When you are careful to work on small sections, but the piece you are learning is really long, do you get worried that you’ll never learn it all? How do you keep yourself from COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT when you have a lot to learn?

In my experience, there is solace (and better yet, long-term benefit) in the idea of process, not progress.

I heard that phrase from my teacher, Carol Wincenc, when I was first learning a lot of music from memory.  Process, not progress is a particularly useful mantra for memorization, but over the years, I have found it to have many other applications, both for the day-to-day measuring of work and for long-term satisfaction and mastery in music.

To demonstrate this principle in the day-to-day, I’d like to use a sports analogy.  If you are a runner, you have a choice of how to tally up your training.  You can measure how much time you spend running, or you can measure how many miles you have run.  Similarly, you can measure how many minutes you spend practicing, or how far you have gotten in a piece. In order to value process over progress in music, I suggest that you practice for time (10 minutes of thoughtful work on this phrase) not “distance” (I’m going to practice till I nail this phrase, dammit!). You can use it on a larger scale as well:  “I’ll practice each piece for thirty minutes a day,” rather than “I’ll practice until I’ve mastered these pieces.”

In your daily practice, process not progress allows you to make wise choices about what and how to practice, and can make some decisions, like taking a break when you need one, or sticking to your small section, all the more easy. Taking a break becomes as much a part of the process of good practice as playing your instrument. Focusing on process can help you battle the temptation to bite off a big chunk of music instead of a small section.

This principle is equally important over the long term.  If you put in the time, with a sound process, progress will take care of itself.  Not only will you eventually learn all the notes, but with each passing practice session, you will become a better musician and a better instrumentalist.  If you do the opposite, practicing just for progress (getting all the right notes), process does not take care of itself. In fact, process is often compromised that way:  as you search for a quick way to get through a passage, you limit your ability to get thoroughly into the music, and to fully engage your instrument.  You do not become a good musician that way, only a good player-of-a-certain-piece.

When memorizing, it is very tempting to set concrete goals (I will learn the exposition today, and half the development tomorrow).  The problem is that memorization is so tricky and slippery.  In my experience, it just does not work to set that kind of goal when memorizing.  Successful memorization requires deep attention to small details, and it is impossible to achieve that quality of focus when you are thinking “Gotta learn the whole page…gotta learn the whole page…”

Process, not progress has implications for your performance as well—if you have practiced a process-oriented mindset, you are more able to be in the flow of the moment on stage than if you are fixated on progress.  Music performance is, in a sense, an artful way of carrying your audience through time with you. Process allows you to enjoy that journey—progress rewards only the destination.

PS.  As for completely freaking out, remember that process not progress means not constantly checking your daily work against your long-term goal.  Progress will take care of itself if you focus on the process. Remind yourself any way you need to—write it in your practice notebook, repeat it like a mantra, embroider it on a pillow…

Photo credits:  Runners’ feet by Josiah Mackenzie;  Process surrounded by progress by nattu

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.

Usually, when preparing for a concert, I put in a lot of time practicing, and at some point along the way, I notice that I’m “in shape.”  I can count on my sound being beautiful every day, even at the beginning of my warm-ups.  My body feels relaxed and strong at the same time, and there’s a palpable sense of everything coming together and falling into place.  I don’t mean that I play everything perfectly all the time (I wish!), just that I gain that reliable level of physical confidence with the instrument that means I’m in shape.

I’ve always thought that being in shape was the purely physical result of doing a lot of practice.  I’ve never calculated the hours, but I’ve had that experience enough to expect it after a week or so of regular, intense work, meaning about 2 ½ to 3 hours a day. Recently, however, I had an interesting experience that taught me something new about being in shape.

I had a recital this past January, and began practicing the program in earnest right after Christmas. The days of practice became weeks, and, strangely, I never got that feeling of being in shape.  I was also really struggling to learn the new pieces on the program, even though it wasn’t particularly difficult rep.

At first it was a little mysterious.  As time passed by, though, it became frustrating, and as the recital approached and I kept putting in the hours, I became quite worried. I tried to explain it to myself as a symptom of my flute being a bit overdue for its yearly clean-oil-and-adjust, but troubling questions kept bubbling up in my mind:   Was I losing my touch?  Doing something fundamentally wrong?  Being abandoned by my own talent, or by god?  Were my skills failing with age?

