Day 12 - Start from where you're standing

(This is not a ‘finished’ piece of polished or even revised writing - it’s me doing a brain dump of my #100DaysOfPractice process and thoughts. Initially I was planning on typing up a sort of practice journal for my own benefit, and I’m sharing it in case it’s informative to others too!)

At first, it felt very intimidating trying to figure out what to practice. Which technique/exercise from the basics book should I be working on, how do I address one thing at a time when everything is so interlinked, how do I keep going when I feel like what I’m doing is unearthing my own failures first. 12 days in,  it feels a lot easier to pick up the fiddle and just do something. I feel like physically and mentally things have defrosted a little, as my fingers(/shoulders, arms, knuckles…!) get more used to this daily conscious practice.

It wouldn’t be unusual for me to go several days without playing in the past, but I’d go far longer between practice sessions that weren’t gig/project specific, and were about maintaining and developing my playing rather than learning material. It struck me today as I wandered round a bookshop that there are some parallels with how I feel about reading. A few years ago I was reading very little - a couple of books a year, if that - and therefore choosing which book I picked up next felt really loaded and important. Now I’m in the habit of reading much more regularly, so it’s easier to get into the next book and latch onto it, but it also matters slightly less what I read next, because I trust that I’ll get through it and onto another book sometime soon. I already feel less pressure to know exactly what’s being practiced next, and more accepting of the fact that there is a lot of practice material to engage with! (As an aside, one great conversation this week was about the almost unlimited choice of what to practise being so overwhelming that it’s difficult to engage at all, and that smaller parameters or someone just making that decision for you is much more freeing than actual freedom! As so often, some restriction without creativity can be very helpful!)

There are a couple of practical things related to my playing that I think possibly need further attention - a slight concern about a tendon/ how a specific joint is working, the limitations of my fiddle (which I’ve had since I was 12!), etc etc, which a daily practice is helping me to acknowledge and approach with curiosity. None of those things could be investigated without first having a regular practice, so I’ll keep checking in on them as I go through these hundred days. It’s very easy to find issue with x,y or z, but for as long as you’re not practising properly, there’s every chance that that is the issue!

I hadn’t intended to post any public thoughts on practice initially, but I’m really glad I have, and have had some brilliant conversations with other musicians off the back of it. Thanks to everyone who’s messaged, most of whom I have not replied to, sorry! I do not for a minute believe I’m doing anything revolutionary here - I’m embarrassed that practising daily as a professional musician who’s been doing this for a living for nine years is in any way worth noticing, as it should have been my norm. But it’s definitely a small, positive step, and in talking about the shame I’ve felt in lacking a practice reigime/knowing that I know what the hell I’m doing, I feel a bit more honest and able to just start from where I stand.

This week, practicing at work felt hard to begin (rather than dashing out the door and getting home) but once in the zone, it was great to be working in an actual practice room. Using drones and metronome to work on scales and some improvisation helped me keep at it for a longer time, as did watching telly at the same time, which seems to be more common than I might have though!

Hopes for the next while of the practice challenge? Honestly, I don’t actually want to add any plans or structure just yet. I still feel like I’m just thawing my playing and focus out again, taking them off ice, and in the next while I’ve a fair bit on, between some learning for Celtic Connections, going to Celtic gigs, and other challenges within my family this month. Just keeping on picking up the fiddle despite the many reasons I can find not to each day is enough for now!

Day 4/ #100DaysOfPractice

First off, thanks to everyone who got in touch with reactions/ thoughts to yesterday’s first post. I really am writing this as a reflective journal for myself first and foremost - so it’s not my finest writing, not edited, not carefully planned - but it was so interesting to hear thoughts, advice, and mostly shared sentiments from a huge range of ages, experiences, and music worlds. Glad to be having this conversation with you all!

