Learn to Read Music

All musicians, excepting blind ones, need to learn to read music if they are to make the most of their ability. The entire history of Western music is available to those who have mastered this skill. Yet for so many, reading music remains the single biggest obstacle to learning music.

It certainly was for me. I even had an incompetent piano teacher (famously, I think) fire me because I couldn't learn to read music. (I'm at long last more competent at sight reading than she was at recognizing musical talent, to say the least.) She literally told my mother, "Take your money every week and throw it in the garbage! Albert will never be able to play the piano!" Much as I'd like to, I won't name names, although I presume she is no longer with us (or at least, one hopes, has no internet access).

What Mrs. [expletive deleted -- her name really is an expletive!] failed, astonishingly, to notice is that music is sound. Nowadays, far too much emphasis is in fact placed on simply learning to read music, while neglecting this simple fact, and training the ear ought therefore to be favored above training the eye. I don't have statistics on the percentage of exasperated piano students whose flashbacks to stereotypical "mean old bat" piano teachers smacking their wrists with a ruler have cost them years of psychotherapy, though I can assure my readers that learning to read music need not be this painful.

Reading music should be thought of much like training a muscle. No one enters a gym with an Olympian physique for the first time. The rest of us may feel intimidated by the pros, but two things are important. First, they had to work very, very hard to attain that level of fitness. Secondly, and most importantly, they're still working out. To a certain extent, learning to read music is like learning to ride a bicycle. However, the human mind and body function according to a strict use-it-or-lose-it principle, and that ought to compel us to practice...

That said by way of introduction, here are some practical, general tips that will help you learn to read music with greater ease. (Be sure to subscribe to this site, as specific tips and exercises are added regularly.)

Practice regularly

This should be so self-evident that I needn't mention it, yet it continues to amaze me how many music students don't make time for regular practice and then wonder why they're not improving quickly. (Yes, people actually pay me to tell them to practice.) Good practice habits are absolutely essential if you wish to learn to read music or undertake any serious musical activity. In learning to read music, above all this means practicing regularly. Clearly, regular practice will bring results far more quickly than will intermittent work. Make a commitment to practice sight reading at least five days a week. It's useful to start practice sessions with reading music. This will quickly grow into a habit. As progress is cumulative only with regular work, 10 minutes a day is all most music students need to learn to read music proficiently. By working consistently, with proper practice habits, you'll astonish yourself with how fast your music reading skills will improve. Improvements on improvements will accelerate your progress. It's like getting compound interest on your sight reading skills!

Practice with a clear mind

Like all music skills, it is perfectly normal to be able to sight read well one day and less well the next. The mind must be receptive, and a tired mind can no more learn to read music than it can do any other activity that demands concentrated effort. Foreign language learners are well aware of this phenomenon. Some days you might be fluent and on others you can barely get the words out and you end up making a fool of yourself. Those are the days you get to tell your friends about (I certainly have my share of embarrassing stories), but in music it simply doesn't work this way. Never practice on fatigue.

Focus first on rhythm

Music of any complexity can always be broken into its constituent components. In reading music, this means first and foremost that rhythm must predominate. A valuable warm-up exercise to sight reading is simply to tap the rhythm while counting out loud. (It's best for this exercise not to be done with the metronome!) The simplest way to do this is with a single line, either melodic or accompanimental. If you're working with polyphonic music, or if the accompaniment has a different rhythm from the melody, it's incredibly valuable to tap one voice in each hand while counting aloud. Only once you're confident with the rhythm should you proceed to actually reading the pitches. Indeed, if you can't accurately tap the rhythm while counting evenly, it's impossible to expect to be able to read the music at sight! It is surprising how many music students continue to struggle with learning to read music but who never bother to first learn to tap the rhythm accurately. Much of the battle can be won by that alone.

