One of the most challenging parts of the musical education of a student is the practicing time. For the professional musicians too. It is not just about the time that one has to sacrifice to have that violin or trumpet in its hands, or sit steadily and press some white and black keys.... Read the notes from the score, think, make the physical action and listen to the feedback through sound that the combination of all those actions produced. For some hours or minutes, time is passing in a different pace for each one. But not just that time spent with executing the mentioned activities are those challenging ones.
It is also about the feeling you get doing that activity. The constant repeating of a passage or a scale, or just even one bar makes the thing boring. No excitement. One finally thinks there is no sense to repeat it anymore if every time it gives the same result or even getting worse. The brain gets tired, the body gets tired, the practice time is becoming a burden.
Maybe not just burden and boring time that could be spent in another way. It becomes a frustration. The student wants to quit that (sometimes just temporarily, sometimes permanently) and do something more interesting. Play a game? Chat with friends? Take a ride with the bike or run, swim, jump, anything that can raise the level of happiness....Oh, that dopamine thing, why it has to show its power in those moments?
Why? Should we even ask that? What a silly question.... Without that chemical messenger in our brain, we would be just a kind of artificial creations with the ability to think, of course, some would develop it more, some less. Is it just that quality, the ability to think, that will make the difference in how we fulfil our time, activities and life? I need more. That small tiny thing can change the whole result of any action, and practicing an instrument too.
This morning was a bit hard to get up early. Usually, I like to sleep longer, to make up the hours I lost somewhere, some hours before I got to sleep, but even I was sleepy I was in a good mood. The excitement level rocketed after 10 minutes of my coffee intake and the same time spent on the piano. Not a real wow, but something like a feeling of satisfaction was my reaction to my own playing. Could it be possible that I am making some progress in the piece I have chosen to learn a little bit more than a week ago? Great feeling, I played again and the satisfaction was confirmed. Practicing does give results. Although, I was playing in a slow tempo, listening to the sound, focusing on the smooth but determined, repetitive actions of my fingers. It finally showed some signs of improvement. Still, many study sessions will have to be done on that piece, but I was happy. Thank you, chemistry in my head.
Do you want to hear what was that piece? Yes? It will come one day, as a response to an invitation in a #Spreadthevibes post, but for now, another piece is coming here. Something that is called study, as yes, we are talking about studying, so those forms of musical pieces were created to improve some aspects of the playing. Studies. Composers like Bach already used to write educational pieces for their children and students. There are some really boring and just drilling studies written during the history, but some composers were creating some more interesting ones. For example, Friedrich Burgmuller, who was a composer and a teacher, so he knew that more results will be achieved if the study is more interesting. I am playing here one of his works, the number 20, with the title Tarantella, from the series Melodic Studies op 100. Do you find it boring, or an interesting, melodic study?
How your practicing is going these days, fellow musicians? Do you see some progress if you are working on a project or song? How much time do you spend practicing every day?
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