Practice Like a Brass Player

To complete my undergraduate degree in music education, I had to take the famous "methods classes."

One semester of training in each category of instrument - woodwinds, brass, strings, percussion, and others - so I could become just enough of a jack of all trades to maybe one day become a middle school band teacher.

If I knew the hours, stress, and pay involved at that point in time, I probably would have dropped the education degree and stuck with piano...but that's another blog post for another time.

I never practiced. I could usually get away with practicing the violin, oboe, drum kit, whatever, for a few hours right before the playing test and still do well.

It wasn't so much the case with brass.

To my chagrin, brass instruments were in a category of their own. If you stop practicing for even a few days, you'll struggle to even produce a fart on a trumpet.

And that's exactly what my playing tests sounded like. I still managed a B-minus, at least...which I think was being generous.

I also came to find that brass players can't practice more than a certain amount of time each day, or it will damage their faces. So, serious brass players have to balance their practice time with efficiency and away-from-the instrument training.

I've found myself thinking recently...why don't we all do that?

As pianists, we romanticize the quintessential diehard pianist who spends 8 hours in the practice room.

But what if the same progress could be made in two hours? 

And what if progress could be enhanced with time away from the instrument? Exploring theory concepts in the music. Conducting to the music. Moving to the music. Exercising the imagination.

What at first appears to be a limit actually frees us from feeling like we can only practice when we're in front of the instrument.

And when we can take practice with us wherever we go, that opens some possibilities for really cool things to happen.