How to Improve Constructively
By John Geggie, Crane School of Music
- Take responsibility for your actions
- Expect improvement, not status quo
- Know what is expected, know what the music demands — be able to analyze situations to assess what the music demands
- Only you can fix right hand problems — bow placement, amount of hair on string, amount of bow used
- Only you can fix left-hand problems — finger placement, shifting, vibrato, curvature of fingers to close the string the best, placement of thumb etc.
- Only you can play the right bowings
- Only you should be listening to yourself and correcting details
- Only you should be analyzing what you are doing and finding solutions
- Remember what worked well and successfully and (remember the sound, the feeling, and the procedure) use the same skills again where appropriate
- Break down areas to specific challenges and solve them; use what you have learned there to solve other situations
- It is better to take things MUCH slower to break down problem areas into simpler packets of tasks to do; it is always possible to gradually speed up these
- Make sure there is constructive improvement ALL THE TIME
