The Confident Musicianing Podcast
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The Confident Musicianing Podcast
How I Am Managing My First Summer Without Weekly Lessons
At first it felt overwhelming -- how was I going to direct myself without the guidance of weekly oboe lessons? After a good number of weeks in, I've started to find routine without that guidance, and I've had some interesting realisations about my practice. Here is how I am managing my time without a teacher.
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Hello and welcome to the Confident Musicianing Podcast. My name is Eleanor and I am a British American oboist studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Literally my dream school and it took me a long way to get there. I applied and auditioned for 12 schools in three different countries. It was a lot of hard work but, oh my gosh, so worth it. I want you to have the confidence to work hard in achieving your goals, so come with me as we go on this journey together. So sit down, pull up a chair, take a seat or, if you're on the go, welcome to the Confident Musicianing Podcast. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I hope that you are having a good day.
Speaker 1:Today. It is so rainy, like it just started raining. This morning wasn't rainy and I went for a nice walk and that was lovely. But it has been so rainy recently in Scotland and it has just started raining again, which you know what is lovely. I love the smell of rain. I don't know if you like the smell of rain, but I absolutely love it. It is the best smell and it is the perfect time to kind of cozy up and talk about music, talk about practicing and all of the fun things that we talk about on this podcast. So today we're going to be talking and diving into something that I find really interesting and I hope you do too Basically what my practice looks like this summer, because this summer is different from any other summer I have had as an oboist, and that is because it is the first summer that I don't have weekly lessons.
Speaker 1:Because I am currently studying at a conservatoire and it's currently summer, I don't have weekly lessons, which is a new thing for me. It's really exciting. Also kind of scary, like I haven't had a lesson, an oboe lesson, in like a month. What it's crazy For me at least Like I feel very kind of like this is not something I'm used to doing usually. I mean, since I was.
Speaker 1:I think I started oboe lessons like weekly lessons when I was 11. 11. So since, like I was 11, which was a while ago, um, I have been having a, you know, weekly check-in with an oboist every single week in the form of a lesson. And now you know for these three months that I'm not that that I have the summer. I don't have that, and so I was really worried at the beginning. You know how would I keep myself accountable? How would I structure it? I've never had that situation, so I didn't know how I would kind of react to it and honestly, looking back, like it's been, it's been about a month of this.
Speaker 1:I have, you know, a few months or a couple of months still to go of this, but I thought why don't we do a little bit of a check-in with that, like we just have a little bit of a chat about it, because I've had some really interesting discoveries when I am not in kind of a lesson structure and I'd love to share these things with you. So, whether you are currently having lessons and you're just curious what it's like, or maybe you're also in the same kind of situation where you don't have lessons in the summer, maybe this can help, I don't know, but hopefully it can be helpful and we can dive right into my takeaways from what I have done. So the first thing that I think is important is kind of what my practice looks like, because I have full range. I mean like I have, like I could just stop practicing if I really wanted to, but I don't want to do that. I love playing the oboe and that's not something that I want to do. So there is to do that. I love playing the oboe and that's not something that I want to do. So there is kind of that. I think.
Speaker 1:At the beginning it was interesting because, you know, I had just finished my exams and I was absolutely like quite tired, like I was feeling quite energetic and I talk about that on a previous episode but in terms of like oboe playing I was still feeling quite tired. It was kind of a double feeling at the same time. It felt quite weird, but I had to kind of rest a little bit from the oboe. So I took a few days and I just didn't practice at all and then I started just kind of getting back into it slowly, which was good, and then I started back into it. But I think as well I think that's important to note I did take some time off and it wasn't that much time, but it was. It was a good amount of time to kind of help me reset after the the craziness that is playing exams.
Speaker 1:But now I am kind of in a better routine, in a better situation where I can do this and have a better kind of form of practice and layout of practice. So the first thing that I do when I practice is I kind of have like my meat and potatoes, as you will, kind of like the main course of my practicing. You know you eat your broccoli before you eat your cake, type thing, and so for me that is etudes, that is warming up exercises. I have like fundamental exercises where I go through things like vibrato, articulation, dynamics, scales, all of these things that I do all the time, and then I have my etudes and those things are really, really good and that's kind of like the meat and potatoes or the main course, if you will, and I do that every single day and it just really grounds me, because I think one of the things that I was nervous about at the beginning of this was I was nervous that I wouldn't stay focused. I would like all of a sudden, you know I would blink and then the summer's over and what have I actually done, you know.
