I’m knee-deep in reading about emotions for the psychology in practice book I’m writing.
I just read that humans are more likely to believe something if given a reason, no matter what the reason is. So,
So today, I want to give you seven reasons why you, a classical musician, should practice technique, even though—UGHHHHH—you don’t always want to.
Technique is a nasty sort of thing, but it can be a game changer.
I’ve always preferred the word training. Some call it basics or rudiments. For me, technique is a static concept - it refers to how I approach my instrument, the setup, the posture, etc. Training, on the other hand, is an active concept - it’s literally what I do and how I spend time. The biggest payout is confidence.
Just like a basketball player must hit the gym, we must train to be physically fit to play music. There are plenty more reasons to engage in training, however. Some reasons involve a deeper understanding of the body, and some involve efficiency:
Skill Expansion: As we slowly acquire more patterns, notes and rhythmic combinations, we expand our technical skills. It makes future work lighter.
Physical Maintenance: Training evens out the fingers, smooths out the voice, and expands the lungs. It provides physical control, it keeps us in shape. Maintenance helps keep us in alignment. Without it, fingers get lumpy, vocal cords become inflexible, and distances start to be overestimated. Training is what keeps our inner coordination from unraveling.
Learning Efficiency: Pattern training serves as an investment in our future practice. It helps us learn pieces faster and sightread better. A bit more work now, but less stress later.
Automaticity: Skills gained in training tend to be highly automated. This less-thinking, just-doing mode is highly reliable during episodes of fatigue, lapse of concentration, or stage fright.
Warm-Up: Training can help warm up the body in the practice room. Backstage, it also provides a ritual that calms down the nervous system.
Ergonomics: Training allows us to drill down to the essence of sound production. Technique revamps, breathing practice, and tension work—these are the types of adjustments that are exquisitely suited for the training.
Neurological Variability: When we work on the same rudiment but in different tempos, we train not only our rhythmic accuracy but also our ability to respond to brain signals. When we play a scale very slowly, a bit fast, faster yet, and ridiculously fast, we are training physically and neurologically. A Db feels different depending on speed, articulations, volume, and context. It’s the neurological variability that we are training, the brain’s ability to respond to context.
Oh sh*t, some of you might be thinking, can I be a great musician without training?
Uhm, no. At least I’ve never met a musician who hasn’t—at some point in their lives—engaged in training. Why? The seven reasons. And that builds confidence.
Just like airplanes are on a strict maintenance schedule to avoid midair disasters, our muscles, too, need to undergo regular maintenance through technical practice. There simply has to be a dedicated time when we co-mu-ni-cate clearly to the brain, “This is how I play,” but unencumbered by complex musical patterns or visual stimulation.
Keep pushing past just warming up and into actual skill-building, or to be more precise, skill-expansion. The more patterns you have put in the deep vault (I.e. Your automatic memory), the easier learning will seem. When you feel comfortable with two-octave scales, move on to three-octave. When you’ve mastered four slurred, move on to 8. Try different rhythms for the same scales, different fingerings, or different vocal exercises. I know musicians who have been doing the same technique routines for thirty years. That’s admirable for the purposes of maintenance but a sign that they feel they are done expanding their skills.
One final note about technique, ahem, I mean training.
Of course, it’s not always what we want to be doing. It’s a game of whack-a-mole; we are never totally done. When I’m tempted to skip training (and trust me, I am), I remind myself that suffering is inevitable, but I get to choose when. Either I suffer through a bit of daily technique practice, or I suffer later when I’m trying to learn a piece or perform in public.
Sometimes I just have to give it to you straight. ;) I know it’s not easy to make time for a bit of technique, but I know you can do it - I’m right there with you.
