The Confident Musicianing Podcast
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The Confident Musicianing Podcast
Mental Practice: How to Practice Without Your Instrument
Mental practice has been so helpful for me in honing my mind in the practice room. Here's how I do it.
This episode has an accompanying blog post. Click here to read.
Use code ELEANOR15 for 15% off your Notabl_ practice journal, and level up your focus in your sessions! Click here for your journal.
I only recommend things I love. This contains an affiliate code which means that I receive a commission -- with no extra cost to you! 😊
Hello and welcome to the Confident Musitioning Podcast. My name is Eleanor and I am a British American oboist studying at the Royal Conservatory 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 Musitioning Podcast. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to practice without your instrument using your mind to solidify the music more in your brain and help you learn it more internally and intentionally? It would be great. And I have some good news for you. There is a way to do that. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. Honestly, I think it's so underrated. I think it's so underrated, it's so important. I use it all the time. It is called mental practice, and it's probably on the title of this episode. Um, so that's probably why you clicked. So, yes, it's called mental practice, and for me it has been a life changer, seriously, for my practice. I cannot imagine just practicing with my instrument and with without, you know, at least some some mental practice. And I think you know, I've talked to a lot of people about mental practice and just asked, you know, I I go to the Royal Conservatory of Scotland, so I'm surrounded by musicians, and I often just mention it and say, Do you do it? Um, and a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't really understand what it is, and also like I've pulled um my Instagram following, um, and just ask, asking, you know, are you did you do it? And so many of you don't do it. And I'm like, okay, so this has to be talked about more. This really does. I think it's so important. So that is what we're gonna do today. You know, I I wonder why people don't do it. I think it's probably because it it's not fully like understood, it's not fully um talked about or or shown or like shared, and I'm not saying that I am the expert because um I don't know everything there is to know about mental practice, but I do know the parts that I use, um, and I know that they've helped me. So I want to share this with you. So whether you know about mental practice and are just wondering how I do it, or maybe you're a little timid, maybe you've done it a little bit, but you're not really sure what the hype is, um, or you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, let's dive into this and really kind of discuss mental practice. So let's start with the basics. What is mental practice? So, mental practice is basically the practice of practicing your instruments without using your instrument. Because if we think about practice, if we think about playing, um it's you that does the playing, it's not your instrument. If I put my oboe on the floor, um it's not gonna make any noises, or at least any, you know, oboe noises. Um and it reminds me actually of a story. So when I was about 11 years old, I was in a maths class, and the teacher was really annoyed at us because we kept using calculators to do everything, and he was like, You need to know how to do the math problem before you, you know, incorporate the calculator. And to address this, he took a textbook full of math problems and he put a calculator on top the textbook and he said, Okay, it's gonna do it, it's gonna do the math. And we sat there and waited, and he was like, just hang on, it's figuring it out. And then he was like, It's not gonna figure it out because it's a machine, it's a thing, it's a tool, right? But you are the person who actually decides, you know, what you know, we should multiply this before we add this, or we should follow, you know, what whatever it is. You as a person initiate that, and I think that that that is the same with music. If I put my ogo on the floor, it's not gonna make any ogo noises because it's the the tool that I put my musicality through, just like a cello or a bassoon or you know, timpany or a voice, you know, like oh, I suppose a voice is different because it is in you, but like in terms of an instrument, um, you know, it's not gonna do the magic on its own. You have to initiate that, and the musicality comes from you. That is why if I play, you know, an oboe, and then I give my obo to say a really amazing oboist, they're gonna make my oboe sound better, and then say if I give my oboe to someone who has just started, maybe they are gonna sound different from me, um, who will sound different from the you know world-class professional. Do you know what I mean? But it's the same oboe, so the difference is you, and so that is what mental practice really gets at because the catalyst is you, it's your brain, it's your brain connections, it's what you do with the music, and you know, your instrument is just the tool, and sometimes when you practice, the instrument gets in the way a little bit, like it just gets in the way and it makes it hard, like sometimes it just makes it hard. Um, especially if we're trying to get a tricky passage. So that's what mental practice is for. It's also really, really handy um because you can use it whenever. So you can use it absolutely whenever, you can use it in the practice room, you can do a practice session where part of it is with the instrument, another part is mentally. Um, you can do it when you need to be quiet. So, you know, if I for instance, I live in a flat, I have neighbors, I do not play my oboe after a certain you know time of the day in my flat. Um, but if I have to get something kind of practiced, if it's after that time, you know, and I can't really make noise, I can mentally practice it, and that can still really help. Unless it's like tonguing, then maybe not. But do you know what I mean? Like mentally practicing is is really helpful. Um it's also really helpful when let's