The Musician's Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness Author: Gerald Klickstein | Language: English | ISBN:
0195343123 | Format: PDF
The Musician's Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness Description
In The Musician's Way, veteran performer and educator Gerald Klickstein combines the latest research with his 30 years of professional experience to provide aspiring musicians with a roadmap to artistic excellence. Part I, Artful Practice, describes strategies to interpret and memorize compositions, fuel motivation, collaborate, and more. Part II, Fearless Performance, lifts the lid on the hidden causes of nervousness and shows how musicians can become confident performers. Part III, Lifelong Creativity, surveys tactics to prevent music-related injuries and equips musicians to tap their own innate creativity. Written in a conversational style, The Musician's Way presents an inclusive system for all instrumentalists and vocalists to advance their musical abilities and succeed as performing artists.
- Hardcover: 360 pages
- Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 3, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0195343123
- ISBN-13: 978-0195343120
- Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
The subtitle of the book is an outline of what you'll find inside. Part one deals with, "practicing deeply." It begins with the necessary, but mundane, subjects of organizing practice time and creating a supportive practice environment. Klickstein divides practice into five zone: new, developing, and performance material along with technique and musicianship. Some of these are self-explanatory, others explore ares few people venture. How much of your practice includes sight reading and ear training?
The following chapters look at how to work with material in each practice zone, and cover things such as mental practice, selecting repertoire, memorization, interpretative issues, and taking breaks in practice. The material is necessarily general. A book could not contain specific practice suggestions for every major piece in every instrument's repertoire. I consider the generality of this advice a strength. The practice concepts in The Musician's Way could be easily integrated with whatever your private instructor is giving you.
I have always thought that there needed to be a good, lengthy book on practicing, but I'd never found one I liked. It had gotten to the point where I thought of writing something myself. Now I don't have to. The The Musician's Way fills that gap.
Part two deals with performance issues. It begins by discussing anxiety's effects on our bodies, and continues with, "five facets of preparation," and issues of backstage and pre-performance routines.
What I like most about the section on performance is its practicality. In short, Mr. Klickstein is not afraid to discuss what most people consider trivial issues. Are your clothes prepared? Do you have the music? How do you start and end a piece? How do you walk out on stage?
The Buddhas do but tell of the way; it is up to you to swelter at the task. ~Gautama Siddharta (c. 563-483 BCE)
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I've read (and re-read in many cases) most books out there on practice and this is one of the best, hands down. Klickstein is a classical guitarist who performs throughout the U.S. and internationally and is a professor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
My favorite 2 aspects of the book are the well-chosen quotations sprinkled throughout, and the use of solid research to inform and back up what Klickstein puts forth. The bibliography is solid and well-chosen. The book is fairly comprehensive, covers the nitty gritty of practice, and includes concrete things to actually do, which mostly means strategies for excellent practice, but there are other worthy tidbits, too. The second section of the book is all about performance and the strategies you can use to include performance as another aspect of your practice. Klickstein also covers aspects of the body that are important to good practice: physical warm-ups, injury prevention, resting. The final part of the book covers injury prevention and valuable advice for the student. More specifics on each section are below.
Part I: Artful Practice (6 Chapters, 124 pages)
This section is organized to reflect Klickstein's method of organizing practice. There is basic introductory stuff like definitions, creating a great practice environment, planning and scheduling and Klickstein sets up his method, the "Five Practice Zones" (new material, developing material, performance material, technique, musicianship). Each following chapter is something of an elaboration of these zones.
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