[Music] Thanks for checking out the second half of my conversation with Dr. Molly Gabrien. Uh Dr. Molly Gabrien wrote a
book called Learn Faster, Perform Better, and it immediately became the most important book I have in my library
about music, particularly about how to learn how to play music and play an instrument. What can we do in our
practice to maximize our time? In this part of the conversation, we go in depth
in the things that we talked about in the first half of the conversation. Very specific ways to improve your practice
time and make improvements in your playing far faster than you ever thought possible. It's exciting stuff and it's a
treat that she is here to share it with us. I also want to restate my apologies
for the video quality of this. If you are watching it on YouTube, it's unacceptable, but the conversation is so
good. I couldn't not share it with you. Uh, I want to apologize on behalf of the
platform that I use to record it. Uh, they are inept and what they advertise
is not what they deliver. My apologies. And if you're listening, audio only.
There's no problems. That clarinet player that you heard at the beginning of the podcast once again is Mr. James
Dander. If you like what you hear, I'm going to leave a link in the show notes.
Most importantly, I'm going to leave a link to this book, Learn Faster to Perform Better, in the show notes. And
also, of course, wouldn't you know it, I'm going to leave a link for the clarinet ninja dojo. And that is a place
for adult clarinet players who are just starting, are coming back after a long layoff, or have been honing their craft
for years. There is a place for you where you're going to learn all about how to play the clarinet, when to employ
particular exercises, how to make the most beautiful music that you can make,
and employ these practice strategies at the right time to maximize the outcome
and have you playing the way that you want to as fast as possible, but also
having a great time while you do it. So check that all out. And here she is. Dr.
Molly Gabriel. Would you talk about strategies to use when you're doing the
interleaf practicing to refine what's happening within the the the smaller parts or the the the different pieces so
that when we're practicing that we know that there's a strategy that we can use that is going to, you know, come back
and get. So what kind of strategies do you recommend in terms of of getting to know the music deeply? Yeah, exactly. It
it totally depends on like where you are in the in the learning process um what strategies you're going to use. But
let's say for something that's relatively new first because that's the first part of learning. For something that's relatively new, the way that I
use interleaf practice when I'm just starting something is I will break whatever the issue is down into however
many steps I can see of being able to master this thing. I'll work on my first
step until I feel like, okay, like I have somewhat of a handle on this and then I'll go work on other stuff. When I
come back to that thing, that new thing I was working on before I even start to
play it again, I will, like your chemistry teacher said, actually, I will review in my mind, okay, what did I do
with this when I was practicing this 10 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago, an hour ago, whatever, review in my mind like,
okay, what did I figure out in terms of whatever my first step is? And then I'll try to see can I do that first step in
my mind with the mental practice that we were just talking about because that helps me learn it on a deeper level rather than just relying on on my body
to do it. I've done that thinking. Then I'll try it on the instrument and I'll either discover, okay, yes, I have this
first step down. This feels good. Now let's add another step. So I'm always at that challenge point. If it doesn't feel
good, usually something has been clarified in my thinking like, "Oh, I thought I understood this rhythm, but
actually now I realize I'm confused about this one place. I need to sort this out." Right? Um, and so that's kind
of how it looks when it's when it's new. When something has been practiced for
longer and I'm getting ready to perform it and I want to make sure, okay, I can just, you know, play this part like at
the drop of a hat exactly how I want, I use a number of different strategies for that. One of my favorites is which I
talk about in the book is usually it's not just one section, it's a bunch of sections. And so I'll make a list of all my hard spots and I will perform each
one just one time as if it's the performance or whatever it is I'm preparing for. Um, and you know, if it's
good, it gets a tick mark on the list. If it doesn't, it's not. And I just I just have to go on go through my list
repeatedly. The goal is five tick marks on each spot. But if I get any given
one, if I don't play well, I have to erase all my tick marks for that spot. So that simulates just doing it at the
drop of a hat. It helps you get into the performance mindset of, okay, what do I have to do to play this right? What do I
have to remember about this spot? It also helps you kind of brush things off if things don't go well. You know, often
in performance, something won't go well and it'll cause this spiral where you start like doubting yourself like, "Oh my gosh, if I messed up on that, well
then I'm going to mess up on all these other things." But with this list thing, say you know, you come to your first spot for the third time through your
list and you really mess it up. Oh well, too bad. Like that doesn't have anything to do with your second spot. So brush it
off. Fresh fresh start. And I think that's a really important skill to work on. And so that that works on that too.
