Breathing

This week I have been thinking about the 3 centering breathes in preparation for my recital. This first breathe is a relaxing breath, feeling my body move naturally. The second breath is a focus breath, thinking about taking in the air and the notes I'm about to play. The third breath is my preparation breath to actually begin playing. I feel that this has worked pretty well with my playing, though I don't do it every time I play. Hopefully this strategy will help with any nerves I may have the day of my recital!

The countdown has begun

After my recital jury, I realized there is still so much to be done before my recital. It was good to experience some nerves during the jury because it showed me what could happen. I definitely made many more mistakes than I thought I would, mostly contributed to nerves. This week during my practicing I've been trying to find new reeds and working on slow practice and looking at the bigger picture in my pieces. One of my big comments from the jury was that I was too focused on notes. I know that's a problem of mine, so I'm really working on trying to think about where am I going with this music? Where does this phrase lead? With the bigger picture in mind, I think the music will go much more smoothly and sound more convincing to my audience. Hopefully with the little amount of time left before the big day I can accomplish this in all of my pieces and give a fine performance!

Air Support

I feel like the past few weeks all I have concentrated on is aspects of my embouchure. I believe I thought that the perfect embouchure would fix all of my issues with sound, but when I still had squeaks especially in the upper partials of the dominant 7 chords, I realized I wasn't really supporting the air I was putting through the instrument. I've noticed a difference now that I am also thinking about how I'm supporting the air and how that relates to the embouchure.

With the Sutermeister, I have been thinking about finger position and making sure my fingers are in the right position to play the next note. This has come along some, but I'm still working on continuing that with musical phrases.

Expression on Autopilot

This week was trying to find ways to make my expression on autopilot so that I'm not having to concentrate on notes and what I want/need to do with a line. I did this in two different ways: 1) by listening to recordings and fingering along with the recording, imagining myself playing that way and 2) singing and fingering along with certain lines. I felt a little silly at first, but that comes with doing new things sometimes. While doing these activities certainly helped me to understand a little better what I would like to do in the music, I'm not quite there yet. There are still some finger roadblocks I am continuing to work out, but working on only one or two pieces a day is helping with that. I will continuing to do the listening and singing along with my music to grow my ideas about expression.

Stopping

This week has been about stopping during my practice and asking myself if I'm doing enough with my embouchure, making smooth connections. I've been continuing stopping frequently and resetting my embouchure to make sure I'm always playing with the best embouchure that I can. I know when it is set properly, because the sound is purer and the connections between notes smooth. A good exercise I've been using to determine this is the dominant chords. If my embouchure and tongue position aren't correct, I cannot play these smoothly or without squeaking. Some days I can fix it, but I am not successful everyday. This leads to some frustration, but I try to just keep going, focusing on the proper set up and good sound.

How Much is Enough?

This week, my practicing has been focused on my embouchure and making the top lip more "squishy" and less tight on the mouthpiece. I feel like I have been fairly successful with this throughout the week. In the days following my lesson, I was having some difficulty breaking the habit of the way I was playing. I became frustrated when I would squeak or playing just didn't feel comfortable. I realize though it's all about the attitude. I had a day off of playing on Saturday and I went back to my practicing with a new attitude of how I wanted to play. The embouchure came along much better when I thought more positively about the progress I was making. I still have to reset my embouchure a lot to make sure I am playing correctly, but I am able to recognize the progress I am making. My music comes out a lot easier and it's actually easier to be more musical when I know my embouchure is correct. When I play correctly, I praise myself mentally for a job well done. When something doesn't come out just right, I pause and think about what I could have done differently, reset, and go on. I remember this is a learning process and the more times I play correctly, the faster it will become my habit. I hope my preservation shows throughout the next few weeks of my practicing.

So how much is enough? I have really tried to incorporate my embouchure development into all of my playing. If there is a tricky note passage, I will take the time to just concentrate on technique, but I feel that embouchure plays a big role in learning these tricky passages, so I still try to concentrate on both embouchure and technique.

Looking at myself...

I am very excited to be exploring myself deeper within my music. I have at times tried to think about myself on this level and even have another blog in which I tried to write about my playing and myself as a musician and educator, but I never got the place I wanted to be. I'm hoping through this blog and throughout the semester I will learn more about the person I am and the musician I am. So here goes the first blog!

Concentration: Do I struggle to stay focused when performing? Can I keep my awareness where I want it to be even during performance? Do I lack a wide enough awareness to keep track of everything I am trying to keep track of?

- There are times during my practicing that I am very unfocused. After thinking about it for a while and observing when I do become unfocused, I find that it happens when I become frustrated with an aspect of playing (wrong notes, embouchure problems, etc.). This usually leads to these problems becoming worse until I snap back into a focused mode. There are times where I am completely aware of my playing and every aspect, but these moments are few. I hope to continue growing my awareness and focus while playing.


Self-compassion: Do I regularly beat up on myself emotionally for the things I don't feel I do well? do I include self-compassion exercises as a regular component of my practicing?

- I am particularly hard on myself when I don't feel I do well, especially with all things musical, including teaching. When I can't seem to play my clarinet the way I want to (which is most of the time), I feel a sense of loss. What can I do? Will I ever be good enough? There are times when I feel rewarded on my instrument. I felt a sense of satisfaction after my recital this past semester and making it into the Wind Ensemble this semester. I do need to practice more self-compassion in my practicing, realizing that as a musician I am always learning, always growing. It's ok to make mistakes.


Performance anxiety: do I want to perform closer to my potential when under pressure? Are my performance anxieties connected to worries about failure, distraction, physical symptoms? Do I suffer from "imposterism"? (I worry that I am the one faker in a room full of legitimate, "real" musicians.)

- Whenever I have to perform, I do feel pressure to play perfectly. I worry about failing, sounding badly, messing up. I do sometimes suffer from "imposterism." I worry that others don't think of me as a real musician. Many people make clear that they don't consider music education majors as serious and real musicians, because we are just going to teach. I want to be good so that others will think of me as a serious musician because I consider myself one. Just because I am not going to make a living off of my playing doesn't mean I don't consider myself a musician. I actually plan on furthering myself in conducting after a few years of teaching. I think to be a great conductor, one must be a great musician. I worry that others don't see this of me.


Numbing activities: Do I spend some time each day doing things to try and numb the painful parts of my life? What are those things? How much time do I spend each day doing these things? Are my attempts to numb successful at making my life better?

- I do spend time doing things to try and numb the stress in my life. I do this by just sitting and watching tv, aimlessly browsing the web, or just listening to my iTunes. The time I spend doing these things depends on how much free time I have to myself. There are times where I should be productive, but instead I just sit and numb myself, just because it's easier at the time. In the end, these numbing activities do nothing to better my life as I don't accomplish anything while doing them.


Practicing methodically/thoroughly: when practicing a difficult measure over and over again, when do I choose to move on? Fingers hurt? I am bored? My body had learned the passage? Feeling a sense of anxiety that my competitors will surpass me if I don't move on to something else?

- This is a problem for me. Sometimes I will practice a measure or section of music over and over to no avail. I myself don't know when I should just move on. This links back to the becoming unfocused during my practice. This is where I get stuck.