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# ¿ Mar 29, 2024 07:02 |
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[reserved for future use]
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# ¿ Jun 25, 2013 13:17 |
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I find that keeping a practice journal really helps you stay on target and get things done during practice. Before I began keeping one I would often just play through my pieces aimlessly until I had repeated them about a gazillion times more than necessary without actually targeting the things I had issues with. You can use a moleskine or whatever you have handy, but I suggest you get something that you dedicate to the purpose, it will make it easier to find old journal entries. A (mock-up of a) typical journal entry of mine looks something like this: quote:22nd of February, 2013 And then the next practice day I would look at the last entry to see what I need to work on and prepare a new journal entry with new goals etc.
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# ¿ Jun 25, 2013 13:37 |
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Updated OP - Good posting guys, keep it coming! Started doing three octave scales a few days ago as a way to dive into the deep end of position shifting. It's an intimidating task to figure out the intonation of all these new notes that I've never played before, but has so far been very helpful! What I'm doing is based loosely on the Carl Flesch studies for the violin (transcribed for the viola, of course). Already seeing lots of good results and progress.
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# ¿ Jul 27, 2013 08:34 |
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CowOnCrack posted:... András Schiff, one of the best pianists alive today, lectures on all 32 Beethoven Sonatas. ... I think Daniel Barenboim recorded a long master class on the same topic, should be available on DVD(s)! He's my go-to man for anything concerning Beethoven on the piano. Yiggy posted:... extremely interesting stuff that sounds really useful once I start digging into composition and more advanced music theory ... In other news I discovered, with the help of an awesome friend, that mentally transcribing violin music to viola isn't as hard as it seemed (key changes one step counter-clockwise on the circle of fifths, and you "move up" one string). So now I'm pouring over IMSLP in search for all the famous books on violin technique. I foresee annoyed room mates as a result of increased practice hours with this new vigour and motivation surging through my veins! BRAAAAAAAINS fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Aug 7, 2013 |
# ¿ Aug 7, 2013 21:59 |
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Would you guys be interested in me compiling a list of the instruments everyone here in the thread plays and placing it in the OP? It just struck me that it might be cool to have something akin to the list of the FabGoon thread in E/N here, so people can get in touch with other's who play the same (type) of instruments? Just a thought! Let me know what you think
BRAAAAAAAINS fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Aug 7, 2013 |
# ¿ Aug 7, 2013 22:05 |
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Stravinsky posted:This thread really doesn't move fast enough that it really requires a list. But it might be cool later on if this gets bigger ... That was essentially my thought too, then I remembered that I'm a pretty lazy person who likes to stay on top of things before they become massive endeavours. More thoughts on this contact list business? My daily practice now consists of * ~1 hour scales * ~15 minutes arpeggios * 1~3 hours targeted practice of my pieces I'm thinking of adding some fifteen minutes or so dedicated to vibrato, but still undecided. How much time do you guys spend daily on practice? How do you distribute it? BRAAAAAAAINS fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Aug 9, 2013 |
# ¿ Aug 9, 2013 16:53 |
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Deep 6 posted:... Using the set times makes it pretty intensive and focused training where I used to just be sporadic and mostly work on etudes and small pieces. ... I think it's vitally important to have some sort of routine like that for finding out what you need to target in your practice so you don't end up just playing the things that you already got down. I think the single largest leap of practice efficiency I ever did was starting to keep my practice journal as I described earlier. Just getting into the routine of always reflecting over what I need to improve and have the most trouble with and then making sure to attack that during my next practice session, improved my practice efficiency and the rate at which I improve by a ton. It's essentially what has been iterated here before; focus on where your problems are. Something that sounds very obvious and trivial, yet is somewhat difficult to actually implement. It's ridiculous how easy it is to fall into the habit of just playing through your material from the top, where you end up practising it all evenly and thus end up having to spend way more time in the practice room than if you had managed to identify the problems you actually need to deal with in there beforehand. And to answer the question you asked before (that I completely missed somehow) - I play the viola. Deep 6 posted:... The idea of doing an hour plus on scales alone every day is almost crazy to me, but it's interesting: maybe I'll try my own long scale session soon. ... But scales (and arpeggios) are excellent for working on technique, new bowings, rhythms that are giving you trouble, etc! It's also the best part of your practice routine to really work on your intonation. On that note; Today in the practice room: 5th position A string intonation for my 3 octave C major scale, shifting is by far the most intimidating challenge I've taken on thus far. BRAAAAAAAINS fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Aug 12, 2013 |
# ¿ Aug 12, 2013 12:00 |
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Fuoco posted:Is it assumed that the strings should play vibrato unless the following? It depends on the style of music too, baroque music generally calls for less vibrato than music from the romantic era. I think one can say that the string section will use vibrato if they deem it would fit that particular passage. Other than that I guess it's decided between the conductor and the concert master.