But but sort of yeah, testing things sort of out of context when you haven't
just been practicing it. Can you just play it on the first try? Um that really shows you what you need to think about,
how you need to think. getting your mindset in the right place and then it's much much more likely it's going to go
well in performance because you've practiced those skills. When I think about 25 years ago when I
was studying with Ricardo Morales, he could play the hardest excerpts in the audition sequence of
things the first time without having practiced it. Like he just had a lesson, you know, he he wasn't practicing
heista. I was he could play it way better than me every single time on B
flat clarinet or any clarinet and it was a stunning thing. But it really like it
really goes to not only is he really good at music and playing the clarinet, he his retention of those things is is
very very powerful and you know and that's something that I feel like he
must have gotten in his training of how to understand music and know music and then then that's and that is where I
feel like in America we don't start sight singing soon enough. We don't start having those sort of fundamental
musical skills be a part of of of what we're doing quite soon enough. the I want to get into a theory that I
have that is about me memorizing things which I feel like I feel like if I'm
practicing something I should be able to play if I'm practicing it well I should be able to play it from memory pretty
easily and not that I'm ever intending to play most of the things that I play from memory but I should be able to do
it and that is some version of a litmus test as to how effective my practicing has been. Is that you? Is there any
truth in what I in what I believe that that yeah I mean that's I don't know that's an interesting theory I mean I
feel the same way I memorize super easily like by the time I I am physically able to play something it is
absolutely 100% memorized and yeah I mean I do think that so I talk a little
bit in the book that like brains really don't like information that feels like it exists in a vacuum going back to our conversation about theory and oral
skills and history right like when you give the musical material a larger framework and a larger or structure that
it exists within it helps your brain hold on to it much better. And so if
you're practicing in a way that is mindless or kind of surface level in terms of understanding the music, it's
going to be really hard for your brain to hold on to it because it feels like it exists in a vacuum and your brain's like, "This is just random information."
Like, but if you can connect the music to a much deeper, more multiaceted web
of information, then you're going to play a lot better. And so, yeah, I think there might be something to your theory
because if you are practicing well and you're understanding music on a really deep level, then I don't know how it
wouldn't get memorized. At the same time, memorization is a skill, right?
And so, if people don't practice that skill, they're not going to be as good at it as as people that that do practice
the skill. Because when I started playing, I was completely decoding music. like and I was I like for the
first I don't know how many ten years I was playing the clarinet I would look at the fingering I put the fingers down and
that must be the right note it was kind of how I operate right and uh I first
realized when I was trying to play the entertainer in sixth grade that I didn't know how to play D# so I just didn't
play D# and it's I was like wait a minute that sounds weird and that was like the first time I realized I can evaluate this based on what happened
like I like I never I never thought of that that's funny But but to me, like when I'm playing music, I want to be
decoding as the least amount possible. I don't want to have thoughts in my head other than what do I want this to sound
like and does it sound like that? And I don't want to I don't want to be reading any of the notes because that's taking
brain power away from me. Yeah. And that leads into a question that I I don't think you talk about in the book. Maybe
you do about how we mark our music. I've got like Oh, I don't talk about that. Like I've got really strong feelings
about how I mark music. That is I don't Oh, cool. Tell me. I don't put words in my music. I don't write any words in my
music because that takes a part of my brain that is already in use. So I I I
write a lot of symbols. If I wanted to get if I if I I don't like to write a chelerando, I like to write an arrow that points that direction. My brain
processes the symbol much differently than it processes the words. But
then one of the things I've done for a long time, um it's easier now with things digitally. I would I would buy a
copy of the music. I would copy it three times and then I would use one copy of the music to learn and write a bunch of
stuff in it and then I would use the another copy of the music and then play
and practice and see what of those things I still needed. And by the time I got to the third copy of the music, there was a lot less written in it and a
lot less things to distract me as I'm looking at it. And I always, you know, and also as a Broadway player, when you
go in and read someone else's music, it's very like when we mark beats, I I
feel like if I'm going to mark beat two, I need that line to go out to the side. I don't want it up and down because there's too many lines that are already
up and down in the music, you know? Yeah. Or up and down. So, like, so I get very I get very dorky about how the mu
like how I really feel the music should should be marked. And I wonder if if you have any thoughts about any of that.
