Hand, Eye, Ear, Brain, Bass

There are a number of statements that Sennett makes in his chapter 5 of The Craftsman that I keep thinking about every time I make a mistake while practicing. Some of these are:

“In music, the ear works in concert with the fingertip to probe.”

“Practicing that attends to momentary error at the fingertips actually increases confidence: once the musician can do something correctly more than once, he or she is no longer terrorized by that error.”

“The full scenario of practice sessions that improve skills is thus: prepare, dwell in mistakes, recover form.”

It was convenient for me to read these before starting my practice sessions, as they kept me motivated to keep going. Besides the joy that I was feeling as I was able to follow the written notes on the pages that I focused on in my last session, every slip, every mistake made me smile at the though that Sennett was right!

In my first practice session, I was consciously paying attention to one of the suggestions that the book makes, that is, to alternate the index and middle finger of the right hand to strike the strings. Though I was paying attention to the rhythm by clicking my tongue in a standard 4/4 time signature (a human metronome) I also was looking at the notes that I was prompted to play, but also looked at the little dots on top of the notes that indicated the finger that I was to use. This has been the hardest skill to master.

My two months of piano playing when I was 6 years old have allowed me to have a familiarity with the staff and the different notes that can be placed on it, as well as the count for each kind of note. Still, I am not familiar with the positions that indicate different notes and how to make the sound based on string, or left hand position. This book has been helpful with that, and here I refer back to memorization. The more I practice the more I know what I am doing. I repeat each note several times (E, F, G).  By now I know that the open strings are E, A, D, G because I wrote it down when I was first tuning it and had to practice this sequence over and over again. This also speaks to my reliance on learning things by writing them down. I write down my lesson plan, I write my conference papers, and so on.

To close, I would like to point out that I am having so much fun! I look forward to writing about my experience with all of the other strings and potentially record some sessions.