A New Type of Practice

When ‘social-distancing’ started 2-3 weeks ago, it did not occur to me that the situation would directly affect my ‘work’, my ‘research’, my ‘practice’. This, of course, sounds arrogant, dense, naive, self-absorbed, overly optimistic, and/or downright misguided. I really did not think that this pandemic would last multiple months, or indefinitely. Or rather, it took a couple weeks, certainly, to grasp this fact. While I understood pretty quickly that my doctoral concert would be postponed (I thought until May, and then June, now who knows…), my gigs would be canceled, and I would have no more gigs probably for the spring. I assumed that I would perform ‘Elollinen’ soon. And I would otherwise stay on track with my research, reading, writing, conferences, grant-writing, concert planning, etc.

Laughable, now.

I am an independent worker, and have been for awhile now. As a freelancer, I adjust quickly to sudden calls to substitute in orchestra, but more recently I have also tried to planning my own concerts and tried to be proactive about planning new projects with others. I practice mostly at the Sibelius Academy, but have been practicing bass clarinet at home. I write and read sometimes in libraries, but do so regularly from home. My ‘work’ - practicing, reading, writing - can all be done at home (except concertizing, of course). So why should anything, really, change now?

For the first week, week and a half, of quarantine, I was able to stay on ‘schedule’. I practiced multiple hours a day, with about an hour of fundamental exercises, and around 2 hours on my ‘Elollinen’ repertoire. I read my research books, took notes, and even turned out a somewhat on topic post here on my website. I planned aspects of “Elollinen” like transitions between works and program notes. But in the middle of last week, I had the artist’s worst nightmare thought - what is the point?

I rarely have trouble with discipline and focus in my practice. I set goals, I set a schedule, and once I have that, I can pretty much always push on. But this question - “what is the point?” - is both terrifying and debilitating. I experience it every once in awhile, usually after a particularly disappointing orchestra audition. A couple days of feeling sorry for myself and then I suck it up and get back to it. Because I remind myself, I love playing clarinet. I love practicing.

And I find myself in a similar situation now. I love making music. And I do, oddly, really enjoy practicing. That has not changed, and hopefully never will. But I find that forcing myself into my pre-existing routine feels artificial and forced. And as any musician knows, the key to practice is focus. If you are not focused, you will not get anything out of the session, and then you really are wasting time.

So I have been asking myself this week - what is practicing? What do I do when I practice my instrument? Why do I enjoy practicing? And, most importantly, how should I be changing my practicing to meet my present needs as a person, and a musician?

What is practicing? The process of developing skills (or artistry), in this case, on the clarinet. But like when I took martial arts growing up, I also think that practicing the clarinet (or music in general, in rehearsals with others) teaches one about him- or herself and how he or she relates to others. One learns discipline and focus. One learns how to respond to challenge, or challenging situations. One learns also how to communicate with others, with the audience, how to collaborate successfully (and unsuccessfully).

Why do I enjoy practicing? I like focusing. I like feeling like I am improving, that I am developing myself. I find that one can sense/feel/understand this feeling of development and improvement clearly through instrumental practice. All of a sudden you can play something faster, or smoother, or more musically after minutes, hours or days of practicing it. You can record yourself and listen to how you have improved and where to go. And it is endless - you will never be perfect, your tastes will change, your goals will change, and so there will ALWAYS be something to practice. Always.

So, how should I change my practice now?

I am a musician who is very aware and sensitive of/to myself and my playing. This is sometimes a very good thing - for example, in orchestra gigs, I am always incredibly aware of myself personally and musically and sensitive in how I react and relate to those colleagues around me. I think this is what makes me a good gig player. I am very aware of myself when I perform and practice alone, which means I can always identify things to work on and where I need to improve. The downside of this sensitivity, is that it can be difficult to build confidence. Weighing the reactions of others can become stressful and debilitating. Always identifying what needs improvement can make it difficult to acknowledge what you do well. And knowing that you are not working to your maximum potential, like now, produces feelings of guilt and negativity.

As a result of the new day-to-day normal - sharing workspace with my partner and our 6-month old puppy, constantly checking the news, not being able to change ones environment to encourage more focused work - my attention span is shorter than normal. And so into this week, I have begun to try and accommodate my practice to this fact, rather than try to force myself to practice as I would if I had access to my normal facilities and schedule. I have to remind myself that developing also requires to changing, and so rather than feeling disappointed and bad that I cannot practice normally, I have tried to view this change as good. What does this change offer?

I think that it trains flexibility. I never know what repertoire I am going to feel like playing on a given day - most sessions this week I have been working on the Francaix and Nielsen concerti, because I like splitting my time between A- and B-flat clarinets and I also have been playing Bach cello suites on bass clarinet. There is the comfort of repertoire that is familiar, but also the challenge in that the concerti are difficult, so I can put the metronome and tuner on and focus very intently on short passages. But today, I might need something different. The dog might be acting up, so I might have to split my time differently. I might have to do smaller sessions, requiring me to turn on and off my focus differently. I have been doing long-tones and intonation exercises about an hour a day this week, but it could be that these exercises do not resonate with me next week. And rather than try to force myself, I will try to allow myself to be flexible and alter my practice to accommodate. I hope it also develops a sense of freedom in my playing, which works hand-in-hand with flexibility.

I miss playing for audience, but mostly I miss collaborating with others. This mandatory distancing is resulting in some pretty creative collaborative performance, of distance orchestras and self-created chamber music. I did a bit of self-collaboration this week, recording the second clarinet parts to some orchestra excerpts and playing along with them. This is never something I have done to prepare for an orchestra audition, for instance, and I am kicking myself! It is so helpful!! I also have a new collaborative partner - Moose, our 6-month-old Australian Labradoodle. He will sporadically start singing along to almost anything - this week it was long tones, intonation exercises, Nielsen, Francaix, Bach, Horowitz and Bernstein. Something I would never have discovered, where it not for our quarantine. And I am grateful.

Stay safe, all.