Working hard

I worked for more than an hour today, though it was not real solid mouth time. I very carefully lined out what I need to do for Peter and the Wolf, which got a tiny bit more complicated with a couple of doubling on tuba parts added. Now, I have my road map all constructed and I also worked on every bit of Peter and the Wolf - which is not saying a lot, as there is not a lot there. My thinking is that since I have so little, shouldn't I focus on playing every bit I have just as well as possible?

I worked quite a bit on my tuning in Peter and the Wolf as well. I have a bunch of places where I come in from out of the blue, play one note, and then don't play again for 20 measures or so. I would actually like those notes to be in tune.

I worked on the Sinfonietta piece, tried out the revised Lament part, which I am liking, and sent feedback to the composer.

Then I worked the current scale study in Beeler. I am focusing on playing well, making myself slow down when it is not played well.

Finally, I finished with the Red River Valley piece in Beeler. I felt a little tiredness and frustration growing, and gave myself a bow-out - it was a good practice.

I want to use these in between times practice sessions as best as possible, which to my mind at this point is to take my time and play well. There is no need to be frantic right now, about anything. Ha - is there ever a need to be frantic? Perhaps not. So - if I feel frustration rising when I play a run sloppily - well, what am I frustrated about? Do I need to slow it down? Or maybe I need to play each note separately to make sure they are fully in tune.

Sometimes - maybe it is time to stop. I am using these times of less immediate stress to listen to myself. Yesterday was quite interesting, as a matter of fact, along those lines. I worked through a new little piece in the Beeler book. It was one that I'd never played before, maybe a dozen lines long. It had some slightly complicated rhythm patterns, and I actually had to work at getting through the whole thing, stopping sometimes to figure out the rhythm before I could play it - I did that numerous times. I watched myself, halfway through, getting tired of thinking hard about it and wanting to stop - enough practice now. That was interesting - I wasn't tired of playing, I was tired of thinking hard, or working. I stayed with it, played through the whole thing in my hop skip and a jump fashion, so that the next time I go back to it, I won't have to think as hard and will be able to play it just a little better.

But the division is interesting. You're doing a lot when you are playing. You're listening to the tone, to the pitch, you're playing the rhythm right, you've got all the self-talk going, coaching and cajoling yourself. Sometimes you're loving the sounds you are making; other times you just have to work so hard to keep the lid on the frustration basket. And so much of the time, you are working hard at it.