{"id":4719,"date":"2016-08-05T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T19:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=4719"},"modified":"2021-04-29T11:16:13","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T18:16:13","slug":"guitar-recitals-bill-kanengiser-martha-masters-and-stephen-robinson-talk-about-the-art-of-practice-and-preparation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/guitar-recitals-bill-kanengiser-martha-masters-and-stephen-robinson-talk-about-the-art-of-practice-and-preparation\/","title":{"rendered":"Guitar Recitals: Bill Kanengiser, Martha Masters, and Stephen Robinson Talk About the Art of Practice and Preparation"},"content":{"rendered":"
From the Summer 2016 issue of Classical Guitar<\/em> magazine<\/a> | BY MARK SMALL<\/h6>\n

It\u2019s inspiring to attend a guitar recital by a performer whom we perceive to be playing perfectly. Many guitarists, however, experience a mysterious gulf, dividing high-level players from those trying hard to reach that level.
\nWith that in mind, I interviewed a few top performers about attaining that elusive goal of perfection in performance. Not surprisingly, they were united in stating that striving for \u201cperfection\u201d in performance\u00a0is the wrong goal. Martha Masters, who once won first prize at the Guitar Foundation of America\u2019s international solo competition (among other awards) and teaches at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and at California State University Fullerton, doesn\u2019t like to use the word perfection<\/em> with her guitar students. \u201cI am not a fan of the \u2018P word,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cIt prompts anxiety in a lot of people. If you play every note at the right time, is that a perfect performance? It depends on what happened musically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephen Robinson, a top-prize winner in five major international competitions and a guitar professor at Stetson University in Florida, says, \u201cThe final goal is to communicate art to the listener. The idea of perfection doesn\u2019t count without that element. If you miss a note here or there, but give a very strong emotional performance, so be it. I\u2019d much prefer to hear that than someone who was onstage just trying to get all the notes.\u201d<\/p>\n

My interview subjects stressed that there must be a deep level of commitment to the music for a high-level performance. \u201cIf you tell yourself that you are making a commitment to a piece and your goal is to present it to an audience, it changes the attitude toward the work that you have to do,\u201d says Bill Kanengiser, also a winner of multiple major international competitions, a founding member of the Grammy-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and an assistant professor at the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I\u2019ve made that commitment to a new piece, my first step is to discover the emotional or musical expression that the composer wants to get out,\u201d Kanengiser says. \u201cFor me, it all starts with a musical perspective. All of the technical problems\u2014being able to play fast enough, loud enough, or smoothly enough\u2014are informed by what you want to do musically.\u201d Kanengiser acknowledges, though, that just having a great musical idea in your head won\u2019t automatically make it come out in your playing. Much diligent work is required.<\/p>\n

BEST\u00a0PRACTICES<\/h3>\n

Masters, Kanengiser, and Robinson were unanimous about the importance of proper\u00a0practice habits. Practicing is a vast topic and countless articles and books have been written about it. Space permits sharing here only a sliver of the philosophy and methods of these three. \u201cWhat constitutes \u2018practicing\u2019 is not talked about enough,\u201d says Robinson. \u201cIt\u2019s not just going into a room and attempting to play something again and again. If you\u2019re playing the mistakes over and over hoping they get better, they won\u2019t. You\u2019re just getting good at making mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her preparation, Masters homes in on the difficult sections of each piece. \u201cI do a lot of spot practicing,\u201d she says. \u201cFirst you need to understand intellectually where the challenges are. Are they in fingering, speed, or not understanding something musically? After identifying a problem, I do a lot of spot practicing at a tempo where I can play the passage accurately so that I am not drilling mistakes.\u201d She advocates playing a difficult passage repeatedly to be sure technical problems are worked out. \u201cI think playing a part ten times in a row correctly is good, as opposed to playing it 20 times with some messing up in between,\u201d she says. But hitting that mark once doesn\u2019t necessarily mean the problem spot is nailed down. \u201cYou have to be able to come back the next day and play it correctly ten times, too,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Kanengiser espouses a holistic approach to playing and believes that guitarists need to gain awareness of how they are reacting to the pressure that builds up inside while playing challenging material. \u201cA lot of us build up severe tension in our bodies that has absolutely nothing to do with getting the musical effect we want,\u201d he says. \u201cWe may clench the jaw, make our eyes squint forward, our torso might be tight, and our legs engaged as if we were going to attack something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kanengiser has studied aspects of Alexander Technique, a discipline for improving your performance by observing how the body feels while playing. \u201cYou notice how your back, neck, and shoulders feel when they are loose,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you start playing with that in your consciousness, you note when you have that loose feeling and when it starts to change as you play. Is it when you shift, increase the tempo, or try to play louder? When you feel that, ask yourself if tightening up is actually helping you to accomplish your musical goal. The answer is invariably no. If you find a way to play those things without tightening up, it\u2019s easier and the phrase comes out better and is more dependable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson has identified positive and negative approaches to practicing. \u201cIf you\u2019re playing things too fast and [trying to learn the music] too quickly, you\u2019ll spend the next three years working to take out all the mistakes you\u2019ve learned,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s working in a negative direction. If you start with a positive practicing approach, there are no problem spots. You play only<\/em> as many notes as you can play well at a tempo that you can manage. As you allow that to grow, you are always adding more notes, more expression, phrasing, articulation. You\u2019re always adding to the piece and never having to take any junk out.\u201d<\/p>\n

