Tag: articulations

Using Different Sounds as a Practice Motivator

Using different sounds is a great motivator for anyone who needs to run through something multiple times, but can’t get themselves to play something more than once. I know that I’m guilty of only playing through everything once!

What do I mean by using different sounds?

Depending on the instrument, you could think about it as experimenting with different ways of playing it – 8va, different tone colors, play loud, play quiet, etc.

I will give examples below for each instrument that I teach.

Electric Piano

It’s probably the easiest to change the sound on an electric piano. You just push a button and it sounds like an organ, a harpsichord, or even a brass band.

You should see the way kids light up when I tell them that they need to use their pieces to help them decide which sound effect they like the best. When they come back the next week, the parents tell me that they went through their pieces 3-7 times per day. Woohoo! Grown-ups can have that fun experience, too.

Acoustic Piano

When my oldest daughter started playing the piano, she loved to practice every piece in every octave on the keyboard.

She started with the bottom octave, moved up to the next octave and played the same piece. Moved up to the next octave. So on and so forth until she got to the top octave, then started over on the process with the next piece.

I’m not saying you have to be that meticulous, but you could do it a couple octaves down or a couple octaves up, just to hear the tone color change. That would be a grand total of three times through.

Flute

When I was in college, I was the piccolo player. I would practice everything on both instruments. My fingers were faster on the piccolo, so sometimes I’d work things out on that instrument then switch to the flute. That would be one option for using a different sound, if you have a piccolo. 🙂

Flutes can change our tone color at the drop of a hat. I wrote about that more in detail here. Why not use that to our advantage? You could try that rhaspy, airy tone that the Irish use on the flute for almost a percussive instrument. Try playing the piece in every tone color of the rainbow, one at a time, and decide which one you like.

All Instruments

Using different sounds as a practice motivator has a lot of different applications for any instrument. Here is a short list of different options, feel free to add to the list.

  • Volume – ff, f, mf, mp, p, pp
  • Emotion – try playing it sad, happy, angry, etc.
  • Articulation – staccato, legato, marcato, accented, etc.

Seriously

I’ve mentioned a few things that serious musicians do to create their own interpretation of the music – dynamics, tone color, emotion, and articulation. They experiment with how they want to play a phrase to get their message across in the best way.

Using different sounds might be a great practice motivator because it’s fun. It’s also serious work. If fun doesn’t motivate you, maybe discovering your interpretation of a piece will be motivating for you.

Conclusion

Everyone likes to experiment with different sounds on different pieces. It not only makes kids light up, it also has a really good purpose. Sometimes that purpose is to convince yourself to, “Play it again, Sam.” Sometimes it helps with your interpretation of the piece. However it helps, don’t be afraid to experiment. 🙂

The Silent Practice Technique

The silent practice technique simplifies your practice in some ways by eliminating certain aspects of your playing. This helps you focus on certain aspects of your playing, especially your fingers. It can be done on any instrument.

Silent Practice on the Flute

This is taught to be done in band while the director is working with another section. It’s helpful for when you just can’t get those fingerings down. While sitting, you put the head joint on your left shoulder and rest the foot joint on your right knee. This provides a stable resting place for your flute while you run through just the fingerings.

Silent practice can also be practiced on a pencil. This is very handy for things like sitting in a waiting room or in a car for a road trip. Nice for when you don’t want to disturb others, but need to run through your piece.

Each of the silent practice techniques have their own purpose. The mechanisms take extra time to push down and allow to come back up, while the pencil doesn’t have mechanisms to deal with. Practicing with a pencil helps create faster fingers. Silent practice on a real flute helps your brain to process the extra time it takes to deal with the keys.

If you also want to practice your articulation, go ahead and create an air stream and do your articulations along with the fingerings. It’s still beneficial to not have to worry about your tone.

Etiquette Note: Some people like to run some air through their flute while they do this. Please don’t. It’s rude because sometimes you accidentally make a noise. It also creates embouchure confusion.

Silent Practice on the Piano

One way to do silent practice on the piano is to use an electric piano, turned off, or with the volume all the way down. I used to do this all the time when I was playing organ for church, during the sermon. I turned off the organ and ran through everything for the second half of the service. Sometimes I just ran through the harder stuff.

The greatest part of this is that you’re not worried about sound or dynamics. It’s just your fingers. It simplifies your practice.

Another way to do this is to print out a keyboard. I found one here. Use it on a table top. This is much harder than using an electric piano that’s turned off because the black keys aren’t raised, but it’s still an option. Because it’s harder, it might be more beneficial, especially if you’re using the paper keyboard for mental practice (hearing it in your head while using your fingers to play).

Just as with the flute, each of the silent practice techniques have their own purpose. The keys take extra time to push down and allow to come back up, while the paper version doesn’t have keys to deal with. Therefore, practicing with a paper keyboard helps create faster fingers. Practicing on a turned off electric keyboard helps your brain to process the extra time it takes to deal with the keys.

Conclusion

As of this writing, playing an instrument is the activity that uses the most of your brain function. It’s powerful for your brain, but sometimes you need to simplify it before you can get the notes down. That means taking certain aspects of playing out of the equation so that you can focus on the things that are giving you problems.