Although my recital went well, it wasn’t until a few weeks later that I figured out what was actually wrong, when I began to try and memorize one of the pieces for my next performance, and I couldn’t do it. Not only did I not feel physically in shape, I also felt like nothing was sticking mentally either.

I had worked for days to memorize a single phrase of the music (This Floating World by Edie Hill). I tried all of the practice tricks and tips I have mentioned here on this blog.  I tried smaller and smaller sections, but to no avail. Finally, I narrowed it down to a string of 7 notes, and I spent 20 minutes on it (breezing right past the 15-Minute Rule in my desperation), and still couldn’t learn it successfully.  Since that’s no more information than a phone number, I began to suspect that something was quite rotten in the state of Denmark (or at least the state of my mind).

Finally I realized that my problems could be related to a medication I was taking.  I had been taking topomirate, a drug designed as an anti-seizure medication, but often prescribed (as in my case) to prevent migraines. I had been taking it since November, gradually increasing the dose as prescribed by my doctor.

Once I thought about it more, I realized that I had actually noticed a couple of cognitive side effects prior to the memorization incident:  I had mysteriously lost my ability to parallel park (up until then a point of pride), and was having difficulty reading non-digital clocks.  I had dismissed both as symptoms of pre-concert stress.

After the memorization incident, however, I immediately began to wean myself of the topomirate.  The first day on the lowered dose, my ability to read clocks was instantly restored, and I knew I was doing the right thing.  Over the next week, my ability to learn new music gradually, but definitely, came back.

Here’s the most interesting thing, though: some time in that first week off the drug, I started feeling in shape again.

I had always thought that feeling in shape was purely physical, but the only thing that had changed was that I was off the meds.  That is, the only thing that had changed was that my brain was working better.

Do you realize what this means?  Being in shape is as much a result of your mental state as it is the result of your physical state. It’s not just how much you go to the “practice gym” that counts, it’s what and how you think while you’re there!

So, what’s the optimal way of thinking to generate that feeling of being in shape?  While I don’t know yet, I will be exploring this in practice and in future posts.  If you have any opinions on the topic or similar experiences, please share them in the comments below. I would love to hear from you – I am sure your thoughts on the subject will spur me on!

Photo credits:  Shutr & digitalbob8

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.

In my last post, I suggested starting each practice session with the question, “How do I want this to sound?”  It’s a simple idea, and it has given me lots of inspiration since I was inspired by Jean Ferrandis at the New York Flute Club Flute Fair (see previous post).

This psychic stance, starting from “how I want it to sound” has been very refreshing for me. I think most of my previous practice would start with “how it sounds now” and be focused on trying to make it sound “better.”

Starting with “how do I want it to sound” gives me so many more options, and so much more joy as I work.

It’s also cool as someone who is no longer a “new player.”  I’ve been playing the flute for 30 years now, and pursuing the sound I want, and what I want to share with the audience, is a lot more interesting than just making a piece sound “good.”

Thinking about “how I want it to sound” has been very illuminating, giving me a new perspective on a range of pieces. I recently performed the following works on a recital: one piece I know very well and have performed many times (the Poulenc Sonata), one piece that is new to me but that many flutists have performed and has a ‘history’ (CPE Bach’s Sonata in A Minor for solo flute) and two pieces that are new to me, and relatively recently written (both by Anthony Newman ).

For the old chestnut, the Poulenc, asking myself how I want it to sound has re-opened my imagination, giving me a new and refreshed sense of discovery about the piece…and a new level of confidence in my own interpretation.

For the two Newman pieces, this approach has helped me to get deeper into the process of interpretation sooner than I usually do with new works.  With these new pieces, not only do I start with “how do I want it to sound” but I keep coming back to that question and refining my answer as I learn the pieces better and better.

