Practicing goes hand in hand with any musical endeavor. It is a way of passing traditions from generation to generation, and it is a necessary factor for achieving an elite level of musicianship. As music students at University of North Carolina School of the Arts, practicing takes up the majority of our time. It can take many forms whether it is spent in a communal rehearsal or a personal practice, which is a solitary act between you and your instrument. This personal time with your instrument usually takes place in a practice room. These rooms are found on the UNCSA campus on the first floor of the Gray building. This hallway is entirely dedicated to music, containing music class rooms, lockers for instruments and music, and many practice rooms. These rooms are typically placed in clusters along multiple hallways, creating a sense of community and comradeship among your peers. However, once behind the closed doors of your sparse practice room, the music student is faced with a different situation. They are isolated from society, time moves at a different speed, and music is perfected.
At the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, practice rooms are typically known for being small and isolated, and have features such as: sound barriers, stands, pianos, and mirrors. These specific items are essential for a successful practice session, allowing the musician to excel at their craft. Because practice rooms are grouped adjacent to one another, sound travels quickly from room to room, resulting in a lack of concentration. This is where sound barriers come in handy, because they help dampen the drifting sounds. Due to the different angles of the conjoining walls, each room is not a perfect square. This aids the acoustics in the room, and also helps prevent sound entering other rooms. Stands hold the music we play, and mirrors are used to correct posture and alignment while playing. Pianos serve multiple functions such as providing a set pitch to tune with, and is used as an accompaniment instrument as well as a solo instrument.
The sounds collected here are recordings to represent what takes place in and around practice rooms. Our first recording illustrates the community felt while walking around the practice area. A cacophony of sounds is a normal experience as a musician that gives an incredible feeling of motivation to practice. At the start of every practice session, students tune their instrument, which is represented in our second recording. Tuning is necessary to have accurate pitches. In our third and fourth recordings, warmup exercising are presented through percussion, and flute scales. These exercises are typically done following tuning. Warmups help the fingers to move quickly in preparations for the more difficult pieces to come. Our final recording involves practicing efficiency. In these challenging pieces, difficult sections within are solved through isolating the mistake and repeating it until its solved.
The open, friendly and inclusive environment in the music building here at University of North Carolina School of the Arts is one of a kind. The Gray building houses classrooms, concert venues, and hallway upon hallway of practice rooms. I am going to focus specifically on these practicing areas. Practice rooms at University of North Carolina School of the Arts are found shooting off of the main hallway. Along this hallway are storage lockers for instruments, music, and personal musical equipment. Placed periodically along this hall are groups of four individual practice rooms. These rooms are designed specifically to dampen the sounds of practicing musicians. However it isn't always successful, and the hallway can turn into a cacophony of sounds, ranging from in-depth musical conversations, to intense practice sessions. The recording that accompanies this description consists of what can commonly be heard as you walk through the halls of the music building. First you have your violins practicing, then as you travel farther down the hall the timpani can be heard, concluding with the addition of the flute and trumpet. The best part about this building is that each day is different. You will never have the same combination of people playing, nor will they be practicing the same piece. Each day is its own, and being able to hear the mixture of musical eras, instruments, and performers is what makes UNCSA’s music building unique.
My sounds specifically present efficient methods of practicing in the practice rooms. Some people do not realize that it does not necessarily matter the time length of practice sessions, but it is most important the ways in which you practice. One of the most frustrating things as a musician is when you work hard on a piece, practicing it for hours, and the next day you play through it, but have forgotten it, almost as if you have never even seen the music. This is unfortunately something every musician has experienced at some point during their life. Through lots of learning from my music professors, experimenting during my own time, and staying dedicated, I have discovered some of the most efficient ways to practice where you will have great success. One of my sounds is a recording from “Suite Medivale: V. Acclamations” By: Jean Langlais. This recording is showing a method of practicing called fragment practicing. This is a method where you focus intensely on a quick passage within a piece, focusing on clarity. You first begin by working with a couple of notes at a time, while listening intently, making sure the note crystal clear. When you can hear each articulated note, you continue this process. Once each grouping of notes are clear, you slowly put the entire phrase together. It is tedious, but I have found marvelous results after using this method. My next recording illustrates “Trio Sonata I in Eb Major”-Adagio Movement By: Johann Sebastian Bach. In this piece I am showing the practice method of chunking. Chunking is a method of slowly drilling one-two measures at a time. It is isolating portions of the piece, rather than repeating the piece as a whole. This method is most useful to use when you have trouble spots, or when you need a confidence booster with specific measures. It is a slow and tedious process, as is the method stated above, yet it is efficient. Efficiency as a musician is key, because beginning as a focused musician will continue as you advance, resulting in success. My sounds relate to our class theme, music at UNC-School of the Arts, because our school is known for elite musicians. Our levels of practicing are intense and important, because we strive to be the best. We are dedicated individuals, and we want to keep our A+ reputation as a community.
