After climbing for hours in the thin air of Colorado my son and I reached what we thought was the summit of our first 14’er. Descending climbers quashed our hopes by informing us that we had only reached the first of a series of false summits. To reach the true summit, it would take bursts of effort to power us over these little peaks. Finally, at the summit we were greeted by incomparable vistas and a sense of accomplishment that made the extra effort worthwhile.

The search for new games and angles to keep review pieces in play is endless. We recently made up a new one. (Who knows, maybe it’s not new; but it’s new to us.)

Of what use is technique if not to be harnessed and used to express a musical thought or emotion?

I first began to appreciate the power of metaphors to help musical practice when my daughter was learning the the Martini Gavotte in Book 3 of the violin repertoire. Martini Gavotte is what I like to call a “death trap.” It’s in a rondeau form with lots of material between appearances of the theme. And there are lots of ways to go off-the-tracks. In desperation, I had her assign animals to each section and weave a story about how the central character - a little dachshund named…

I learned something about identity and habits.

Spoiler alert: there’s no trick. It’s just showing up and doing the work.

Well, at least their sounds did.

Let’s take a look at how to make practice more enjoyable.

Over the years, I’ve collected quite a few things in my practice kit - my bag of tricks that we use during practice. It’s quite a diverse collection of objects, some more useful that others. Let’s unpack it and see what’s in there:

As a youngster, no one really taught me how to practice. I was admonished to practice but never showed how to practice. With the pressure of time, concert preparations, and general busyness, I’ve come to develop my own techniques. Last summer, for example, I gave a performance of one of the Beethoven piano trios; and I went so far as cataloguing all of the tricky spots that needed special attention and developing a spreadsheet of those spots and the current tempo markings. This was…