MENTAL\u00a0CLARITY<\/h3>\n

As part of the commitment to a piece, many players utilize visualization techniques to thoroughly learn a work. \u201cThis process of visualization\u2014where you are able to see your hands on the fingerboard in your mind and say the names of the notes under your fingers\u2014is so important,\u201d Robinson explains. \u201cIt\u2019s like going over the piece with a fine-tooth comb. You\u2019ll hit spots where things become fuzzy and you can\u2019t figure out what comes next either aurally or visually. Those are the places that are potential memory slips. Once you get it all clarified, you\u2019ll be amazed what it does for your confidence onstage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson\u2019s philosophy is that most guitarists are practicers more than performers because they spend the majority of their time practicing. \u201cRealize that your job is to be a practicer,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you sit down to practice, think of what you can do today to become a better practicer. If you work [consistently] to practice better, the end result is that you will become a better guitarist. I tell my students that whoever practices the best will play the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

But despite preparation beforehand, many players walk onstage with doubts, feeling that they could have done even more to prepare. \u201cMy mantra is that I\u2019ve done as much work as I can up to that point,\u201d says Kanengiser. \u201cWhether it\u2019s enough or not is out of my control once I go onstage. More important than playing perfectly, my goal is to communicate the emotional message of the piece to the audience. If something happens, most audience members will either not notice or not care if the continuity and emotional message of the piece are carried through. But if your only goal is to not make a mistake, then as soon as you do, you feel like a failure. Music unfolds in time and we can worry about what\u2019s coming up or lament what\u2019s just happened. Or we can just be in the moment expressing the piece. It\u2019s human nature to worry about what\u2019s coming up or curse ourselves if something didn\u2019t go as we wanted. But the strategy for when something goes wrong is that you instantly go back to now<\/em>. Think about the sound you are making and the expression. When you do that, there\u2019s no room in your consciousness for what\u2019s ahead and what just
\nhappened.\u201d\b<\/p>\n

FOUR MORE TIPS<\/h3>\n

Allow enough preparation time before debuting a new program for an important concert.\u00a0Play it three times\u00a0in advance before\u00a0a friendly audience.\u00a0\b\u2014Masters<\/em><\/p>\n

Using a mirror to observe your body posture and hand position is helpful. Be careful, though, not to stare at it if that causes you to turn your head and produce tension. Videotaping yourself instead solves that problem.\u00a0\b\u2014Kanengiser<\/em><\/p>\n

Singing the melody, middle voice,\u00a0or bass line of\u00a0a work as you\u00a0practice greatly deepens your knowledge of the piece.\u00a0\b\u2014Robinson<\/em><\/p>\n

Consult the scores of pieces you\u2019ve memorized frequently. Use the music for the first few times you play through a piece\u00a0in practice sessions\u00a0to be absolutely\u00a0sure that you\u2019re\u00a0playing everything\u00a0the composer put\u00a0on the paper.\u00a0\u2014Robinson<\/em><\/p>\n