Final Innovative Conservatoire Programme

12^th Seminar: Practising

25 – 28 October 2015, Dartington Hall, UK

Practising is central to our development as musicians, and takes up large portions of our time. Finding positive approaches and sustainable rhythms in this work is essential to success. We are also increasingly becoming aware that the concept of personal practice may not be confined to time spent directly with our instrument. There is enormous potential in practising away from the instrument: working with scores, listening, developing aural imagination and so on. In addition, increasing numbers of musicians are focusing on aspects of health and well-being, on practices such as Mindfulness, yoga and Tai Chi, and/or may be engaging in wider creative exploration/expression as a foundation to their work in their own musical discipline.

Beyond this set of issues comes questions about how “practising” is meaningful even if we are not playing an instrument so much? For example, when our professional practice evolves over time and we take on new roles as teachers, researchers, administrators, we are challenged to keep connected to and to go on developing our fundamental artistic identity. What do we take with us into these new roles from our experiences in practising? How do we continue to develop our connection with our fundamental artistic identity? Equally, in what ways do I “practise” if I am an actor or dancer, particularly if I spend little time working alone? What fundamental principles, values, and practices can usefully be shared between the disciplines in relation to discovering and nurturing our artistic identity and craft?

So practising is something that is multi-layered. We must each find our way, combining work on our repertoire, craft development, creative expression, well-being and long-term motivation. In this seminar, we will consider these diverse elements that go into practising, the insights that come from research in this area, how we have developed our own approaches as musicians, and what we may be able to learn from and exchange with other artistic disciplines. We will also consider effective ways in which we may be able to support students in developing their own approaches to practising. This will include exploring:

* The relationship between practising and one-to-one lessons. How can we use one-to-one lessons to help students develop constructive approaches to practising? What helps students to take ownership of, shape and reflect on their practice?

* What support beyond one-to-one lessons may help students to enhance their approaches: group workshops dedicated to practicing techniques, improvisation as a part of daily practice, video recording practising sessions and reflecting on them, peer mentoring, reflective exercises…..?

A particular feature of this ICON session will be that we will ask participants to make video recordings of their own practising and possibly of their students’ practising which can be shared in the seminar and provide material for reflective discussion.

The seminar will be particularly appropriate for any instrumental/vocal teachers interested in enhancing approaches to practising, as musicians themselves, through one-to-one teaching, and/or through leading workshops/courses on practising more generally.

Participant Preparation

1. Bring 3 or 4 objects, images or metaphors with you to the seminar that for you capture something important about your experience of or perspectives on practising.

1. Please bring a 2-3 minute video clip of your own practising for a session in the seminar in which we will explore a working form for reviewing these clips in pairs. You are welcome to bring a clip that comes from the kind of practising that you regularly do, or from a practice session where you are trying new things. It’s also fine to think of practising from different perspectives: practising your instrument alone is perhaps the most obvious context to choose if this suits you, but the context could also reflect something like practising skills/approaches as a teacher with your students, or practising to support well-being, etc.
   It is recommended that you bring this on a portable device e.g. phone, laptop, tablet, as projection will not be required or available for the session.

1. Bring challenging repertoire with you to the seminar that you are working on at present (as well as your instrument).

Should you have any questions about the preparation or the programme, please contact your Core Group Facilitator (see page 6).

Seminar Programme

CORE GROUPS

[A] Helena Gaunt (Oboe): Jonne Covers (Dance), Renata Marcinkute-Lesieur (organ), Julius Pranevicius (Horn), Mikhail Zemtsov (Viola), Niklas Pokki (Piano)

[B] Dinah Stabb (Actor), Gerda van Zelm (Voice): Henry Kelder (piano), Felicia Moye (violin), Egbert Jan Louwerse (flute), Erja Joukamo-Ampuja (Horn), Jorgen Berg (Guitar)

[C] Jo Hensel (Horn) and Tine Stolte (Voice): Rik Bastiaens (organ), Helen McVey (cello), Susan Williams (baroque trumpet), Judith Kopecky (piano), Rebecca Cohen (piano), Pooja Sitpura (actor)

[D] Thomas Jaderlund (Saxophone): Gabriela Mayer (piano), Mona Julsrud (voice), Andrea Gajic (violin), Annemarie Maas (voice), Paivi Arjas (cello)