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# ¿ Aug 19, 2013 11:36 |
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Fuoco posted:Thanks. So it's essentially down to the performer's interpretation then I guess, but conventionally for a phrase that doesn't meet the criteria mentioned above, they'd likely use it. That sounds pretty accurate, yes. More scales today. The hours I've been putting into them has paid off nicely, I feel much more secure with my shifting now than I did before. 5th position is still a bit scary, and I still have some trouble getting the intonation right every time. I'm also going to start having a look at Ševčík's op. 2 studies for the bow. Anyone else have experience with his studies?
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# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 13:08 |
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Stumbled upon this blog post regarding stretching exercises to combat that evil carpal tunnel and tendonitis: http://bps.musespeak.com/2013/03/arm-and-hand-stretches-for-musicians.html
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# ¿ Aug 23, 2013 07:15 |
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TheBandOffice posted:Mmmmm a classical music thread. Never thought I'd see one of these here. I'm a Music student (Ed, but Ed here is performance + ed classes), and I play the Euphonium, and therefore will never get a career outside of education . Welcome to the thread, and nice to get some more brass here for vairety! Ugggh, no practice this week, so busy with moving! I'm going crazy! CowOnCrack posted:Oh man, this is totally the first piano concerto I'm going to study: Hnnh, saint saens was pretty boss BRAAAAAAAINS fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Aug 30, 2013 |
# ¿ Aug 30, 2013 14:44 |
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Warchicken posted:Short term goals are often lacking badly in practice. Always know exactly what you are working on right this second, exactly - don't just be playing. If you're doing long tones, which note, for how long, to do what? If you're doing scales, what's your starting tempo and your goal tempo? If you're playin a piece, what measure, what starting tempo, what goal tempo? This helps you feel accomplished, too, because you can always point to what you did and say " I made that better". It sucks to practice for two hours and not even be sure anything got better. To the percussionist who was wondering about how to structure a practice session. I don't know the percussion specifics that you would build your practice session around, but essentially the above. Always remain conscious of what you are trying to achieve with your practising. If you are practising a piece, don't just repeat it ad nauseam from start till finish - that's dumb (and grossly inefficient). Work on the passages that are giving you trouble, and try to do so in a meaningful manner (if you have no idea what that might be, a good place to start would be playing the passage at a quarter (1/4th) of the written tempo and working your way up). I like to keep a practice journal where I write my goals for the practice session, and then list things to keep in mind for the next one (I went into more detail on my practice habits in an earlier post).
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# ¿ Sep 10, 2013 01:51 |
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Jazz Marimba posted:Ahh, I was hoping for something more applicable to drum set...a lot of what you guys are describing transfers pretty well to marimba (better yet, vibes if I can get my hands on some!), but I can't really see sound/articulation/etc. transferring to kit. Too bad there aren't really 'pieces' for kit :\ Where we refer to pieces, you might translate it to rhythms, accents, and fills? As a non-percussionist I can't really pretend I know what kind of things you might practice. Do you perform mostly classical (Beethoven, Mozart, etc.) or mostly contemporary music (pop, rock, etc.)? If the latter, wouldn't you say that you practice various songs and try to imitate what the drummer plays in them - or do you improvise at all times? If you could list a few things you might do when you practice, it might be easier for those of us who aren't percussionists to at least make a somewhat educated guesswork what an efficient practice session might look like.
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# ¿ Sep 10, 2013 22:26 |
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Jazz Marimba posted:
That sounds like a great place to start! As for structure, you'd just set some goals for a practice session "sight read <arbitrary number that seems reasonable for the amount of time I usually have available when I practice> exercises in <name of book>" could be one, the next in your list of things to accomplish might be taking one song off your pandora station in which you like what the drummer is doing and find a youtube clip (or download an mp3 of it, or whatever - get creative!) and try to split it up into smaller chunks (chorus, verse, bridge, etc. could be one way of doing this). Then you might dedicate one session to working on one of these smaller chunks, eventually putting them together and BAM you have suddenly learned to do the things that drummer did in that song. I guess the TL;DR of this is break up the stuff you usually do when you practice into smaller chunks, try to pay more attention to what you are trying to learn from them, and figure out how to put them into a list of things to do during each practice session. Doing this will answer the question "Why am I practising this?", which helps with figuring out what the building blocks to use when you try to structure your practising. For me as a violist that list looks something like: * scales (specific thing I'm practising scales for today which could be anything from intonation, vibrato, or bowing techniques) * bar x - y <piece I'm currently learning> * another piece I'm learning * write down what to work on next practice session Another thing that might help is trying to, if possible, practice more consistently. Get some sort of routine going etc.
