Because the focus of this blog will be on teaching violin and viola, and as everyone knows playing an instrument requires a lot of practice, you would probably be surprised to know that the title was inspired, not while practicing violin, but after a yoga class. Yes, I am one of those crazy yoga people (extra crazy because I practice Bikram yoga (a 90 min. class in an extra hot, humid room).
I have often been told by my yoga teachers that I "have a strong practice," the first time I heard this I said " thank you" then went home to puzzle it out. I do attend classes frequently 3-5 times most weeks. However, I am not very flexible, I fall out of poses, can't really do some poses, and don't get very deeply into others. If you were in class behind me you could probably tell that I am not new to Bikram, but you wouldn't be admiring most of my poses either.
What I do well though is show up, I work as hard as I can in every class, I work on doing every pose with the best form possible ("form before depth"), and while not overly flexible, I have good strength, and I am improving my depth and flexibility by fractions of inches every class. In short, I have a good "practice" not necessarily a good "performance."
This made me start thinking about how I would like my students to practice. I realized that what I consider good practice for music is exactly the same. I want them to do it frequently (5-7days a week preferably ). I want them to work hard during practice. I want them to focus on playing correctly, with good posture (form) and to work on accuracy before speed. And despite the fact that I ultimately want my students to perform well, their practice is actually far more important.
Just this week I had perfectionistic 10 year old tell me that she hadn't been practicing because she was getting too frustrated with herself because she didn't sound good. I told her all I wanted her to do this week was to play each section a certain number of times, I wouldn't judge her on how it sounded next week, I just wanted to know how many times she had repeated each section. In short, I wanted her to "show up" and practice. I wouldn't necessarily do this with every student, but she needed permission to "just do it" rather than worrying about the outcome.