Use appropriate material

The right material is essential if you wish to learn to read music and to sustain that effort over a long enough period to become proficient. Imagine a personal trainer forcing a weak body to push the crushing weights that professional athletes lift! While this analogy might sound extreme, in my experience this is certainly part of the reason so many music students struggle with reading music -- they see a tall mountain and are afraid to take the first step. Since every student will be at a different stage of development it will be impossible to make specific recommendations here (although exercises targeted to your specific level -- from rank beginner to experienced professionals -- are in the works at key-notes.com!). There is no need to limit yourself to music stricly for your instrument. Song accompaniments can make for useful sight reading material, for instance.

It should be axiomatic that every aspiring music student must find the best teacher possible. Let your teacher know you've set a goal to learn to read music competently and ask him or her for appropriate material regularly. Work with your teacher to select the proper material as mentioned above, find a volume of music at or just beyond your level, and set a goal to read through the entire book. Use a bookmark to mark your progress. Read a little each day until you've finished, then select the next volume.

Separate reading material from repertoire

Avoid at all costs the very bad habit of continually sight reading pieces you're learning! Truly sight reading music can only be done once per piece, since the brain will already begin absorbing the musical information. A key distinction is that reading music favors rhythm even at the expense of some wrong notes, while actually learning a piece must be absolutely precise in all aspects. Therefore, repertoire pieces may be sight read once, and fresh material must always be sought out for sight reading work.

Develop proprioception
(Keep your eyes on the page!)

When learning to read music it is imperative to keep your eyes on the page, not on your fingers or instrument. This is one of the most difficult tasks for many students, but it is the major hurdle to be overcome. The technical term for the essential skill required in sight reading is called proprioception. Proprioception is a sort of "sixth sense," an awareness of the body in space. Athletes and dancers, for instance, have highly developed proprioception, and musicians need to develop this skill as well. There's really only one way to develop proprioception in learning to read music, and that is to keep your eyes focused on the music rather than your hands.

On the piano, there is a simple exercise you can do that will help you to develop this "sixth sense." The piano keyboard has two groups of black keys per octave, one consisting of two black keys and the other three. By orienting yourself by means of the black keys it's possible to find any key relatively quickly. Try closing your eyes and challenging yourself to find all the D-flats, then all the E-flats, working your way through all the black keys. Then practice finding the white keys blindly by first feeling their relation to the black keys. This, by the way, is how blind pianists are able to play.

Know harmony

If you're versed in harmony and know all your scales and chords, learning to read music can become relatively easy. Once you can immediately recognize all the key signatures and know all the notes within each scale, you'll be able to feel your way within a given key. Sight reading music well demands the integration of many musical faculties, including full knowledge of the common harmonies and all scales. This is why genuinely musical material, rather than random notes as some misguided electronic methods use, is essential for learning to read music. Good musicians are able to recognize harmonic and rhythmic patterns and to anticipate what comes next. In this sense, reading music is exactly like reading language -- a context is necessary.

Read the following paragraph, for instance:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Since we know our own language so well and because we have a context (i.e., the words form whole sentences and the sentences make sense), we're able to understand the paragraph. Learning to read music works exactly the same way: We learn to recognize patterns and make inferences based on subconscious expectations.

Yet imagine how difficult it would be to have to read a series of nonsense syllables! Instead, we learn to read music as well as language by practicing with patterns of notes and words that we come to know. Sight reading methods that use random notes are therefore to be ignored for any but the most superficial tasks.

Read by intervals, not note names

Reading music is simultaneously absolute and relative. That means that the brain recognizes not only the absolute note names for each clef by memorizing them, it also should recognize the intervallic relations between notes. To aid in reading music, each clef has two notes that serve as references for the eye. By convention, C is common to all clefs. The treble clef is also called the G clef because the spiraled symbol is centered on the G above middle C. Therefore, C and G are the two reference notes for the treble clef:

The bass clef is also called the F clef because its two dots are centered on the F below middle C. Thus, C and F are the reference notes for the bass clef:

Like the treble clef, the C clefs (soprano, mezzosoprano, alto, tenor and baritone) also use C and G as their reference notes. Most piano students have never encountered the C clefs, and essentially only alto and tenor clefs are used nowadays for a handful of instruments, including viola, trombone and bassoon. Here is the alto clef:

It is a very good idea to familiarize yourself with all clefs no matter which instrument you play. The goal is not to learn the absolute note names for each clef, which will only confuse you, but simply to be able to find any note in relation to its closest reference note. Thus, for instance, if you understand that the C clef symbol is centered on middle C, you'll immediately know that the note directly above it is D, no matter which of the five C clefs you are learning to read.

