Saturday, July 24, 2010

Violin Practice Fundamentals, part 5: Wood shedding

Let the Wood Shedding Begin

It wasn’t until I was well into my first year of college when the weekly assignments of scales, etudes, sonatas…grew to what seemed like unmanageable amounts. There weren’t enough hours in the day to practice everything. One of the most important skills I learned was how to woodshed. The concept was pretty simple: practice a very small chunk of music over and over until you get it right. In a word: repetition. It wasn’t until graduate school however, that I realized mere repetition was just not sufficient to exact the kind of progress I wanted to see happen. I had to refine the good old-fashioned wood shedding technique by infusing it with heightened awareness and mindfulness.


4 comments:

  1. Thank you Beth, this is very helpful !

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  2. Beth thankyou for this wonderful playing by all of you. I just love the fluidity of your wrist. [among other amazing aspects of your playing.] Absolute mastery of the thing. All the players are superb masters. I love it

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  3. PS I thought I was commenting on Pachabels Canon by the Quartet but somehow it ended up looking like a comment on part 5. Part 5 is excellent Beth. Very clear and relatable to all levels of achievement' practice. Mike

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