Practice, Practice and more Practice.....ha!...

[Giovanni]

we are clearly talking about different kinds of Music here

Hooks, Bridges, Lead in's, key changing modulations, Signature melody lines..
these things are all sacred to me, but the rest of the notes in the song ?

who cares !

as long as there is no dissonance or bad sounding chord

so what ?

i play for the successful end result.. no audience is hanging on my every note
nor would most of them know (outside of the earlier defined paramters)
if a note is "missed" or "messed" anyway, nor would they care as long as
they heard their "hook" and were reminded of their warm and fuzzy memory
of where they were and what they were doing and whom they were doing it with
when they first fell in love with that song

it works for me !

from your very experienced gigging musician's point of view you are telling it how it really is in many gigging situations....... I know it to be true. ..

 

[Tom]

Yup! As long as you keep going, and smile bigly at the end, it's all good.

 

[Alan Sharkis]

A peofessional accordionist I know, who is also a successful accordion teacher, agrees with Jerry’s words about practice — except for one point. He feels that a metronome can become a crutch, and that successful students all have “that clock in their heads.” I’m just wondering what you guys think of that.

 

[JerryPH]

Then of course there's the point that you shouldn't waste time practising something you can play.........hmmmm

If you don't review on a regular basis, you will not be able to play that song... even if that review is once a month.

 

[JerryPH]

A peofessional accordionist I know, who is also a successful accordion teacher, agrees with Jerry’s words about practice — except for one point. He feels that a metronome can become a crutch, and that successful students all have “that clock in their heads.” I’m just wondering what you guys think of that.

The metronome in the head is usefull, but it doesn't offer the exact numbers to learn from and it is NEVER as accurate or unforgiving. Sure it CAN be a crutch if that is all you use, but if you don't, you won't know your EXACT numbers.

Some people advance slowly, and without a metronome would never know what their "breaking point is EXACTLY nor likely that they are actually improving 2-3 bps. That can be discouraging, not motivating.

Everything in moderation.

A point to consider is WHO is practicing and most importantly WHAT ARE THE GOALS. If you don't have a short, medium and long term goal, or no goal at all... what you are doing is practicing just to practice and are likely wasting 80% of that time. If you are not a professional or someone with real goals, that's completely FINE. Not all of us want to become virtuosos. Some play to hear themselves play "Mary had a little lamb" and are completely thrilled and satisfied... and that's all cool for them.

If you have a direction, you have goals, if you have goals you have things to attain, ways to measure advancement and you grow MUCH faster. But that said, if your goal is to learn 10 songs this year... very cool. If your goal is to vastly improve your technique so you could MASTER 10 songs, each more difficult than the last, you have a direction, have a better idea of how to get there and have a higher chance of success of meeting a more challenging end result faster than just randomly practicing anything that floats by on your music stand.

Fastest advancement comes from FOCUSED and WELL CHOSEN items to practice in a goal oriented fashion that is documented and planned out in advance. Here is the shocker... for most but the highest aiming group, that doesn't mean 10 hours a day! A couple of truly focused goal oriented hours a day 5 days a week will get 90% of the people there faster than they may be aware of.

 

[Ventura]

If you don't review on a regular basis, you will not be able to play that song... even if that review is once a month.

oh that is probably correct, except
(in my case personally)
once i memorize a song i have it for life,
and i know so many songs i couldn't possibly practice them all.. seriously

i mostly practice based on what songs will be needed for upcoming events
or if i am just noodling
songs i really like that something reminded me of so i just want to revisit them
(basically, i play the songs i play because i am a Fan as much as i am a Musician)

like for instance at the last meeting before Summer break, i am noodling at the end
while they put the room back in order,, someone says "play "see you in September""
so i start to play it.. by the second chorus i have remembered the whole thing
and am playing it pretty much mistake-free.. originally learned it by osmosis
from having the album as a teen (the Happenings.. go away little girl,, see you in.. etc.)
God only knows how many years since i last played it

and songs l ike that shouted out maybe i never played it before with my fingers
but have played it in my head through that osmosis stuff a 1000 times so
by'the third chorus i pretty much have it

admittedly i am probablly just lucky like that, but then again i cannot remember common things
like someones name or phone numbers or birthdays or which of the 2 light switches
next to the door is the outside light and which is the inside one
(it's always a crap shoot) so my brain is strangely selective
or just damaged from early childhood trauma,like Karen punching me in'the nose
everytime i tried to kiss her

could karen maybe be why i like unrequited love songs so much ?