The CPE Bach falls somewhere in between. I have only just been learning it this year, so in some senses it’s a new piece.  But there are many recordings out there, and it gets taught in master classes*, and so there are lots of opinions about this piece floating in the ether of the flute world (yes, all you non-flutists, there is an “ether of the flute world” and it does have opinions floating in it). Those opinions can feel like a standard to which I must aspire…maybe not so much “how I can play” it, but “how I should play it.”  The Ferrandis approach, however, helps me to move past the “should.”

All of which adds to a better experience not only while practicing, but while performing.

*In fact, it’s the piece that was being played in the Ferrandis class I heard, as well as the subject of Paula Robison’s class this year at Diller-Quaille.

Photo Credit:  Mel B.

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.

I recently had the chance to attend a master class by the wonderful French flutist, Jean Ferrandis. It was at the New York Flute Club’s Flute Fair (yes, all you non-flutists, there is a New York Flute Club and they do host a Flute Fair!), on March 28.

Jean Ferrandis

I only got to see the last student play, and over the course of his coaching, Ferrandis said a very inspiring thing:

“Most musicians settle for how they can play, not how they want to play.”

Actually, now that I see it written out, it’s kind of a depressing statement on the world of music. But if you tweak it so that it’s about practicing, which I think was Ferrandis’ implication, it can be quite inspiring:

Why do we practice? So that we can play how we want to play

OR:

Why do we practice? To transform how we can play into how we want to play

OR:

Why do we practice? So that our musical abilities need not be limited by our physical abilities

OR, more how Jean Ferrandis might put it:

Why do we practice? So that the audience can hear our music, and get to know us

In fact, he also said,

Music is not about doing a good job, it’s about sharing yourself.

And

The problem is never technical, it is always musical.

When you open your mind to greater possibilities, not just how you can play something, but how you want to play it, your body finds the way to achieve it.

That’s a good practice principle that is also a reason to bother with good practice.

Try it in your own practice in the next week or so. Begin every session with the question:

How do I want this to sound?

See if it brings up anything new or interesting for you, and please share your experiences as comments below. My next post will detail some of the ways this approach has affected my practicing in the last few weeks.

(And if you need more inspiration, check out Why bother with good practice? Part 1)

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.

Hello, everybody!

I’ll be back soon with more practice ideas and techniques.  In the meantime, check out this cool radio program I just heard.  It’s an episode of the Leonard Lopate Show, one of our favorite NPR shows here in New York.  Lopate’s guest is Matthew Syed, a sports columnist and the author of Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success.

With a title like that, it’s obvious why this book is of interest here at The Practice Notebook.  One of the main topics Syed and Lopate discuss is the great debate about which contributes more to success:  talent or practice.  Syed comes down quite squarely on the practice side of the debate, and has quite a bit of scientific evidence to back up his argument.

So take a moment to listen–I think you’ll find it inspiring.

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.

Greetings, all, and happy spring!

Thanks to all who have been reading, and sending in questions and comments.  I intend to post some more reader-inspired articles from time to time.  So, if you have a question, feel free to email it, or add it as a comment to a post.  I will try my best to reply (though as Richard, today’s question author, can attest, it may take a while).

Below is Richard’s email on a very interesting topic:  adjusting to a new instrument.  He has kindly accepted my request to post his email and my response.

Hi Zara,

I came across your website while trying to answer a question for myself.  I recently got a good flute – a Muramatsu DS – and am finding that it is teaching me a lot.  I’ve never had a good flute so it is quite eye-opening.  I can find a great sound on every note, but it seems I don’t get to the point of the sound being fairly consistently good until I’ve played for 45 minutes or so.  I think the flute may be forcing me to work my embouchure in ways that my previous flute did not. It rewards me for the work - eventually  – with a great sound – but I think I’m also fatiguing my embouchure – over practicing a bit.  Oddly enough it’s feels more like it’s my lower lip – not my upper lip – that gets fatigued.   My lower lip seems to not be able to hold the position it needs to get a good sound.

Does any of this sound familiar?  Is it possible to over practice and fatigue the embouchure?  Thanks for any advice you might have, particularly how I can get to the point where I can practice 2 – 3 hours and just be fine.

Richard

P.S. – If you have CDs I can buy please let me know.

