Guitarist, Composer, Educator - Christopher Gotzen-Berg - Blog http://chrisgotzenberg.com/blog.html Christopher Gotzen-Berg: Blog Jannis' PHPRss class - http://www.jannis.to/ Sat, 09 Apr 2011 21:30:42 -0700 Performance Anxiety and Nervousness http://chrisgotzenberg.com/blog.html/performance_anxiety_and_nervousness
I recently taught a lesson, and my student was playing a short waltz by Fernando Carulli. He played it well, with some slight rhythmic discrepancies and a few wrong notes, but all together not a bad attempt for a brand new piece of music. When he finished I could tell he was very frustrated with his playing, and he proceeded to tell me how much better he plays that piece when he is at home (how often have we all said this as students?) He then told me how nervous he felt to play for me, he really wanted to show me how hard he had worked on the piece, but his nerves took over. Naturally, his next question was, "how do I get over nerves when I'm playing?"

Preparation is the best antidote to nervousness.

I believe that if you have spent a sufficient amount of time studying, practicing, and preparing a piece or concert program, you can work through the nerves you will experience before you begin a recital or concert. When I first sit down on stage, I take a few seconds to hear the opening measures of my first piece in my mind, I take a few deep breaths, I relax my entire body, and those actions will usually address any nerves I may be experiencing. We have all had those last minute thoughts such as, "If I only had a few more days to go over the score" or "I wish I could have played that scale a few more times", but it is important to push those thoughts out of your mind and trust that you know the pieces well. With that said, if you have not prepared enough for that recital, you have prepared for potential disaster and those nerves will be even more difficult to combat.

Getting out of your own head.

There is a lot of psychology involved in performing, so it is important to know how to focus your attention so that you do not turn into your own worse enemy. One important thing to do, especially on the day of a concert, is to stay positive and surround yourself with friendly people. I like to schedule a fun activity for earlier in the day, something that is relaxing and will put me into a happy mind set. This can be as easy as having lunch with friends, seeing a movie, or going for a walk. I also make sure I don't think about the concert too much. It is natural to get excited about a concert, but I think it is a good idea to focus your attention elsewhere. It is common for many performers to choose to practice the day of a concert, and it could potentially backfire if you play poorly in the practice session. You can then begin to worry about any difficulties you are having that my be new. The only playing I might do before a concert are a series of light warm-up exercises, some sight reading, or some light improvisation with friends. I choose to avoid going over any repertoire the day of a concert.

Practice Performing.

I find it interesting that we spend hours and hours working on scales, slurs, speed development, repertoire, etc. but we only perform once in a while. While I was a student in college, I made a point of searching out opportunities to play for others. I would play my guitar in the hallways, in the dorm lounges, I even played at a McDonald's! Start small, find a few friends and ask them to listen to you play one or two pieces of music. Get dressed in what you would wear for an official concert, practice walking out to your chair, bowing between pieces, etc. The more you do this, the more you will learn to deal with the nerves you are experiencing.

Re-define Nerves.

Do you remember that feeling you had, the one you had before you owned a guitar, that feeling of hearing your favorite song or piece of music, and you envision yourself performing it? That feeling was excitement, and with a little work, you can reprogram your mind to interpret the nerves you feel right before you walk out on stage into excitement. The important thing to think of is that this is what you worked for, what you chose to do with your life- Perform! It is a much better goal to strive for a strong performance and making a musical connection with your audience, than it is to stress out over if you are going to play well or if you are going to miss that harmonic!

It is ok to get nervous, we all do, but as performers we need to work thought the nerves. So, make sure you are well prepared, stay positive, play as much as possible in front of others, and remember, we chose to be performers, so take advantage of that energy and excitement and go out there and Perform!










Christopher Gotzen-Berg

Betterist in:
]]> http://chrisgotzenberg.com/blog.html/performance_anxiety_and_nervousness Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:29:24 -0800 Guitarist, Composer, Educator - Christopher Gotzen-Berg - Blog Starting a new piece of music http://chrisgotzenberg.com/blog.html/starting_a_new_piece_of_music
The Game Plan.

1) Breaking things down.

The first thing I do with a new piece of music is to spend some time simply looking it over, without my guitar. I like to read though the music and read it as if it were a story, thinking through phrasing, fingerings, positioning, etc. I do my best to hear the music in my mind and think about how I may attempt to execute shifts, bring out melody notes in chords, balance counterpoint, etc.

