Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to
the Confident Musicianing
Podcast.
My name is Eleanor and I am aBritish American oboist studying
at the Royal Conservatoire ofScotland literally my dream
school and it took me a long wayto get there.
I applied and auditioned for 12schools in three different
countries.
It was a lot of hard work but,oh my gosh, so worth it.
(00:24):
I want you to have theconfidence to work hard in
achieving your goals, so comewith me as we go on this journey
together.
So sit down, pull up a chair,take a seat or, if you're on the
go, welcome to the ConfidentMusicianing Podcast.
Imagine this you are going topractice, except you get there
(00:48):
and you're a little bit late andyou have so much that you want
to do and you kind of don't planwhat you want to do.
And you get into the practiceroom and you're like okay, I
need to practice.
And then you get out some musicand you play it, but you don't
really have any direction for itand then you just keep playing
and playing, and playing.
And then time's up and you feellike you really haven't done
(01:10):
much and you also haven'tenjoyed yourself.
Does that something?
Does that sound like somethingyou want to do.
Uh no, I don't know about you,but I don't want to do that.
Now imagine this you have apractice session and you get
there and you do something firstthat you really enjoy on your
instrument and then you actuallyeffectively plan your practice
(01:33):
and you have practice ritualsthat make it so that you really
enjoy your practice and youfinish the practice having
actually completed things thatyou want to do and you feel so
much better for it.
That sounds like a practicethat I want to do and you
(01:53):
probably also want to do it morethan the first.
So welcome to this episode ofthe podcast.
Today we are going to betalking about just that Practice
habits for me that make thatdifference.
We will all have them and theywill all be different, but today
(02:15):
in the episode, I am going toshare mine.
So without further ado, let'sget right into it.
I kind of outlined a lot of themin those little scenarios, but
the first one, planning what I'mgoing to do in the breaks this
one is a bit of like a strangeone.
(02:36):
You might not have heard aboutthis one before, but I have
found that if I don't plan whatI'm gonna do in my practice
breaks, I tend to scroll.
I tend to go on social mediaand especially since I create,
you know, content on socialmedia, I kind of justify it in
my head of like, oh, I'm gonnado some editing, but what do I
(02:58):
actually do?
I don't do editing.
Let's be real.
I scroll and I don't know whatyou do in your practice break.
But maybe you also scroll ormaybe you do something that you
know.
At the end you feel very like,oh, I didn't actually rest in
that practice break.
For me, taking practice breaksis really important.
I get some pain in my hand if Idon't take effective breaks and
(03:24):
that's just something that Ideal with.
I have a chronic illness thatcreates that pain and if I don't
listen to my body and takethose breaks and take them
effectively, it can lead to somebad results for me.
So I decided, after a practicebreak that was way too long
because I had scrolls and I justfelt so icky and yucky.
(03:45):
I was like, alright, eleanor,we need to plan our breaks, we
plan our practice, let's planour breaks, and that really made
a lot of the difference.
So, for instance, if I am in apractice room with a piano, I
play the piano.
I don't play the piano.
I don't play the piano Like I.
(04:05):
That's not something that I doLike, like.
Okay, let me rephrase I don'tlike.
That's not an instrument I play.
If you ask me, what instrumentsdo you play?
Piano is not one of them, but Ilove to just figure stuff out
on the piano with actually noreal skill, just for fun.
And when I'm in a room, in apractice room, with a piano,
(04:27):
that is what I'll do in mybreaks.
Maybe, if I'm somewhere withouta piano, I will read a book or
I will make a cup of tea orsomething like that.
Like, really plan in what Iwant to do.
If I'm in my flat, I might playa guitar or I, you know, just
(04:49):
do things that I know.
That will help me to be morerested rather than just
endlessly doom scroll on myphone and then also I can see
how long this break has been andI can be like okay, it's been
five minutes or six minutes,let's get back into practicing.
So if you haven't planned yourpractice breaks yet, maybe this
(05:13):
is a good thing to take awayfrom this episode, whatever that
looks like for you, even ifit's like I don't know, my mind
just said folding origami paper,just something like literally
anything, drawing, whatever itis.
Just doing that thing that youenjoy doing for five minutes in
your break is so much betterthan just scrolling or consuming
(05:35):
content.
You know, it's just likebecause that you can really feel
icky after that.
