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FivePointer Veteran Member
Joined: 27 Dec 2007 Posts: 100 Location: RIDLEY PARK,PA.
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 6:31 pm Post subject: Quiet practice? |
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Can someone tell me what are the advantages if quiet practice
and the best way to go about it? With scales?
With lyrical pieces? Etc. |
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dstdenis Heavyweight Member
Joined: 25 May 2013 Posts: 2123 Location: Atlanta GA
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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Quiet practice improves responsiveness. Strong, loud practice improves strength. We need both. You can favor one or the other depending on your assessment of your current strengths and weaknesses. But if you spend too much time working on one, you’ll soon fall behind with the other. So find a good balance that works for you. _________________ Bb Yamaha Xeno 8335IIS
Cornet Getzen Custom 3850S
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dstpt Heavyweight Member
Joined: 14 Dec 2005 Posts: 1283
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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dstdenis wrote: | Quiet practice improves responsiveness. Strong, loud practice improves strength. We need both. You can favor one or the other depending on your assessment of your current strengths and weaknesses. But if you spend too much time working on one, you’ll soon fall behind with the other. So find a good balance that works for you. |
What he said.
You could also employ techniques and approaches like….
…starting with scales, arpeggios, and various interval studies, which are principle building blocks to all of the music we will encounter. You can also take a small portion of some repertoire that you're presently practicing–maybe 4 bars at a time to start–and change all dynamics to pp. You can also change a lyrical passage to all staccatos at pp, and vice versa with staccato passages to all lyrical at pp. Just doing a little of this every day can make a difference.
As dstdenis states, one of our big objectives is responsiveness. In tandem with this is varying the "solidity" of the starts or beginnings of the sound (i.e. "attacks"). IOW, is our tongue too explosive, or do we have the right balance with air to tongue to suppleness with the vibrating surface? Listen to great players playing softly and emulate that with simple passages. I like listening to how great players approach soft playing and particularly their starts to the sound during those passages. Breath starts can help during soft playing training.
When I'm isolating a certain area of playing, like playing very softly or very loudly, I always try to use very brief passages and make them perfect in every way possible. That approach can help raise the bar for other passages we play. Video recording ourselves can be very helpful in this, because it is so revealing.
Something to keep in mind: just as soon as we think we don’t need to practice a certain “area” of discipline, we can be assured that we will be asked to do it…and it will be so exposed that we'll wished we'd practiced it! |
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JVL Heavyweight Member
Joined: 07 Feb 2016 Posts: 894 Location: Nissa, France
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Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:15 am Post subject: |
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Practicing pp or ppp has a lot of benefits if :
- you don't pinch the lips (too closed) but maintain a "tonic" embouchure almost like if you were playing loud
- balance this with all dynamics
best |
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