BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Welcome to our series, What the Fact?!
Throughout 2018, we’re teaming up with talent at the Australian National Academy of Music to bring you informed answers to real questions and topics about your music career.
Ever wondered why you feel performance anxiety? What the deal is with tuning to 440Hz – or not? How to lead an orchestra? We’re here to tell you all about it.
This time, we tackle the fear-and-doom inducing conversation of how much you should be practising. Yes, you.
Timothy Young, pianist and Head of Piano and Chamber Music and Resident Piano Faculty, knows if you’re not practising efficiently. How does he know? Because he is a master of good-quality practice sessions. And, before you start feeling guilty about your own practice habits, know that Timothy has plenty of advice to share with you about how to get the most out of your session.
Timothy is an award-winning pianist and founding member of Ensemble Liaison. He’s guest lectured at the University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, and taught at the Australian Institute of Music.
Hacking practice
Timothy, tell us about your practice routine.
My practice routine currently consists of a few hours from 6-8am every day. I would normally grab any moment that arises, but with two young children I’ve found that my evenings don’t work so well, so I had to find a time where I can string a couple of hours together.
How has this evolved throughout your life, since your early student days to early career, and now in your leading role at ANAM?
The evolution of my practice means that it now has a lot more discipline than my earlier days. It was once upon a time a blissful all-day exploration of repertoire and lots of wondering and experimenting. The lack of time and considerable activity now means that it is more efficient and concentrated.
I guess maturity and experience has meant that the capacity to arrive at a certain level faster, and the necessity to be more focused on tasks at hand, makes it possible to perform a large repertoire on less practice.
You’d see a lot of young musicians come through ANAM. So tell us…can you secretly guess the ones who don’t practice? (Can we really fool our teachers?)
This is a fun question! It isn’t a question of quantity but quality when it comes to practice. Everyone is going to have their strengths but honestly, as teachers and professionals in our field, we can certainly tell which students have practice methods that are less efficient! It could be that the sheer quantity of new music means that extra hours are necessary to learn the repertoire. The biggest learning curve is, however, knowing how and what to practice to make the desired changes to achieve better results.
What do you consider the ideal amount of practice time?
As mentioned above, it isn’t about the hours tally, because everyone is going to be different. That is, how efficient one can be in the time allotted. However, having said that, when you are young and need to learn a lot of new repertoire – because there is so much repertoire to learn – there really aren’t enough hours in the day.
I would say this number-crunching exercise is going to be dramatically different also for instrument types because of their physical limitations. For pianists, if we look after ourselves, six to 10 hours a day would not be unusual. In an ideal world, I would say a couple of three-hour calls would be great. The reality, however, can be quite different and an accumulative phenomenon manifests itself. This is where, for example, in a week we have rehearsals for several different concerts, a performance somewhere in the middle, and also need to learn new repertoire for upcoming programs. Suddenly, the day may drift into a 12-hour marathon. Not unusual, either!
So how much does instrument relate to practice time? Do some need more than others, and how do we know?
It seems that pianists and strings players can practice for longer periods. Other instruments, particularly the winds and brass, can fatigue sooner. Muscles of the face and mouth in particular aren’t designed to do that sort of work all day, and will need to rest or pay the consequences the day after!
There is another question here that relates to the nature of the musical writing. Pianists need to read scores of a highly polyphonic nature – that is, with many voices being considered individually and then together in combination. The demands here on time can be exponential, particularly from the perspective of learning and memorisation. Whereas a single-line instrument from this viewpoint is somewhat quicker. However, string players and wind players will spend many extra hours working on aspects of intonation – something that pianists do not need to be as concerned with. Except when the pianos they play need tuning!
How have you seen that mid- to late-career musicians practice? For instance, do players who might have been in an orchestra for decades still practice?
My view is that late-career, experienced musicians will still have to practice. The need to maintain form physically and mentally is essential to playing well. Even the great Franz Liszt, whose ability and memory were beyond belief, travelled around the world with a dummy keyboard. He obviously still found that he needed to keep his hands and awareness of the instrument at the forefront of his mind.
The other consideration is that experienced musicians will have played a lot more repertoire, which means coming around to a work repeatedly will have an advantage of already having done it before, and therefore less time is required to prepare.
What would you advise as a productive practice session?
A productive practice session will always depend on what is required at the time. Ideally I would advise some prior reflective time to consider what needs to be done. This will render this session more productive. Not having clear goals can often be the reason that time is wasted.
How much should technique be practised compared to repertoire?
This depends on the individual and where they find themselves on both of these fronts. Technical development will always be greater in earlier years. Once a certain level is achieved, it’s more about maintenance. Keep in mind, however, that we all need to keep exploring and searching as we keep changing ourselves. From this perspective, it is a continuous journey of discovery and there is no end to it!
When should a musician not practice? Can we over-practice, physically or psychologically?
Yes, I would definitely say one can over-practice. When purpose is lost, it can be many wasted hours just going through the motions. It doesn’t achieve a great deal and in fact can be detrimental. Remembering that we create new neurological pathways all the time, should we continuously repeat something incorrectly or badly, we are actually learning the mistakes. And it is a longer path unlearning and relearning than getting it right the first time!
Finally, what’s your go-to activity for getting motivated when you really don’t feel like practising?
Stop practising.
Timothy Young will perform with ANAM Musicians in Debussy100 – Douze Etudes this 7.30pm October 26 in the Iwaki Auditorium, ABC Southbank Centre.
We’re partnering with ANAM to hook up with some of the strongest talent in the world in our new educational series! Check back in soon for our next What the Fact?! with professionals in the music industry.
