Thanks for your post, and thanks for clarifying as much as possible. Three things I wish to re-iterated
1. Improving concentration is much easier for some than others. Some need to just relax, some need medication for it. I'll have to do some research into concentration methods because I'm not sure of what real exercises, etc. work to improve overall concentration. 2. I'm not sure concentration is completely it. I know that sometimes my mind has wandered more than a few times when playing (and driving, and running, and walking, and even working) and yet during those times I didn't make mistakes and I still got stuff done. Why? Probably because muscle memory is to a particular point where you don't have to think about where all your feet are all the time to walk, where all your fingers are all the time to type, etc. I'm not saying concentration isn't a factor, but I don't think it's 100%. All the concentration in the world won't improve accuracy if you don't have the endurance or muscle memory to get there. 3. Knowing what causes mistakes must be important, and critical, to improving accuracy. Take for example driving a lap at Nurburgring. Some go there for a day trip and don't care about their lap times. Some work very hard on their lap times. Those that have great lap times and know how to drive it didn't build good times by just mindlessly taking a few hundred laps. They concentrated on specific corners, specific straights, where to exit turns, where to enter them, what speed is best, etc. In other words, with the long call analogy, they didn't just simply play it 10 times in a row. They would have worked on the widest intervals, or what they had trouble with, etc. BEFORE they got to the point of building consistency. I don't mean to be rude, but telling a student or a person to just 'concentrate' more or to just play something N times in a row is going to be very frustrating to most people - INCLUDING those who CAN work very hard and WILL work very hard. Why? Because it does no good to play something N times in a row if they are going to repeat the same mistakes over and over, and have to start all the way back to the first time after however many times they've played it. If you have difficulty hitting the notes, then forget about playing it N times. If you have difficulty concentrating, good luck concentrating. That's why I'd like to hear more about methods to improve muscle/embouchure accuracy and concentration, rather than what to do with those things once you have them. All due respect to all posters here, as I'm not trying to bandy words - but I am trying to clarify things that would be very frustrating to good, honest, hard working people who are on the other side of the fence. -William -----Original Message----- From: Hans Pizka <hpi...@me.com> To: The Horn List <horn@memphis.edu> Sent: Fri, Aug 26, 2011 6:55 am Subject: [Hornlist] concentration, technical difficult passages How did I learn to study technically difficult passages ? As Jonathan said it well: study set particular passage slow first, so to get the melody in your memory. o.k. But to make it run at the requested speed, make your study somewhat harder by yourself by playing it in awkward transpositions. If the passage gives difficulties because relatively high range, study it in A or if your personal range will allow even in Bb alto. If the passage is quite low, study it in E-flat or D or C-basso. If the fingering is difficult, try it on the F-side. If you have problems with a passage in E-major, make it harder by studying it on the Bb-side. If the passage would give you endurance problems, try it on the F-side entirely. Apply the previous mentioned method of "never miss any note in a row of ten takes". You will wonder very much, how you will improve your accuracy after a while. The improvement might be really dramatic. But also observe one important rule: NEVER FORCE THINGS ! When I was about 21, already first horn in a very good orchestra, I prepared myself for the auditions to win a better job. One afternoon I played the entire Long Call about 50-times until I got it right ten times in a row. Well, there were some breaks after every ten takes, but I played all on the single F Viennese. After that I knew my personal risk factor. "Without Sweat, No Prize". _______________________________________________ post: horn@memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/valkhorn%40aol.com _______________________________________________ post: horn@memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
