Sometimes we forget…

I’ll be honest.  I completely forgot to do my video yesterday!  Well that’s not entirely true.  I remembered on my way home from work, but then it was definitely too late.  I definitely wasn’t going to turn around and go back.  And seeing since I don’t ever practice on the weekends (weekends=family time) that means I won’t be getting my video recorded until Monday.  So yeah.  Whoops.

Although I totally suck and I don’t have a video ready, I did want to write a post about next week’s assignment.  This week will be kind of a break from recording videos.  I was going to wait until next week for the visualization assignment, but because my friend and colleague Deanna who is doing the challenge with me, will be with the rest of my coworkers in San Francisco for Fleet week, and there just isn’t time for much practice or video recording!  Of course, I am staying behind, so I will have all the time in the world!  But I figured it would be a good opportunity for this type of assignment.

Week 6:

By now you should be able to execute all the excerpts at or close to the final tempo.  The next phase of preparation is going to work to polish up all that technique work that we’ve been doing the last two months and really focus in on playing the excerpts vs. executing them.

Assignment:

• Revisit group 3 excerpts, and keep polishing all excerpts (mental practice counts!).
• Choose a favorite recording of the Mozart Concerto.  Focus on the first thirty seconds of the solo entrance, and write down a few words that you think of when you listen to it.  Listen a few times, and finalize these key words.
• Practice visualizing those first thirty seconds.  For more details on how to do this, read Nathan Cole’s Audition challenge week 5 blog entry.  This should be hard, it will probably take multiple tries over several days.  Come up with some key words for your visualization once you get the hang of it.
• The final assignment is to compare your key words from the favorite recording to key words that you come up with.

In reality, you don’t even need to pick up your instrument this week to finish the assignment.  We’ve spent the last 8 weeks concentrating on technique and execution, now its time to transition to a more artistic and musical approach up to the end of the challenge.  I guarantee everyone who shows up for these auditions can execute the excerpts.  But the person who stands out and wins auditions have that extra something, and that extra something is what we need to work towards for the next 6 weeks.

And I promise I will post my week 7 assignment results/video on Monday!  To make up for it, here’s a cute pic of my son:

See, doesn’t his face make everything better?  Well I think so.

I’ll report back on Monday!