve all listened to dance music to get energized. Those things really do work. I have discovered a different way of listening to music that heals me quickly.
A couple of years ago, my “friends” were giving me a rough time and I was feeling really yucky about myself. A friendly acquaintance invited me to watch him play in the symphony. Of course, I couldn’t refuse.
I can’t remember the exact music they played, but the orchestra played two pieces. The first was an atonal, modern piece. Very dissonant. The second was a beautiful, romantic era piece. Very lush.
While I listened to the first piece of music, I felt all the yucky feelings inside of me that had been brewing for months float out of my body. I felt clean, but I was afraid that the yucky stuff would come back in.
While I listened to the second piece of music, all the yucky feelings blew away and the comfort of a beautiful, lush piece of music entered my soul. I felt like a new person with a clean start.
Now that I know this information, I look up something to listen to that’s really dissonant, then something beautiful when I have a ton of negative feelings boiling inside of me. Everything just floats away and I’m able to logically go through my problem.
Conclusion
These are the three areas that music has helped me and will help me for the rest of my life. I hope they help you. Life is hard.Music relieves some of the pain.
When I was in high school and college, I would practice till my fingers hurt. On purpose. It may have hurt my hands, but I was happy and satisfied afterwards. My band professor in college caught me doing it one time, and he said to never play through pain.
Sports injuries and Carpal Tunnel are common among musicians. We should treat and consider ourselves as athletes by paying attention to form and stretching every 20 minutes of practice.
My Story
As I said before, I used to practice until my fingers hurt on purpose. That’s when my hand pain started. My Senior year of college, my hand pain started coming on earlier and earlier during practice. A year or two later, my hands started to hurt when I wasn’t playing.
A few years ago, someone recommended that I try an Active Release Technique Chiropractor. Dr. Tony Ellis helped me realize that I was holding my flute incorrectly and hand-crossing incorrectly. It caused tennis elbow, which he treated.
Review of Proper Form for Flute
On the flute, you should hold your right hand like you’re taking a book off a shelf. Every finger should be curved, with your fingertips touching the very middle of each key, including your pinky. You will need to adjust your foot joint so that the pinky curves at the same angle as the other fingers. The curvature helps your fingers play fast. The thumb should be holding the flute with the side of the thumb, so you can see your entire fingernail. Holding your thumb so the tip of the thumb is touching the flute is acceptable, too, depending on the size of your hands.
See how you can see the full thumbnail? My fingers aren’t long enough to use the tip of my thumb, but yours might. Everyone is different!See how my pinky matches the curve of the rest of my fingers? I only spent a few minutes finding the correct adjustment for my footjoint, but it was worth it.
For the left hand, use the inside knuckle of your index finger as a shelf to hold up the flute. If you want, you can cut up a gel pencil grip to make a cushion so that vein doesn’t pop out on the side of your knuckle. Each finger should be nicely curved, similar to the right hand.
Here’s the shelf that I’m making with the base of my index finger. As you can see, I’m a thumb Bb person. I didn’t feel confident holding up my flute with one hand while taking a picture with the other, so I used my flute stand.
The entire surface of the lip plate on the body side of the embouchure hole should make contact with your lip and chin. This will help with gripping the instrument as well as tone. I couldn’t figure out how to get a good picture of this concept by myself, so you’ll have to visualize this one. 🙂
The flute should be parallel with your stand, and your feet should be at a 30-45 degree angle from the stand. This prevents the shoulder muscles from cramping up, especially between the angel wings. As with any instrument, your back should be straight.
Please forgive my crude drawing. This is the ideal angle from the stand. If this isn’t possible because you’re in band or orchestra, try putting your stand closer to the person on your left. It will create a similar angle on your body.
In marching band, you’re instructed to carry your flute parallel to the floor and parallel to your body. Don’t do that. It shortens your right shoulder muscles and creates tension (pain). This was part of my problem with pain.
Review of Proper Form on Piano
Piano form is a little less complicated. The fingers should be curved, the wrists should be level with the back of the hand or above (Lizt played with high wrists), your knees should be barely under the keyboard, back straight, and elbows in line with the wrists.
Notice the curved fingers. I was at a weird angle because I was trying to take a picture by myself, so my forearm isn’t as in-line with my wrists as I’d like.
If you have to do hand-crossing, try to keep your forearm parallel to the fingerboard, if the music allows. This way you don’t create tension between your shoulders and in the forearm of the arm that you cross. This was part of my problem with pain.
My arm isn’t quite parallel to the fingerboard, but it’s comfortable. That’s the important part.
It’s Not Always your Instrument
If you’ve reviewed your form and you know that your musicianship is not to blame, it’s time to take a look at other things. Computer? The way you hold your hands while using your smart phone? Other hobbies? Here are some examples from my life.
I had to give up crocheting. I got to the point where I had to choose between crochet and music. I chose music.