Dear Richard,

Thank you for your email and question.  I want to apologize for taking so long to get back to you by way of saying, yes, that does sound familiar.  In fact, I spent part of the month of January over-practicing myself!  Hence the decreased time for keeping up with my blog and for writing thoughtful replies to good questions like yours.  Sigh.

First of all, congratulations on your new flute!  A good instrument can be a good teacher, as you are finding out.  I’m guessing that some of your frustration is due to a phenomenon that I haven’t covered in my blog yet:  your brain is ahead of your body.  Now that you have a new flute, and you hear yourself sounding so much better than you have in the past, your brain has made a cognitive leap, and decided that you should sound that good, or even better, all the time.  And trust me, with your drive and willingness to work, you will.

The problem is that it takes your body a lot longer to learn a new skill than it takes your brain to set a new standard.  Your ear hears yourself sound even marginally better on your Muramatsu, and instantly your brain gets all sorts of grand ideas about how you should sound all the time.  It might take your body weeks or months to learn how to sound that way—not only to figure out what the various muscles of your embouchure need to do, but to develop the strength to do them consistently.  In the meantime, though, your lips are straining to achieve that sound all the time, and getting fatigued in the process.

If you have friends who play brass instruments, you’ve probably heard from them about how over-practicing can really harm their “chops” and compromise the quality of their sound.  The same is definitely true for flute players.  I think, though, that because our embouchure is, by definition, more gentle (we don’t buzz, we are not squashing our entire embouchure against the mouth piece, the air pressure we use is so much less, etc), we can generally go much longer than brass players before this happens, and that’s why you don’t hear about it for flute players so often.

This is one of the reasons I stick by the 30-Minute Rule .  Even on days that I practice 4 hours, I take breaks every 30 minutes, because without them, my sound starts to suffer, because my lips (and brain) start to get overtired.

Every once in a while I break the 30-Minute Rule, and I always notice that my sound gets worse, and I start to go a little crazy. This January I was trying to learn some new pieces for a recital, so I kept saying to myself, “Well, I’ll just practice a few more minutes, since I REALLY need to learn this music…”  And after a few sessions like that, I find myself thinking, “Wow, why do I sound so bad?  With all this practicing, I should be sounding great.”  Then I remember the 30-Minute Rule, and get back to it, and suddenly I sound better again.

So, when you say that you’d like to be able to play 2 to 3 hours at a time, I counsel you strongly to integrate breaks into those hours.  If you think about it, a professional orchestral flutist not only has breaks written into her contract, but she isn’t playing for every moment of the rehearsal.  There are rests written into the score; the conductor takes time to work with the strings alone; etc. You need to build that same kind of rest time into your practice routine.

Try sticking to the 30-Minute Rule, and working regular breaks into your practice time.  Try taking the long view, and trusting that your physical abilities will develop over time to match your new instrument’s potential.  If after another couple of weeks you are still feeling this same frustration, particularly that it takes you so long to get to the point of feeling warmed up, then it may be that you need a better warm up routine, or some other fix.

Hang in there, and enjoy your new instrument.

Sincerely,

Zara

PS.  At the moment, I don’t have any CD’s for purchase, but I hope to have one in the next year.  I’ll keep you posted.  In the mean time, you might enjoy this webcast of a recent concert.

Photo Credit:  D Sharon Pruitt

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.

MISSION:  Prepare for solo recital

PERFORMANCE HORIZON:  Recital is in less than a week, but had to pause preparation for performance with River Oaks Chamber Orchestra

SITUATION: In transit all day, Houston to NYC, with a stop in Atlanta

DATE:  President’s Day

TIME:  08:15, an hour and a half before flight time

LOCATION:  Houston Airport

RECON:  Wandered the terminal for 15 minutes, looking for a prime guerilla practice location; located an empty gate

OUTCOME:  Acquired permission of the gate attendants and then practiced there immediately

WHAT:  physical warm ups, a few long tones, chromatic scales, Taffanel & Gaubert No. 4

PROS:

• calling it “guerrilla practicing” makes it feel dramatic, which is fun
• great to get in my scales before sitting on an airplane for hours
• great to feel like I’m doing everything I can to get ready for the recital

CONS:

• practicing in public inhibits my willingness to sound bad , so it’s not the most effective practicing I do
• practicing in an airport has the added worry that people will think that I’m some sort of flute-playing-terrorist-spy (best not to tell them that it’s “guerrilla!”)