Practice with others

If you have the opportunity to work with other music students, by all means take advantage of it. If you don't yet have this opportunity, make it. Reading through music with others is one of the best ways to learn to read music, since you'll be forced to stay in rhythm. I often play duets with my students to help them acquire this skill. You can play with any combination of instruments and accompany singers. The more variety, the better.

Work according to these suggestions and you'll be surprised at how rapidly you progress! Best wishes in learning to read music and in all your musical work.

Ear Training

Is your musical brain "wired" backwards?

Our brains naturally navigate towards what we think is the easiest way to accomplish any given task. But what if I told you that what might seem easiest right now might actually crippling your musical efforts in the long term? And that you might actually be damaging your efforts to learn music?

If you struggle to learn music, if you can't hear music you've never played or heard in your "mind's ear," if you can't recognize essential harmonies, then you're missing the most crucial aspect of learning music: ear training.

"Listening comprehension"

Ear training is literally the "listening comprehension" of music. It is without a doubt the single most neglected aspect of music training today. Many teachers fail to systematically train the ear at all, assuming that training the eyes to read and the fingers to play are sufficient.

Yet since music is sound, ear training ought to be the first and foremost task of any developing musician. This ought to be self-evident. Just as the painter must develop the most acute visual perception and the gourmet chef a refined taste, so must the musician develop acute aural sensitivity.

"Opening" the ears

Our first essential task as students of music is to "open" our ears. This implies learning how listen to music we hear as well as listening to ourselves as we play. This latter aspect of ear training is unquestionably one of the most difficult tasks for the developing musician. It can take many years to synthesize one's inner conceptions with the sounds we're actually producing. In other words, until we're very advanced musicians, the sounds we think we're making simply aren't the ones other people are hearing. (This aspect of playing music obviously has very much to do with technique, which must at all times be married to the ear.) Simply recording ourselves and playing it back will reveal how disparate what we think we're playing and what we're actually playing can be.

The second aspect of ear training is recognizing what we are hearing, just as we recognize objects we see. It is not necessary for a listener to recognize with scientific precision everything he or she hears. It is, however, necessary for us musicians to thoroughly understand the compositional material of every piece we play, just as actors must understand language. Meaning lies behind and between the notes, and it's our job to communicate that meaning. It's impossible to communicate musical meaning if we don't understand the basic vocabulary.

Playing music without this essential ear training would be like trying to speak a foreign language without understanding the words. You could learn by rote -- it's indeed possible to learn how to press the right keys in the right sequence simply by repetition, but if you don't understand the actual "words" -- the notes, intervals and harmonies, you're merely exercising your fingers. Your fingers are learning, but not your ears. This "muscle memory," as it's popularly called, is infamously unreliable. It's guaranteed to give you serious performance anxiety, and it's a practical 100% guarantee (no money back!) that you'll blank out right when you most depend on it.

Tragically, most pianists play like this. They learn entire fugues this way and then have panic attacks when they attempt them in front of others, and memory slips abound. If you're in the habit of practicing like this, the time to break this habit is immediately. Every time you practice with a disengaged ear you will be reinforcing the very habit you're trying to break. Hence, you will actually be doing harm to your musicianship. The more you work improperly, the harder it will be to create retroactively that ever-critical ear-finger connection.

"Hear" with your eyes and "see" with your ears

Your goal is to learn to "hear" with your eyes and "see" with your ears. Your fingers must be guided at all times by your inner ear. We shouldn't hear because we play, rather we play because we hear. In other words, we don't hear a note simply because we happen to have struck the right key, we strike the right key because we hear the right note in our mind's ear. This is the essence of getting the mind ahead of the fingers, and this is the ultimate goal of ear training.

