PRACTICE THOUGHTS
The real voyage of discovery
consists not in seeking new landscapes
but in having new eyes - Marcel Proust
 You Perform like you practice
Nothing better is going to happen on the stage
than happened in the practice room
You are playing for yourself when you practice
but you owe it to the people you perform for
to give them the best
You get out of something
exactly what you put into it
Skill to do comes of doing. Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Penny Game
Choose a short passage
 Put 5 pennies on the stand
Every time you play the passage incorrectly a penny is taken away
every time it is correct the penny returns
You must end with the 5 pennies
Metronome
 The meteronome is one of your best friends
- Use it a lot
- Subdivide!
- if you have
 subdivide it so that it really sounds like
 This will help to keep the rhythms even
Music Stand
Memorized is best
but if you do use a music stand to perform set it low
use it only as a crutch
remember you are performing for the audience not the music stand
Do not hide behind it
Bow
try using long whole bows and
- 1. up bow =forte & downbow =piano
- 2. up bow =piano & downbow =forte
- 3. try it on a scale
-
Preplan your bow
- think,,, about where and how much
Bow Example by Professor Reed Smith
-
Beethoven's Romance in F major is a great solo. It can be difficult maintaining the tone quality throughout the really long slurs.
Play a trick on yourself -- practice each run several times restricting yourself to half the bow -- no
matter how horrible it sounds. Then allow yourself to play the runs with the whole bow -- it will
now sound and feel wonderful -- the "extra" bow will be such a luxury!
I've found that most of my students wait till the end of a long bow to start saving bow. In reality it
needs to start at the beginning of the bow, and very often the trick is in planning ahead so that you
start the long bow at the extreme end (tip or frog -- heel, as you Brits say!) Make sure you keep a
little pressure at the tip of the bow, and watch your sounding point -- most of us tend to veer
toward the bridge about halfway through a slow down-bow. String crossings are dangerous. Try
not to use any extra motion at the string crossings to avoid bumps or using up extra bow.
Also, plan an alternate bowing and practice it occasionally, just in case you get into the
performance and find you're having a "bad bow-arm day." It might not achieve quite the musical
effect you want, but changing bow more often can give you more control. I got that suggestion
many years ago from no less a performer than Itzhak Perlman (when I played - rather nervously - in
a master class for him.)
Finally, plan your bowing so that you have crescendi and diminuendi worked out in each phrase.
That way, even if your control isn't perfect, the musical effect will transcend any bowing problems.
used with permission from Professor Elizabeth Reed Smith
Marshall University * Department of Music
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Scales
