Today I'm thinking about mental practice, and how successful this has been for me. And the fact that I don't do it nearly enough. Despite seeing the great results firsthand, I still cling to the feeling that "real" hands-on practice is the only time I should carve out in my schedule. Here's what I'm talking about with mental practicing:
I first started reading about the subconscious mind's inability to distinguish between the "real" world and the imaginary one we all carry on in our heads everyday. So, for instance, you keep imagining that you're going to mess up a certain passage in your audition, and even though it goes ok more often than not in practice, the audition comes and you mess up EXACTLY the way you had feared. It wasn't a weird coincidence, my friend, you made that happen by showing yourself that video over and over again in your subconscious mind. Don Greene talks about this in his book "Performance Success" (which I highly highly recommend to students and professionals alike). He gives clear exercises to help you visualize the outcome you want and to exchange the tape of failure for one of success. It sounds easy. And in fact, it is easy. But you have to do the work to get the results.
So today I was working with a student and realized that given his hectic schedule at college, he would really benefit from learning some mental practice techniques. I'm reasoning that he could cram in 10 minutes of focused mental practice during his day, apart from his hands-on practice time. In his case, I've asked him to focus on a particular habit he has with his left hand that I'd like to see changed. So I've asked him to visualize that hand shifting between position, and maintaining it's perpendicular position to the neck (rather than twisting it as he shifts, which is the current habit). Jeff Turner always reminded us that you can't just stop something, you have to replace one habit with another. So, my student needs to replace that habit of twisting with one of staying perpendicular as he moves. In this case, he'll need to visualize his hand and arm in the first position, then as they travel, then the gentle "landing" in the new position. All the while, remaining relaxed in his chair, and visualizing being relaxed at the bass while he shifts.
Think it can't work? I'll tell you how I really came to believe in mental practice. When I was a grad student, Jeff had assigned me the Third Cello Suite to play, from memory, at my first recital. This is standard fare for that level, and I struggled both with the technical issues within the music, and with the memorization. Memorizing normally comes easily to me, so I was frustrated that when i had to play the whole suite top to bottom, my memory started cutting in and out at odd intervals. It never seemed to happen at the same places, so it was really hard to pin down why I was blanking out when I did. The walk home to my apartment was about 20-25 minutes, which is about how long it took me to play that suite. So I started singing through the suite in my mind as I walked home each day. Soon I realized that I made the same mistakes in my mental practice that I did in my real practice, and that I had memory gaps in my mental practice as well. So, I decided I would focus on the technique places only during these walks, and really slowly work out the issues. Just like practicing scales, this meant taking a very short passage (one phrase or less) and looking at it from different angles. I might start by feeling how much bow each note got. Then how my right arm felt as it moved through space with the bow. Then the "above the left fingers" camera angle as I watched my fingering and shifting. Then the "whole neck" camera angle as I watched the left arm, torso, and again the fingering in a bigger picture. Then one last time visualizing the whole thing working together, bow and left hand, expressing the music of the phrase while accurately playing the technique aspects.
Sounds like a lot of work? In some ways, it is. But so is practicing with your hands on the bass. The thing that floored me was that I would walk home at 6, eat dinner, walk or drive back to campus for the evening practice session about 8, and whatever I had mentally practiced on the way home was fixed. I could pick up the bass and it was fixed, exactly as I had done it in my mind. I was able to close the memory gaps this way, and felt far more confident on stage when it came time to perform.
Yesterday, I played a movement of an unaccompanied work by David Walter at a faculty recital at Roberts Wesleyan College, one of the two colleges where I teach. Because I had been scheduled in the middle of the pack of performers, there would be no warming up, and I had had memory issues earlier in the week when I performed this for my students at Nazareth College. But I used the mental practice techniques to isolate where my memory was faulty (lots of similar phrases that open into new ideas, just trying to remember the sequence of which comes first,and what leads to what afterwards). Happy to report my memory was just fine, and the technical issues I addressed all held together. I even used the lead time while I was sitting in the audience to rehearse one more time so I was at least mentally warmed up when my spot in the program arrived.
Try using the sequence of camera angles as a jumping off point for your own mental practice. One word of caution: do NOT do these exercises while you are driving. They take so much brain focus that you really will not be able to concentrate fully on the road. (ask me how I know) I know most of us have our "free" time while getting to gigs and it would be nice to utilize the time that way, but I've got other ideas for filling that time in a supportive way for your playing that will keep you safe on the road. That's for a another blog post, though.
Happy practicing!
Gaelen
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