Taking Practice Breaks and Other Tricks (a la Dr. Gebrian)

ShiroKuro

I am having kind of a lot of trouble with one of my pieces, September Song (by Alexis Ffrench). I’m scheduled to play this in a recital next weekend, and it’s one of three pieces I’ll play in a concert at the end of November, so I really want to get it more polished.

I can “play” it, in that I can play the entire piece, at tempo, there are no passages or technique elements in the piece that I can’t play. And sometimes I play the entire piece through and give what I think is a very nice performance of it.

But it’s unstable. I sometimes miss notes or make “random” mistakes. It has multiple variations of a particular theme, and I sometimes will play the wrong one (i.e., play a variation out of order), etc.

I guess it might best be described as sloppy or unpolished. So I’ve been trying to incorporate a lot of different approaches (many from Molly Gebrian’s book) to try to decrease those problems, some of which I will share here.

I broke up the pieces into 16 sections and added rehearsal marks ( A through P). I have index cards with one letter on each card, I shuffle the cards, pick a card and play whatever section comes up on the card.
I zoom in one of the tricky spots, play that spot for a pre-set number of reps, making sure I get X number of mistake-free reps before moving on
I went through the score and wrote in descriptive names/labels for the theme that repeats with variations. This theme comes up five times (across five pages of music), and the idea is I think of the name when I get to each variation, and that is supposed to help me stay oriented in the piece, where I am and which variation I’m playing.
Practice breaks — this is a new one for me. I have mostly been practicing daily, so I play/practice my recital every day, sometimes spending more time on it, sometimes less, but I’ve been playing it daily for a long time now. Gebrian recommends practice breaks, so yesterday, although I practiced for about an hour, I didn’t practice this piece (or the other two pieces I’m planning to play in the concert). We’ll see how it feels when I practice today.

So that’s it, those are the main “tricks” I’ve been applying to my practice routine. I am only about mid-way through Gebrian’s book, so I am sure there are other ideas in there that I may want to incorporate once I get to them. I’ve been thinking back to other books I read in the past (The Inner Game of Music, A Soprano on Her Head, and The Art of Practicing) and trying to remember other tricks I used to do (pre-pandemic) when I performed more regularly, but I don’t think there’s anything else (right now) that I’m missing in terms of both polishing and prepping to perform (which are not the same imo)…

So if anyone has other tricks I should try, please let me know!

Animisha

I don't know if you still alternate between playing through the entire piece and practising sections?

This is what I do when I am at your stage. However, instead of playing the same sections, I reduce the number of sections each time after I've practised all of them. For my Bach piece, I started with nine sections and am now down to six. I determine the sections based on mathematics, not on phrases or sentences, because I want to practise the transitions as well. Moreover, sometimes it's a nice shock for the brain to start a section in the middle of a phrase.

So, in your case, I would divide the piece into 14 sections. If you want to include breaks, practise sections 1-7 on day one, and 8-14 on day two. Then on day three, play through the entire piece. On day four, divide the piece into 12 sections and practise sections 1-6 on day four and 7-12 on day five. On day six, play through the entire piece again.
This approach allows you to play each section two days in a row, then take a day off for that section.

As you can see, I've stopped playing the sections in random order because you mentioned that you sometimes play a variation out of order. Being unsure of what comes next is typical for me when I have played sections in a random order. From now on, I would play them in the correct sequence.

ShiroKuro

Animisha I don't know if you still alternate between playing through the entire piece and practising sections?

I have been, but now I'm wondering if that's the right thing to do, at this stage...

This is what I do when I am at your stage. However, instead of playing the same sections, I reduce the number of sections each time after I've practised all of them.

Oh, actually, I did group the entire piece into three sections (in addition to the smaller groupings). This is based on the music, but whether I'm playing this larger section of the smaller ones, I do always play the transitions (pre and post) so that everything is linked.

So, in your case, I would divide the piece into 14 sections. If you want to include breaks, practise sections 1-7 on day one, and 8-14 on day two. Then on day three, play through the entire piece. On day four, divide the piece into 12 sections and practise sections 1-6 on day four and 7-12 on day five. On day six, play through the entire piece again.

This sounds like a great idea, except I have to play this piece seven days from now! 😅

This approach allows you to play each section two days in a row, then take a day off for that section.

But this makes your suggestion very much in line with Gebrian's.... Hmmm

As you can see, I've stopped playing the sections in random order because you mentioned that you sometimes play a variation out of order. Being unsure of what comes next is typical for me when I have played sections in a random order. From now on, I would play them in the correct sequence.

OMG reading what you wrote makes it so obvious, but I wasn't making the connection. Duh!! I'm sure that my random order practice was beneficial at one stage, but I think I need to not do that any more. At least not with this piece, before the recital. Good grief, how did I never stop to consider that playing it out of order was making it worse! 😃

Animisha

ShiroKuro This sounds like a great idea, except I have to play this piece seven days from now! 😅

So, I would suggest that during the recital seven days from now, you play the piece that you are most comfortable with, so you can take until the end of November with this piece. Which maybe you need. ❤️

MRC

Here's something I often do near to a concert: I play through the piece really slowly, paying attention to every detail: phrasing, articulation, dynamics... Choose a speed at which you can savour every note and the relations between the notes. Do this very consciously, and if you make a mistake, stop, take some deep breaths, have a look at the passage in question (without playing it), then go back to the beginning of the phrase and play from there again. Don't go back and play the passage several times: you'll only get bored and you'll lose the flow of the piece. Keep going, always with the utmost concentration.

You may well find that you start out slowly but, little by little, you accelerate towards the normal tempo. If this is the case, use a metronome! This is one of the most useful things you can do with a metronome and it's often neglected: the metronome can prevent you from rushing.

Keep to the same tempo, even through the easiest bits and even if the piece has a lot of rubato. And even like this, with the metronome ticking, make the whole thing as musically expressive as possible.

ShiroKuro

Since I shared this practice recording in the other thread, I thought I might as well share it here, so you all can see what I'm talking about when I say I'm trying to polish.

This my practice recording from yesterday. There's a 10-15 second blank at the beginning (sorry, I didn't edit it out.) Also, fyi the recording quality sounds terrible on my PC speakers, but pretty good on my iPhone (how I recorded it) and on the EarPods headphones.

It's about 4 and half minutes long.

There are 3 (I think?) flubs in the recording that I'd like to get rid of. But note that my flubs aren't always in the same place (hence, the sloppiness).... Also, there are tons of missed notes and other issues, but I'm not worried about that because (for the most part) it doesn't detract from the listening experience.

My aim is for a "convincing" performance, without noticeable stops or replays.

I think I'm close, but not as close as I want to be.

twocats

ShiroKuro I'm assuming you'd like feedback since you posted this. The most distracting thing for me is not any wrong notes but that the tempo is inconsistent and often feels rushed. Have you tried playing with a metronome?

ShiroKuro

Thank you for the feedback twocats!

For anyone else, I probably shouldn't have posted this recording in two threads, but since we expanded the discussion in the other one, I'll just link it here, in case anyone else is curious:

https://forum.pianotell.com/d/1328-playing-in-a-recital