Soaking the Pan is a clever name that one of my students and I came up with together. It’s a pretty common technique that most people do already without thinking about it, but I’ll describe it, step by step, just in case it’s a process that doesn’t come natural to you.
How Did We Come Up with the Name “Soaking the Pan”?
You know how when you’re doing the dishes and there’s the crusty pan that had the entrée in it? You will probably need to soak the pan, possibly overnight, but you want to get a good crack at it and see if you can get it cleaned up tonight so you have less work later.
So, before you even start cleaning up the dishes, you fill up that crusty, filthy pan with water. Usually by the time you’re done with all of the dishes, that pan cleans up easy as pie. Minimal scrubbing needed.
This is an analogy of what we can do when practicing music. Here’s a step-by-step description.
The Steps
- Identify the tough parts. You may have already been doing this by marking parts that you want to work through later, but you can usually identify them with the amount of black or jumps in that area.
- Play through the tough parts. You can run some small section practice techniques during this time, but just playing through helps, too.
- Play the whole piece. The tough parts aren’t so tough anymore.
Conclusion
I’ve been using the soaking the pan practice technique ever since I can remember. It’s always been very natural to me. I decided to write about it, anyway, because not everyone thinks the way that I do. I hope it helps!