The first aspect of this goal is technical: Your inner sound concept must always direct your fingers; that is the aim of technique.

The second aspect deals with pitch and harmony. Your understanding of harmony must be so ingrained that your ear seemingly automatically tells your fingers which notes to play.

If your ear isn't guiding your fingers in this manner, you're on very dangerous territory indeed. Your musical work isn't based on real musicianship; rather, you're "simulating" playing the piano. Recall the language example: It's possible to learn to type the right letters of words and sentences in succession, but in the long run it's infinitely superior, not to mention vastly more enjoyable, to actually know the language. Then you can say anything with ease.

"It's the method, stupid!"

This is the problem with so many "quick and easy" piano methods nowadays, and this is why they fail to create authentic musicians in the long run. They cater to the instant gratification mentality, lazy students fall prey to them, show modest progress at the beginning and later invariably give up in frustration.

Even advanced music students face this problem, since ear training is no longer an integral part of all aspects of music education, but is rather relegated to only a few semesters in a separate course that has no relation to music students' "core" instrumental work. This reveals a gaping hole in their musical education. And it's not the students' fault, it's that of the music educational system. In most cases ear training is never even mentioned until the student enters a conservatory or university program, and then most of class time must be spent on remedial work that should have begun with the very first lesson. How embarrassing that the final exam so often consists of the identical material to the entry exam, only played faster!

The good news...

The good news is that there's a solution to this problem, and a very large part of that solution is proper ear training. The bad news is that it takes considerable mental effort, and lazy minds would prefer to just exercise their fingers and hope for the best. The effects of this "malpractice" rear their heads at all the wrong times: when it really counts. The deficiencies can be embarrassing. I've encountered graduates of well-known conservatories who could, after much diligent practice, perform extremely difficult pieces but who could not distinguish a major third from a minor third by ear. They learned to learn primarily with their fingers rather than their ears.

What's wonderful about training the ear properly in this manner is that the work is largely cumulative. In the beginning it will require great effort, like running a mile for the first time. Like athletic training, with regular practice you'll develop quickly and will come to enjoy each further step. Yet, also like athletic training, it requires regular practice. The body operates according to a strict "use it or lose it" principle. Ear training therefore needs to be a part of your daily practice regimen.

How to test your ear

A simple test to see whether you're learning primarily with your ears or merely with your fingers is to transpose your music (without the aid of the score, of course). Obviously, extremely technically difficult pieces such as etudes don't lend themselves to this sort of ear training, but slower pieces do. Fortunately for us, it's the slower pieces that tend to give us memory trouble since we're unable to play them on "autopilot"; that is, our muscles don't readily take over.

It's also best to use practice pieces rather than performance pieces for transposing, at least at the beginning. Béla Bartók's Mikrokosmos is absolutely ideal for this work, especially since it's so full of surprises. When working with this material it's essential to stay very alert for unexpected notes -- you can't simply play notes within a conventional scale or chord.

Another simple but powerful method of ear training is to sing each voice in all pieces you play. This is an especially useful method of testing whether you're really hearing everything. In most cases, students hear only the melody and bass. They tend to have only a vague impression of the vital middle voices and hence the piece as a whole. This accounts for much of their high degree of uncertainty, difficulty memorizing and performance anxiety. Sing each and every note without the aid of the piano, making sure you're staying absolutely on pitch. The piano is used only to give a starting note and to periodically check your pitch. While tedious at first, this method of basic ear training will ensure that you're truly hearing everything and will give you far greater security so that you can concentrate not on playing the right notes but on expressing the music.

If you're using music such as Mikrokosmos, which I highly recommend, be absolutely certain you don't "cheat" and merely sight-read new pieces at the piano! All the ear training value, hidden in the many unexpected melodic turns, is lost forever the moment you press the keys to hear the correct pitch. You only have one chance to do it per piece! Remember, this is exactly the habit we're seeking to correct -- the goal is to create an accurate inner musical impression rather than rely on external auditory feedback.