Actual practice done today- around 30 mins, much of which was spent re-reading the bowing exercises I looked at in Basics yesterday, going through the first 6/7 exercises in detail. Then some playing Sophie’s Lullaby, thinking of bowing a bit, mostly just enjoying the tune/feel/sound.

Having started with a lot of focussed bow-hold work from the Basics book, I almost feel a bit dizzy, stressed. It’s so hard to feel like I’m ‘getting’ it. I can do the exercise and feel like ‘okay, I think that’s it?’ but find it hard to feel like it’s making a difference. Aware that that’s mad, and it’s day 2 of working from this book. I can also see that you wouldn’t necessarily stay in one section of this book only in the way I am right now, but it feels like the best use of time to take a handful of left hand exercises at once. Ideally, with more time, I’d then be looking at some tone production/ intonation practise in a similar level of detail to get familiar with the exercises, gradually being able to revisit these exercises much more briefly, right now it makes sense to take the time to make sure I’ve really understood what’s being asked. Really doubting what my pinky does/doesn’t do in terms of actual engagement with the bow, but otherwise reassured that actually, a lot of the skills each exercise is working on is stuff that I am doing subconsciously anyway.

On the subject of taking time, I feel so tempted to rush through exercises/ practice with a sort of tick-box mentality. Partly because I’ve left it late today before evening plans, partly because I’m impatient to ‘be better’ - how I’m quantifying that I’m not sure! I think it’s partly feeling like I need to make up for lost time, but I know that letting everything take however long it takes is a better route forward. Must also remember that ‘completing’ fiddle learning/this book/ technique is very much not a thing… It’s hard to tell when practice has been ‘done’, or is enough, and I think the lack of a clear box to tick is partly what my brain finds challenging about getting around to practising. Much easier to bake a banana bread instead, a much more tangible and immediate result!

Having worked on some left hand stuff intensely(ish) on viola, I’m now going to pick up the fiddle and just enjoy playing. My current obsession is Aly Bain’s gorgeous Sophie’s Lullaby. Think I’ll play it without thinking about any of the bowing stuff above for a wee bit, then try to actively observe what my left hand (or more importantly, fingers) are up to for a bit and be a bit more intentional. I said at the start of this practice challenge that I’m doing it to start enjoying my playing a bit more, as well as working specifically on technique and healthy practice, so I’ll be careful to bridge the gap between ‘practice’ and ‘play’!

Day 3/#100DaysOfPractice ~ Reflections on going 'back to basics’, teaching and Practice

Days 1&2 I worked mainly on viola, working on tuning, specifically third finger, and just generally finding my way around it for the first time in a while! Today partly due to some lower back pain, I’m mostly sitting and reading the Simon Fischer ‘Basics’ book, experimenting with bow hold, rather than playing much. I’m told this book is a classic and that if I’m not familiar with it then I must have used some other ‘method’. Not that I remember (though please note, I think I probably did, and was such a bad student that I did not put  enough time in to even recall. Very sorry, past lovely teachers). Why has it taken me this long to open this book, having bought it a year ago? Well, because I’m scared of it. Yes, of the book. Trouble is, I know it’s going to highlight a lot of ‘Basics’ that I don’t know.  And I don’t feel like that’s okay. I’ve been playing for 25 years, I have a degree, teaching work, performing work, and an awful lot of my identity has been built on ‘being good at the fiddle’. It’s always hard as an adult to immerse yourself in what you don’t know, but even harder when there’s a risk that it’ll cause the stone you’ve built your house on to turn to sand. Exposing one ‘basic’ that I have been getting wrong would be one thing, but everything is so interconnected in violin playing that I fear changing one thing changes it all! Step on a butterfly, hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone, etc etc.

The exercises in question!