say you've gotten to the end of the day and you've practiced enough on your instruments, you know, as musicians, injuries they are oft, they they happen often, you know, and for me I have um a genetic disorder that causes a lot of pain. Um, and it's not an injury, it's just how my body functions, and but that affects my oval playing as well, and so sometimes I I need to take breaks in my in my practicing, or I need to maybe not play oboe for a for a day or so because of the pain. Um, or on other days I can play oboe for a really long time, so it's kind of it just depends, but mental practice is really helpful if you maybe shouldn't be playing your instrument physically, but you still need to get the mental side of it, hence the word mental practice. So, with that being said, that knowledge about what it is, I think a lot of people when I've talked to them don't really know what it is, you know, and I didn't know what it is until like I started, I really got into it when I started auditioning for universities and conservatoires, which was about three years ago. Um, but before then I just I would just you know play the oboe, you know what I mean? Um, and this was really really helpful. So now that we know what it is, let's talk a little bit about how do I do it. Now everybody mentally practices differently, um, and everyone has kind of strengths and weaknesses with mental practice. So I am going to tell you how I tend to do it. So the thing that I do the most, I have different strategies. The first one is I put my hands kind of like together. Um, if you're listening to this, you might not be able to kind of see what I'm doing, so I'm gonna talk through it. So I kind of put my palms together and then I let my fingers kind of interlace with each other. So my hands are like clasping one another. So after that, I visualize the music and put pressure on the fingers that are that have to do with the fingerings involved. So like a B flat, I put pressure on the fingers that will make a B flat and say maybe the next note is a D, I change it to D, E flat, etc. Um, and I I go through passages like that, and I really focus on feeling the sensation of my fingers putting like pressure on my hands, just a little bit, not too much. We're not like you know, it's not it's not crazy, um, but just a little bit of pressure, and I I kind of really focus on that, and that helps my brain to kind of correlate with my fingers, and then when I put an oboe in the mix, it it's kind of for me, it's easier to to to play that because my brain knows more innately what my fingers need to do. So this is a very slow thing. I would never do this at tempo. You're not, you know, I'm not doing like something that you know really fast with mental practice. It is a slow thing, um, and it's really to get through and understand this. So I would really slowly just put pressure on the the fingers that have to do with the fingerings and really think about it. Okay, now that's that, and now we move to the next note, and now we move to the next note, and we're really feeling that. Other people, I've seen other oboys do it on their knees, so they put their hands on their knees and they do the same thing, they put pressure. For me, um, it makes more sense in my head for me to put my palms together and then interlace my fingers down because it's in front of it's in front of me and that's where the oboe goes. Um, I would never play oboe on my knees, do you know what I mean? So it kind of for me it makes more sense to do it the way I do it. Um, but if you're say a violinist or a cellist or a violist uh or a bassist, you can do I've seen they they do it on their um forearms, so you'll take your hand that does does the notes and you do the notes on your forearm. Um that's another way to do it as well. So there's so many ways to do it, but how I do it is I put my hands together, I interlace my fingers, and I slowly and really consciously-that's the thing, you can't do mental practice if you're not going to be conscious about it. Really consciously put pressure on the fingers that have to do with the different things. Okay, that's one way. Then there's more. The second way that I do it is through solfege. If you don't know what soul fedge is, that's completely fine. I think probably I first learned about solfeg when I was in like a school choir. Um, but it's do, re mi, fa sola si do, right? Sometimes people say do, re mi fa sola ti do, but I say do, re mi fa sol la si do. Um and that is where each of those syllables has to do with a note. So you can either do fixed do, so fixed do means do is always C. So like the letter C, right? Like the the note C. Um, so Ray would be D, Mi would be E, you know, etc. Um movable Do is when Do is just the tonic of the key. So if you're in G major, G is Do. If you're in A major, A is Do. Okay. For me, when I do this, flats and sharps don't change it. So, you know, if I did fix Do, C, the letter C is Do, C sharp is also Do. Um, or well, C sharp might not be in the key of C major, but you get what I mean. Um that's that's what I do. That for me is really helpful when I am really struggling with kind of fast passages, tricky phrases, and not really understanding um where the notes go. So if I can soul fedge it and if I can say, I don't know, do me, refa, whatever, um, and just say it through soul fedge, then my brain can really internalize it better and then I have a better chance of actually playing it. Um I've seen a lot of musicians on the internet do this and they go really fast for me. Um, I tend to go a little slower to really get it in my head. I'd love to go faster, that just I just need to do more practice on that. Um, but that's one way to do it as well because that really gets it into your brain, and that is without the instruments. I usually do it, do the soul fedge also with my hands, the way I told you, like clasped and putting pressure on the fingers that have to do with those notes. So those things can kind of intertwine. The third thing is with theory. Theory is really interesting. Um yes, theory is really interesting. I I think that this is a good way to do it because if you say have a C of semi-quavers, a C of 16th notes, and you don't really know what they do, what their purpose is, it