Artistry on a timeline: setting the stage for organized practice and successful performance

What are the ultimate parts of successful practicing? What are the ultimate parts of a successful performance?

A performance is made up of the the whole total of all decisions, the pair conscious and unconscious, made during practice.

A relaxed unclose body allows for open communication.

Part of my students' daily practice routine includes stretching exercises. The older we earn the more important this is! Think about in what way free and relaxed young children are with their bodies. This is the way we ne to hold ourselves--open and ready for the possibilities. (Child-like, not childish!)

Success

What is success? (Accomplishing our goals to the best of our abilities.)

Succes is not defined by dint of winning or losing a competition or through how many pieces you know. It should be defined for our learners in a healthy way. Do you play with a beautiful sound? Did you organize your practicing well? Have you made improvement upon your hand posture?

As teachers, we have the ability to plant the tone of how our learners think about progress. We must enable them to be delighted with the journey, as well as the destination, to have feeling true success.

Practice

come by organized by tailoring a practice schedule to the individual scholar utilizing the lesson worksheet the late Dorothy DeLay gave to each of her pupils for every piece they studied.

The "DeLay Worksheet" included the following information:

* Six basics for technical study: notes, fingerings, bowings, regular [i]or[/i] melodious movement intonation and memory

* Technical versus musical ultimate parts of violin playing

The worksheet was used to organize the couple student and teacher. It helps detain focused the work to be done inthe practice field and spells out specific practice goals. It also gives learners a hierarchy of how to approach any given work.

Practice Schedule

A clear idea about what should be practiced is half the battle of having a prosperous practice. It accomplishes the following:

* Defines what areas are to be worked on

* Breaks down practice into specific assignments. at no time let your students leave your studio without a clear vision of what they are to work upon Be specific about number of repetitions, particularly in the beginning.

* Helps clearly define by what mode to divide practice time. (DeLay insinuateed five hours per day.)

detain a Practice Journal. (Do any patterns arise? It helps to document our progres and what really goe upon in the practice room.)

Practice with a Timer. in what manner long do you really practice?

All These Ideas Help unfold Good Time-Management Skills.

Performance

* Always create positive performance experiences.

* Studio class is all important simple body in helping students understand performance is an important part of the learning process

* test to create as little anxiety as possible.

* Are vigors an issue? Try running around the building, then sit down to play (suggest by means of Michael DeBost--French flute player).

* individual performance alone is not the extreme point of the world.

* After you have performed a work fifty times, you will begin to really know it.

As we work to enable our learners to become more successful practicers and performers, we always should remember: teach the pupil not the subject.

Brian Lewis is associate professor of violin at The University of Texas at Austin academy of Music, where he is the companion to the David and Mary Winton verdant Endowed Chair in String Performance and Pedagogy He also is the artistic director of the Starling-DeLay Symposium upon Violin Studies at The Juilliard seminary in New York City.

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