Mental Alertness in Practicing

The thing that must be impressed on the student above all else is the necessity for complete mental alertness during practice. It happens only too often with too many students that the mind wanders to different spheres while the fingers and hands are engaged in mechanical routine-functioning and endless repetitions. Practice of this kind, lacking both direction and control, is a waste of time and effort. Not only does it not achieve what it sets out to do, but also it can sometimes be positively harmful. Mistakes are repeated over and over again, and the ear becomes impervious to faulty sounds. Whenever such a type of practicing (where mind and ear are not on the job) has become deeply rooted habit, a great effort of the will must be made to make the mind and ear become completely and constantly alert. Where insufficient attention is due only to a state of tiredness, all that is needed as a cure is a different organization of practice time and material – a change, so to speak, in the practice hygiene. General rules in this respect cannot be well formulated.

It does not make sense to demand dogmatically that every student should practice a certain number of hours according to a certain rigid schedule. Requirements and possibilities will vary greatly in individual cases: one student is free to organize his day solely around his/her violin practice. All that can be stated in a generalization is that individually the student has to find out by intelligent experimenting what is best for him/herself. He/she should not, however, become inflexible by rigidly sticking to the same routine. There is no necessity to have a set pattern for the sequence of practice material, for example, scales first, then etudes, then repertoire. There is no reason why this order should not be modified and practice started with pieces and ended with scales as long as all of the work is done that should be accomplished. Mixing the material and not dwelling too long on a single item will often help to keep the mind fresh longer. It is important, of course, the the practice time is utilized well throughout, and that practicing becomes a daily habit. Regular, daily practice will put the student much farther ahead than will long, intense periods irregularly and spasmodically spaced.

On Practicing

The following few entries were written by Ivan Galamian in his book "The Principals of Violin Playing & Teaching" 1962. Mr Galamian was one of the greatest violin pedagogues of not only our time but of all time. He revolutionized the teaching of violin and inspired some of the greatest violinist of the 20th and 21st century. Enjoy !

The road to violin mastery is long and arduous, and great application and perseverance are needed to reach the goal. Talent helps to ease the way, but in itself it cannot be a substitution for the hard work of practicing. Even hard work will be of little avail if it is of the kind that fails to bring results, for there are both good practicing and bad practicing, and unfortunately the bad is far more common than the good.

There is nothing more precious to an instrumentalist than the ability to work efficiently -- to know how to accomplish the maximum in beneficial results while using the minimum of time to do so. One of the most important things that a teacher ought to teach his students is, therefore, the technique of good prac­tice. He has to impress on his students that practice has to be a continuation of the lesson, that it is nothing but a process of self-instruction in which, in the absence of the teacher, the stu­dent has to act as the teacher's deputy, assigning himself definite tasks and supervising his own work. A teacher who limits him­ self to pointing out the mistakes and does not show the proper way to overcome them fails: in the important mission of teach­ing the student how to work for himself.

Why Dove Mountain Arts has a blog ?

Well, that's a good question - Since we're into the 21st century, it seems like this would be a good way to communicate with our students about everything related to violin/viola playing and music in general. Since there is limited time in the lesson, this will hopefully be a place to find some useful information.