Phil Hodges Music

Here are some snapshots of Part 2 our Spring Concert last Friday, 5/22.

Every time we have a live music event like this, I'm reminded how much I absolutely love working with each and every one of these musicians. :)

Everybody played wonderfully!

We had part 1 of our Spring Concert last Friday, 5/15. We had such a great time listening to everybody’s performances!

Part 2 is this coming Friday, 5/22.

The Top 3 Most Effective Ways to Get Ready for a Music Performance

Preparing for a public performance is different from your everyday practice routine.

Most days, you’ll focus your practice on all the particularly challenging sections of each piece you have in your rotation.

You’ll be dialing in on the fingerings, working slowly through every shift to make sure you land in the perfect spot every time, and you’ll be running through fast scale sections slowly.

That kind of practice is meticulous, tedious, and requires a perfectionist mindset.

It is necessary work to get your set ready to be performed publicly.

Let’s say your performance is 30 days out.

You’re not going to have time to make big changes to your pieces. The majority of all that work is done at this point.

All you can do is get ready for your performance.

Here are three ways you can get ready for that performance.

#1 Practice performing.

This means that your practice sessions are going to be largely devoted to playing through your set exactly the way that you’re planning on performing it.

You won’t be stopping to correct mistakes.

You won’t grimace every time you slip up.

You won’t make any sounds or gestures that you might make when you stub your toe.

You’ll play through your set without stopping and when you do make a mistake, you’ll continue on as if nothing happened.

If you all of a sudden blank out as to where you are in the piece, just pick up at the next section you do remember.

And most importantly, don’t signal that you forgot anything.

#2 Practice your set in front of people.

Find anyone who is willing to listen. A family or friend gathering.

Be the after-dinner entertainment.

Take advantage of every opportunity to play in front of an audience, even if it’s a small one.

What I do is go into a coffee shop, explain to the staff that I’m getting ready for an upcoming performance, and I ask if I can play my guitar.

As long as you’re providing background music for people, it’s nice, but it’s not very helpful to you.

It’s the people who stop and listen to you who end up helping you prepare. You need to feel a little of that performance anxiety.

#3 Record yourself.

This is one of the most underrated ways to get ready for a performance.

Video yourself playing through your set, or at least one piece at a time.

As soon as you hit record, you’ll likely feel a little of that stage fright.

When you play the video back, you might catch yourself trying to fix mistakes, and you’ll see how badly it comes across.

You’ll see that it would have been way better to just keep playing as if nothing happened.

The more you video record yourself, the more routine it will feel, the less pressure you’ll feel, and the fewer mistakes you’ll make.

You’ll get to the point where you stop caring so much about the little mistakes you make.

You’ll care more about how you deal with those mistakes in the moment.

After 30 days of practicing these ways—or some combination of these ways—you’ll be ready.

When it comes time for your big performance, tell yourself that you’re just “hitting record.”

Or that you’re at a coffee shop playing for customers.

Or you’re someone’s after-dinner entertainment.

It’s no different.

What are some ways you’ve prepared for performances?

Why Adult Music Students Give Up Early…And Why They Shouldn’t!

This is especially the case for adult music students who are learning an instrument for the first time in their life.

They may be in their 40s, 50s, or 60s, and busy with full-time work and family of their own.

At some point in their midlife, they realize that they really want to learn a musical instrument.

Maybe on some level, they’ve always wanted to learn one, ever since they had that one experience that left them mesmerized. They might say things like:

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved the sound of the banjo. It’s such a unique instrument. I just never thought I’d be able to learn it though.”

Or—

“I grew up listening to Billy Joel. I used to dream that one day I’d play the piano like him. But I guess that was a silly childish dream. I don’t have any talent to learn an instrument.”

Or—

“I remember seeing Journey live in ‘82—my first concert—and thinking how amazing it would be if I could play like Neal Schon. Now that I’m older, I realize that’s never gonna happen.”

At this point, it feels like a dream—until they buy themselves a guitar, a keyboard, a banjo, or some other instrument that at least temporarily forces them to commit to learning it.

They were met with obstacles in the past that held them back from learning this instrument.

But not anymore. Now they’re committed.

They’re going to do what it takes to achieve that dream. They’re going to seek out a teacher. They’re going to learn this instrument the right way, from the ground up. No starting off with bad habits.

They’re going to put in the work. After all, if you put in the work, you’ll get results.

Here’s the part that maybe they’re not prepared for. The novelty of learning an instrument—something that they had wanted for decades—wears off.

The realization that what they had envisioned for so many years was coming to fruition, but it didn’t feel like they thought it would.

