I know this has been discussed again and agian on the forums

I've totally lost my motivation to practise either of my instruments and I feel guilty It's getting to the stage where I wonder what on earth this viola and flute are doing in my house I just don't know how to get back into playing

Most of us have been there BB2.

Perhaps now is a time to not be too hard on yourself over technical things, and just play through a few pieces that you really like, to help get some motivation back.

Can you join up with a fellow flautist/viola player to have some duetting sessions? You'd enjoy the social side of that too.

All the best for the future BB2.

Why not just pick up one of them and play a few notes? Don't think "I'm going to do an hour's practice", but choose a piece you really like - nothing too difficult - and just play. That might help to get you started and then perhaps you'll be inspired to get back into a routine of practising.

I found this happened to me after I'd taken my grade 1 exam. I had decided not to go straight onto grade 2, and to just play what I wanted. But I didn't really know what I wanted to do and soon got these motivational issues. As soon as I decided to go for grade 2, I had a focus which kept me going.

I've just done my grade 2 and have started on the grade 3 scales straight away. I've got my first lesson tomorrow since the exam and will discuss with my teacher some short term goals. I expect I'll start on the grade 3 pieces quite quickly though.

(But I'm thinking of getting a tenor sax, so won't buy the alto grade 3 book just yet!!!)

Hmm. Have you got the post-playday blues?

I can't comment much on your viola, because I've never heard you play, but your flute-playing is coming along really well. As I've said before, when I heard you warming up at York you sounded really good and I thought I was going to be the dunce of the flute section (and I am, on paper, supposed to be a more advanced player than you - which means that you shouldn't have been sounding better than me... ).

I think you've probably hit the usual grade 6-ish plateau with your flute playing. A lot of flute players seem to hit a bad patch either before or after grade 6 (and sometimes both...) where they just don't feel like they're getting anywhere. Andante and Bagpuss can probably give more insight into this, but my sense is that it comes from having a better awareness of what flutes are capable of doing and of the fact that you're not (at the moment) achieveing the sound, tone etc that you are wanting. You're now listening for and trying to do things which you weren't even aware of before, and that fact that you can't quite seem to do what you're wanting to yet can be quite demoralising.

From what I heard at York, you're coming towards the point where an upgraded flute would give you a new lease of life - but I know this probably isn't an option until after you finish your PhD. Try doing more work on your embouchure control, particularly towards the top of the second octave and on the third octave - this will help when you do get a new flute because the beginner's flutes such as your TJ aren't as fussy about what you do with your embouchure. Have fun playing around with how far you can bend/change the pitch of notes using just your embouchure - this will help with control of intonation and dynamics later.

Play some things just for fun. Perhaps try a piece which you've been wanting to look at for ages but haven't learnt yet, and see if you can suprise your teacher with it.

Hope you start to enjoy your playing again. It would be a shame if you chucked it in when you've been doing so well. Plateaus are a normal part of learning, and you can come out the other side. Dawn F recently posted a lovely quote (which I think was originally from either plonkee or pushpull ) about admiring the view froma plateau - perhaps she might be able to find this quote again.

This one?



Also for what it's worth, if you really don't feel like playing at the moment then I suggest you don't! You have a lot on with your pHD etc. and you can't do everything. Not playing for a while should not be something you feel guilty about. You don't want to quit so your instruments will still be there when you decide to pick them up again.

Is it just private "proper" practise you have an issue with? Would doing more ensemble stuff help? maybe join a uni band or something? It might not be seen as "proper" practise but it does wonders for sight reading and counting and musical awareness/musicality in general.

I'm not sure if you have lessons but you could try reducing the frequency or seeing if you can have a little break if you are feeling a bit snowed under at present.

As others have said, if you do pick up your flute/viola do something fun. Why not see if you can buy or borrow a new book with fun things in it - maybe one of the guest spot books that come with CD accompaniment? They're fun and You can be the star in your own home Best wishes with it all BB2.

Oh Babybird2, it makes me so sad to read your post. I don't know about your viola playing, but after sharing our experiences of taking Grade 4 flute I have been so looking forward to meeting you and playing flute with you somewhere. You have been offered lots of good advice, but I love this post:

This is exactly spot on for me! Because I heard it and loved it, I decided to try and play the slow movement from the Poulenc Sonata, even though it was recently a Grade 7 piece. I can now play all the right notes (and in the right order) at the right tempo with the accompaniment CD - but still it sounds terrible! Maybe this sort of thing is happening to you, Babybird2? I have agreed with my teacher that we must spend some part of my lessons on tone - starting tomorrow with finding out why my C# is, well, sharp. Learning to play the flute is not just learning pieces, I have discovered.

Perhaps because of my age I don't feel I have the luxury of a plateau, or taking a long break, but I guess you are much younger than I am, so go on, spoil youself. Do as the other posters have suggested. But let us also make a pact that before the year is out, we WILL attend a forum event together and have a real good laugh over Prokofiev's Gavotte!

What do you say, Babybird2? Is it a deal?

Hi Babybird, you have my sympathy, it's a bad feeling when you just aren't interested in practicing. I think that the more advanced you become the longer the spaces between breakthroughs seem to be, and it's quite demoralizing, slogging away at the same problems all the time - I don't know whether that is how it is for you but it certainly happens to me.

Taking a little break can make you realise how good you are, and that can be very motivating and encouraging, and sometimes things fall into place while you aren't focusing on them too much.

