Music Video Lesson: Is Playing Practicing?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Robert Estrin here with the question, is playing practicing? Many of you who have watched my videos know that I have drawn a red line that should not be crossed till you know are you playing or are you practicing. And yet here I have this question, is playing practicing? And there's actually a nuanced answer to this question.

Now, while it is absolutely essential that you know whether you're playing through your music or practicing your music, and indeed there are times that you want to practice playing, that is practice performing, whether it's a public performance that you're preparing for or you just want to play for friends and you want to run through things to see how they go.

But what we're going to talk about today is something entirely different and this is how in this one example that playing can be practicing.

An example I'd like to give to you is when you play a performance, as I said, whether it's a formal recital or just playing for friends, particularly if you record the event, going back and listening to what you did or remembering how the performance went, what went well, what things maybe you need to work on, and insights you may have gained during the performance that you'd like to explore further can be an invaluable experience where yes indeed, playing is practicing because what is practicing? I've talked about this so much aside from the physiological aspect of strengthening your hands and learning how to negotiate passages and finger work, chords and such. Practicing is really a mental activity and so anything that involves the thought process about playing is practicing. So that's an example of practicing where playing is practicing. Now, how could you use this to your advantage? Well, there are actually many ways. I talked about practicing performing and how do you do this? And in your practice, it's like two complete extremes as I've explained before. In performance, no matter what, the show must go on. You have to keep going. Nobody wants to hear you stop and go back and correct something when you're playing for them. Certainly in a live performance it could be a disaster, but even playing informally for family or friends, it ruins the whole experience. They're kind of listening along and it's jarring.

But in practice, you want to stop whenever there is an error and correct it and solidify it and be methodical about it. But this idea of playing can be practicing. How do you achieve this? Well, you do just as I've described before, a practice run through of a piece and you don't stop. You make it like a performance, even record it. You can put your phone up there. It doesn't matter. Just to have something you can refer to, listening back with the score, maybe circle trouble spots or ideas you may gain, stop the recording for a moment, take notes.

And this could be incredible experience for strengthening your performance. And indeed, this is an aspect where playing can be practicing.

But normally, remember that red line. Practicing is on one side, playing is the other side, and they are diametrically opposed, where in playing you want to keep going no matter what, to keep the continuity of the performance. And in practice, generally with the exception I've outlined for you, you want to stop and make corrections and solidify, double check the score, work through the passage, connecting it with the previous passage, getting that secure, then going back to the beginning and seeing if you could pass all of the trouble spots.

So that's the lesson for today. I'm wondering how many of you have had similar experiences and any insights you might have. Leave them here in the comments at LivingPianos.com, your online piano store. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/is-playing-practicing/

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