This, by the way, is why Beethoven (and Gabriel Fauré, as is less known) could go on composing music in the face of deafness. Thanks to their impeccable ear training and musicianship, they indeed heard every note.

31 Days to Better Practicing: Build Sight Reading Into Your Practice Session

Just over a year ago, I wrote an article on 10 ways of improving your sight-reading skills, which has since become one of the top-performing posts on this blog.

In this posting, I won't rehash the various ways of improving your sight-reading skills I already wrote about previously. I will, however, talk about why sight-reading is important and how you can incorporate it into your daily practice regimen.

What sight-reading can do for you

• Drastically cut down on the time spent on learning notes in a new work of music.
• Develop your pitch-reading skills in a moderate pressure-cooker situation.
• Develop your rhythmic skills in the same way.
• Develop your listening skills.
• Allow you to integrate rhythm and pitch reading, stylistic thought, and physicality in a way not always utilized in traditional note-learning.
• Allow you to play and enjoy large amounts of music you might not otherwise find.
  

How to develop your skills

You won't develop into a great sight-reader by only doing it at lessons and exams. Regular practice for only a few minutes a day is the best way to progress in a pain-free environment.

The publication I recommend above all others is the Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests series by Boris Berlin and Andrew Markow. Divided into levels corresponding to RCM/NMCP grade levels, the books are divided into weekly units (around 10 per book) with one daily sight-reading and rhythmic example, as well as daily ear-training examples for each week. The amount of work involved per day is actually quite minimal, since it is the cumulative effect of the reading practice that improves skills. With a 10-units per volume and daily practicing, it should take approximately 10 weeks to get through a book. The short length of time it takes to complete a book also ensures that a student not up to par on his or her reading skills can easily do two or even three levels a year before taking an exam. The trick is not to cram these books but to work at (savor!) them as part of a daily practice routine.

And then enjoy the results.

31 Days to Better Practicing: Getting New Repertoire on its Feet

Some of the most difficult practicing happens when you're learning a brand new work and trying to work it into your fingers. Some of the dangers include overexertion, boredom, frustration at lack of progress, giving up, as well as the ever-present possibility of learning things wrong that will need to be undone later.

For me, one of the most effective ways of getting to the heart of a new work is not through dividing it up into digestible chunks, but by reading through the work in its entirety right off the bat, problems and all. That way, I engage with the work's challenges right away, and after collapsing from exhaustion at the end of the reading session I can very quickly arrive at an order of battle when properly learning the work.

This approach parallels what happens in many readings of new works that I participate in through various companies and ensembles. The first rehearsal always starts with a full stumble-through, mistakes and all, so everyone has a clear idea of what to expect. Then the work of finely crafting and polishing the performance begins.

This approach presupposes a certain level of advancement of both playing and reading ability. Younger students might find this approach difficult. Yet, even at early levels, students can with a little goading and encouragement, read all the way through a new work. My older students do the initial read-through at home, and it definitely shows in a reduction of time needed to learn a work without spoonfeeding. Most of them are actually impressed at their own ability to bite the bullet and avoid note-learning procrastination.

Other thoughts on initial learning:

• Listen to recordings of the work before playing it. Not just one, but several performances are best to hear in order to not imitate styles and mannerisms of certain performers.
  
• Watch performances on YouTube. The performance levels of different performers will differ wildly on YouTube, but there are some wonderful gems that have only come to light since video sharing took off a few years ago.
• Singers should spend time on translating the text before they sing a new song or aria. See my previous posting on Some Ways on How to Learn a Song or Aria for more information.
• String players might want to have bowings and fingerings already copied into their part before learning the music. Many teachers have a fixed set of preferred bowings and fingerings in their own part that they lend to students. Some of these fingerings have been handed down from famous teachers such as Heifetz or Galamian.

31 Days to Better Practicing: Practice Links

Here is a selection of links to practice-related articles from around the web and blogosphere.

Josh Nemith writes about a study at Northwestern University measuring the positive effects on speech activated by practicing an instrument.