Speaker 1:But having this kind of routine where I have my fundamentals that I do every day and then I also have my etudes I do that is a great possibility for me to really think about my playing and look at it in a more articulate way and kind of focus on my growth as a player and also not completely derail from from organization, which I don't think I would. But you know, we all have that fear sometimes I feel, um. So that's the first thing that I kind of do to make sure that I have that and it really starts my day off on the right foot in terms of practicing, because I know that I've done that main course and that it's been, it's been good, and then the, the next thing that I do, which is really interesting, and I kind of consider this more of like a dessert, but maybe not like a complete dessert, but kind of like another course but not the main one, and that is kind of the things that I didn't have time to explore during the school year I can do now. So, for instance, I like my degree is going to be like oboe performance and that's classical music and for me that's. You know, I'm so excited about that. That's what I worked on this entire year. But I also absolutely love jazz, I love improv, I love things like that, and I didn't really have time to dive into that during my year, and so that's something that I am doing over the summer and it's actually really exciting because I'm like focusing on that. I'm looking at different like things in jazz how jazz is structured, how it works. You know, I'm looking at improv. I'm taking my, the things that I learned in my theory class, for instance, during my year, and using them to understand jazz tunes, things like that. Like, that's something that you know is not part of my degree, but I actually really enjoy it. So that's something that I have time to do over the summer, which is very, very exciting. It is very exciting and, oh my gosh, like I love, I love jazz. I don't know if you know this about me, but I do absolutely love jazz, um, as well as classical music. So this is just a great thing.
Speaker 1:And I've always thought, you know, I want to do jazz oboe, um, in some capacity, like I want to have the skills to play jazz on the oboe. So that's something that I'm diving into and it's really fun. So I think for for that, you know, thinking about what, what is that thing that you have always wanted to do on your instrument? You know that might not have much to do with, like, what you've been doing this past year. So, like, depending on you know, whether you are like in are in high school right now, or maybe in university studying whatever it is. What was that one thing that you did not have time to do during the academic year? Maybe that you know, summer is the opportunity to do that and you know, for me that is improv and kind of learning more about jazz, but for you it might be whatever you want it to be, depending on what you didn't get the time to work on over the academic year, just like experiment and have fun with it. I think that's a great thing and that does bring joy.
Speaker 1:I did another episode recently about kind of finding joy in your practice and cultivating it, especially when, um, you might get stressed from practicing um or or the you know the, the stress of, of getting things right and things like that can kind of weigh down on you. Um, when you're practicing, when you're preparing for something like an audition or performance, how can we cultivate that joy and that? That? This is also something that kind of cultivates the joy, experimenting, leaving room for curiosity, and that's something that I do in my practice as well, some takeaways that I've had like. So so that's kind of the structure, what I just talked about. That's kind of the structure of my practice.
Speaker 1:I am also going to be introducing more repertoire into my practice. That's kind of what is happening right now and I think that I'm going to introduce more stuff to it, but that's kind of the current situation. Yeah, I don't think I've ever shared like exactly what I do in my practice with you guys before, so that's very exciting. But that's kind of what my current focus is at the moment and I know that I want to add some repertoire because I have some things coming up and that's going to be something that I'm going to add. But right now that's kind of what I'm focusing on now, kind of some things that I've realized and learned from having this time without and without a teacher um and a and a, a, you know weekly lessons. I've learned that I've become more focused and critical in my practice and this this is weird, this is interesting.
Speaker 1:I remember I once had a teacher back in the States who said that the point of having lessons is so that one day I can be my own teacher and ask the right questions of myself, and for me that is like whoa, that's quite crazy. I remember sitting and thinking, oh gosh, that's wild because, yeah, when you become a professional, you know you don't have weekly lessons. Do you know what I mean? Like you have to ask those questions of yourself when you're practicing, and that's something that you know is is quite when. When I heard my teacher say that for the first time, that was quite mind-blowing to me. But it is so true and I don't think that I'm there yet. You know, I don't think that I'm like oh yes, I am asking all the correct questions, but I have noticed that I have been more focused and more critical as a student and I've kind of had the right, not the right question, not all the right questions, but more focused questions in my mind. I've been able to be more attuned as to what I am doing and how I can do it better.
