WHY REVIEW ?!!??

To continue what I posted about Possibilites and Practice tips for repetition, let's talk about Reviewing for Mastery and Fluency.

I read an article from Laurie Niles on www.violinist.com about this and think it's very important to know what we are actually aiming for by reviewing pieces we 'already know'.

Here is what Laurie said:

"Knowing" a piece is actually just the starting point - then comes the real work. After knowing a piece, the next goal is to master the piece. And in mastering many pieces, you grow your level of fluency on the instrument.

So what exactly is mastery, and what is fluency?

Mastery is when the physical skills of playing something become a series of easy motions, executed without mistakes. Fingers land in the correct spots at the correct times, and shifts occur seamlessly. There are no lingering questions over bow direction, and articulations are clear and decisive. In most cases, the music, when mastered, is also memorized.

Fluency a step beyond mastery. Musical fluency - similar to fluency in a language - is when the music flows freely and easily, expressing something meaningful to the listener. Any troubles related to producing the music are behind you, freeing you to shape the music in the moment, as you connect with your listener.

Think about how you developed fluency in your own language. Or better yet, think about a struggle for fluency in a foreign language. Fluency is developed by using the language a lot, by saying phrases over and over. In the beginning, just saying the words can be difficult. As you get past that, you start forming phrases, clumsily at first. Over time your phrases make more sense. You start to understand not just the general meaning of the words you speak, but all the subtleties of putting them together in different ways, to suit different situations and meanings.

And what fosters this process? Repetition.

It's the same in music. The more we play a piece of music, the more adept we grow with our performance and expression."

When you are practicing a brand new piece, you cannot concentrate on the fluency part of playing music. You are thinking about things like bowings, fingerings, notes, etc. You aren't able to do all those technical things that you do to learn a piece and still make beautiful music that includes the phrasinng, emotion, dynamics, vibrato, and gorgeous tone that fluency brings.

SO, learn those 'fluency' types of things by playing pieces that you can play seamlessly, and then add the important musical things like phrasing and shaping the music to have the meaning it needs to communicate with the listener's heart.

Every time you review a piece, pick something to work on that is going to bring out that meaning better.

1. Bow distribution (You can draw this on a blackboard or paper, see my former blog post on this
2. Vibrato
3. Dynamics (Forte, piano, crescendo, diminuendo)
4. Style (Legato, stacatto, spiccato, martele, etc)
5. Tone Color (the purity of tone)
6. Message? what are you trying to communicate with this song?
7. any new techniques that your teacher is working on that can be practiced on a Review Song

I hope that this list is just a starter, you can add more things to the list as you find things you want to add.