Ben Clapton looks at ways of cementing what you have correctly learned into a reliable performance. If you're interested in developing good practice habits you should also read Ben's Music Practice Tips blog cover-to-cover.

Rhona-Mae Arca examines why we should practice scales, chords, and arpeggios.

If you're still not convinced, read saxophonist Zac Johnson's comprehensive article on the importance of practicing scales.

Leo Babauta at Freelance Switch talks about how to continually sharpen your skills at anything.

Still working at the memorization? Dumb Little Man has a list of 5 quick and easy memory tricks.

Jon Ensminger's concise list of basic piano technique elements is a useful resource to check from time to time.

Finally, everyone should read Martha Beth Lewis' linked-out article on ensuring successful practicing.

As we approach the halfway mark of the month, here is the next batch of useful practice links for the avid musician.

Martin Schuring at Arizona State University has written an essay on practicing from the oboist's perspective.

Charles Moss has written an article on required practice that examines some of the basics of the process.

Here is a useful article on taking piano exams from an anonymous Geocties retro-site.

Brent Hugh at Missouri State College has assembled a large pagh with piano practice principles and methods resources.

Looking for some interesting piano repertoire? Try the Pianopedia.

Those studying Baroque music might want to check out Dr. Brian Blood's useful page on ornamentation.

Finally, those wishing to maintain good physical health when practicing might want to check out the Musicians and Injuries page, with lots of useful prevention information and recommended books.

Here are some more great practice-related posts from the blogosphere.

Music Practice Tips' Ben Clapton shares 10 tips for memorizing music.

Kate Boyd at Notes From the Ivory Tower writes on How (and Why) To Keep a Practice Journal, with some easy steps on how to incorporate journaling into your practice session.

Valerie Kampmeier at Free2Create looks at the blessings of needing to rethink your creative priorities in Are you feeling disillusioned? Great!.

Rebecca Hass at The Resonant Life looks at failure as a way to eventual success in It's my party and I'll fail if I want to.

The Music Teacher's Helper Blog's Ed Pearlman asks us to re-examine our notion of a mistake.

Finally, Rhonda-Mae Arca, who writes the always illuminating Musings at Musespeak, blogged about a video by Alan Watts shown before a group meditation session, embedded below:

Here are some recent practice-related finds from around the blogosphere:

Graham English discusses how to turbocharge your practicing.

Ben Clapton helps you get over your fear of new pieces.

Jeff Mason shares his list of books on practicing and musical subjects.

Natalie lists some great websites for students on the Music Matters Blog.

Ed Pearlman talks about what's in a scale.

And Rhona-Mae Arca adds a new twist to ear training.

31 Days to Better Practicing: Goals Settings

Short Term Goals

One of the best ways to jump start a practice routine is by working toward something, and there is nothing like setting a deadline in order to get work done. Today we will be looking at short-term goals and how they can focus your practice.

Here are some examples of common short-term goals:

• Master the ornaments in a Baroque piece
• Sort out the left hand of a tricky piece
• Play a piece with solid rhythm at a slow tempo
• Increase the tempo of a piece by several metronome markings
• Master a difficult passage once and for all
• Learn that darned F minor formula pattern
• Memorize the first movement of a sonata
• Fit in regular practice times all week
  

Not life-changing goals, but goals nonetheless that move along your playing and take you to the next step. In Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, author David Allen talks about the importance of immediately identifying next actions and completing them as a way to increased productivity. Setting a few short-term goals can very quickly put you on the road to getting out of a rut and improving steadily. Teacher's remarks in lesson notebooks are classic examples of this--students ignore their teacher's concise weekly assignments at their peril...

What are your short-term practice goals?

Next: Medium Term Goals

Yesterday we looked at ways of keeping your eyes on short-term goals in order to have your eyes on the next action on the road to performing excellence. Having your eyes on a prize that requires working over a slightly longer period of time can also can generate the desire to keep on practicing regularly.

What are some goals that you can work towards satisfying along a longer time line, say, three to six months?