Yeah. No, I I love that there. I mark my music to death, I have to say. Um, but you're right about iPads making it a lot
easier to make multiple copies and mark things cuz I I do the same thing and there's a lot of stuff that I don't want to see on on my performance copy. Um, I
think you're right that it's very hard to read words, especially if there's a lot of words on the page um when you're
performing and symbols are often much more like automatic. I use a lot of symbols. I use a lot of colors, which I
have only started doing since reading off an iPad cuz it's a lot easier. Um, and I find like that colors symbolize
certain things. Um, and that's much easier than reading words, especially I'm thinking right now like uh pieces
that have a lot of like performance information in the piece or in the in the notation, especially like extended
techniques that I don't want to read all of that. Um, and so like for us for string players, we often get asked to
play uh soul pontto cello close to the bridge to create kind of like a raspy sound um in a lot of new music. And if
there's a lot of instructions around like where to put your bow, it's really overwhelming and very hard to read. And
so I have a color-coded system that pontich cello is always red. And so I'll just like underline it or circle it in
red and then I don't read the word, I see red. And then I know I know what to do. Um, and so yeah, and certainly if you're
marking a part that somebody else is going to read, your words may be very idiosyncratic. I have a number of things
that I mark in. For instance, my teacher in undergrad talked a lot about what he calls fast finger fall. So the speed at
which your fingers go down on the string influences articulation and how how legato it sounds. And so if I want
something to be very articulate with my left hand, I will write F to the power of the third, which means fast finger
fall. Nobody else would understand that notation, right? And it's not really words. It it feels more like a symbol to
me when I see it in the music, but I know exactly, you know, what what that means. Um, yeah, I have a lot of I have
a lot of symbols I use, too. I've never thought about it in terms of leaving out words entirely. There's definitely a lot
of words in my in my music, but I also think that different brains process like
music and language different. I mean there's a lot of overlap between how music and language are processed in the brain but
different people are different like there are many well definitely not for clarinetists you can't talk and play at
the same time because your mouth is occupied but for string players and like and keyboard players many people can
talk and play at the same time because playing is not using any language parts of the brain I absolutely 100% cannot do
that and so the language areas of my brain are already being used a lot and so adding more language doesn't feel
disruptive to me because it's being use so much. But yeah, I I really like your theory. I should I like experimenting
with things. I should experiment with no words, just symbols to see how it how it feels to me because I already do use a
lot of symbols like I was saying. Well, okay, I was checking our time here. I want I I have
got I don't I don't drink very often, but when I do and I'm with musicians, I've got a rant and it is this. I don't
like to use digital metronomes in practice because I like the beauty and
simplicity of traditional metronome numbers. I like when I'm practicing, if
I click up once, it's 5%. If I click up two, it's 10%. And the numbers work that out for me. So, I don't have to worry
about to figure it out. If I click up five, it's a different percentage. It's a different amount. Right. And so,
right, I I noticed and appreciated in your book, you spoke to the reality of the world, which is people are using
metronomes that go up by one, right? But, but I I get so weird about it that
like I don't like to play at 107. I want to play at 108. Like, I I I don't want to practice off
of a particular metronome number, which is probably overkill and has no value, but it means a lot to me in my
practicing. actually use uh the old France bake light metronomes that plug
in when I'm at home because I like the feeling about clicks and I know how many clicks I've made and I'm curious to know
in terms of when people are trying to increase the speed on something given that I mean I'm I'm very beholden to my
way of doing it and that 5% is I think I don't even do 5% actually tell me what
you think about this when I'm trying to get increase the speed on something I'll click up two down one up two down one up
two down one. So it's not I have a chance to go back and clean up something that maybe was on the edge, right? So
like I I don't when I'm doing that kind of work, which I think just even that is
probably mid-level practicing, right? That I mean I I think that that's probably not the best way to use time,
but you know, at the what I find a lot is when I'm at the end like it's it's four days before the performance. Like I
find I find it hard like either I'm ready or I'm not ready. But I still need I still feel like I need to keep playing it, right? I feel like I need to keep
doing something. So like like I I I do I do things like that. Do you have any Do
you have any strong feelings about traditional metronome numbers? I do. Yeah. Well, not traditional metronome numbers necessarily, but I do have
strong feelings about clicking up because I do think that people do that in a really inefficient way. Um I Yeah.
