TromboneChat

5 Modes of Practicing

1. Practicing Technique – working on the physical coordination needed to play your instrument or sing. For example: scales and arpeggios, long tones, tone or vocal placement exercises, fingering studies, etc. This is the time to cultivate the most relaxed, natural way of managing the interface between your mind, body and instrument. This is a lifelong endeavor, and because our bodies are continually changing, nobody ever has it perfected.

2. Practicing Music for Your Body – learning the music you intend to perform, addressing the technical demands and physical coordination, learning notes, ingraining the musical structures in the inner ear. This is the mode we most often call “woodshedding.” Mode 1 serves Mode 2, and Mode 2 can inform the focus of Mode 1.

3. Practicing Music for Music – exploring the music you will perform in a mindset of experimentation. Finding what makes it happen musically, making decisions – or simply experimenting – about relative dynamics, tempi, articulation styles, tone color. This doesn’t have to happen with your instrument! You can also study scores, listen to other music by the same composer, listen to other music in a similar style, etc. Instrumentalists can sing through music, either with your voice or just in your imagination, to develop phrasing ideas separately from instrumental concerns. Mode 2 serves Mode 3, and Mode 3 can inform the focus of Mode 2.

4. Practicing Performing, or Practicing Music for your Mind – practicing the music you will perform for the mindset and thought processes of actually performing. Commitment to the moment is vital in this mode – no stopping, no going back. And in order to fully commit, the critical, self-evaluating mind has to be turned off now! Only after you finish do you think back or listen back to a recording of what you have just done, and think about what needs to be addressed in the next session of Mode 2 or 3. This is an extremely important step if you want to be a successful performer, and particularly if you take auditions.

5. Practicing Joy – Refresh your memory of why you are doing all of this practicing. Listen to music you love, dance, sing. Play music you love, for yourself, just because you love it, even if you have no intention to ever perform it. Also, get together with friends to play duets, trios, quartets, small jazz combos, etc. This is crucial to a life as a musician, and feeds all of the work we do.

GabrielRice wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 7:00 am I wrote the following little article years back in response to a similar question on the old forum. I think there's a lot of value in simply having awareness of what mode you're in at any given stretch of time while you're practicing.

5 Modes of Practicing

1. Practicing Technique – working on the physical coordination needed to play your instrument or sing. For example: scales and arpeggios, long tones, tone or vocal placement exercises, fingering studies, etc. This is the time to cultivate the most relaxed, natural way of managing the interface between your mind, body and instrument. This is a lifelong endeavor, and because our bodies are continually changing, nobody ever has it perfected.

2. Practicing Music for Your Body – learning the music you intend to perform, addressing the technical demands and physical coordination, learning notes, ingraining the musical structures in the inner ear. This is the mode we most often call “woodshedding.” Mode 1 serves Mode 2, and Mode 2 can inform the focus of Mode 1.

3. Practicing Music for Music – exploring the music you will perform in a mindset of experimentation. Finding what makes it happen musically, making decisions – or simply experimenting – about relative dynamics, tempi, articulation styles, tone color. This doesn’t have to happen with your instrument! You can also study scores, listen to other music by the same composer, listen to other music in a similar style, etc. Instrumentalists can sing through music, either with your voice or just in your imagination, to develop phrasing ideas separately from instrumental concerns. Mode 2 serves Mode 3, and Mode 3 can inform the focus of Mode 2.

4. Practicing Performing, or Practicing Music for your Mind – practicing the music you will perform for the mindset and thought processes of actually performing. Commitment to the moment is vital in this mode – no stopping, no going back. And in order to fully commit, the critical, self-evaluating mind has to be turned off now! Only after you finish do you think back or listen back to a recording of what you have just done, and think about what needs to be addressed in the next session of Mode 2 or 3. This is an extremely important step if you want to be a successful performer, and particularly if you take auditions.

5. Practicing Joy – Refresh your memory of why you are doing all of this practicing. Listen to music you love, dance, sing. Play music you love, for yourself, just because you love it, even if you have no intention to ever perform it. Also, get together with friends to play duets, trios, quartets, small jazz combos, etc. This is crucial to a life as a musician, and feeds all of the work we do.

[It] is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally,” says Kabat-Zinn. “And then I sometimes add, in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.”

tbdana wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 2:23 pm I practice to forget. Forget I’m playing the trombone.

The last thing I want to be doing when playing music is thinking about playing, or what I’m playing, or how I’m playing it. I want to just make music, and I can do that best when I’m only barely aware that the trombone is there.

So I practice. And if I practice well and enough, the horn disappears and music just comes from somewhere deep inside me and goes right to the audience. The trombone becomes as automatic as my heartbeat.

So, no, I don’t practice music. I practice so I can ignore my instrument and play music. The entire goal of practicing is to get past playing the trombone and play only music.