• Exams. One of the best ways to measure progress is by taking standardized examinations for an accredited organization such RCM Examinations (known as the National Music Certificate Program in the US). Preparing for these types of examinations requires you to play several pieces from different styles, studies, and technical exercises, as well as take ear training and sight reading tests. The effort required to build the skills to pass each level can provide a very real challenge, and can provide benchmarks for beginning, intermediate, and advanced students.
• Festivals and competitions. Playing in classes specific to age and level at festivals sponsored by MTNA, NATS, Kiwanis, and Rotary clubs, can provide the challenge of competing against other musicians and receiving an adjudication from an authority in the field. This second opinion can often give you the reinforcement (or kick in the rump to keep you) moving along to the next level. And what can compare to the thrill of winning a class against stiff competition? Even if you don't win, the work you did in preparing for competing will have a lasting effect on your quality of playing.
  
• Recitals. If you don't like competitive playing, I highly recommend playing in recitals. These include formal recitals organized by schools, teachers, and organizations, in addition to impromptu occasions for family, friends, etc. If you're learning an instrument, why not share your love of playing with others?
• Auditions. If you're doing well, why not take it up a notch? Opportunities abound for honor bands, orchestras summer festivals, operas, and musicals. Prestigious programs such as the RCM's Young Artists Performance Academy or Juilliard's Pre-College Division are tough to get into, but offer a rewarding education for those able to pass the tough audition.
• Personal milestones. Learning all the Grade 10-level technique, playing your first Beethoven Sonata, getting through your graduate recital from memory a month before the concert, hitting that high C with a solid vibrato, or playing through the concerto in public are all goals that depend not on other's acclamation, but on beating your own personal demons. Claude Debussy once said that "In art, one has more often to fight against oneself, and the victories one wins are perhaps the most beautiful."

Above all, create the challenge and chances are you just might find the way to fulfill it.


Tomorrow I'll be looking at long-term goals.

Next: Long Term Goals

In the last two days we've looked at ways to set viable practice goals for the short and medium term. What are some goals that we can set for the long term, ie. one year or more in the future? This is an important stage of the goal-setting process, but one that is fraught with danger, as one has to walk a fine line between valid outcomes and self-delusion.

Generally, the more ambitious the goal (performing at the Met, Carnegie Hall, signing a DG contract), the more it needs to be broken down into many, many more smaller, digestible goals in order for the final outcome to come to pass.

Let's take an entirely manageable ambition for many students--getting accepted into a university music program. Here are some ways that you could break a big goal into a bunch of smaller ones:

• Research universities on the internet
• Send away for information
• Figure out the application process
• Fill out application forms
• Get letters of reference
• Write cheques for application fees
• Fill out financial aid forms
• Learn correct repertoire for each audition
  
• Make pre-screening audition tape (more and more common these days)
  
• Send out applications well before the deadline process
• Schedule audition once called by university
• Get cheapest flights to college destinations
• Book hotels at college destinations
• Do auditions
• Once accepted, send in acceptance letter with deposit
• Look for more financial aid
• Go to college program

I'm tired already after writing that list and glad that I'm finished with my college education. But looking at that large list, you discover that one big dream can be easily managed if it is broken up into a bunch of smaller, manageable tasks.

I can't emphasize how important it is to be realistic when setting long-term goals. Here are some examples that depend on individual initiative and can be realized with determination and hard work:

• Learn a concerto
• Learn the arias for a role that is a bit too large for one's voice, but which one will grow into in the future
• Learn how to make kick-ass oboe reeds
• Learn the whole Well-Tempered Clavier (Angela Hewitt did it and is in the midst of her Bach World Tour this fall)
• Play the violin with deadly accurate intonation
• Develop into a professional-level singer
• Develop a stylistic breadth of experience in multiple percussion instruments from many cultures

However, when our goals depend on the actions of others, it is much easier to experience serious disappointments. Here are some goals that have the possibility of setting oneself up for disappointment:

• Getting into that world-famous school of music
• Getting that elusive tenure-track college position
• Getting a high-paid position in an orchestra
• Having a concert career
• Getting a top agent

Nevertheless, if we never have goals like these, we will never have the drive to succeed that jump-starts our practice routine in the first place.