The next thing which I think isinteresting is having your
rituals.
Having your rituals.
So for me that's like a cup oftea.
We have a cup of tea, I have itbehind me.
I actually just finished apractice session and that is the
cup of tea that I was drinkingin the practice session.
(05:58):
But seriously, a cup of tea forme makes all the difference, I
feel.
Maybe for you it's lighting.
If you can control the lightingin your practice environment,
creating the perfect lightingspace.
Maybe you bring I have somefriends who like bring lamps to
practice rooms, like small ones,or doing something like that
(06:19):
Maybe if you have a plant, likea tiny potted plant that you
want to have in your session,something like that, that might
sound maybe silly to otherpeople, but to you it can make
all the difference.
Whatever that is, have thatpractice ritual.
So for me it's having a cup oftea.
For you it could be a wholenumber of things, a whole number
(06:45):
of things.
But like, having those thingscan be really helpful and
experiment with it.
Whatever it is, experiment withit, just like put new things
and have new things and just seewhat works for you.
The third thing doing somethingfun as a warm-up.
Okay, okay, this one's a reallygood one because it really set
(07:07):
puts me in a good mood forpracticing.
I feel especially like today,for instance.
I was feeling very stressed, Iwas feeling very anxious.
I woke up just with a lot ofanxiety for no good reason, and
I went through my day justfeeling just like a pit in my
stomach, just absolute anxiety,and I didn't know why.
(07:28):
And so I decided okay, when Ipractice today, I'm gonna start
out with something fun as awarm-up that has absolutely
nothing to do with the actualrepertoire, to kind of get these
jitters out, whatever they are.
And for me that is playing oboeto any music that I want, to
(07:48):
Jazz music, soul music, popmusic, anything that is not
classical music, because I playclassical music all day long.
But you know, if I'm, you know,say, walking around the city
and I'm listening to a cool song, a lot of the times I'm like I
(08:10):
really wonder how oboe wouldsound to that, because my mind
is just full of ideas, I suppose, and you know, when I do
warm-ups, that's when Iexperiment with it.
So that's something that I havefound to be really helpful.
I just put on whatever song Iwant to and I just play oboe to
it, and I think at the beginningI felt like it was a waste of
(08:31):
time.
I was like I'm a classicalmusic student at a conservatoire
.
I should be focusing onclassical music.
But, to be honest, playing andjust jamming to whatever I want
in the warm-up is actually veryhelpful technical-wise, because
I have to figure out what keyit's in in order to play the
right notes.
(08:51):
I have to think about the chordstructure of the piece Well,
it's a song but and especiallyif the song is very simple, if
it's a pop song and has likefour chords, like how pop songs
usually do that really, fourchords, like how pop songs
usually do, that really.
You know, once I have those,those chords down and the key
down in my mind, I can reallylike have fun with it, and it's
(09:12):
not too difficult to just havefun with um, and then when I do
it, I usually like do arpeggiosup and down, the oboe in said
chords, or maybe I do like thescale and I go really fast up
and down and I land on a nodeand I, you know, do whatever.
That's really technicallydemanding and you can make it as
(09:33):
technically demanding as youwant to.
But I found that literallyjamming to pop songs for me can
really help highlight maybetechnical elements that I don't
realize I need to work on.
So maybe there's a pop songthat has a specific arpeggio
that I'm like gosh, I don't knowthe notes to this.
Then I'm like, okay, well,maybe that's something that I
(09:55):
can work on when I'm practicingarpeggios.
It's something that can reallyhighlight that and, especially
since it's fun when you'replaying to a song that you enjoy
, you can get very good at thatarpeggio because you're just
having fun.
So for me that's what I do,doing something fun as a warm-up
.
And maybe for you, whatever thefun thing is as a warm-up might
(10:17):
be different.
Maybe it's like I don't knownothing to do with what I was
talking about, but for me,putting on a song, playing to it
you know, testing things out,making mistakes, just having fun
to whatever the song is, is areally, really, really fun
warm-up for me, it gets you knowme feeling good about playing
oboe and it also helps mytechnique even as I'm doing it,
(10:40):
which I think is a win-win.
And the last thing?
We have four things today.
The last thing is remember.
So remember when I said at thebeginning I had give you the two
scenarios.
