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Thursday, July 20, 2017

Lessons From Hillary Hahn: How to practice and the 100 days of practice goal



Do you follow Hillary Hahn on Instagram?  You should.  Her user name is 'violincase.'  I'm just a lowly orchestra teacher, but I have been so inspired with Hillary's recent instagram posts about practicing.  She made a goal to participate in the '100 Days of Practicing' project and posts a video every day that gives us a glimpse of what her practice routines are like.  These short little snippets are full of educational value and I plan on using them to inspire my students to practice and teach them HOW to practice.

Hillary Hahn is a world class, famous, professional touring violinist.  Sometimes we mistakenly assume that there will come a time when we will 'arrive' at a certain level of performance and playing or performing will all of a sudden come naturally.  Hillary shows us the true amount of work and dedication needed to reach our potential.  There is no arrival - we're never finished...it is necessary to continually progress.  A good performance is the result of hours and hours on consistent, careful, reflective, goal-driven and focused practice - even for a professional.

Hillary shows that she still practices skills that might be deemed 'basic.'  She does bow exercises, practicing slow long bows on open strings, works on vibrato, practices left hand finger taps.  I do many of these things with my beginners...and we eventually reach a point where we think we don't need finger taps any more....we become 'advanced.'  I love how Hillary's videos show us that the basic skills should still be practiced.  All those things come together to create dexterity, ease of motion, and perfection.

I think students need to see a professional in action.  I plan on using one or two videos per week to show my students.  We will focus on these techniques as a class and refine our practice capabilities.  I will encourage students to practice effectively at home.  Maybe we'll even do the '100 days of practice' challenge ourselves.

Here are link to my favorite videos and the lesson/skill in the video.  These are all the things I want my students to learn:

Finger taps – strengthening left hand/fingers:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BUdbwOOh2nX/?taken-by=violincase

Quote from Hillary: 
"End of the day. Working on a perennially finger-tangling passage in #Prokofiev 1. 6 months till the concert, so why not see where it's at? Practice at tempo can be a good way to locate problem spots and try performance-speed solutions. #the100dayproject#100daysofpractice"

Trill routine – slow then speeding up:

First day on Dvorak – repititions/concentration, tone, focus:

Spinning hoops – arm/hand exercises:

Fingerpatterns – range of motions for fingers:

Quote from Hillary: "LH pizzicato exercise for callus-building and hand-strengthening. "

Practicing in the dark:

Making pizzicato musical:

Silent practice – studying the music/score
  
Working on bow tilt – slow

Practicing vibrato:

Slow bows on 2 strings:

Practicing pizzicato in order to watch left hand transitions/finger placement:

Repetition – practice before concert:

Bow exercises – tiny down, travel to tip, tiny up

Arpeggios:

Practicing with mute: Quote from Hillary: "Jetlag practice with the practice mute. The mute isn't a good thing to use regularly when working on music you'll play unmuted, but sometimes it's helpful if you don't want to make too much noise but still feel it would be good to play something - maybe technical drills, or a passage you didn't feel you got the hang of earlier in the day, or just checking in with a couple of phrases out of curiosity. -HH "

Centering intonation – warm up – during double stops:

Intonation – tuning A minor

Checking arm/body positon: Quote from Hillary: "Working on fluidity in the upper half of the bow without pivoting from my shoulders to reach the tip. -HH" 

Super slow long bows – wow:

Marking the music:

Overcoming bad days: 
Quote from Hillary: "It's a weird adrenal-crash sort of day, when it feels like my cells aren't coordinating with each other. Here, I'm working on figuring out what's up with my left hand; it didn't feel smooth. Of course most of practicing is about the music, but some of it is also about understanding the body as it relates to the instrument. Everyone has these seemingly random, "what happened???!" days. The question then becomes whether or not you can make them work for you. -HH "

Practicing without vibrato:

Recording your practice – watching and fixing: "It's just one of those days. Trying to do my best but my mind is super sluggish. A good day to video a session and then watch it back, to see how the music is coming across. Then try again with changes and watch again. Ditto, ditto. -HH "

Learning new bowing – new stuff takes reps and time…careful focus and thought:

Moving/walking while practicing:

Not feeling like practicing, but doing it anyway:
"Tired today and my body is feeling stiff. Really didn't feel like practicing, but there's a concert to warm up and get in the mindset for. This is what happens mid tour! Very normal. Working on some small details quietly to encourage the revving up process. The gaps between attempts are when I'm resetting my thoughts to try again. -HH "

Checking posture with mirror:

What goes on in the mind during practice?  Think of the audience!  
"I spent the afternoon in meetings and wanted to clear my head before the next part of my day. One of those meetings had led me to consider whether or not I create moments of beauty for myself when I'm alone in a room, practicing or otherwise. I realized that when I practice, I almost always think of other people: the audience. Which I should do! This practice session, to shake things up, I took a few moments to play only the notes I was instinctively compelled to play, when I wanted to play them, however they would emerge. It's improvisation, but not to convey anything at all. At a certain point (where this video starts), a euphoric feeling of calm kicked in, and my mind felt refreshed. –HH"

Connecting vibrato between notes:

3 comments:

  1. Easily one of the most informative articles I have read Angela! Thank you very much for the share! It's awesome how you put so much into just one article for people to learn form.

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  2. I love this! The only issue I have is that my school won't permit anything from instagram through the school. Any thoughts on how to work around that?

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    1. I tried and tried to download the videos but never could get it to work. It has to be through Instagram as far as I know.

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