I am noticing that this post is quickly turning into an article on life goals in music in general rather than just getting something out of practicing. But I feel that the urge to improve your playing through practicing often parallels the urge to develop oneself, to make a mark, experience satisfaction, and live a fully realized life. Therefore, I'm going to end this post with another long-term goal, one which I feel has no higher calling:

• To be able to play one's instrument at a high level, giving pleasure to oneself and others, and with a healthy technique that will last into old age.

At its core, the art of playing an instrument depends on the level of enjoyment one has in playing both great music and the process of playing the instrument itself. At this level, the degree of professional success one has is immaterial. From Rueckert's "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen":

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel,
Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet!
Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!

I am dead to the world's commotion, And I rest in a quiet place. I live alone in my heaven, In my love, in my song.

Tomorrow I'll be posting some cool practice links from around the internet.

31 Days to Better Practicing: Warming Up

Just as an athlete needs to warm up properly before more serious exertion, a musician needs to warm up before playing or singing all-out. Players of different instruments utilize different types of warm-ups and can learn a great deal from the way they are structured. For example:

• String players tend to play scales at the beginning of a practice session not only to build technique, but to build intonation and the process of deep listening that will improve quality of sound.
• Unlike instrumentalists, singers need to build their own instrument inside their own body, and their warmups tend to emphasize breath management and tone production, which help to guide the breath mechanism and its component parts into a workable whole over time.
• Pianists need to develop a great deal of fluency and play more notes per work than any other instrument. For this reason, traditional piano technique consists of scales, chords, and arpeggios played in all keys in a variety of ways, not to mention finger dexterity exercises in order to build finger strength and independence.

I have always felt that changing up the types of warmups you use when beginning your practice time can greatly improve your approach to the rest of the practice session, since it is after all the mind that is being warmed up in addition to the playing mechanism. Here are some suggestions for interesting warm-up routines:

• Play standard technique before playing repertoire. This is by far the most common warm-up. Play a wide variety of scales, chords, and arpeggios appropriate to your instrument and level, repeating them not mechanically, but really listening for accuracy, quality of sound, intonation (if you're playing an intonation-sensitive instrument). The goal of technical exercises is awareness as much as dexterity.
• Play various technical exercises or studies before playing repertoire. I've always been a fan of Hanon exercises (especially the first 20) and there are a limitless number of ways you can practice them, such as with various articulations, in all 12 keys, or with rhythms. I like the sense of contact with the instrument that I discover when warming up with Hanon exercises, as well as the fact that they exercise my fifth fingers, unlike traditional piano technique where the fifth finger hits rarely, if at all.
• Do a physical warm-up such as yoga or tai chi. Many have talked about the benefits of stretching exercises before practice and if you can incorporate it into your routine, you can drastically cut down on the chance of physical injury from playing.
• Problem solving time. Jump to the most problematic areas of your current repertoire and fix the spots that are giving you the most grief. Take them apart and practice them in new and interesting ways.
• Play something entirely enjoyable with the most beautiful sound you are capable of. Then launch into your regular work.
• Sight read as a warm-up. Done over the course of weeks or months, you can improve your reading skills to an incredible extent by setting aside time to sight read every day. And what better time to do it than at the beginning of your session.
• Slow practice. Just as athletes take is slow at the beginning of a training session, so should we. Work on a short section of a piece, whether problematic or not. Practicing slowly can allow you to be in total command of your instrument and develop greater awareness of what there is in the music and your approach to it.
• Change things from time to time. There are some pianists who brag that they have a set warm-up that they have been following for years. What a dull way to start your practice day. The more interesting you can make your first minutes at the instrument, the better off you will be for the rest of it.
• No warm-up. If none of the above resonate with you, it may be worthwhile to reconsider the validity of warming up at all. Why be burdened by the need to do a fixed activity at the beginning of a practice session when it feels better to jump right in and get work done.
  

What's your method of warming up?