Category: performing
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How to build an audience, and why you should care
It is your personal responsibility to bring people to your performance. Large organizations, like orchestras, have divorced many classical musicians from this responsibility. The marketing team is in charge, and musicians don’t notice the consequence of a small audience, nor the benefit of bringing in a larger audience. It simply doesn’t affect them one way…
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Preparing to the best of your ability
It sounds incredibly obvious that we should prepare to the best of our ability. However, in reality, things aren’t that simple. We procrastinate, we get sick or need to take care of someone that got sick, or we forget to consider we won’t have as much time to practice during spring break/family visits/etc. Procrastination vs.…
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All about over-practicing
What is over-practicing? 1. Practicing more than usual (your personal usual) as a performance approaches.-Results in mental and/or physical fatigue, and diminishes performance. 2. Practicing to quiet self-criticism and neuroses.-Are you practicing to move forward with a skill or a goal, or to placate fear and self-punishment? 3. Practicing with pain.-Do not ignore your body’s…
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7 things I learned about performing, as a dancer
I don’t remember my first performance at all. I started ballet at four (and a half), so I was probably five. I took ballet rather seriously throughout elementary and intermediate school- two to three classes a week, and several productions a year. When I was eleven, I began playing the flute in band. As my…