majnuunNavid
Oud Junkie
Posts: 622
Registered: 7-22-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dude, where's my Oud?
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Oud practice
I'm an introvert.
Playing the Oud allows me to enter my own world.
Even though I have a lot of performing experience, I think playing the Oud has always been a stress reliever, and I always get energized after I play
the Oud.
How about you? Are you an introvert?
I come to the Oud from Persian music. Persian music, at it's core, is a very introspective music. Sometimes I feel like Persian musicians play for
themselves, and let others listen.
Quiet - Susan Cain
I've been reading this book called "Quiet". I didn't expect that I would learn something about music from it.
In the book, she cited a study that three groups of expert violinists at the elite music academy in West Berlin. The researchers asked the professors
to divide the students into three groups, the best violinists, who had the potential to become international soloists, the good violinists, and a
third group who are training to be violin teachers rather than performers.
They interviewed these musicians and asked them to keep detailed dairies of their time. They found a huge difference among the groups. All three
groups spent the same amount of time (over 50 hours a week) participating in music related activities. All three had similar classroom requirements
demanding their time.
But the two best groups, spent most of their music related time practising in solitude. 24.3 hours a week, or 3.5 hours a day for the best group,
compared to 9.5 hours a week, or 1.5 hours a day for the worst group.
The best violinists rated practice alone as the most important of all their music activities. Elite musicians describe practice sessions with their
ensemble as "leisure", compared to solo practice, where the real work gets done.
When I read this, I was like, "holy <b>shoot</b>", I'm not practising anywhere near enough. Some days I don't even get to practice at all.
Not only that, I was always told that you should play with other musicians that are better than you so you can learn from them and eventually get to
their level. Maybe that's still true to some degree.
But I'll be honest, I've been playing music a long time. I'm not where I want to be yet. I don't consider myself the most diligent when it comes to
practice.
But doing the exercise challenge really showed me that individual solo practice is really important.
That's why, I write Oud practice into my daily schedule now. So that everyday, I put some time in my busy life to do it.
What do you think?
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Jody Stecher
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1378
Registered: 11-5-2011
Location: California
Member Is Offline
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I think that the skills one acquires from solitary practice are different skills than the ones acquired from being "pulled up" by playing with others
who are a bit more advanced than oneself.
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majnuunNavid
Oud Junkie
Posts: 622
Registered: 7-22-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dude, where's my Oud?
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Quote: Originally posted by Jody Stecher  | | I think that the skills one acquires from solitary practice are different skills than the ones acquired from being "pulled up" by playing with others
who are a bit more advanced than oneself. |
I completely agree. One acquires different skills in that setting.
A great example is comparing Irish session jammers and fiddlers, and classical violinists. Completely different skill set.
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