After I spent some time looking over the music and feel somewhat comfortable with it, I will then begin to play through parts of the music on the guitar. As I am playing through the music I focus on breaking the piece into small sections, sometimes as small as a phrase or as long as a full page. By breaking the music into small sections, it makes it much easier for me to focus on perfecting technical and musical issues without being overwhelmed.

2) Time for the Pencil!

The most valuable tool you can have on your music stand when working through a new piece of music is a pencil. One of my favorite things to do in my lessons is to show my students music that I have worked on so that they can see just how much writing I do throughout the pages in order for me to better play the piece. It can be as simple as circling a fingering or rewriting a fingering, to translating a musical term to get a better understanding of how the composer wants the music to be performed. My favorite example to show to my students is my copy of Joaquin Rodrigo's "Fandango", where above a particular phrase with a tricky fingering I wrote a note to myself, "use this fingering you idiot", which I wrote to myself because of a poor fingering I was attempting to use, causing the phrase to sound choppy.

3) Listening.

Now, as a disclaimer, I have friends and fellow teachers who disagree with me on this point, but I find it to be very beneficial to listen to the piece that you are working on. One advantage our generation, and future generations of guitarists, have is that we have easy access to recordings and videos of a lot of classical guitar music. It is very simple for a person to log onto the internet and find videos on youtube of many different people performing both formally or informally (in their bedrooms or on the concert stage), or to download a recording.

I encourage my students to do this as much as possible, and also give them "listening assignments" where they need to find a recording/video of works by various composers or performances by various guitarists. I understand that there are some dangers in this however, as a student could see a poor performance of a piece of music and think that the music should sound that way, so in order to help send them in the right direction, I provide my students with a list of high quality, professional guitarists to look for. I feel that by listening to piece of music, and many different performances of that work by different guitarists, not only helps develop a connection to that piece of music, but also can help develop a sense of personal taste and style. For example, I like to play recordings of J.S. Bach's "Bourree in E minor" for my students, and chose 4 different guitarist (Julian Bream, John Williams, Paul Galbraith, and Andres Segovia). I ask my students to describe the differences in their interpretations, what they liked and did not like, and what they would do differently, etc.

I make sure to explain to my students that although it is a good idea to listen to a recording of the piece they are working on, it is important to eventually come up with their own musical ideas for the piece, and not to copy exactly what the performer on the recording has done.

In conclusion, I hope my "Game plan" helps you with your attempts to start that new piece of music. Remember, read through your music to become familiar with it, break it into sections so that you can focus on smaller details, mark your score (in pencil!), and if you choose to, listen to high quality recordings or watch high quality videos of you music so that you can keep the sound in your mind.










Christopher Gotzen-Berg

Betterist in:
]]> http://chrisgotzenberg.com/blog.html/starting_a_new_piece_of_music Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:30:06 -0800 Guitarist, Composer, Educator - Christopher Gotzen-Berg - Blog Practicing http://chrisgotzenberg.com/blog.html/practicing
First- I assign all my students with an important task within the first few lessons, and that is to make me an outline of a weekly schedule, and I ask them for their parent's help (if they are younger students, this really helps!) I tell them to include all their activities, such as school, time for homework, sports, after school clubs, video game time, dinner time, bed time, etc. After they have their schedules complete, I tell them they need to pick at least 3 days throughout the week where they can add some time to practice. I also make each student a monthly calender where they can mark off days that they practiced, and I ask to see this each week. This helps the student develop some responsibility and helps them remember to practice as well!

Second- As Scott Tennant (Author of "Pumping Nylon" and member of the Grammy Award winning group "The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet") said, "Always Practice WIth a Purpose!" As students progress through their lessons, the amount of material they need to work on increases. This can become overwhelming and frustrating. Therefore, I show my students my checklist of things to go over when I practice.

1) Sight Reading. I always begin my practice session with sight reading. It helps wakes up the mind and the fingers, and it's a great way to discover new music.

2) Repertoire. I feel that it is important to start working on whatever repertoire is chosen or assigned as early in the practice session as possible, so that you have the energy to focus on the "Music" in that piece of music. Many musicians work on technical exercises, such as scales, early in their routines and find that they are tired by the time they come around to working on whichever piece of music they want to go over for the day.

3) Technique. This is the time in the routine where a musician focuses on strengthening and improving various aspects of their technique. Just like in exercise, where it is recommended that an athlete focus on different muscle groups each day, I suggest that different exercises be chosen each day.