Anyway, as someone else has said, they won't go away while you have a break and do something else!

N

I agree with Nick - perhaps you need a goal to work towards. The goal could be anything: an exam, joining an orchestra, playing a particular piece, improving a certain aspect of your technique... Do you get lessons? (That might be a stupid question but I know most of my friends just self practised once they went to uni).

I found after I played in a concert in January that I was a little bit lost for a few weeks, as I had been practising very intensely for the concert, and had the clear goal of a piece to perfect (okay, so concert was a disaster, one wouldn't have known I had practised at all from the number of slips I made, but aneeeeeway that's beside the point). After the concert I was supposed to not practise much and study for Grade 5 theory instead; I hadn't started any new pieces so I had nothing new to practise anyway. However, I just developed such a mental block with theory; I got it into my head that I was not allowed to practise, that I had to just study theory. However, I would take the theory book and practise papers out, sit down with them, and five minutes later throw them across the room in despair: so was doing neither studying nor practise! The theory was very quickly stripping away every bit of joy I had for music. Anyway, discussed it with my violin teacher, she very quickly understood, and agreed that we would just forget about the theory exam until next term, and start working a little bit on a new piece (so I had something to play) but mostly on scales, bow hold, posture and vibrato (which is what I had asked to work on). It really helped!

Sometimes just messing around on your instrument can be fun too. The other week I got out my copy of "Abracadabra Violin" and "101 Classical pieces for violin" and just messed about with them. It was fun: trying to play hot cross buns with a straight face gave me a good giggle!

Also, although I have never seen your flute, and even if I had I know so little about woodwind instruments I wouldn't know a great flute from one made of scrap metal...I agree with Flossie: perhaps you have outgrown your instruments. My parents bought me a Zeller violin for my thirteenth birthday: it came with a fibreglass bow which very quickly broke and my mum went into the local music shop and bought me a new bow for £15. I loved my violin at first because it was mine, but had definitely grown out of it by the time I left school. I quit when I went to uni and when I re-started playing a year and a half ago the first thing I did was buy myself a new violin, and playing is now (mostly!) a joy.

I realise though that replacing an instrument can be terribly expensive. However, a friend of mine is studying for a PhD too. Her PhD is completely unrelated to music, but she gets a music scholarship, so that might be something worth looking into?

I have a form from Babybird2 for the Eccles orchestral playday on May 9th, so if you can also make that one Gerald, your deal will come true!

Thank you so much for your advice everyone I definitely feel like I need some sort of goal to work towards - but I only did G4 last session so any exam will be sometime later this year. I think I sort of got bored with practising because there was just too much technical stuff to play - scales, arpeggios, articulation exercises, technique exercises, tone exercises - by the time I've done all that it doesn't leave much time for anything fun. I'll try to make time for fun stuff - I own loads of it so I really should play some of it

At the moment I'm sort of playing a few G5 pieces of the old syllabus, I spent a lot of time playling Dance of the Blessed Spirits. I think that is definitely part of the problem - I want it to sound nice but at my standard and with my flute it will never sound great. I know I need to get a new instrument at some point, I think I'll wait til after G5 though.

For the person that asked about lesssons - yes I do have lessons both for flute and viola. My viola teached will be moving soon though and I have no one new lined up yet

I would definitely like to do more ensemble playing and I try to grab whatever opportunities I can get, but there's obviously not loads

Gedall40 - It's a deal! How are you for Manchester?

Hi BB2 - if it's any help, this piece is actually on the grade 6 list on the current TG syllabus. To play it nicely it needs a lot more control, tone colouring and expression than would normally be expected at grade 5. So, please don't be too disheartened that you weren't getting the sound you wanted for it - you were aiming higher than you realised.

Also, bear in mind that your flute is naturally more suited to pieces which want a bright or pure sound rather than an rich or dark one, and to lively, cheerful pieces. Yes, there are things you can do to counter-act this - but please don't be too hard on yourself when you're not quite getting the sound you want on the music which requires a thicker, richer or darker tone. I had the opposite problem with my old flute - it was great for rich and dark music but 'bright' was not part of it's tone pallette at all regardless of what I did, and my teacher couldn't get it to do bright or lively music very well either.

When you think about grade 5 have a look at the TG syllabus as well as the AB one (there is a lot more choice) and do which ever has the pieces you most want to play.

In terms of your overload with technical work, try rotating which exercises you do or choosing a key for the day and doing the execises in this key only.

With viola, I think the uncertainties surrounding teachers is probably unsettling you and therefore putting you off playing (even if you aren't conscious of this).

I really sympathise Babybird because I went through something similar on my clarinet towards the end of last year. One of the things which helped me was remembering why I took up the clarinet in the first place - it had been so long since I'd played any of the "fun" music which I'd wanted to play when I first learnt. I'd spent virtually all my time doing studies/exercises, improving my tone, playing classical pieces (albeit nice classical), and it helped to get a sense of perspective back by going to play a couple of times at an elderly care home. I played a mixture of Christmas music and songs from the musicals and had a lovely time. Everybody thought I was very clever and it was very good for my confidence That might not be your cup of tea though, but could you perhaps do a little concert for friends and family? The good news is that I got my motivation back eventually and I'm sure it will be the same for you - perhaps you just need some breathing space?

That's kind of what I was trying to say when I said DON'T practice if you don't feel like it.

You just said it better Skylark!