Tag Archives: improving

The dictaphone never lies: part 2

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Back in the dim and distant past, I carried out the first half of an experiment that I’ve thus far failed to complete. Depressed about my apparent lack of progress, I recorded myself playing a piece and promised to record the same piece a month later, compare the two, and report back. For six months I failed to do this because:
(a) I was afraid I wouldn’t have improved
(b) Listening to a recording of yourself playing an instrument is almost as bad as listening to a recording of yourself speaking, and
(c)  I’m not very good at following things up

Then moment of truth finally came last night when I did the second recording, then listened to both in quick succession.

The original November recording was absurdly bad, like the audio from some awful St Trinian’s music lesson sketch: terrible tuning, erratic timing, no redeeming features whatsoever. Tonight’s attempt was only slightly less bad, I did notice a significant difference in tone and vibrato but the tuning with still really off in places. So, there has been improvement but rather less than I’d hoped for. Thank goodness I dithered for six months, the results after one month would have been crushing.

Moral of the story: listening to a recording of yourself, however painful, is a useful exercise, – it’s been a timely reminder that my tuning needs some work, and that if I want to make a better sound any time soon I’ll need to practice a bit more regularly and a bit more efficiently (more on that soon).

The fear of being found out

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Have you ever been introduced to someone, immediately forgotten their name, got to know them really quite well and then left it far too late to be able to ask without offending them? I once knew a fellow parent for months and had some fairly personal conversations with her, all the time not having a clue what her name was. I just kept hoping it would come up in conversation somehow and dreading the time when I had to introduce her to someone else.

It has, for me, been a bit the same with learning to read music. I was taught how to read music as a child but soon afterwards mislaid the knowledge and then, suddenly, it was too late to admit it. I worked my way through the grades learning the pieces mostly by ear, became head of my school orchestra and lived in fear of the music director saying in early rehearsals: “could you just play that bar for us?” By the time I joined an orchestra at university, it was getting really rather awkward and that, combined with general laziness and the distraction of suddenly becoming ‘an adult’, signalled the end of my playing for a few years.

Just to clarify, I’m not completely musically illiterate, show me a note on the stave and I can, for the most part, find it on the viola. But sometimes there’s a bit of time delay, and I might well not be able to tell you the name of the note. So, when the conductor says, “violas, play me that E”, I do so very quietly and tentatively in case I’ve got the wrong one. It’s a rather embarrassing admission to be quite honest.

Why, you are probably thinking, do I not just learn to read music properly? That would of course have been the sensible thing to do. And I’m now, finally, doing what I said I’d do at the start of all this and going back to the very beginning. There are tonnes of fantastic music theory websites out there but it turns out I don’t have the self-discipline to use them methodically so I’ve gone old-school and bought myself an idiot-proof music theory work book, starting at grade one. Maybe this time next year I’ll be able to play that E with a bit more confidence.

Back to square two or three

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The point of this blog was partly to keep me playing the viola. “If I don’t practise I’ve got nothing to write about…” I said, possibly a little complacently. So that explains my recent cyber silence: a combination of work, travel, Christmas and the preparations for it, has meant very little practice over the past couple of weeks. I picked my viola up again the other day and really felt the difference (not in a good way). Tricky bars that I’d practiced for ages, and more or less mastered, felt completely foreign to my fingers again.

Before the relapse I felt I’d turned a corner, my bowing had improved, I’d attached a new chinrest and felt the benefit, and everything has started to sound a bit better. So I feel as if I’ve taken several steps backwards. It hasn’t taken  me right back to where I started in September though, which is relief – I covered a lot of ground in an hour of practice. But keeping it up feels impossible at this time of year with lots of family visits, no childcare and no routine. Happily, the season of new starts is almost upon us. In what’s left of 2011 I’ll be trying to come up with a practice (and blog) schedule for next year that I have some hope of sticking to. Bring on 2012.

 

The dictaphone never lies

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I’ve just embarked on an experiment because, despite practising regularly, I’m not convinced my playing is actually is improving. That might be because I’m expecting too much too fast, or because as I iron out one problem I notice another, or because I’m just not putting enough time and effort in.

Anyway, to settle the matter, tonight I recorded myself playing three pieces that I’ve been practising regularly for the past couple of months. On 16 December, I’ll deploy the dictaphone again, play the same three pieces, compare the recordings to see if there’s any noticeable difference, and then report back.

Any musicians out there care to join me?