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Let the annual summer conducting workshop cramming begin 🙃

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Check out the end of the slow movement of the string quartet I’m working on!

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You don’t want to miss out on this! Share with someone who could use it!

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Having a great time at FSU’s Festival of New Music!

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Spartan Practice

We serious musicians have a serious issue that pops up each day:

How does one make every practice session a productive experience of musical development?

For me, practicing for a couple hours every day often proves to be exhausting. Sitting on the bench, drilling the same pieces every day can turn into a monotony that is not at all healthy for musical growth. So how do we keep up that razor sharp focus which is required to make real progress each time we sit down to practice? I want to propose a concept:

Every time you sit down to practice your instrument, make a conscious choice. Are you going to have a “normal practice session”, or are you going to have a Spartan Practice Session?

Spartan Definitions

⭐️ a person of great courage and self-discipline

⭐️ suggestive of the ancient Spartans; sternly disciplined and rigorously simple, frugal, or austere

This ties in perfectly to practicing. It takes a tremendous amount of self discipline to knock out multiple intense practices every single week. So let’s look at what a serious practice session actually looks like.

➡️ You begin by having a plan

➡️ You don’t just sit down and start mindlessly playing

➡️ You consider the pieces you are working on and contemplate what goals you wish to achieve while you practice

➡️ You have water close by, and you plan to take regular, short breaks to hydrate, stretch, and move around

➡️ You take your goals one at a time and zero in on getting them accomplished

➡️ Write those goals down and keep track of how long it takes to finish them

The basic idea is that you go into your practice session having a set list of achievements you wish to accomplish. Your goal is not to practice for x amount of time; it is to get x number of tasks complete. But either way, the key to this is that you have to focus the whole time in a real, genuine way. Of course, it won’t always happen exactly that way, but it is a great ideal to strive for. So have a great week, and make your next practice session a Spartan Practice Session.

Works Cited

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Spartan

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/spartan

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I am SO hyped that today is Friday

And it’s a long weekend coming up!

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Score read along

Arvo Pärt: Berliner Mass

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Early morning study

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“A Mind Awake” before bed

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My History with Lucid Dreaming

The History

Every night, we enter a realm that is both familiar and yet altogether unknown. Dreams have given fear, excitement, ideas, and adventures to people for ages. Dreams are one thing which almost all people experience on a nightly basis. I can’t say I remember exactly when I began to become more interested in dreaming, but I do remember a couple of dreams that I had at a very young age which I can still remember now in vivid detail.

The Concept

In any case, at some point around the age of fourteen or fifteen, I stumbled upon the concept of lucid dreaming. Instantly, I became obsessed with the idea that a person could learn to control their dreams while they were having them. Not only could you control the dream; you could also sculpt it into whatever you wanted it to be. I searched the internet studiously, foraging for every piece of information on lucid dreaming that I could find. [The website World of Lucid Dreaming has a tremendous amount of free articles about lucid dreaming techniques and science which I definitely recommend you check out.]

The First Attempts

After reading about all the many lucid dreaming techniques and methods, I tried to implement as many of them as possible into my own life. One thing that happened as a result of this was that my dream recall increased like crazy. I went from not remembering any dreams to waking up in the morning with two or three of them still buzzing at the front of my memory. It took several months of constant effort, but I did finally have an actual lucid dream. It was short, insignificant, and maybe even boring; but it was also incredible. It lasted for only a few seconds but I woke up with more excitement than a six-year-old on Christmas morning.

Continued Efforts

Several more weeks went by, and I kept on reading about lucid dreaming every chance I got, and writing down every dream I could remember (keeping a ‘dream journal’ is one of the most important elements to a solid dreaming technique). Unfortunately, I only had a couple more actual lucid dreams. The vividness of my normal dreams increased a lot, but what I really wanted was to be aware of my dreams while I was having them.

Surrender

I normally like to think of myself as a patient person, but in this case, I just couldn’t stand pouring all of my effort into this skill and not gaining big results. I did read that lucid dreaming is a skill that takes continued time and effort, but it seemed that I already had invested a huge amount of time and energy into it without getting the desired outcome back in return. I slowly lost interest in lucid dreaming, and soon, it was the last thing on my mind.

Another Try

This semester, I am going to be once again renewing my focus on the skill of lucid dreaming. For the next week, tune in to the blog and read some posts about how I tackle the world of dreams.

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Well well, if it isn’t lunch time again....

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Got in some good practicing today; starting out strong!

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Lunch time!

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Tea and reading time: Honey Vanilla Chamomile - The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman

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Check out the brand new feature of musicinventor.com! Custom arrangements written for your ensemble!