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# ¿ Sep 11, 2013 21:00 |
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Stravinsky posted:Stop playing catch up. BRAAAAAAAINS fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Sep 12, 2013 |
# ¿ Sep 12, 2013 02:54 |
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CowOnCrack posted:
I've been feeling really disoriented ever since the move, but today I finally got around to having a proper practice session (~70 minutes). And for the first time I felt confident enough in my intonation that I practised my 3 octave C major scale without the aid of my trusty tuner (-app on my phone), and instead pulled out the metronome (*shudder* *hissssssssssssssssssssssssss*). It was a pretty good experience, and I think I'll be trying that more in the future (I still feel like I will benefit a lot from practising with the tuner to bring my intonation closer to perfection, but since I haven't done much metronome practice lately it seems like a good idea to incorporate that as well).
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# ¿ Sep 14, 2013 02:28 |
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Welcome to the thread Splifyphus! Nice to see another violist here, I hope to one day join the ranks of professional symphony violists like yourself! I like your advice on practice and will add that to my daily routine, I think you pretty much nailed my feelings on practising overall. Essentially, stay conscious at all times in regards to what you are doing and what you are trying to accomplish by doing so. I see no reason why one couldn't apply learning tactics such as removing rhythm while first sight reading the music and play one note per beat regardless of actual note value while using a metronome. In fact, I can't really think of anything that couldn't be adapted to function with a metronome. (I should really get a good dedicated metronome, I keep hearing good things about BOSS...)
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# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 00:31 |
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CowOnCrack posted:It takes me 10 seconds or more to pause and learn where to place my hands for the next sixteenth note. CowOnCrack posted:The other point is one I made earlier, in terms of discovering how to play faster. I still feel that learning to play faster is not simply a function of ramping up the tempo. When you have to switch gaits to a new speed, all of your previous experience at slower tempos won't help you, and you can't set the tempo faster because you won't be able to perform that motion. CowOnCrack posted:No one knows them from birth. And you will make a few mistakes searching for them. CowOnCrack posted:A final point is I don't care how I rank in comparison to other musicians, I just know that I am starting late in life and have less time and an experience deficit. I have time, but not time to waste practicing inefficiently. CowOnCrack posted:If I'm not fully convinced in a practice method I won't use it. CowOnCrack posted:However, I continue to push myself to use it more and use it in better ways because I'm always interested in expanding the uses of the tools at my disposal. Warchicken posted:I dunno, everything you've used as an example for things you can't use a metronome for are things I would absolutely use a metronome for. Not only that, but if you have to take 10 seconds to learn the next finger on every note, frankly the piece is above your head by a long shot. You should be playing pieces that are appropriate for your skill level so that your musicality can develop with everything else.
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2013 01:45 |
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How do you guys deal with practice on days you don't feel well, either physically or in a bad state of mind?
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# ¿ Oct 7, 2013 21:25 |
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Think I've discovered the "perfect" amount of bow hair contact for each string. C and G, full width. D, 2/3rd. A, 1/3rd. Except with my bow using anything less than full width means inviting more bow bounce. (There should be a bow replacement fund for those with lovely enough bows) As for sight reading.. the only way of getting better that I'm aware of is sight reading. Good sight reading material is pretty much anything that doesn't offer you much technical difficulties so you can focus on playing as you read it. I'd recommend spending quite a bit of time on it every day, it's an extremely valuable skill to have.
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# ¿ Oct 18, 2013 16:31 |
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InterrupterJones posted:audition nerves I've heard good things about busking, depending on your instrument of course.
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# ¿ Oct 21, 2013 18:20 |
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Before reading the entirety of your post I was just about to suggest doing scales with a drone, but seeing as you are already doing that I guess my suggestion is to keep at it! I find that my own problem with intonation is that my pitch is strictly relative, I couldn't name a note I hear for the life of me, but I find it's relative intervals with a fairly decent accuracy while playing. Playing with a drone should help with intervals too, so I'd say; Fire up the drone and metronome, and play the living crap out of those scales! Slow notes, spiccato, double stops, keep them varied, but do them every day as part of your morning routine or something.
