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Madeline Bruser's The Art Of Practicing

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Part one:
Several musicians see practicing as a monotonous and excruciating activity. It involves being cloistered for hours in a small room, doing the same exercises or playing difficult passages over and over until the body is stiff and the mind is weary. Pleasure and confidence are rarely felt and public performances are frequently frustrating.
The art of practicing is a book that presents a ten-step approach to practicing through new techniques of moving, listening and relaxing developed by the author, Madeline Bruser. Ms. Bruser is an accomplished pianist. She has performed as soloist the San Francisco and Denver Symphony Orchestras. She has conducted seminars and workshops on the Art of Practicing at the Julliard School, the Manhattan …show more content…

In trying to meet deadlines, we usually practice in a joyless manner in order to gain technical security. We are hard on ourselves and this extinguishes inspiration and, mostly, spontaneity. By recognizing this gap between the joy of performing and the drudgery of practicing, Ms. Bruser developed the Art of Practicing. “The Art of Practicing is about art, about creating something fresh and genuine. In this approach, practicing is not so different from performing” (Bruser 11). The author tells the story when years ago, she was practicing for a long time and suddenly she started to focus on listening to the sound that was coming out of the piano rather than imagining what sound she wanted to hear. For the first time, she truly heard what she was playing. Ms. Bruser says that she felt free and spontaneous, just like if she were performing on a stage. We can all practice this sensation every day during our practice sections. Before learning an instrument, we are always attentive and curious about musical sounds. But as we start to learn an instrument, we focus much more on how to produce the sound rather than simply listen and enjoy what we are playing. Since the results do not come, we begin to force ourselves. Tension comes and musicality is

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