COLLATERAL PRACTICE:  mental practice and score study on the plane

OTHER GUERRILLA PRACTICE SPOTS I HAVE USED:

• college dorm laundry room
• hotel pool rooms and conference rooms (for early morning practice—no guest rooms overhead; ask permission from the front desk first)
• the tunnel under Barnard College
• airports:  Detroit, El Paso, Laguardia
• my grandparents’ basement

QUALITIES OF A GOOD GUERRILLA PRACTICE SPOT:

• relative privacy
  • ideally, no one is around
  • if there are people there (like in an airport), look for a spot where people are passing through (like a passage between terminals), rather than sitting in one spot
  • not too much noise
  • not too hot or too cold

WHAT TO PRACTICE IN A GUERRILLA SPOT

• anything that you are generally already pretty good at (so you don’t have to worry too much about being willing to sound bad)

REQUEST FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:  Where have you guerrilla practiced?*

*NOTE Guerrilla practicing is not the same as vista practicing, in which you practice outdoors or in some beautiful vacation spot.  Vista practicing will be covered in a later dispatch.

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.

When I had a lesson with Judith Mendenhall, years ago, she told me a memorable story.  She and a friend were backpacking in Colorado when they were surprised by a bad storm. As they were above the tree line, they were worried they were going to get hypothermia.  Since they knew that one of the symptoms of hypothermia is losing the ability to make good decisions, they tried to make as many decisions as quickly as possible.  For example, they decided that if things got really bad, they would leave their packs behind.  This would make it easier for them to get down the mountain faster, ahead of the bad weather.

This dramatic story has stayed with me, and I think it can illustrate an important function of the practice notebook:  you can use your notebook to make difficult decisions ahead of time.  Obviously, you aren’t facing hypothermia in your practice (!) but you may have times when you are faced with other things that could cloud your ability to make good decisions, and I will explain how your notebook can help you weather those storms.

This hit me in November when I was getting ready for a recital at Trinity Church here in New York [click the link to see a webcast of it].

I was working on Georges Enesco’s beautiful and impressive Cantabile et Presto for flute and piano. The fast and furious Presto is full of double-tonguing passages and tricky chromatic sections where the articulations go across the beat:

I must admit that I HATE practicing this kind of thing (my own ‘storm’ if you will…). Anything that involves articulation—double tonguing, triple tonguing, complicated slur patterns…*  Consequently, I put off practicing tonguing sometimes.  Yes,this happens even to me, author of The Practice Notebook!

Cut to Thanksgiving weekend, 2009.  My performance of the Enesco was just one week away.  I knew I had to get busy on some of those tricky passages.  Like a hiker facing hypothermia, I made my decisions ahead of time. At the end of each practice session, I decided what I would practice at the next one, and wrote it down in my notebook. In this way, I solved the problem of inertia before I even had it.

Let’s take bars 99 to 102 for example (shown above).  The only way to master them was to practice bar 102, then 101 and 102, then 100 through 102, etc, and to work on it everyday. I planned to do 6 repetitions at each metronome level:

• once all slurred (to give the tongue a break)
• twice as written
• one more time all slurred
• twice more as written

It felt like a double blow:  I would have to spend lots of time on articulation, and my ego had to accept that I was struggling with something that I like to think “should be” easy.  When it’s mastered, it sounds easy, anyway!

I wrote the protocol in my book, and stuck to it.  It was like throwing myself a lifeline.

When practicing, I get very rational, and into problem solving mode; I can see clearly what needs to be done next, even if there isn’t time that day to do it.  That clear-eyed version of myself then can send a note, in the practice notebook, to the future version of myself, the one who will be coming to the practice room with fear and loathing in her heart, thinking, “Ugh, not another day of articulation practice!”  That note says,

and the bad decision of hypothermia (i.e. to not practice bars 100-101 again) is averted.

