Musicians—Are You Singing?
If you’re not regularly singing into a recorder, you’re missing out. (And no, I’m not talking about karaoke.)
One of the things that made the biggest difference in my own audition preparation was creating my own play-along recordings. I explain it. I teach it. It’s a critical part of my daily practice. And I see almost no one doing it.
Why? Why are people avoiding one of the biggest hacks to getting better faster? I have some ideas…
Do these sound familiar?
Lots of instrumentalists don’t like to sing (perfectionism, anyone?)
It’s uncomfortable to try something totally new in practice; it’s easier to just go back to practicing “normally”
Musicians get stuck in ineffective practice ruts all the time
And the main one—we’re not really sure what a play-along recording actually IS
You’ve Just Gotta Hit Record
Think of play-along recordings like training wheels on a kid’s bike––they stay on track, learn to handle one thing at a time, they avoid falling down, and most of all, it makes learning to ride more fun and less scary!
Imagine if you had a tool available to you that could do all of that for your most difficult excerpts. (Hint: it’s probably already in your hand.)
That’s right. You don’t need a fancy recording studio or sound engineer to get better at practicing. All you need is your voice, your clapping hands, and your good ol’ smartphone.
Why It Works
Think about it––it’s almost always easier to play a hard piece sitting in the band or orchestra than it is all alone on stage at an audition. Ever wonder why that is? Because there are more support systems in place for you to lean on. The percussion section. The other musicians. The conductor.
All of these are missing when we are working in the practice room, but you can recreate many aspects of this on your own. And there literally as many ways to create your training wheels as there are difficult pieces of music out there, so you’ve got to get creative.
Would singing the second flute part be helpful? How about using a metronome?
Could you create a simplified, skeletonized line to support a technical challenge?
Maybe finding a rocking drum beat would help you calibrate your time?
How about just singing and clapping into a recorder to give you some support?
Getting really good at making play-alongs is difficult to deep dive in a blog post, but experiment with this in your next practice session and see what you can come up.
Not sure where to start? Need some support?
Join me form July 28th-30th for the Honesty Pill Audition Boot Camp, a 3-day immersive virtual experience that will revolutionize your practice, performances, and auditions. Click here for info: www.honestypill.com.
We’ll be digging into all of these topics:
🎯 Focusing Techniques that help you play well in any situation
💪 Adversity Training for Musicians—you'll learn what to do, and then you'll actually DO it
🎶 Why your practice routine needs "play-along" recordings, and how to make them
🎤 Mock auditions—how to get the most out of them, and then you’ll join us for one
🎧 Recording Hacks you need to fast-track your improvement
🎙️ Special guest interview
🗣️ Q&A sessions
More Details:
In three information-packed days, you’ll learn information that will change your practice and performances forever. This event will be recorded, and replays of all sessions will be shared with participants for you to download and keep, complete with PDFs, guides, and handouts. There will be two 90-minute sessions per day over three days, with a break in the middle for lunch.
I hope you’ll join me in turbocharging your playing and quit banging your head against the practice room wall.
See you there, and happy practicing!
Chris @ Honesty Pill
P.S. This is a limited spots event, and it’s coming right up. Grab your spot right now!