[E] Gaby Allard (Dance), Gemma Carey (Piano): Igo Lange (piano), Vibeke Breian (saxophone), Johan Stern (cello), Jeroen Thijssen (piano)

[F] Bart (Cello): Xavier Barbeta (piano), Philippa Davies (flute), Martinez-Schrijver (saxophone), Carolien Drewes (piano), Rahel Stoellger (recorder)

MONDAY

Groups: Session 4

09:30 – 11:00

11:30 – 13:00

Monday: Opening Doors Session

Starting in the Great Hall

At 5pm, Core Groups to meet as follows:

TUESDAY

Practicing Audiation: a key to effective learning and performance

Susan Williams
Royal Conservatorium of The Hague
University of the Arts Bremen

The question often asked by a musician in the practice room or on stage is: ‘what should I be focusing on?’ Sports psychology has revealed compelling evidence to suggest that an external focus of attention can be highly beneficial to both learning and performance.

Listen to ‘ideal music’ while playing; don’t listen to yourself

(Arnold Jacobs)

In this workshop we will explore how focusing on audiation: not only the sound, but also the gesture and meaning of a phrase – can help both learning and performance. For this, we will use a practice tool I have developed in my research - APT: (audiation practice tool) which combines a rich imagination of the desired result with singing and gesture in order to bring a piece of music ‘into the body’. Some theoretical information as well as description and results of research on audiation and attentional focus will accompany the practical exploration.

Bring your instrument and a challenging piece of repertoire.

PRACTICE with IMAGINATION

Interpretation

Annemarie Maas

HKU University of Arts Utrecht

Practice to me means: leaving out the unnecessary and highlighting the important for a specific purpose. There are so many things we can highlight in music, such as: dynamics, harmonic tense, melodic tense, velocity, time, rhythmic phrasing, timbre (sound), ensemble play, sight-reading, articulation (and pronunciation)…

Practice results in more skill, better technique, not the other way round of course.

There’s no practice without analysis. You simply need to know what it is you’re working on. In my experience successful practice is only possible after successful analysis.

I like to divide analysis in two: analyzing the existing (what’s sounding) and analyzing the wanted (how do I want it to sound). To be able to do so, we need to learn to express, give words to analysis. Interpretation is the result of knowing how you want it to sound.

Imagination (interpretation) to me is the beginning of all analysis and practice.[1]

Focusing on practice: you need imagination to know where the ‘story’ goes on the blink, to be able to practice on the right thing. I even dare say that a technical problem often is due to lack of imagination. Or maybe better: imagination can help solving (technical) inhibitions.

Imagination always has to do with storytelling. Whatever you imagine, it is part of a story that is best told when becoming very aware, very specific and precise and concrete about all aspects of the story. Stories can be told through all sorts of art form and in my lessons I like to call upon imagination with the use of non-‘domestic’ art forms in my (vocal) lessons. Imagination helps avoiding negative self-reflection while ‘being on the job’.

In this workshop we will practice on imaginative practice through story-telling, finding images, role-play, staging, movement and more. And while we’re on it, we practice on expressing our stories in a very specific and precise way, finding the right words, being very concrete about the abstract, have your peers participate in your story…

Participating this workshop, you are invited to bring your instrument and music you want to work on. Everyone will perform a (passage of) a piece of music.

Group total: 4 - 8 participants

MINDSET- A thoughtful mirror
Dr Gabriela Mayer
CIT Cork School of Music

In this session, we will consider together the role that mindset plays in helping or derailing practice.  By learning to listen deeply to the stories our students tell themselves and teaching them to be aware of what messages they send, we can foster a sense of self-worth that is crucial to engagement with practice and performance. Participants to this session will be actively engaged in discussing this topic using a collaborative reading approach facilitated by Bart von Rosmalen.

It is important to understand how mindset plays a vital role in every stage of preparation. Students must devise strategies to deal with self-criticism and negative internal dialogue and use self-assessment and feedback in a constructive way. Practice strategies will vary depending on whether the student is focusing on learning a piece, striving to achieve depth, speed and continuity, consolidating elements already learned, or preparing for performance. Different priorities will apply to these practice situations, and when students have a ‘toolbox’ of learning strategies, they can reflect and apply these in an independent and successful way. 

[1] So much has been written, as a result of so much research about the benefit of combining right brain and left brain activity.