Practicing Without Pain

Practicing is difficult if you think that you need learn everything in one night.  Practicing is difficult if you think it doesn't do anything.  Practicing is difficult if you think that you're going to die the next day when you get to school/your lesson/rehearsal or whatever.  Practicing is difficult if you hate your progress, and practice is difficult if you think that 1% progress is not enough.

You have to do a few things before you start practicing:

1.  Forgive yourself for not getting it all done at once.
2.  Forgive yourself for your mistakes.
3.  Stop comparing yourself to others.
4.  Stop playing something that makes you want to scream.
5.  Be willing to take less time to do more.

This may sound like therapy, but you need to remember that you are not a bad person or a bad player because you mess up when you practice.  Everybody screws up a lot.  There are some people who learn more the more they screw up.  Teachers often as you to practice, but they never tell you what a practice session looks like.  They never tell you that professional musicians have "preferred pieces" that they play more often than anything else.  So, if you are listening to a recording to someone shredding a piece you are playing, you re listening to someone who has played that piece literally a thousand times.  That's probably their thing...they are great players all of them...but you might be listening to someone's wheelhouse.  What if you are not in your wheelhouse?  You are going to think you're fucked.  You have to step back and think..."Oh, that's not my bag."  You'll work hard, but you can wash away the comparisons.

YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO MAKE MISTAKES AND BAD NOISES

Mistakes are often more informative than right notes.  Right notes just sound good, but mistakes tell you all the things you don't know.  You can learn about your own playing by listening to what you mess up.  You may discover small problems with your playing that are not obvious until you actually listen to your mistakes.  You have to love your mistakes because they point to things that will change your perspective.

NO ONE PLAYS PERFECTLY ALL THE TIME

If you want to spend all your time hating your playing, feel free to think other people are perfect.  Here's a secret...they aren't.  Mess up a lot so you can get it out of your system.

STOP RUNNING THROUGH THINGS

Yeah, you need to run through things...sometimes.  You need to practice things daily.  Runthroughs are going to drain you, and you are going to notice that you need multiple takes to get it right.  You may counter by saying that you have to be able to drop bombs cold in an orchestral audition, but I'm not stupid...I know the majority of the audience here is not taking orchestral auditions.  You have a concert coming up, and you will surrounded by other people who are playing.  Momentum is a real thing, and the band pulls you along.  It just does.

FIND YOUR THING

Everybody needs a thing.  Your tone, tonguing, range, something.  You need a thing that makes you say...yeah, I'm REALLY good at that.  You can be proud of that everytime you do it, and you will be able to fall back on that when you don't feel so good about a practice session.

TAKE LESS TIME

You can practice for hours and hours, but that does not mean the practice is working.  You will hit the point of diminishing returns somewhere around three hours.  Some people hit that point WAY sooner.  You could get more done in ten minutes than some people can do in two hours if you are focused.  That's just reality.  Stop judging your practice by duration and start judging it by efficiency.

1% IS STILL PROGRESS

Did you make 1% progress today?  Then you did something.  Awesome!  You should not be discouraged because you fixed a tiny thing today or did a tiny thing today.   You need to be proud of what you did so you will want to practice again tomorrow.  People who hate practicing are dreading it the next day...that's a fact.  People who are ready to practice the next day at happy with at least one thing they did the day before.

If you hate your practice sessions it is like running a marathon, cutting off one leg and then running the marathon the next day.  I imagine you won't be too excited about it the next day.

PRACTICING IS NOT HARD

It's only hard if you make it hard on yourself.  There is so much shame and BS going around the music world that you can hate your playing without even realizing how much you hate it.  Stop hating it and start loving it...practicing might get a little easier.

Why Hard Reeds Do Not Always Work

You might have been told many times over that you need to use hard reeds.  Because.  No.  Just because.  Don't question me.  I'm the band director.  I know it all.  I went to college for this.  I probably don't play clarinet, and if I don't I DID take a woodwind methods class...I mean, that's some comprehensive stuff right there.

Just kidding.  That's how it is for most band directors because they do not play single reeds.  There are so many other instruments they might have played that it is unlikely you will land a clarinet playing director.  Even if you do, not all of them understand how reeds work.  Hard reeds are great...for some people.  Hard reeds tend to work better on soprano clarinet, but that is not a hard and fast rule either (see what I did there.)

Your only hope of playing the right reeds is to play what you like.  You need to make sure that you are on softer reeds that give you a chance to feel some sort of response.  You can slowly move to keep your pitch up (providing your embouchure is strong...not firm...just strong.)  You must remember that reeds are supposed to help you, and any reed that does not blow freely is likely too hard for you.  There are so many choices that you will not have to worry about finding the right one, but you do need to go searching until you find it.

I play a Gonzalez 2.75 on a Selmer D mouthpiece and Leblanc 430.  That's a BIG setup, and it works for me.  If I gave it to you, it wouldn't work.  If we traded horns, I would not enjoy playing your horn because it doesn't work for me.  It works for you.  You have to be happy with what you re using or you are going to have problems.  You can lie to yourself and say that it will get better, but your setup does not get better until you decide that you are going to make a change.  Just waiting for reeds to be more free blowing won't work...it never does.