A few months in they still feel a bit clumsy or awkward with their instrument.

Playing feels slow, and when they play, it doesn’t sound like music to them.

Their teacher tells them things like, “Hey, you’re making progress!” but they don’t believe their teacher.

Then they really let those second thoughts take over:

“I mean, I knew I didn’t have any talent. But this shouldn’t be taking this long to get it. I really should have been able to play something halfway decent by now, but I don’t honestly feel like I’m making any progress at all.

“I should be getting at least five days a week of practice in, and recently, it’s only been twice a week, on a good week.

“Who am I kidding? It’s too late for me. I should have never started.”

All those feelings are valid.

But those feelings come from longheld disempowering, false beliefs about themselves as well as the dreams they had.

Saying “I don’t have any talent” comes from a misunderstanding about how proficiency with any skill is achieved. People aren’t born with knowing how to use their skills. They have to practice at it over and over until they become proficient.

Like learning to walk, they have to be willing to fall over and over again until they’re walking smoothly.

Musicians have to be willing to “fail” over and over again until they get it.

That process is the same for kids, teens and adults alike.

Adult music students have a tendency to “fail” once, and then think, “I guess I’m just not cut out for this.”

Imagine a one-year-old learning to walk who stumbles and falls for the first time, and then thinks, “I guess I’m just not cut out to walk. I don’t have any skills or talent.” And then he crawls away, dejected.

If you’re learning to play an instrument—at any age—you’re going to play the wrong note, use the wrong finger, hit the wrong string, take too many pauses between notes, hold a note too long, rush notes, cut off notes too early, misread notes, miss notes altogether, etc.

That part of the learning process is necessary.

If you keep at it, and you stop worrying about perfection, and stop stressing over how much time you did or didn’t practice during the week, you will work out those kinks.

And in that sense, all those “failures” and “mistakes” aren’t actually failures or mistakes. They’re a natural part of the learning process, and they naturally lead you to proficiency, especially with the guidance of a teacher or coach.

Adult music students need to understand this: Micro-progress is still progress.

What I mean is, any move—no matter how small—toward your goal, toward proficiency, toward results, is a move in the right direction.

That is what progress is.

If you’re an adult learning an instrument for the first time in your life, and you’re getting frustrated with your lessons because you’re not making the progress you want, and you’ve been taking lessons for months, here’s something you can do.

Go back to your very first week of lessons and look at the songs you were learning.

Try to play them. My bet is that you can play them now better, faster, and with more precision than you could when you first started learning to play.

If you had a video recording of yourself trying to play on day one, you might laugh now at how “bad” you were.

That is what progress feels like.

And that is why it is ridiculous to quit early—just because your measurable progress isn’t happening at a rate that’s higher than it is in reality, and because your progress doesn’t feel like you thought it would.

The fact that you’re making real progress and getting real results are reasons you shouldn’t quit, but should keep going!

What are your thoughts?

How to Practice Your Instrument Without Even Playing It—And Why This is So Effective

I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out.

Granted, this is more of an advanced way to practice that becomes easier and more effective the more experience you have with an instrument.

As advanced as it is, I still encourage musicians of all levels enrolled in any of our programs to develop this skill.

I’ve used this method for decades:

--To memorize music faster
--To make my music more smoothly connected
--To work out specific right-hand and left-hand fingerings
--To map out hand positions and shifts
--Even to help me prepare for public performances

And you can use this method without even touching your instrument.

In fact, this has been my nightly routine for years.

I will practice this way as I lay in bed at night with my eyes closed, before I fall asleep.

I’m talking about mental practice.

Even though there is obviously a physical component to playing an instrument, so much of a musician’s skill is mental.

Here is what mental practice involves.

Close your eyes and visualize playing your instrument in as acute of detail as you possibly can.

For guitar, not only envision holding it in your arms, but see the strings and the fretboard.

Feel the pressure of your left-hand fingers fretting the strings, and feel your right-hand fingers gripping the strings over the sound hole.

Hear every note that you play in this visualization.

For practicing a particularly difficult section of a piece, stay hyperaware of which left- and right-hand fingers you’re using.

Experiment with different fingerings to find the right balance of musicality, tone, efficiency, and practicality.

When you’re preparing for a public performance, you’ll run through your set without stopping.

Take note of any rough sections or hesitations. The next time you’re able to mentally practice, work on those trouble areas.

When you employ this method over time, you won’t believe how locked in with your music you can get.

Plus, it saves you a ton of physical practice time!

What's been your experience with mental practice?