“Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster.” – Weston H. Agor
I hope everyone who reads this post is doing well (the same is true for those who do not). It's been a busy time around home doing many things. The workshop is going on. My latest work was repairing a Violin's Bow, but then I was told you're not supposed to fix that once it's broken. Since it is one piece, once it breaks, it'll keep breaking. Nonetheless, I now know how to fix something in a hurry. Who knows when it will come in handy.
Keeping up with the things going on, there's a lot of new pieces I haven't got time to record. The reason is simple: I'm way past the learning curve. I'm on that plateau of learning where your skills do not look like improving. It is annoying, but it is part of the process. This times are the ones when the skills actually get better. I've also started to select which pieces I'm going to keep in my brain. That means daily practice. There's no point in learning some stuff I actually do not like and keep practicing it. Some of the pieces I've learned in the past where useful to understand concepts of Soloist Venezuelan Cuatro technique. But as training wheels, they can come off. Maybe I'll revisit some in the past.
This brings me to my idea to showcase another piece I've already show around here but in a different format. The name of the Waltz is La Partida, by Venezuelan Composer, Carlos Bonnet. I've previously stated that this is a piece with different names in other countries. This is the original one, but maybe someone will listen to this and tell me, "I know this waltz by this name". It is possible.
While working on learning the chord melody for this, I was wondering how does everyone else tackle their music learning. With this I mean, how you actually learn a piece. Is it a sight reading exercise? Maybe, you go on very slowly and start building up the tempo? What about dynamics?
My process requires keeping a good memory. I've been learning to play by ear and watching what my teacher does. It is hard. Not with this piece in particular. Others are even more difficult. And in regards to this, there's some serious question around the topic. Do you let pieces rest before going into something important?
A good friend of mine used to tell me that when he had to study something important for the Orchestra he would give it days of practice, then he would let the piece rest for a day and afterwards he could feel it was easier to play. This anecdote reminds of this shooting hoops experiment with basketball. There's a group divided in two. One part practices free shots for a week. The other group is instructed to practice the shooting mentally. Once the trial goes on, to everyone' surprise, both groups have a similar success rate.
Something like this happened to me while I prepared to record this. I already knew the piece, so that was an advantage. However, I haven't had any practice for some days. Yet, it came out like this. Not too shabby (if I'm allowed to say that). As with many things, the mental exercise is always something present in my daily life. I think it helps to keep you ready for an upcoming challenge.
Has something like this happened to you? Or do you think there's another thing at play here?
This is the result of all my practice and mental practice. A lot of my previous musical entries will get a revamp with a Soloist Cuatro Cover. It will just take some time:
If you want to watch the previous versions of this waltz, you can find a messy one here (I was still learning about video editing). The other one is here