I play French horn, which horn players around the rest of the world just call the horn. I play because I love the instrument, I enjoy playing in various groups, and it's a discipline that I began back in high school.
The thing is, it's summer and most of my regular groups all take a break for the summer. My horn choir still meets every other week, but to read music, not rehearse for a performance. And I have had to miss quite a few of these rehearsals for other reasons. When I have rehearsals and concerts coming up, I practice. I need to learn the music and stay in shape. It's like any physical activity - if you don't play, your muscles lose their strength. And it's not like I don't like playing - I do.
So I haven't been playing much and I feel bad about that. Obviously I need to set some goals, or maybe challenges, like learning some new music. Or setting a challenge goal of how many days in a row I can practice.
I have been using Duolingo for over a year to learn a language. It is motivating, keeping up my streak - I do at least a little language learning every day. (I could write another post about how irritating Duolingo can be, but not today!)
As I write this I am deciding that I will pick something new to challenge me and something I already know and love to brush up on. Will I need more motivation than that? We'll see!
I think many people who don't play a musical instrument don't realize the practice regime needed to keep up the skill. I know that when I was taking lessons as a kid sometimes playtime was more important to me than practice time. If I missed too many days of practice, it showed next time I picked up the instrument.
ReplyDeleteYes, and unless there's something you need to prepare for you need to find some motivation, whether it's a concert, a rehearsal, or a lesson. My teacher in grad school was once really irritated that I didn't know my Strauss excerpts very well. He told me not to come back until I could play everything in the book. (Background: if you are a serious instrumentalist who wants to get a job in an orchestra, you need to know many, many excerpts from the big orchestra pieces - you need to play them in an audition.) I took his words seriously and spent hours learning those parts..
ReplyDelete