Speaker 1:I think that there's there was a part of me when I had lessons with that was like oh yeah, I think there's something that I could improve with this, but I'm not completely sure I'll wait until my lesson, my teacher will tell me. I think we can all kind of relate to that a little bit, even if it's subconscious. And I think, because I've had this time without lessons, I've noticed that I think if you asked me this a few months ago I'd be like no, I don't really do that. But now I'm like, yeah, no, I did do that because I didn't realize it was more subconscious. But now that I don't have a lesson to go to and a teacher at the moment a teacher to say, you know, I am um, like this is, this is a thing you have to work on. I have to, um, kind of do that on my own.
Speaker 1:And that's a very exciting prospect because I'm learning how to do that on my own and I'm learning how to ask the right questions, so that next year, you know, when I do have a teacher, um, I, I can still ask the right questions. It can be doubly exciting and doubly focused. Um, yeah, I think that's really exciting. Yeah, um, and so I think for for us, when we think about that, I wonder you asking ourselves maybe it could be helpful to ask ourselves are we waiting for a teacher to tell us what to do? I think in some stages it is good to do that, especially if we honestly have no idea how to work through this. But are we doing that to the point where we could be more focused? But it's easier to ask our teacher, what can we focus on, and I challenge you in your next practice session to kind of imagine you are in your lesson. What would your teacher say? What do you think your teacher would say, and see if you can work on that. Now it is quite an interesting prospect, honestly, to have those questions already in your head, and I am sure there are so many questions my teacher would say to me that I haven't thought about.
Speaker 1:I think it is so important to have you know second opinions and, like you know other than your own opinion and have input from other sources 100%. But I think you know that's something that I've noticed about myself. You know, being able to be more focused and critical, it's very exciting. Able to be more focused and critical, it's very exciting. Yeah, another thing that has been helpful in my practice is actually planning it, and that has been. You know that's really helpful, especially when you know I don't have my weekly lessons because I'm not. You know it's the summer and the conservatoire academic year is not in session, and so one of the things that I use in planning my practice is a notable practice journal. Honestly, these practice journals have been so helpful because there is a space where I can plan my practice, but then there is also a reflection space and, just like we were talking about those more focused and critical questions, that is a perfect place to kind of be more focused and critical about my actual session itself. And so it's been really, really helpful for my practice and as soon as I learned or figured out that it was helping me, I knew that I needed to tell you about it and I knew that I needed to give you a code. So use code ELEANOR15 for 15% off your journal and, yeah, get into planning the practice, because it really does make a difference. Um, when, when your practice is planned out, you know me, I don't recommend anything that I don't absolutely love. This code is an affiliate code, which means I do receive a commission with no extra cost to you.
Speaker 1:Okay, shall we do a recap? Let's a recap. So the first thing that we talked about was kind of having your main course in your practice. Especially when I for me, at least, when I am not, you know, in the academic year at the conservatoire, I don't have weekly lessons I need that kind of main course of my practice and for me that is etudes, for me that is fundamental, like technique practice. That has been really helpful. And then we have the kind of other courses if we're thinking of it as a meal and that for me I think it's important to include time to experiment on the things that you might not have had time to experiment with during the year, and so for me that is jazz, that is improv, more things like that as well. That's really good as well, and then kind of some takeaways is being like for me.
Speaker 1:I've been more focused and critical. Critical, which has been really exciting, because I think my brain has just stepped up. Subconsciously it's like okay, we don't have weekly check-ins with a teacher, let's just ask all the questions ourselves. And you know, I'm sure I have I'm not asking all of the questions, um, that I could be asking, because you know I am a student and we are learning, um, but it is a great way to ask more questions than I would have been, say, if I hadn't had this experience of the summer without, you know, without lessons. So it is very, very, very exciting, all right. Oh, and then also planning practice, which is helpful as well. All right, that is about it for this episode. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. I hope you enjoyed it If you did. Please do show all the love, like, subscribe, comment, follow all of the things share, share with all of your friends, all of your music friends. Yeah, and I will see you in the next episode. All right, take care.