cue TOTO video of Roseanna:

toto roseanna youtube - Bing video

www.bing.com

 

[JerryPH]

oh that is probably correct, except
(in my case personally)
once i memorize a song i have it for life,

I, like probably most people do not. If I do not review a song AT LEAST once a month, I start to forget it, and the results are never pretty, because that is mostly likely when someone asks me "hey can you play XYZ" I go SURE... then crap out on the 15th measure... LOL

When younger I had a 200-300 song repertoire in my head, but that has changed a little. Now thanks to not playing near 4 decades, how little I practice now and how unfocused I am, let's make that... 2-3 songs... haha. For me the solution is that I can go to my ipad and go from 3 songs to maybe 50-60 without practice right now today, and if I started to get serious about my practicing, that would fly right back up to the hundreds no prob... BUT... for me in my situation, do I want to do that? Not particularly... because I play for me, not an audience. I spent all my life playing for someone else, now if I play for someone it may be for someone that is in my home, but 99% of the time I am having my fun in the basement alone.

 

[JeffJetton]

A professional accordionist I know, who is also a successful accordion teacher, agrees with Jerry’s words about practice — except for one point. He feels that a metronome can become a crutch, and that successful students all have “that clock in their heads.” I’m just wondering what you guys think of that.

I agree with their second point--a musician should have a solid internal clock. I disagree that practicing with a metronome hinders the development of that clock. Heck, if anything, it probably helps, in the same way that playing with a really good drummer does. (I'm sure your friend wouldn't say that having Buddy Rich or Jeff Porcaro in your band would've been a crutch! )

I find that the metronome has a lot of great uses. It can be used as a "high jump bar", where you set it to ever increasing tempos to find where your limit is. More usefully, it can be set to a very slow tempo to rein you in and force you to correctly practice at "tempo di learn-o" (as a friend of mine calls it). You can have it click just on the upbeats, which is great for developing a swing/jazz groove. Some of the fancier ones can do things like click for one or two measures, then drop out for one or two measures, then come back in, which can be a brutally honest test of your internal clock!

But more than any of that, a metronome trains you to play along to an external reference. This is a fundamental part of musicianship--the ability to distribute your awareness beyond your own instrument while you're playing it. To constantly evaluate and adjust how you're fitting in with the other sounds being made out around you.

I always tell my students "if you can't play along with a metronome, you can't play along with other people."

 

[JerryPH]

...rein you in and force you to correctly practice at "tempo di learn-o" (as a friend of mine calls it).

Great sense of humor, I am going to steal that one!

 

[Alan Sharkis]

OK, I asked a question and got some responses, and I have to say that I agree with the consensus in that:

1. Metronomes ARE useful in establishing that “clock in your head, setting a high bar, taking you down to tempo-di-learn-o ( see, I like that expression, too) andfor accuracy. I just wish that vocalists would learn to use one so that they could be accompanied more easily.

2. The teacher I mentioned has a reputation for individualizing his lessons for each student, but the use of metronomes or, in his case non-use of metronomes may be a failing on his part in that one area.

In fact, metronomes have made my own studies easier. I actually built one from a mail-order Knight Kit (remember them?)

 

[Javthedog]

........by saying you shouldn't practise what you know.......I think I've been guilty of playing stuff I know, feeling OK about it and then thought that "counted" as practice. Sure you should be playing stuff you like/know, but there probably be much "progress".
I had a look at Tom Heany's First Learn to Practice - and liked the comparison with a kid practising basket ball - can't get rid of the italics -

 

[Javthedog]

I'd not really thought about the "why" of practice and there seems to be a lot of negativity around practice - I've got to..... 'suppose I'd better....... haven't done it for a couple of days so I'll do a bit before dinner.....

 

[JerryPH]

Well, practice for one person can mean something different for another... or mean different things where they are along a different path in their life.

Practice for me as a teen meant 7 days of music. Minimum 8 hours on school days, 20 hours on the weekends. Life still had to fit in irrespective.

Practice for me LATELY means 15 minutes in the morning for exercises and 15 minutes in the evenings just to review my material to bring it back from the dead slowly. I hope to increase that 3 days a week (when I am not working 10.5 hour days), to 15 minutes in the morning to 1-2 hours in the days that I have off.