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# ¿ Nov 27, 2013 22:40 |
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Hawkgirl posted:I would do some long tones too. Really just meditate on the sound you're making. Maybe do 8 slow, strong bows for each note. It will help your tone quality as well as improving your listening skills. Yeah, do that together with the drone and your metronome every day and you should improve your tone, intonation, and sense of pulse drastically. Like, set your metronome to something ridiculous, like 50BPM, and just play half notes or even whole notes. Really listen to the sound you are making and how it relates to the drone (the drone should be the root note/tonic of the scale you are practicing, ergo C if you are playing C Major), really feel how your note resonates off of the drone with the increasing intervals. Memorise it. And your intonation will improve by leaps and bounds. CowOnCrack posted:I'm curious, is your pitch memory any good? CowOnCrack posted:How I improved my pitch memory
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# ¿ Nov 28, 2013 21:42 |
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Picked up new G and D gut strings and a new carbon fibre bow yesterday! Super excited about it!! ..except the part where I have to tune my viola every 5-15 minutes for the next few days. Heh. Reason I got the strings was that my previous D string always sounded very congested, an on occasion my G string would do the same (and changing only the D string would probably sound weird) - like my viola had caught a killer cold that it just couldn't quite shake. So now I have a bow that plays lovely and smoothly, and my middle strings produce a beautiful lush warm tone to carry the melody. Been ramping up my practice hours over the past two weeks, attempting the Prelude from Bach's first cello suite. I'm having problems achieving the correct baroque precision, but having quite a bit of fun with it. I might have a deadline though.. There's a possibility that I might be performing it in a set of mini-recitals on Christmas and New Year's - so I'm a little bit nervous as to whether I'll have it ready in time or not.
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# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 17:08 |
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Yeah! I love Bach's cello suites.. think I have like 6 or 7 sets of it with different performers xD It's my first foray into repertoire level literature, so I'm pretty excited!! It's hard though.. all these "fun" harmonies weaved in all over the place. But I like a challenge. Had a breakthrough with the slurs today, so that's cool. Now I just need to methodically work my way through each bar while figuring out what kind of phrasing I want to go for.. hehe. The idea is to work my way through the Bach cello suites while continuing working on technique with scales, perhaps venture into some other repertoire at some point. Essentially I'm preparing for entrance exams/auditions in about two years from now. The deadline is making me really nervous though..
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# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 00:53 |
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Had a bit of a breakthrough today again, this time with the fast alternating string crossings. The idea was basically that if I was to play the prelude up to tempo, I needed to vastly improve my bowing technique. I started to really analyse how I was moving my bow arm throughout the alternating string passages while upping the tempo slowly - fine tuning the little half-circular motion that connects the down-bow movement on the A string with the up-bow movement on the D string. Figuring out where the apex of the motion is, and synchronise it with the end of the one note and the beginning of the next. Pardon the stream of consciousness, it's three in the morning (bless practice mutes) - I just wanted to share before curling up in bed for the night.
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# ¿ Dec 7, 2013 03:25 |
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gently caress Christmas. No, seriously. gently caress. Christmas. Haven't gotten any serious practising done what so ever during the holidays, gently caress that noise. My new year's resolutions for 2014: 1. Practice more consistently 2. Keep a practice journal again (I've been slacking a LOT with that) 3. Do more metronome work (Get an actual metronome so I don't have to use the one on my piano or one of those kinda lovely metronome apps) 4. Stop procrastinating music theory 5. Learn all movements of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 What are you ladies and gents going to promise yourself for the new year?
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# ¿ Dec 30, 2013 11:07 |
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I solved it. I loving solved it. I feel like such a complete and utter fool. Don't you just hate it when something so incredibly simple stumps you for the longest time and then one morning just deigns to show itself in utmost clarity, mocking your blindness to it? I finally figured out how to finger this one bar that has been nagging at me for weeks. Ugh.
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# ¿ Jan 6, 2014 10:52 |
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CowOnCrack posted:Congratulations musician! You have successfully arrived at the next hurdle you will be bashing your head against for a period of time. Why thank you! And I must concur, Bach was a sadistic prick (a trait shared by most composers, really) who composed infinitely beautiful music. To make sense of this next annoying bar I opened the Prelude in Audacity, selected the bar in question, and put it to play on repeat. Anyway. Okay. So, if I understand this correctly, this bar is basically the same pattern that is used in bar 6 but inverted, and a bit weird. Actually, no, it's completely loving random. But it can be played similarly. I think. Maybe.