4) Fun. The main reason why anyone chooses to study music is because it is fun! So I tell all my students, the last thing they should do before packing up their instrument is to play a song or piece of music that they really enjoy, and have fun!

Now getting back to the idea of "Practicing with a Purpose". For younger students, it is very common for them think that practicing is simply the act of sitting down and playing whatever song, scale, exercise, etc., once and then they're done. Naturally, that won't be enough to make a song sound better or to make slurs clearer. I explain first that repetition is the key to practicing, and tell them to follow the 10-Time rule! Each exercise should be played at least 10-times to see improvement, and if a particular phrase or passage in a song is proving tricky, focus on just that part and play it 10-times in a row with care so that section improves. Also, it is not always necessary to play a piece of music in it's entirety, especially if particular sections are easier than others. The goal, or purpose, is to improve!

Lastly, and I get amusing looks from students, parents, and fellow musicians alike when I say this, "I don't care how long a student practices each session." I am asked many times by parents about how long their child should practice each day, and that is my response. It isn't necessarily a bad idea to place a time value on practicing, like 15-minutes or an hour, but it is much more important to follow a well thought out and organized routine as opposed to checking in with a clock.

A well thought out routine, with focus on repetition, is the key to success in practicing and improving as a musician. Also, you'll find you get much more done in less time, and possibly have some fun along the way!










Christopher Gotzen-Berg

Betterist in:
]]> http://chrisgotzenberg.com/blog.html/practicing Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:30:26 -0800 Guitarist, Composer, Educator - Christopher Gotzen-Berg - Blog Sight Reading http://chrisgotzenberg.com/blog.html/sight_reading
First, I feel that it is important to instill the importance of strong music reading skills right from the first lesson for all of my students. To be a good musician, it is essential to be able to read our language. Next, I like to make the connection between everyday reading, that is, reading a book, emails, texts, or whatever a person may read throughout the day. When students realize that they actually 'sight read' all day and everyday, they make an exciting connection, and usually gives them more confidence to tackle some musical sight reading.

Naturally, musical sight reading, especially on the guitar, is full of challenges. So to help my students have as much success as they can, I have devised a 5 point strategy.

1) Time and Key Signature.

For me, this is obvious. Music needs to happen based on particular "Time", and our musical alphabet can be organized in different ways and starting on different pitches, therefor, a great place to start with is knowing what the TIme and Key Signatures consist of.

2) Texture.

Texture is a very important aspect of sight reading. Some pieces of music are thin, as in a single line melody, while others can be very dense with many chords. Assessing this early on in preparing can lead to better success.

3)Accidentals.

From years of teaching, the one thing that I see that causes the most anxiety is accidentals. I recommend that my students tackle these notes quickly to get over the fear of seeing added musical symbols.

4) Range.

I find this helps particularly with younger students, especially if they are in the early stages of music reading, and the piece being sight read has notes outside of the music staff, or Ledger Lines. This is also very helpful for advanced reading, as it can help a student determine what position they may choose to read a passage in order to perform that music smoothly.

5) Rhythm.

Depending on the level of the student, this can be as simple glancing over the music to determine note lengths to counting out syncopations. I stress the importance of setting up a strong, steady, and SLOW tempo so that the student can anticipate each note.

Again, it is very important to have strong reading skills in place to be a successful sight reader. If a student is unsure of what the notes are when they attempt a piece of music, the sight reading will be next to impossible!

Lastly, when preparing my students for such things as NYSSMA or college auditions where sight reading is necessary I spend a substantial amount of time actually "Timing" them. I give a student 60-seconds to look over a selected passage. It is in these few seconds they need to run through their check list and prepare. This also makes sight reading more fun as they see it as somewhat like a game.

For reading practice, I also like to assign a large amount of music for them to work on throughout the week. This can be many short exercises, or a longer solo piece, with knowing that it will be unlikely that they will have all of the music perfect. I explain that the goal is to conquer as much of the music as they can with a strong sense of rhythm and pulse. When I do this, I do not look for perfection, but more so comprehension.

I hope this helps! Please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions!

-Chris










Christopher Gotzen-Berg

Betterist in:
]]> http://chrisgotzenberg.com/blog.html/sight_reading Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:30:42 -0800 Guitarist, Composer, Educator - Christopher Gotzen-Berg - Blog