Practice: Discussion of a Dirty Word

BY MEGAN BURSLEM

 

Practice.

 

The word makes me shudder.

 

I will be upfront with you. I don’t like practising. Not one iota.

 

I am one of those students who teachers scrunch their fists over – one of whom they say, “if you just dedicated yourself a bit more to practice…”. “I know, I know,” I would respond, my head drooping in shame. I would get home and begin to practice. But when my old friend frustration walked through the door, I would stop. How the hell do you practice? I didn’t know. No one had ever shown me. The kettle would boil with a soothing ‘ssshhhhhhhhhclick’ and I would poor my sorrows into a cup and drink them away. Band-aid cure. Was I worried?

 

Yep.

 

In the first year of my undergraduate music degree, I thought practising meant playing through my repertoire as much as I could. In my second year, I thought practising was playing through my repertoire as much as I could and then practising the hard bar a few times by itself. I got good marks. Distinctions. Never high distinctions, never credits. My examiners always said the same thing: “great musicality, but your technique needs a lot of work.” I presumed ‘work’ equated to ‘time’, and time happens without me doing anything. All I have to do is be patient, right?

 

Wrong.

 

I have the same story as every musician: I hit brick walls, and I hit them regularly. Double-stopped octaves, releasing tension in my left index finger, dropping my right shoulder, practising a smooth bow change. The list goes on and on and on. What is this? This kind of music-making is not what I signed up for. I resigned myself to the fact that it’s not for me. Viola would go in the too-hard-basket, alongside long-division and running.

 

But, you know what? I started to miss practice.

 

Practice, I realised, enabled me to embrace new opportunities: opportunities to rehearse and perform with my friends, play incredible music, give concerts, be applauded. Music was my outlet and I was satisfied. Corny, yes. But true.

 

I started to practice. I enrolled in Honours. I went to study at the Academy of Music in Serbia. I watched performances, studied performers, YouTubed all my data away and generally dedicated myself to viola. I still hated practice. Some days, I despised it. I craved society, I craved a break. Sometimes, the sun would shine through and I would bounce out of my practice room, declaring my undying love for Sevcik or my admiration for Bloch. I cherished these moments with all of my heart.

 

To put things in perspective, in my Honours year, I would aim to do an hour and a half of practice a day. Not eight. Not four. But one and a half a day. For me, this was still classed as the uphill battle. Others around me were practising five or six hours without blinking an eye. What was wrong with me? Then one day I got to two hours. The next week it was three. Finally.

 

I would break my practice into 15-minute blocks. I identified this as my maximum concentration time, and by maximum, I mean maximum. At 16 minutes I would begin thinking about nothing, practising without purpose. Practising by looking at the clock. Bad move. My 15 minutes a day of REALLY GOOD practice on the opening bars of the Brahms E flat Sonata proved more fruitful than two hours of nothing-practice. It is like brushing AND flossing; it feels good.

 

15 minutes. Cup of tea. 15 minutes. Walk. 15 minutes. Episode of Seinfeld. 15 minutes. Lunch. 15 minutes. Do the shopping. 15 minutes. Do the dishes. 15 minutes. Soak up some rays. 15 minutes. Glass of wine.

 

I laughed heartily when our editor suggested I write an article on practice techniques to help people through exam time. Of all the people to ask, I should have been last on the list. Regardless of my doubts, I scribbled some ideas onto a page. They boiled down to this:

 

 

Now, I’m not condoning a maximum of two hours of practice a day. Far from it. But for my extraverted, hyperactive, lazy ass, this worked. I still scraped through. Never the best. Never the worst. But boy, if you can practice more than this, you should.

 

Why not?

 

One day, you will hear yourself and think, ‘cooooooool’. You will be rewarded. You will be inspired. You will be satisfied.

 

Will it continue to be an uphill battle?

 

Yes.

 

Will it be worth it?

 

Yes.

 

Here are some dot-points if you’re scan-reading this article:

 

1. Identify your optimum practice times.

2. Identify your maximum concentration time.

3. Practice well.

4. Practice often.

5. Hit the brick wall.

6. Smash the brick wall (Miley Cyrus style, if necessary).

7. Recognise your achievements. Go, ‘wow. I did that.’

8. Eat something yum.

9. Do something fun.

10. Know that it is an uphill battle, and simply be okay with that.

 

There is no fairy-tale ending to this article. I didn’t go on to successfully audition for a position in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. I didn’t start an amazing chamber group. I didn’t continue my studies at Juilliard. I found my passions in other areas. Areas that didn’t include practice.

 

But ask yourself. What could you do if you really practised?

 

 

Food for thought.