And the first scenario, one ofthe things that I said is you
don't plan what you're going todo, so you just play whatever is
on your stand, and then at theend of the session you're like,
(11:04):
what did I actually do?
I kind of just played the notesthat wasn't were in front of me
, without actually like having agoal.
And so the fourth thing isplanning your practice.
Planning your practice this issomething that I have been doing
for a long time, and when Idon't plan my practice, I can
really tell, because it justdoesn't feel as good.
(11:25):
And in light of planning mypractice, well, usually what I
do is I just write down what I'mgoing to do and then I have a
goal.
Right, I have goals and knowthat, know what I'm going to do,
and I also know when I havefinished.
So let's say, at the end of theday, maybe I'm feeling anxious,
maybe feeling anxious and likegosh, I should maybe have
practiced more.
(11:45):
If I have planned my practice,then I know when I finish those
sessions, when I have completedthe goals, and that can really
help me, at the end of the daybeing like well, we've finished
our practice, because I can seethe stuff that I have completed.
And in light of that, I want toshare with you a tool that has
really helped me.
(12:06):
If you're thinking right now,eleanor, I want to plan my
practice, but tool that hasreally helped me If you're
thinking right now, eleanor, Iwant to plan my practice, but I
don't really know how Well, Igot the tool.
And that tool is a notablepractice journal.
I tried these practice journalsabout a few months ago a couple,
I think yeah, quite a fewmonths ago now and I just tried
(12:29):
it out.
I was curious about it.
I was like, okay, let's give ita go.
And I tried it out and as soonas I realized that they were
working for me, I knew that Ihad to tell you about it.
So these journals, like Iplanned my practice and I was
able to realize when I hadfinished my practice and it just
made my practice so much moreeffective and focused, because
(12:52):
my brain knew what to do and itknew that we were practicing.
So as soon as I found out thatthis was working, I knew I had
to tell you about it and I knewthat I had to give you a code.
So, for 15% off of your journal, use the code ELEANOR15.
That is E-L-E-A-N-O-R-1-5.
(13:13):
For 15% off your order and doyourself a favor and get a
practice journal.
These things are so good.
The link for this will be inthe description, in the show
notes.
So if, if you're like I need toplan my practice and you don't
really know how and you reallykind of want it to be set out
for you, so the literally youjust have to fill in the blanks,
(13:36):
this notebook is for you.
So use code Eleanor 15 for 15%off your journal.
Now you know me.
You know that I wouldn'trecommend products that I don't
absolutely love.
This code is an affiliate code,which means I do receive a
commission with no extra cost toyou.
(13:58):
All right, so let's do a recap,shall we?
The first thing is planningwhat I'm gonna do in the breaks,
so that I know what I'm gonnado.
I'm gonna read, I'm gonna playthe piano.
I'm gonna do in the breaks, sothat I know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna read I'm gonna playthe piano, I'm gonna play the
guitar.
I'm gonna make a cup of tea.
I'm gonna do, you know,whatever it is, even if it's
lying on the floor, planningwhat you're gonna do in those
(14:19):
breaks so that you don't end updoom-scrolling.
The next thing is have yourrituals.
For me, that's having a cup oftea.
For you that might be, you know, having a specific lighting, or
bringing something, you know,something that you like, like
maybe a small potted plant ormaybe a stuffed toy or whatever
it is to your sessions.
(14:39):
The third thing is doingsomething fun as a warm-up.
Mine is playing to random music.
It's a great way to start andit's also a great thing for
realizing maybe technical flawsthat you have that you want to
work on.
And the last thing is planningyour practice, and a great tool
with that is a notable practicejournal, and the code, as well
(15:01):
as the link, will be in thedescription in the show notes
for you to take a look at.
All right, that is about it forthis episode.
Thank you so much for hangingout with me today.
As always, all the informationand all of the links to do with
this episode will be in the shownotes, in the description,
including the blog post thatgoes with this episode, as well
(15:22):
as the link to get your notablepractice journal.
I hope that you enjoyed thisepisode.
If you did, please do let meknow.
Show the love, however thatlooks like, on whatever platform
you're listening to, subscribe,like, follow whatever it is,
leave a comment.
Just show the love.
I'd love to see it and I'd loveto hear from you and other than
(15:44):
that, I will see you in thenext episode.
All right, right, take care,bye.