Started From the Bottom Now We're Here!

     How many times have you learned a piece of music very well from the beginning, and by the time you get to the end you are sounding less than stellar?  Probably many times, and if not, think of your students (if you teach) or maybe you have been a judge at some level of all-region or all-state auditions.  The truth is, it happens to all of us. Here we have another simple albeit unconventional way to learn a piece of music. 
     
     We start out excited to learn a piece, and work on say the first three lines for a while, working out whatever technical or musical issues we find.  The next day we get maybe to the fourth line, a day later the fifth, and so on.  If we continue down this path, it is a week or so by the time we actually start to learn the end of the piece, maybe even longer depending on the length of the work.  It's no wonder those all-region auditions sounded so much better when the audition cut was at the beginning of the piece!

    Try this, learn the piece backwards.  This can be a solo, etude, excerpt, or whatever. Start with the last note or beat, and add a note or beat before that with each correct repetition.  I use the same rules of the Two Note Drill to determine if I move on or not.  Unless it is exactly how you want it to sound, do it again!  High standards when practicing lead to high levels of performance.  Learning backwards helps with many issues other than simply learning the end of the piece first:

• Endurance - If you struggle with endurance and usually start at the beginning of the piece, you will always be tired by the time you get to the end.  Learn from the back a little bit at a time, and you will practice good habits when playing the end of the piece, so even if you are fatigued in performance you can rely on your reps of practice to carry you through.
• Breath Control - If you have a long excerpt that must be played in one breath, start from the end adding a note or a beat backwards at a time (with a metronome!).  This will gradually train you to be more efficient with your air and you will always end the piece feeling comfortable, rather than running on fumes! (I use this on the 2nd mvt. of Pines of Rome for this reason)
• Phrasing - You will learn phrases more deeply by looking at them in a different way.  If a piece contains mostly 4 or 8 measure phrases, going backwards by beat or measure will have you starting in sometimes awkward places, because you will often be starting within a phrase.  You will never perform the work this way (unless you take an audition and there are awkward starting places), but if you know you can nail the high point of a phrase cold, it will be a piece of cake when you actually get to play the entire phrase from the beginning.
• Accuracy -  Similar to what was stated above, if you can sound awesome playing an etude from any and every starting point, running the whole thing and focusing on the piece as a whole will become much easier.  

     There are other benefits as well, one being that this will let you practice the same piece longer before getting bored with it.  I find this especially helpful for younger students, especially those who always want to learn something new, not that there is anything wrong with that.  I tend to get tired of pieces easily as well, so I use this method a ton!  Each time you add a beat going backwards, it creates a new exercise and a new starting point.  Otherwise, the student will always sound good at the beginning of the phrase regardless of how they sound at the end, simply because they start at the exact same spot every single time!  I personally find this a more creative, involved, and effective way to practice.  So next time you run an etude top to bottom and then get down to work, start from the bottom, and see how much better you are when you make it to the top!

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The Top!