dinsdag 23 september 2008

How to Practice

I don't often practice in a very efficient way. Often I play my favourite tunes, repeating the same old mistakes, that's not really practice, it's having fun - that's OK, but I don't fool myself that it's a way to make any progress.

It's much better to go over the difficult parts, playing it slowly and precisely, to get into the habit of playing it right. But it's not always easy to have this discipline.

One thing that's really helped me to improve is recording my practice and making these videos. Many faults are obvious on the recordings that I don't even notice while playing, and it's a good exercise to try to get a good "take".



I made this recording tonight, it took about 5 tries to get one I was satisfied with, and even then it has one wrong note. I got another take with no wrong notes but somehow the life was missing from the piece. I tried it again but but then I was getting tired and it got worse, so I published this one.

See what you think. Perhaps you'll notice the wrong note, perhaps not. I know it's there so one day I'll do it again, but for now I hope you enjoy it.