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# ¿ Jan 9, 2014 07:24 |
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I found the tempo I want to play this Prelude at; 16th note = 180 (I KNOW, you don't write it like that, you use quarter note, but ffffffu the piece is all 16th notes so whatevs, I'M AN ARTIST, DON'T JUDGE xD)Godsped posted:Is there a thread for complaining about annoying composers? I have to rant about Britten. Dude, feel free to rant away right here! This thread is basically the cafeteria placed strategically near the rehearsal room where all classical musicians on SomethingAwful can kick back with a cuppa tea and like-minded people sitting there next to you, ready to hear all about your latest successes and problems. So go right away! EDIT: I scribble too much in my music.. BRAAAAAAAINS fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Jan 9, 2014 |
# ¿ Jan 9, 2014 12:03 |
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Hawkgirl posted:That's scribbling? You should see my horn music from college. It's covered in stuff. Circling difficult passages, capital letters like LOUD or SLOW THIS DOWN or just !!!!!!!. I obviously need to find my copies of the Mozart horn concertos and scan them. Haha, you definitely should! This one is still pretty light-weight for me. But then again I haven't really started adding expression stuff yet; right now it's pretty much just me grouping things up into sections that apparently make sense to me one way or another and figuring out fingerings, shifting, etc. But I feel like I'm going to have to break out the crayons soon if I want to keep it reasonably legible.. xD
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# ¿ Jan 11, 2014 12:24 |
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Uuuggggh, moving SUCKS. Only now (two weeks later) starting to get back into normal practice routines in the new apartment. Any of you guys had to deal with trying to cram practice hours between moving shenanigans?
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# ¿ Jan 26, 2014 01:46 |
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Karmakazi posted:Does anyone play the violin? I'd love to see a write up or megathread. I want to learn. Hello there and welcome to the thread! I can't remember if we have any violinists here, but I play the viola (which is similar in technique) so I might be able to offer you some help if you've got any specific questions. The main reason I created a megathread for classical music(ians) and not a specific instrument (or even specific instrument family) was because it would frankly be a little bit too niche for SA to keep any sort of discussion going. It's fine for super popular instruments like guitar, piano, and other instruments featured in pop and rock music. But we are quite a helpful bunch here though, so once more I'd like to welcome you to the thread and I hope we can provide useful information for you.
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# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 19:31 |
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von Braun posted:I didn't even knew this thread existed! I have played violin for 9 years, classically trained. But last autumn I started at a school that has 2 folk music programmes, singing and folk music for violin only, where I am right now. von Braun posted:Other than that, my practice literature now consists of playing a scale by Flesch once a day and whatever I have to practice I use Sevcik op.1 and op.2, his 40 variations, Kreutzer etudes, and Seybold op. 32. Also I'm working on Bach's Sonata 2 in d-minor. I have the Allemande sorta down and have started on the Sarabande. von Braun posted:I would appreciate some kind of bigger piece if anyone has any recommendations!
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2014 18:57 |
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FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF So. My sound post fell. And I also discovered that my bridge has been eating my D string, my A good string also snapped a while back. Things to sort out next time I visit the Luthier: * Get a new sound post fitted (I don't trust my old one) * Get a new bridge made and fitted * New A and D strings, possibly also a new C string cos it's getting old and it's also synthetic while my other strings are gut I don't see myself getting to practice for the next few months, smh
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 19:47 |
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ub posted:Strings need replacing every now and then; I always have a spare set kicking around just in case. A new bridge isn't a big deal at all. Usually a (violin's) E string is the problem and they often come with a little plastic tube that sits on the bridge to prevent it cutting in. Not sure tbh. But yeah, when the soundpost fell I immediately loosened all my strings and removed the bridge to avoid damaging my viola. It's going to be an expensive visit sorting out all of those things though. Was rather surprised it was the D string taking damage honestly, though I guess it is my most commonly used string in my current repertoire.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 23:06 |
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# ¿ Mar 29, 2024 07:02 |
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Just finished a three hour practice session working on only one scale and the same six bars of my piece. AKA double stops are annoying and really show off your not yet entirely pitch perfect intonation. And my new A string, though it sounds amazing for the most part (upgraded from my spare cheapo steel string to a eudoxa), is very picky about double stops apparently. I have to be very careful if I want to avoid squeaking. Does Jean Baptiste do oboes too? I'm on the lookout for a good value instrument to get sometime when I can spare the money. I'm a complete beginner, and will most likely be teaching myself how to play for fun as a diversion from all the serious practising.
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# ¿ Feb 20, 2015 12:23 |