A Four Part Series – Part 2

Part I

What is really going on?

Part II

Any ideas what to do about it?

Part III

Calibration, applying deliberate practice to your deliberate practice.

Postlogue

The Practice Journey (The Learney) and long term development

…in answer to these questions from a Practiclass

1. I've been playing since I was a kid, why am I not farther along?
2. How much time will it take until I can play something well in front of people?
3. How much practice time is needed each day?

Part II

What is really going on?

Skipping that step, the easy, it doesn’t seem to matter a lot, I’m a smart adult and can figure it out step may be the only step that matters right now, why not put it to the test.? We are having trouble doing, we’re reflecting here on what is going on, and now we’re coming up with some plans/potential solutions.

Don’t get handcuffed to mediocrity because of innocent ignorance. See the issue for what it is and get it out of the way one small task at a time, and performing skill will grow noticeably as we learn more and more.

The answer to this situation lies in finding the sweet spot between that, and the level where the difficulty is too hard. That is what a teacher is for, but between you and I, too many of them do not know how to program pieces with the subtle sequencing this requires. To be fair, most folks wouldn’t pay them if the teacher told them they would have to start so seemingly far away from the ultimate goal, so it is not entirely their fault all the time.

But heres the thing. You CAN ENJOY performing and enjoy WHAT you are performing while you do it. There is plenty of enjoyable music of every style that is avaialbe to us for this period of ‘performance growth’. Rock, spiritual, a stock blues progression, beginning/intermediate classical etudes, TV show themes. For instance, do you realize that the hit song Horse With No Name has one chord and strumming pattern for the whole song? Master that, get a backing track of the music and perfrom with your band!

Or maybe, GASP, play that one chord song as a solo.

Prepare as you would for a performance. It might take some work to get it smooth, and the lack of other difficulty will allow us to focus on that. Practice it to a performance level, and, um, perform!

There are examples like this in every style. Have a successful performance instead of a successful meltdown!

If your teacher cannot do this for you, or if you are studying on your own your best bet is to go SUPER easy. Nursery rhymes, folk melodies, three chord songs, whatever. You can always use some of your practice time for the more difficult stuff, but maybe use some of it, a sliver of your time, to learn to PERFORM by “PERFECTING” something instead of spending all our time trying to just learn how to (not) PLAY something.

I’ll close with an excerpt from a supplement to my practicing book that addresses stage fright that I wrote. Doing a little of this could be a very helpful gateway to performing at the early stages (the early stages of performing, not how long we’ve been taking lessons, or playing the instrument).

This describes one of several treatment plans for something called, “Social Anxiety Disorder with a performance specifier.” (stage fright)

6

Graded Exposure for Stage Fright

Pick a short piece of music or three that are several levels below our current ability. If you are a formally trained musician, then maybe pick some études that are taught to late beginner students or things that you can almost sight read. If you are a popular musician, then select a basic 12 bar blues, Louie Louie, or the chords of a simple folk song. Spend some time genuinely working up those pieces to sound consistently good. Make sure the whole performance you are going to do lasts no more than three to five minutes (you can do less if that time frame sounds uncomfortable).

Once you’ve gotten comfortable with that performance, go to an open mic, a studio class or lesson, a guitar or clarinet society meeting, or any other pressure type performance situation where you would perform your more difficult music in front of others and give the best performance you can. Give this performance in as many places and to as many different audiences as you can. Then work up some new material that is at the same difficulty level and go through this process again.

The idea is the music will be so easy that you will perform pretty competently even though you are nervous. Previous success will create confidence in future success, and each successive new program you present will get easier to perform. Once you have built that confidence, you can move on to pieces that are slightly higher in difficulty levels and longer in length.

Who among us would do this? Even if we wanted to try it, would our pride allow us to do so, or would we feel the need to keep trying to perform more substantial music? If the honest answer is that we would be embarrassed playing like this in front of people, then what other things like foolish pride might get in our way without our conscious knowledge? This speaks to mindset (Dweck, 2007) an important part of the learning picture.

Interestingly our education system is supposed to be grounded in graded exposure. We start students with little pieces and have them perform those little pieces in lessons and showcases. Those students who are taught, or figure out, how learning really works will take these easier steps seriously and master them, which helps them give confident performances along the way. Most of us, however, “play and pray” in much of our practice and hope everything will be okay by the time we get on stage. At the earlier levels of training, this approach can, at least, get us by. But by the time we decide to deal with stage fright in any serious way, we are usually years into this hole.

In any case I know of nobody who has seriously tried any other exposure therapy than flooding. No wonder we are so frustrated!

I’m not suggesting anything this intense, but you get the idea. Start with one thing so the music feels easy and you can pay attention to keeping a live performance together the same way everyone learns to do everything – a little skill building step at a time.

I could say a lot more about this, and may talk about it some more in the Practiclasses. there is a comment section at the end. Please add any thoughts and comments, and I’ll use that to guide me. This is the type of unique group learning I think can be done in these.