I don't I mean I as a kid obviously I used a traditional metronome because there weren't apps, right? Um, but I I
use I use an app. I haven't used a traditional metronome in 25 years. So, I
don't I don't have strong feelings about the numbers, but I do have strong feelings around clicking up. I think your way of doing it up up two down one
is is better than just like going straight up. But in the book, I talk about something that I made up out of
frustration called interleafd clicking up, which works infinitely better than just standard clicking up. It can often
be a one-stop shop that you do interleaf clicking up and you can just play it at tempo for forever more, which is which
is nice, but it's a lot faster. It's a lot better. It's a lot more effective than just starting at a slow tempo. And
even if you're going up and down and up and down, it it interle clicking up works a lot better. So, if you haven't tried it yet, I would highly encourage
you to do it. Well, tell us what it is. Sure. So um interleaf clicking up um uh
it's a little it's timeconuming to describe especially without a visual but uh I will I will do my best there is a
chart in the book right can I can I put I'll there's aart I'll try and put that on the screen while you're talking about it oh cool okay great that's awesome
because yeah the visual I find really helps if I describe it to people in words people kind of their eyes glaze over and they start getting lost so what
you're going to start with is you're going to take your passage and you're going to take the first beat of the
passage only. And this step always feels a little silly, but it should make sense why you need to do it. So, you take the
first beat of the passage only and you click up just that beat, just beat one,
let's say, by I use apps, so by five, so 60, 65, 70, 75, blah, blah, from your
start tempo to your goal tempo. That step should be exceptionally easy. You should be able to get to your goal tempo
on beat one only very easily because it's only one beat. Um, so then the next
step, you go back to your start tempo. So let's say 60, just for the ease of my example. And now you're going to play
beats one and two together at 60. And then at 65, you're only going to do beat
two. Then at 70, you're going to do beats one and two. At 75, you're going to do just beat two. So on the fives is
the new beat, the second beat that you've added. On the tens is both both
beats. So you do that pattern until you get to your goal tempo. Then you go back
to your start tempo, 60 for our example. And now you're going to play the first three beats at 60. Then you're going to
do the third beat only, the new beat at 65. Then beats two and three at 70. Then
the third beat only at 75. Then all three beats at 80. And then you continue
that pattern going on. So again, the new beat, the third beat is on the fives. On the 10ens, you have to keep track of
where you are. whether you're doing beats two and three or or one, two, and three, but it always kind of like chains
backwards like that. And then you just keep going on like this. So after you in any given step, once you get to your
goal tempo, you go back to your start tempo and you add a new beat. And then the pattern of going up the new beat,
whatever it is, is always on the fives. So every five you're going to do the new beat. Sometimes it's just the beat
isolated, like 65, 75, 85. Sometimes it's with the beats that come before it chained backwards. And what this does is
a number of things. First, if you play stuff that has to be fast too slowly for
too long, you actually ingrain a totally different motor pattern and then you have to like basically learn it over
again when you get up to tempo. So, it gets you up to tempo immediately so that
you are solidifying the motor pattern that you actually want. Second is it isolates each beat, right? Cuz whatever
the new beat is, you're doing it every five. So that beat gets like special attention, but you're also putting it
into context right away. The older the beats get, the less often you do them.
So it starts off, you know, you just do the first beat every five, then it ends up being every 10, every 20, every 30.
And so that kind of ups the level of difficulty every time the beats get older and you come back to it because
the the gap between the metronome clicks gets bigger and bigger. I call it interleaf clicking up because you are
interle, right? you're taking a break from certain beats and you're you're sort of doing other beats. But I like I
said, I made this up out of frustration nearly 10 years ago now actually. And I teach everybody about this. Everybody
who does it when they try it, I've had so many people send me emails actually like I've had this passage that I have
always thought would be impossible for me and in one afternoon I can now play it having used interleaf clicking up.