As you can see from the page above, I had to throw myself two life lines that day.  The first was to practice bars 100 and 101 of the Enesco again (before moving on to working on three bars at a time).  The second was the more tough-love note to “suck it up” when working out the opening of the Piazzolla with a metronome.

Sometimes our desire, as musicians (and people!), to sound good all the time (even while practicing) or to wrap up a practice session quickly can be like hypothermia to a hiker:  your brain goes a little foggy and you have a hard time making good decisions.  The practice notebook can be your lifeline—the small thing that tips the balance in favor of good short-term decisions that serve your long-term goals.

You can see a video webcast of the performance of the Enesco and Piazzolla here.  For a pdf of the program, with webcast timings, click lawler trinity 09 program webcast timings.

*note: I think it’s for two reasons:  1) a natural preference for things that are smooth and clean, like slurs, new ziploc bags and modern architecture and 2)the tongue is a lazy muscle, and so practicing tonguing is arduous.

Photo Credit: Jeff Pang

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.

They’re here!  The winter holidays, filled with family visits, parties and gatherings, travel, chocolate, new toys, a surprising amount of stress, and hopefully, more chocolate.

Many of these things can mean major interruptions in your practice routine.  If you’ve been away at music school, you may suddenly find yourself back at home with people who want to see you, not hear your scales from behind closed doors.  For professionals, you may have gigs sprinkled randomly throughout the season, interspersed with long travel days and social obligations that trump professional considerations.

Practicing over vacation, while everyone else is playing with new toys, can be a real challenge.  Here are a few strategies that I’ve employed over the years to make practicing work over the holidays.

1. Let your family know ahead of time that you will be practicing. The delicate balancing act of family and practice is a LOT easier if my family knows about it ahead of time, and knows why it’s important. If you have a concert or audition coming up, let them know!
2. Get creative about where you practice. I remember several Christmas vacations spent practicing in my grandparents’ basement.  It was not the most pleasant place to play, but it was the only spot that was quiet and that I could call my own for a few hours a day.  Find your own private practice spot.
3. Get creative about when you practice. It’s a tough discipline, but sometimes getting up early is a great way to get in some quality time on your instrument before family madness is in full swing.  (Especially if you can practice somewhere far away from sleepers, like the basement!)
4. Plan ahead. Decide ahead of time what you are going to practice, when, and how much.  At the end of each practice session, make a plan for the next day’s work, and write it in your practice notebook.  Then when you drag yourself away from the Playstation tomorrow, all you have to do is follow your own directions, not reassess your practice needs.
5. Be reasonable with your goals. Winter break is NOT the time to up your practice routine from 3 hours a day to 5. Let’s be real, people!
6. Practice big ideas. Winter break often means an interruption in your normal lesson schedule, if you are a student.  Maybe you have 2 or more weeks between lessons instead of just one.  That makes it a good time to spend some focused effort on big ideas that your teacher has been working on–like changing your posture or your embourchure.
7. Practice a new piece of music you’ve been wanting to play, or a piece you really love. Make sure you have a compelling reason to take yourself away from family activities:  music that you love, or music that you haven’t been able to find time for during the school year.  I’m going to be working on Edie Hill’s This Floating World and I can’t wait!
8. Find time to enjoy casual chamber music with family or friends. Normally, I would say that playing duets with your dad doesn’t count as practicing, but over the holidays, it’s a great way to keep your chops up, and to reconnect with the reason you became a musician in the first place.
   

   portrait of the author as a young flutist (in fifth grade, playing Christmas carols with my father)

9. Perform for your family. This one is especially good for younger musicians, and music school students. Just make sure you choose your pieces carefully.  As an enthusiastic student, I once played some weird “new” music for my partly tone-deaf grandmother, and she stopped me in the middle of it, saying it was so loud, it made her stomach hurt!  I should have stuck with the Ave Maria…
10. Give yourself some external motivation. Bart Feller, principal flute of the New Jersey Symphony, just mentioned to me that he is headlining the Kentucky Flute Fair in January, and that not only is he looking forward to the Fair itself, but to having a reason to stay in shape over the break.  Everyone needs external motivation, and a performance or audition scheduled for early January is a great reason to practice over the holidays.
11. Cut yourself some slack. It is vacation after all, and we all need a break from time to time.  If you want a break, but you have to keep practicing (because you have an audition in early January…), schedule some off days, and stick to them. Enjoy them, even!  You might find that a day or two of rest improves your playing. It’s a phenomenon my colleagues and I call The Magic of Gestation, and will be the subject of it’s own post next year sometime.
12. Eat lots of chocolate. I’m pretty sure there are studies that show this helps with your music performance…

Happy New Year!

