Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Research

I've been doing quite a bit of research to help me write this book on practicing. One little manual I've come across is called "On Practicing" by Ricardo Iznaola. His bio claims that he is "one of the most seminal players, teachers, and thinkers of the guitar (classical) today." Judging by his pocket guide to practicing it looks like he knows an awful lot about practicing. In fact several of his tips and methods are often identical to what you might have read on this blog. Here are a few examples.

A. Building time-in which purely technical concerns are addressed. (This is the same thing as "knowing where the fingers go" that I've often preached.)

B.Interpretive time-in which musicianly elements of expression are tried out and incorporated into the piece (This stage is similar to my "Phrase by phrase" and "becoming musical" stage.)

C. Performing time-in which the integration of technique and musicianship occurs, playing through complete pieces, paying attention to imagined circumstances of a real performance, stage fright, etc. (This is the essentially the same thing as my "shaping" stage of practicing.)

This was another great quote that almost sounds exactly like something I wrote the other day. "When one wants to just 'fool around' with the instrument, one should do so by all means. Be aware, however, that this is not practicing." I couldn't have said it better myself.

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