Ever find yourself staring at the same four walls of your practice room, instrument in hand, utterly uninspired? You're not alone. I've been there too, and that's exactly why I'm sharing three game-changing strategies to reinvigorate your practice sessions and help you tap into your best musical self. From making simple changes to your environment—like standing up to play or adding a touch of greenery for inspiration—to seeking out feedback from fellow musicians, this episode is packed with actionable tips.
Ever find yourself staring at the same four walls of your practice room, instrument in hand, utterly uninspired? You're not alone. I've been there too, and that's exactly why I'm sharing three game-changing strategies to reinvigorate your practice sessions and help you tap into your best musical self. From making simple changes to your environment—like standing up to play or adding a touch of greenery for inspiration—to seeking out feedback from fellow musicians, this episode is packed with actionable tips.
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Happy practicing!
Speaker 1:
We've all been there, stuck in the practice room with no motivation. It sucks. I'm guessing that you've probably been there too because you're on this episode, or maybe it's going great. You just wanted to make it even better. Either way, we're going to jump into three ways to freshen up your sessions. Let's go. Hello and welcome to the Confident Musicianing Podcast. Let's go, hello and welcome to the Confident Musicianing Podcast.
Speaker 1:
I'm your host, eleanor, and after countless practice sessions, a ton of broken reeds and seven different music school acceptances in three different countries, I have learned a thing or two about savoring your practicing, becoming your best practice companion and actively working towards your musical goals, and I want to share this with you because I want you to become your best musical self. Are you with me on this? Let's get started. Hey there and welcome. Let's talk practice and how we can actually enjoy it. Let's dive right in Number one. We got changing your atmosphere. Now, changing your atmosphere? You might be like what do you mean by that? Let me tell you. This might seem tough, because you are stuck in a practice room and you can't really necessarily like change or decorate or rearrange the room, but I mean more like, even in smaller ways. Now if you are, say, practicing at home and not in a practice room, then you can totally do whatever you want. You can decorate, you can rearrange if you really want to get into that. But for this I'm talking a little bit more about smaller ways. For instance, standing when you normally sit. I remember one time I felt so not motivated and tired, but I knew that I still had it a little bit in me to practice. I just couldn't find that. So I tried something new. I ditched the chair, raised the stand and stood up on my feet to practice and, oh my gosh, it made a huge difference. All of a sudden I was excited about practicing, motivated to practice, and I finished that session strong. I was, to be honest, so extremely surprised about that.
Speaker 1:
The trick is to find that for you. What works for you? Maybe for me it was standing up, maybe for you it's something completely different. So feel free to experiment a little bit and like try things and see how they go. Maybe it is finding a different practice room to practice in. Maybe you practice in one part of the hallway and maybe you want to maybe do a different part, or even opening a window, or even something as niche as bringing a tiny plant or like maybe even like a tiny fake plant into a practice session, into a practice room, to liven it up a little bit. So whatever works for you find that. So think about it. What would be good for you, right, what would be good? Take a little thought about that, see what you come up with.
Speaker 1:
Number two we have play for a few people to get feedback. This is for when you don't really know what to do in your practice sessions. Like we all know too well how stuck we can feel when we are playing our pieces. They sound good and we don't really know what to do to make them great. Now, obviously, a lesson would be good for that, right. But if you are maybe in the middle of the week or maybe you don't have your lesson that day or something, this is a great way to kind of still get some feedback. So get a friend or a few friends and say, hey, I'm gonna play this for you and I'd love to know your thoughts, even if it is a recording, like, make a recording on your phone, like voice memo, and send it to them, or if it's in person, whatever it is, just send it off to them and see what they say, because chances are they might say something that you didn't think of before, right, that you didn't think of before. And you were like, oh my gosh, yes, of course, of course. Now, obviously, this is for musician friends, right? Friends who are musicians. And so send that off, right, send that off. Or even maybe, if you really want to, and so send that off, right, send that off. Or even maybe, if you really want to post it on like Instagram and caption hey, what are your thoughts? Right? Something like that. Just try and get some feedback from people. It's really, really, really helpful, because then you're like okay, I can work on this and this and this. It kind of gives you a little bit of a refresh.
Speaker 1:
And number three we got celebrate your wins. If you are not celebrating your wins, then how are you going to be motivated to keep practicing? Can we just address that for a second? If you're not celebrating your wins, then how in the world are you going to be motivated to keep going, right? So, even if it's small, like writing them down in a notebook, telling a friend or something like that you are celebrating your wins, where at the end of the week, I write all of my wins, all of the things that went well, or all of the things that I've accomplished that I am proud of and I do it with oboe, but I also do it in other areas in my life and that way I can go back and celebrate. I could be like, oh my gosh, I totally forgot that on this day I did this amazing thing. And it can be so tiny or it can be big, whatever you want for you, but that is a small way to celebrate. You are acknowledging it and you, in turn, are telling your brain we are doing things, we are getting better at things and we deserve to celebrate ourselves.
Speaker 1:
Right Now, celebrating your musical wins sounds like a great idea, but you might be saying to me right now, eleanor, that sounds great, but how do I actually do that? I don't really know how to do that and I don't really know how to figure out how to do that. And to that I say I got you my friend because I bring you the Standing ovation series. This series was first launched a few months ago and it is a three day series. Every day, you will get an email from me celebrating the hard work that you have done that day and giving you insightful things to think about for the next day of practice. This is just like your personal standing ovation for three days. Heck, yeah, sign me up. Are you with me on this? So if you are ready to celebrate you because I certainly am click the link in the show notes to get on that standing ovation series Because, seriously, I launched this thing like two months ago or so and the people who did it the first time had so many great things to say.
Speaker 1:
For instance, we got Kaylin who said I got to get back to my oboe and I sounded quite okay after a long time of no practice. You know the feeling of coming back to your instrument after a time of rest and being excited to start back at it again. That was Kaylin or Nicholas who said your standing ovation series did the trick. It gave me added encouragement to challenge and surprise myself. Heck, yeah. So if you want to be like Kaylin and Nick, sign up for that standing ovation series. It is in the show notes in the description below.
Speaker 1:
All right, let's do a quick recap. Number one we got change your atmosphere, whether it is big, small, standing up, when you used to sit down, bringing like a plant or something in, or maybe just opening a window, if you can, but try to change your atmosphere. Number two we got playing for a few people to get feedback. That is so extremely important, seriously, seriously, it is so important, seriously, seriously, it is so important. That gives you a chance to see your music and a different light and get lots of exciting and interesting feedback that you might not have thought of. And number three we got celebrate your wins. If you are not celebrating your wins, then how the heck are you gonna be motivated to keep practicing? And if you're thinking, eleanor, how do I celebrate my wins? I got you because we got the standing ovation series, so make sure you go sign up for that.
Speaker 1:
All right, that was it for today. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. As always, all the links to do with this episode will be in the description, will be in the show notes from the blog post that goes to this episode, to the link for the standing ovation series. Make sure you go check that out. You know, do yourself a favor and look at these show notes because, let's be honest, there are some good things in there and if you want to support the confident musicianing podcast. Make sure you give it a follow and I will see you next time. All right, bye.