just looks like a bunch of notes, and you're like, what is this for? Using theory is really helpful for sectioning them off and understanding why they're there. Um, so you can look go and say, Oh, this is like a diminished arpeggio. I just thought it was random notes. Oh, this is an a major arpeggio. Oh, this is you know something G7 or whatever it is. Now, this I suppose depends on your level of theory. Um, I wouldn't say I'm particularly great at theory, I just try my best. Theory is a language, so the more you learn it, the more you can use it, and then the more you can see what you need to learn. Do you know what I mean? So theory is really helpful for me as well because then sometimes instead of just seeing a bunch of notes and hanging on to every note, you can see it as clusters and clumps and be like, okay, well, I know how to play a diminished scale, and this diminished scale starts on C and ends on C two octaves below. I can just do that without thinking, okay, what is that? C, A, you know what I mean? Like just to just just go straight down and or you know, whatever the the passage is. So that's a great way to do it as well. I did do the sorry, I do that with a pencil, so I just write down, um, I just annotate my music with the theory behind it. So the last thing, which kind of goes into theory as well, is score study. This I think is great, especially if you are practicing um to play it with someone else. So if you have an accompanist or maybe you're in an orchestra, you know, this is really important as well to see how your part fits in. Um, this is a great way to mentally practice if you maybe if you've got the fast passages down, if you've got it down technically but you don't want to come in at the wrong time, this is a great way to do that as well. So I usually get out the score, I listen to it as I get it out, I make notes about it, then I make notes in my music. So if I have a solo and maybe there's a flute solo before mine, I'll write flute solo, and then maybe I'll write the last few notes of the flute solo so I can see them and then I can know when I'm coming in. Um, that is a great thing to do as well. Okay, gosh, I feel like I just said all that in one breath. I don't think I did, but I had so many ideas that I just kept kept going and going. But that is the kind of four ways that I mentally practice, and they each have their own um reasons and things that they're helpful with, you know. So, you know, I would never do score study if I'm struggling with you know the technique of semi quavers, for example. I would, you know, do soul fedge or do it with my hands clasped the way I told you. So things like that. Do you know what I mean? Now, after we've discussed how to do it, um, before we kind of wrap up, I want to kind of tell you about planning it because mental practice is just like physical practice as well. It is so important, and it is important to plan, especially if you have something and you have to get it done quick. So, how do I plan my practice? This goes for regular practice as well as mental practice, but I find using a practice notebook, a practice journal, is a really good way to practice and get you know, work on that and be consistent and see my growth. And when I practice, when I use a practice journal, I use a notable practice journal. These journals have been so helpful for me because not only can I plan my practice, I also reflect. Um, and there is a space for reflection, and there's also a space for like weekly reflection as well as daily reflection because reflection is the start of you know growth. It really is, it's so helpful. Um, so I can be mentally practicing, and then maybe you know, after I'm like, okay, this went well, this didn't, maybe I'll do more on this, etc. So that's what mental practice and reflecting on mental practice can really help with. So as soon as I realized that this journal was helping me, I knew 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. That is E-L-E-A-N-O-R 15 for 15% off your journal so that you can plan these sessions and then you can look back and see what you've done and also just know what you're going to do because there's nothing worse than getting into a practice room or doing mental practice and actually having no idea what you're doing. Do you know what I mean? Like there's no goals. So planning your practice. Honestly, it has really transformed my practice and my ability to focus in the practice room. So use code LNR15 for 15% off your notable practice journal. I do not recommend anything that I don't absolutely love, and I absolutely love this journal. The code is an affiliate code, which means I do receive a commission with no extra cost to you. Okay, shall we do a bit of a recap before we end this episode? Um, we started off with what is mental practice, talking about kind of basically what it is. It is the practice of practicing without an instrument. Um, and it can be really helpful when we need to be quiet, when we need to really get something in our brain, or when we have practiced enough that day, or need a break from actually physically practicing. The next thing is how do I personally do it? I do it with my hands clasped and then putting pressure on the fingers that have to do with the notes to really get them in my brain. I do it with soulfegge, so do rimi fosolas si do and assigning those to notes to really get them in my brain. I do it with theory and kind of annotating my music so that I can understand the theory behind it. And then lastly, I do it with score study. And then I plan my mental practice. This is so so important, and I use a notable practice journal. The code will be in the show notes in the description, and so will the link to get your journal. That will also be down below. Alright, that is about it for this episode. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. I am so grateful and I hope that this episode was helpful. If it was helpful, please do like, subscribe, comment, and share. Um, share with all of your friends, all of your musician friends who maybe could use some mental practice. I mean, every musician can use mental practice. It is so so important. Um, so yeah, and I will see you in the next episode. Alright, take care. Bye bye.
