RE: [Harp-L] Harp practice

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul wrote:

>>I was wondering how everybody else structures their practice?

General comment: telling Paul to take a break is not telling him how to
practice.  Telling him to listen to something besides harp is not
telling him how to practice.  No matter what he listens to, or how
frequently he practices, sooner or later he's got to practice.   So
let's focus on the question, which is a good one: how to practice?

Practice is a means to an end.  The end is usually about playing a
certain piece, or a certain style of music, well.  So the first thing
about any given practice session is that it should be oriented to
learning how to play one or more specific pieces in the style(s) you
want to play well.

The amount of time you have available has a lot to do with how the
practice session is structured.  If you have an hour of uninterrupted
time, you structure practice one way; if you have 5 or ten minutes, you
do it differently.  

A one-hour session might be structured as follows:
****************************
5-10 minutes: "effortless" playing, as described by Kenny Werner in his
masterpiece "Effortless Mastery" (thanks to the Iceman for turning many
of us on to this fabulous work for musicians).  This puts you in the
right frame of mind to learn.

10-15 minutes: exercises aimed at sharpening a particular technique,
e.g. long notes for tone, bending, overblowing, big interval jumps,
etc.  These can vary from day to day, and should generally be aimed at
techniques that are important to the piece(s) you want to play well.
   
10 minutes: existing repertoire.  Here you focus on playing a piece or
pieces you already know, and sharpening your performance on the
piece(s).  See the next paragraph about Werner's approach for info on
how to do this.

30 minutes: new repertoire, focusing on pieces that you don't know, and
that represent some kind of new challenge -- in other words, pieces that
make you learn something new. A new piece might be something you heard
on a record, or a transcription of a solo by Little Walter or Mile
Davis, or the melody to a pop tune that's currently on the radio, or ANY
piece where you have some kind of reference point to tell you for sure
what it sounds like when it's played right. 

Kenny Werner says to approach practice as a "diamond" with 4 points:
effortless playing, playing up to tempo, playing perfectly, and playing
the whole piece.  You ALWAYS play effortlessly (one point on the
diamond); you choose any TWO of the remaining points for a given
session.  So you might play up to tempo and perfectly, but only on a
very short section of the piece (as short as 2 or 3 notes for a very
difficult passge); or you might play the whole piece perfectly, but at a
very slow tempo; or you might play the whole piece up to tempo, but with
mistakes.  Werner says to be careful about choosing fast playing all the
time, and I agree; practicing mistakes too often leads to more mistakes.
*********************

A five or ten-minute practice session would typically focus on ONE of
the elements above, e.g. exercises, OR known repertoire, OR new
repertoire.  The tendency is to use short practice sessions for known
repertoire only. Be careful not to fall into that trap -- you don't
learn much, or quickly, by going over and over the same pieces.

Plan practice sessions. Know which pieces from current and new
repertoire you want to work on, and which passages in those pieces need
the most work.  When you nail a piece, go on to the next one, so you're
continually learning more repertoire, better.

Finally, buy and read Kenny Werner's book "Effortless Mastery."  It will
change your musical life.

Hope this is useful.  

Regards, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com