When I scrolled through my phone, I used my index finger while my other fingers hovered above the phone. This created tightness, which created pain. I closed my fist except for my index finger so I looked like I was pointing. This solved the problem.
Lately I’ve been getting pain again in my hands. I’ve been paying extra attention to everything I’ve been doing lately to see what’s triggering it. I was on a run the other day and I figured it out.
Proper form in running is to hold your elbows at a 90 degree angle. While I was running the other day, I pointed at something, extending my arm. I felt pain shoot throughout my arm. That tells me that I need to shake out my arms once in awhile during my long runs.
Things That Have Helped Me
Yoga
I do Ashtanga Yoga. This is not just stretching. It’s also strength training and cardio. It is designed to align your body and spine. When body parts are aligned, they work better. Everything is connected.
Tightness creates pain and sports/ligament injuries. Stretching loosens up the tightness. When we do cardio, it forces the blood to even the tightest areas of our muscles, which allows things to heal. When we do strength training, the muscles get stronger and they’re able to do things with less pain.
ART Chiropractor Care
Despite using Ashtanga Yoga since I was 22 years old, some parts of my arms weren’t being stretched or strengthened. This is part of the reason I got tennis elbow, along with the incorrect form I was using. I was going through a lot of pain in my hands and arms.
I was referred to Dr. Ellis and he treated my tennis elbow, along with continuing my chiropractic care for my scoliosis (curvature of the spine). The chiropractor relaxed muscles that I didn’t even know were tight and worked with me to discover in what ways I had incorrect form on the flute and piano.
Stretching
I use stretches designed for carpal tunnel, tennis elbow, neck stretches, and stretches for the shoulders – the top of the shoulder, the portion between the angel wings, and the portion on the bottom of the shoulder blades.
When I take a break every twenty minutes from music or typing, I do these stretches. It keeps the muscles from getting tense, and allows me to practice longer.
Relaxing
In this context, I’m speaking about relaxing the muscles. When I’m playing, I try to pretend that my arms are like spaghetti noodles hanging from my flute or my arms are slinkies hanging from my shoulders over the piano.
I have a problem with cold (icing) – it makes my muscles tense up. Some people need to ice their muscles in order to relax them, but that doesn’t work for me. Here’s what works for me to force my muscles to relax.
Epsom Salt Bath
Heating Pad or Patch
Soaking my Feet (as your feet are, so the rest of your body is)
Massaging my Feet
Conclusion
As more research comes out, we will have to worry about these things less and less because ergonomics will be in mind as everything is designed. In the meantime, do your research. Take care of yourself. Music is intoxicating, but don’t let it hurt your body.
I didn’t know the difference between practicing and playing my instruments until I was in college. I just played through everything that was assigned, usually making lots of mistakes – the same mistakes every time. By doing this, I was practicing the mistakes into my music.
When mistakes are practiced into the music, they get baked in, like a stain that went through the dryer. You can get them out if you know the right way to do it, but it’s really hard. Much harder than if you practiced from the beginning.
Why
Don’t We Learn the Difference Between Practice and Play?
When you first start out, you practice by playing through everything a 1-5 times every day, because everything is too short or easy for the practice techniques. It’s a gradual change to learn how to practice, which not everyone picks up on. On the piano, it usually starts when you learn to play with your hands together. On the other instruments, it’s usually taught in band or orchestra.
The reason not everyone picks up on the difference is because the way the techniques are taught. My teachers showed me how to do the practice technique(s) and figured that I knew how to apply it to my own practice. I didn’t put two and two together.
What
Is the Difference Between Practice and Play?
Practicing means to work on things in a piece that are giving you trouble. There are a ton of different techniques to do this, many of which are described in the General Practice section of this blog. The most common would be to slow down the troubled section in different ways.
Practicing is like doing the dishes. You’re cleaning up the dishes that need to be cleaned. When you play instead of practicing, it’s like pulling all of the clean dishes out of the cupboard and cleaning everything.
Playing means to play through the piece. This is the most fun part of learning your instrument, and the whole reason why you’re learning your instrument. It should be done after the practicing is done. You get to reap the rewards of all your hard work.
When
Should We Practice or Play?
You should end each practice session by playing something you already know. This is your built-in reward and ends your practice session on a good note. Because you end each practice session with something fun, your brain processes the entire practicing session as fun. This helps you come back to practicing over and over. It also helps you keep up the old pieces that you spent so much time learning.
For regular weekly lesson pieces such as etudes or technique, you practice towards the beginning of the week and play towards the end of the week. These are pieces designed to take you only a week to learn.
Repertoire will be practiced for months. Ideally, you would be playing, rather than practicing, the song for the last month or so before your performance. Repertoire is designed to take up to a year to learn, depending on your level.
Conclusion
When
I learned how to practice, my practice time became much more
efficient. Sure, it’s fun to play the music, but it’s not fun to
play with mistakes. Practicing
correctly makes everything more fun.
When
did you figure out the difference between practice and play?