There’s also the risk that in facing my flaws, I’ll have to admit that I really could’ve improved on them years ago. I’ve had the Simon Fischer book for a year and been too intimidated to open this particular 231-page can of worms partly due to mortification that I don’t already know everything in the book (or worse, know almost nothing in it). The end result of which is that I’m starting to learn what it has to teach me at 30 years old, rather than at 29. BUT THEY’RE BOTH TOO OLD I hear my brain cry. The other option is later, or never… Then I only have to think about how little I’ve practiced (as in, not for a specific thing, just generally - that’s another topic entirely!) over the last many years, and that feeling is amplified.

Through my career thus far, I’ve taught people from ages 3-83, in a mixture of very formal, and very informal, settings. I know it’s never too late to improve, and I know how I’d advise a friend or pupil on this issue. Less judgement for what you can’t do here, do something rather than nothing, more patience and embracing of the process, however slow. I also know part of me would be just trying to paste over my own insecurities even as I advised them of that! I think the very fact that I teach is part of the issue here. Surely as someone who teaches I should know this stuff, hell, I should be able to teach it all. It’s okay to not know, to ask the silly questions, but maybe not if you’re the person who’s meant to know the answers? The more I read this book, the more there’s a chance I’ll realise how incorrectly I’ve taught my pupils, and that feels unforgivable, like some awful secret. “My teacher is wrong about the one thing she’s meant to be able to do”. If I didn’t teach, would I find it easier to get back to basics without judgement? Yes, I reckon so. I wouldn’t have questioned those basics as much though - nothing makes you think about all aspects of playing more than trying to (And f(l)ailing) to figure out why it doesn’t sound right when you’re instructing someone on it. If I show insecurity in my playing, does that undermine my entire worth as a teacher?

Also, as much as we can all spout that it’s important to be a life-long learner, there’s the old fear; If I expose how unknowledgeable/vulnerable I feel (or am?), will I lose work? Nobody is choosing to book me because I know exactly where my 4th finger sits on the bow and how it interacts with the weight of the bow throughout a bow-stroke, but it’s sort of a given, surely, and anyone publicly admitting they need help with these basics is possibly a bit less of an exciting prospect as a collaborator or performer? I’m aware if that was actually applied to every aspect of playing any instrument, many - if not most - of us would be out of a job?! I hope it’s not just me!

Actual practice done - Exercises 1,2,3 and 4 of SFB. Number 4 is a real thinker for me, as I’m not really sure what my pinky has been doing on the bow, especially in the lower half. Number 2 made me realise my thumb has been sitting in (according to SF) totally the wrong place. So points of awareness from today are;

• Where’s your pinky, top of bow or upper inside edge?

• Is my pinky actually ‘controlling the pressure of the bow in the string’ (LH) or ‘balancing the first finger, preventing the tone from becoming too pressed’ (UH)?

• Relationship between thumb and second finger, is your thumb sitting ’very slightly to the left of the thumb as seen from the player’s viewpoint’?

And yes - more time was spent on reflection than actually playing here. There’s probably an element of ‘shut up and get on with it’ needed! Would love to hear any thoughts (or answers, please!) below in comments, on instagram or directly to me at sallyfiddle@gmail.com

#100DaysOfPractice

Inspired by Grace Smith (check her out for gorgeous English folky vibes) and my ever-effervescent pal Magdalena Eriksson in Sweden, on 1st Jan this year I decided on a whim, after a (shameful) amount of time away from the instrument other than for work, to join in with Hilary Hahn’s 8th season of #100DaysOfPractice. A few days in, I’m already finding it a very thought provoking experience - probably too much thinking and not enough playing! Having shared a few wee reflections on instagram, I thought journalling this process may be worthwhile for myself, and decided to share it on here. It’s going to be pretty honest, poorly formatted, mostly for my own benefit so may contain references that don’t make immediate sense, and in the spirit of my practice; choosing to show up imperfectly and playfully, rather than prioritising perfect practice, which just wouldn’t happen. This is unlikely to be a daily blog, but I’d really value hearing anyone’s responses, publicly below, on instagram, or privately on sallyfiddle@gmail.com . Or maybe you’d like to join in, and let me know how your practice is going?