Tuning is essential for everyone before playing their instrument. It is done before each rehearsal, concert and individual practice. The note ‚A‘ is the note everyone tunes to. In the orchestra the A is given by the oboe. In the recording I made I tuned to my tuner which was set to 441 Hz. Most violinist will tune the A, D and G String with pegs and the highest and thinnest string, the E string with the fine tuner, which I also did in the recording. In Europe the ‚normal‘ A will be 443 Hz unlike in America where we will tune to 440 or 441 Hz. The tuning developed over time, in the baroque era they tuned to about 435 Hz. The string instruments will tune their strings in perfect 5th. A perfect 5th contains 701,955 cents. Tuning before practicing is essential because without having the right pitches for the 4 open strings it will be hard to play all the other notes in tune.
In the audio, you can hear me playing a warm-up exercise on snare drum. I play one bar of 8thnotes on right hand, then the same thing on left hand, and then a bar right-hand lead 16th notes at a moderate tempo. I do the whole thing again starting on opposite hand for each section. Then, I raise several tempo up and do those two sets again. This is my starting exercise. When beginners learn how to play percussion instruments, instructors always mention to use wrists because it is a basis of being percussionists. It makes strokes much stronger than using arms with smaller movement and force than using arms, which leads to more control over sticks or mallets and good enough amount of power. I can make a lot of things possible by using wrists: playing fast notes, bouncing sticks easier so I can re-position them to starting point and be ready for next stroke. If wrists were moving badly or without control, I would limit myself from playing as best as I can. Therefore, warming up wrists before playing any percussion instruments is necessary. Another important note about it is to keep tempo steady when playing, otherwise there is no point of playing 8th notes and 16th notes. Tempo plays very crucial part of music and it needs to be maintained same. Final important note is balance the sound and force between left and right sticks. It will be unpleasant if I play alternating-left-and-right strokes unevenly. Basically, I am covering these three things to get ready at once.
A scale is any set of musical notes in order by fundamental frequency or pitch. An ascending scale is a scale that is put in order by increasing pitch, while a descending scale is a scale put in order by decreasing pitch. Scales are given different names depending on the key and how many sharps or flats are in it. Scale names also depend on the placement of half steps and whole steps within the scale. Every piece is in a key and every key is in a scale. Music is based on scales, whether a composer writes chromatic runs for the flute or arpeggiated themes for the horns. Scales are the building blocks in music. Scales are what musicians start off with and what they continue to play throughout their careers. They are necessary for musicians, and help the instrumentalists know exactly what fingerings are needed for a piece. Scales also help with hearing the different intervals, when they are played arpeggiated. The flutist in this recording demonstrates a scale being played arpeggiated, and playing these arpeggiated scales help her with tone quality, leaps from note to note, and hearing the interval differences.
My sounds specifically present efficient methods of practicing in the practice rooms. Some people do not realize that it does not necessarily matter the time length of practice sessions, but it is most important the ways in which you practice. One of the most frustrating things as a musician is when you work hard on a piece, practicing it for hours, and the next day you play through it, but have forgotten it, almost as if you have never even seen the music. This is unfortunately something every musician has experienced at some point during their life. Through lots of learning from my music professors, experimenting during my own time, and staying dedicated, I have discovered some of the most efficient ways to practice where you will have great success. One of my sounds is a recording from “Suite Medivale: V. Acclamations” By: Jean Langlais. This recording is showing a method of practicing called fragment practicing. This is a method where you focus intensely on a quick passage within a piece, focusing on clarity. You first begin by working with a couple of notes at a time, while listening intently, making sure the note crystal clear. When you can hear each articulated note, you continue this process. Once each grouping of notes are clear, you slowly put the entire phrase together. It is tedious, but I have found marvelous results after using this method. Efficiency as a musician is key, because beginning as a focused musician will continue as you advance, resulting in success. My sounds relate to our class theme, music at UNC-School of the Arts, because our school is known for elite musicians. Our levels of practicing are intense and important, because we strive to be the best. We are dedicated individuals, and we want to keep our A+ reputation as a community.