Photo credits:  Snow crystal:  elif ayse;  Me & my father playing together:  my grandfather.

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.

Learning (and teaching) the flute can be quite a creative challenge sometimes because so much of the important action (the use of the diaphragm, position of the tongue, etc) happens inside the body, where you can’t see it.  This challenge is found with all instruments when dealing with the cognitive aspects of music—you can’t see how you think!

Or can you?

One of my favorite events at the National Flute Association’s Annual Convention was a lecture by Peter Westbrook entitled “Brain Function during Improvisation.” Peter Westbrook is a flutist, saxophonist, musicologist and member of the NFA’s Jazz Committee.  His lecture brought together a recent study on brain function during music performance from Johns Hopkins University, an older study on brain function during meditation, and his own ideas and considerable knowledge of those topics.

In the Johns Hopkins study, the researchers did functional MRI’s of jazz pianists as they performed a number of tasks.  A functional MRI tracks the amount of blood flow to the different parts of the brain, and neuroscientists believe that this demonstrates which parts of the brain are being used. While that didn’t allow the scientists to see how the musicians were thinking, they were able to see where they were thinking.

They found that while playing a memorized jazz tune, the lateral cortex was used.  This is the part of the brain that monitors and judges activity while learning a task.  It’s the part that says things like, “Now make sure you are keeping your fingers nicely curved, and that your wrist is relaxed, and don’t forget about that B-flat in the next bar!”

By contrast, during improvisation, the prefrontal cortex was most active (and the judging lateral cortex was virtually shut down).  The pre-frontal cortex is the part of the brain that handles the free flow of information, tasks of creativity, the integration of diverse elements, and, get this, autobiographical storytelling.  So, a jazz solo is like a musical autobiography of the performer.

The study did not include any classical musicians, so I don’t think it would be scientifically appropriate (even by the low standards of amateur neuroscience) to draw any conclusions about classical music from it, or even to use it as the basis of a comparison between classical music and jazz.

This study is useful because it makes a previously intangible aspect of music-making into something more concrete.  It gives us an image and a description of a vital cognitive process.

It seems to me that the study’s description of brain activity during improvisation is also a description of what it feels like to perform classical music (from a score or from memory) at a high level.  Have you ever had a great performance experience?  It sure feels like ‘the free flow of information,’ ‘autobiographical storytelling,’ and the ‘integration of diverse elements.’  In fact, this was a big topic of audience discussion at Westbrook’s lecture.

Westbrook posed several questions.

• What does this study imply for “the curriculum?”
• Would it be beneficial to teach jazz and classical to all musicians, rather than separating them?
• Is there a way to teach music that gets the student to use her brain in this free, non-judgemental way?

I have a few questions of my own:

• Do you need to go so far as to learn the skill of improvisation to experience that pre-frontal cortex flow in classical (i.e. non-improvised) performance?
• Is there a way to bring that approach, that sense of freedom, into the study of classical music that you are already doing?
• Does just knowing that cognitive goal get you a little closer to it?
• Is using your pre-frontal cortex a skill you can practice?

What do you think?  Have you had experiences like this?  Have you incorporated any improvisation into your classical practice?

I’d like to know!  Please leave comments below, or email me at zara@zaralawler.com.  And stay tuned for later articles incorporating reader comments, and the second study Westbrook cited, about brain function during meditation.

Photo credits:  MRI by erat, Jazz Attack by evoo73

Zara Lawler is a flutist, interdisciplinary performer and coach based in New York City. Contact her for information on performances, coachings, and lessons (including via Skype) at zara [at] zaralawler.com.