Then life steps in, and for example tomorrow on my day off I have a dentist appointment and then the rest of the day I will have chores to catch up around the house. I'll go for maybe an hour of some relaxing accordion time near the end of the day, if I am lucky and then likely be exhausted and ready for bed by 8:00pm!

The "why" is very easy. if you don't practice you play worse next month than you do today!

Metronomes... no real need to buy one, if you have a computer/laptop/tablet nearby. I tend to use THIS ONE.

 

[Alans]

All very helpful-thank-you all and Jerry I like the way you list things in an easy to follow manner. I do all of the above except I still find it difficult to slow down and it’s very difficult to work on one section at a time. I study with an extremely advanced classically trained player and he has me going over the same pieces week after week because there are too many errors, he’s always telling me to slow down,play hands separately until I feel I’ve mastered
both parts. I do all of my scales and arpeggios and I use a Hanon book from a long time ago specifically written for the accordion.But it’s a very slow process which requires an enormous amount of patience. The scales etc,are very easy at this point,it’s the pieces which are very difficult to master.

 

[Siegmund]

...and force you to correctly practice at "tempo di learn-o..."

Perhaps we can take the opportunity to make it an educational experience and say "tempo apprendimento" or "tempo di imparare"?
I am reminded of one of my violin teachers who referred to playing fast and looking busy but missing most of the notes as "allegro fakioso".

He feels that a metronome can become a crutch, and that successful students all have “that clock in their heads.”

Well, yes, we all have clocks in our heads. A significant fraction of those clocks are only right twice a day, as the old saying goes.
Sure, eventually you want to be able to play without a metronome. But you get there by playing with it until you find that easy, then moving on. Not by saying "we don't need no steeenking metronomes." (And any student who claims "it's too easy if just follow the metronome" - I'm going to ask to hear proof just how easily they can do it.)

I do all of my scales and arpeggios and I use a Hanon book.....The scales etc,are very easy at this point,it’s the pieces which are very difficult to master.

This sounds like there is a mismatch between the difficulty of the exercises and the difficulty of the pieces. A good teacher ought to be able to fix that.

Violinist and pianists, among others, are routinely assigned books of etudes, which can progress from easy to fiendishly hard. (If there is no accordion equivalent handy, violin etudes work quite well for accordion right hand. I use my Mazas Op. 36 for this purpose every now and then.)

 

[JeffJetton]

I am reminded of one of my violin teachers who referred to playing fast and looking busy but missing most of the notes as "allegro fakioso".

Okay, I'm totally stealing that.

 

[JerryPH]

Okay, I'm totally stealing that.

Oh TOTALLY!

 

[Alans]

For the poster who inquired about teachers in the Baltimore area-The Accordion Teacher’s Guild publishes a list of teachers by town. You may find someone there. You can also contact the American Accordion association. Kiji is another good place to look for teachers. I live in a large city where there are no accordion teachers,or hardly any. I contacted the music dept. of the local university to see if they can put my name out there and that is how I found my teacher. It’s not my favourite route to go but if you absolutely can’t find an in-person teacher there are many qualified who teach online. If interested contact me and I can pass on a great name. Accordion lessons via zoom vary greatly in price and you can always try your teacher out. I used this method for years and I find it especially problematic as your teacher needs to see both hands at the same time which means a lot of shifting in your chair. But if need be there are many extremely qualified teachers online. Good luck!

 

[Alans]

I’ve been studying for at least ten years with very little improvement. But just in the last four months I’ve started to learn/understand what is required for serious,effective practice. I’ve been spinning my wheels for years but I know now I have to slow everything down and only work on a few bars at a time. There is always the temptation to reach the end of a piece because it’s fun,but that’s a waste of time. I think my lessons today are more about learning how to practice when my teacher is not by my side.

 

[Ffingers]

I’ve been studying for at least ten years with very little improvement. But just in the last four months I’ve started to learn/understand what is required for serious,effective practice. I’ve been spinning my wheels for years but I know now I have to slow everything down and only work on a few bars at a time. There is always the temptation to reach the end of a piece because it’s fun,but that’s a waste of time. I think my lessons today are more about learning how to practice when my teacher is not by my side.

From my own teacher: "Get a small passage played correctly, then practice it often - repeating errors merely consolidates them."