Amelia Kearl-Masterclass-Oct 21st

 Today instead of Masterclass, we attended a Zoom presentation by Noa Kageyama on effective practicing. I found this to be very very helpful and am excited to start implementing these strategies into my practice time! The first thing he talked about was the importance of being specific. When we practice, we should be constantly monitoring everything we are doing. When we make mistakes or are having a hard time with a passage, we need to carefully evaluate what is happening and where the problem lies. I liked when he said, "If you can't identify the problem then you will probably misdiagnose the solution." and I also really like how he said if you can't talk about the specifics of what you are trying to accomplish, you probably don't have it specific enough idea of it to really make much of a difference. 

He talked about block practicing vs random practicing. Block: practicing your music for a while then moving onto a different song and then onto another never revisiting a previous piece in a practice session. Random: Hitting a song for a minute then bouncing to another and another and bouncing back to the first. I don't know how I feel about this strategy. I feel like overall this strategy would be less useful for me but I did appreciate the comment he made that by doing this you are able to have multiple first attempts. In that regard I could see it being really helpful. 

My other favorite part of his presentation was the Rubber Ducky strategy. For this strategy, you pick an inanimate object. You sing something and when you have issues, or ideas about what could be better you talk to your inanimate object about it in 3rd person. When I tried this at home what worked better for me was talking to the object as if it had been the one singing and I was the teacher. That helped me step back from being a critical judge and instead be a kind teacher trying to help my student. It was a totally amazing experience. I felt like my teacher was in the room coaching me, which is something I have been trying to replicate for years. I will definitely continue doing this and I'm excited to see the results. I'm also really excited about this strategy because I'm scared of teaching voice lessons because I won't know what to say. This gives me practice diagnosing issues and prescribing solutions in a really safe environment.