On Practice

his old sod never used to practice. I was a natural talent and could spend weeks reading, watching telly and still turn up at band twice a week note and rhythm perfect. Is this statement true? No way. When I first fell in love with my instrument, I used to practice all the hours God sent. I skipped my regular timetabled lessons at school, especially games and history. My games teachers were sadists but although they missed torturing me every week, they were just as glad I wasn't there as I was. My history teacher was a lovely old man who loved his subject much much more than I did, which just about broke his heart. He never realised that, had he been teaching me about knights and castles and dragons, I would have been riveted to my seat and he would have had to mark every one of my homeworks. As it was, he never had to mark more than 3 a year because that was all I did - if he was unlucky. If you've never seen my handwriting, consider yourself well off! Once I had mastered the simple relationships between the valves and the notes, and the complicated timing between hand, eye and mouth, you couldn't hold me back. I practised and practised and practised until I became solo Eb bass with the school band and had driven both my parents and the neighbours on both sides to seek counselling. Then I stopped. Since then - aged about 14 - I have rarely practised outside of the bandroom. This was true throughout the rest of my teenage until I went into the army. While there I practised 8 or more hours a day and thought nothing of following this with a concert, including a solo, and then a supper of more practise, jamming, usually. After leaving the army I went back to being a teenager, and now I rarely take my instrument out of its case - except when there is no band practice for a few weeks - outside of the bandroom. I know this is wrong. I spend a lot of my time telling young players to practise and I feel guilty. What kind of example am I? Well, I tell myself that I practised enough when I was younger. I don't have enough time or space to practise in now because my house is small, I never get any time at work, I'm too tired after work and so on and so on. Does this sound familiar? I'm sure it does. What I often find difficult to get across to young players is the amount of practise and LEARNING you have to do if you want to succeed on your chosen instrument. I have pupils who, in spite of the fact that they know 70 or 80 THOUSAND words in their own language, several HUNDRED words in foreign languages, many technical terms and jargon words of their school subjects, and so on, can't be bothered to learn a few letters and symbols and a few finger combinations in order to play better on their instruments. It's frustrating. Parents are just as bad. "Oh, I don't want to put pressure on him!", "I want her to enjoy her music!" Am I unusual in that for me, the joy was : Making myself better as a player; Rising to the challenge; Working up to and beyond the limitations of the instrument; Making music that nobody else had made? I had a curiosity about my instrument. I wanted to find out what I could make it do. What I couldn't make it do, and then try and find a way around the limitations. Most children these days don't seem to want to bother. I was lucky, I suppose, in having a band that was nearly 200 strong at school (I was one of 15 basses). These days I'm jolly lucky if a full quartet turns up. This is surprising as, in its prime, the school band was 15 or 20 strong. We do have about 15 brass players in school, but few of them are willing to come to the school band these days - even though they play in bands outside school. I've seen several of them in uniform today - and many parents are not at all supportive of the school band - well, little Gemima can't play a solo in your school band because of all those nasty older children with more experience and better skills. In view of what you and your children get out of school, don't you think it would be nice to give something back?