Um, so I haven't done like traditional clicking up, which is just, you know, you play your whole passage at 60 and
then you click it up by however much. I haven't done that in like 10 years because interloop clicking up just works
so immensely better. Um, and yeah, you have a YouTube video all about this,
correct? I have a YouTube video all about this where it explains it with the graphic and then there's another YouTube
video where I'm actually doing it with a really easy example that people can play along with if they want to. Um, I find
that when people when I explain it to people, people understand it, people don't actually like get it until they do
it themselves and they can see it's a very simple, straightforward pattern that never changes. But yeah, when
people do it, that's when they really get it. Oh, yeah. So, I will definitely link the YouTube video in everywhere
this this goes out because you your your videos are fantastic and like that. But
uh what what I found on my YouTube channel is that people love to watch
videos uh is this read good? Should you use a synthetic read? Uh the videos on how to practice don't do as well. And I
feel like like like this is actually the thing, right? This is actually what we
we this is going to help everything. It doesn't really matter what read you're playing if you know but the stuff is
going to really help you. Yeah. I definitely feel like that there's there's a there's an there's an audience
that doesn't quite know the value of a video such as that. When I'm hearing you talk about it, like it it hurts my brain
a little bit. Like I'm like this sounds so complicated, you know, and that you I
I I've looked at it. I've watched the video, I understand that it's not, but even in hearing about this sounds
complicated. Yeah. And then part of me just says I'll just do what I'm already doing. You know, like like oh right. No,
I totally Yeah, I totally get that. And that's it's funny because like yeah I think that that is the reaction that
people have. Oh this is complicated. And with my students I always like describe
it to them so that they can like understand what's supposed to be happening. But then I do it with them in
the lesson so that they can actually like first of all see the benefit. The minute you start doing it you'll be like oh wow yeah okay like this is worth
doing. Um and doing it it helps you understand oh this is not complicated at
all. It's very very systematic. It's a very simple pattern. Um but I understand that yeah pe people have done what
they've done and it's worked well enough so why would you try something new right but it does work well one of the things
that that I say frequently uh in in lessons and in in teaching is that
understanding doesn't really translate into ability it doesn't hurt it doesn't
hurt but you cannot and I think this is one of those situations where yeah you don't need to understand how this works
you just need to actually do it and then then you'll understand it and then everything will make sense. It's not but
they if if someone is waiting to understand it first they could be waiting a long time and it's just you
know we don't have that much time. You got to just do it and then and then figure and then and then and then assess the value of it I think is is uh yeah
because I wrote a I wrote a blog post the other day talking about the difference between process focused practicing and outcome focused
practicing and how to blend them together and and and what to do and because like a lot of times for me when
I if I I don't and I think you mentioned this in your book ways to get over the anxiety or want to not practice or you
know whatever it is and so a lot of times I'll just say okay Mhm. put your client together, play 15 minutes, that's
all you're obligated, right? And then I never stop at 15 minutes. I always want to keep on playing. The the the thing
that I definitely want to get from you, and it's it's something that that I I
see a lot with with my adult students is they very much want to be able to play with a metronome. They want to be able
to use a metronome, and they have a very very hard time staying with the metronome.
You absolutely called out the two apps that I find most useful, which is Time Guru and the Total Energy Metronome part
of the app. The Total Energy app is just really one of the greatest things ever. And for $5, everybody should have it. Um
although I did send them an email that they ignored because I said, "Hey, can you I make a can you make a setting to
just click to the the traditional metronome numbers?" Oh, that would be nice. But they ignored
you. Oh, that's too bad. Well, no, they didn't ignore me. They sent me an email saying, "Why on earth would anybody want that?" So, okay, whatever. You do what
you want. Interesting. I think a lot of people would want that. You're not the only person who really likes those traditional numbers. I think a lot of
people would want that, actually. But, but the beat dropping is I I found to be the the best way, the easiest way, the
easiest entrance into using a metronome in a way that requires you to interact
with it and hold the beat yourself and hold the tempo and hold everything yourself. cuz like you know the thing
we're talking about you okay so it's on it's on four and then it's on one and two sometimes it's on two and four or
one and three two and four and then practicing on the offbeats you know I found that to be the way to use a
metronome to actually learn how to play in time and control and which goes right into phrasing and how we want to control
all that stuff but it's difficult to convince people to do that but even from
the beginning I mean people who are just learning music be able to go from
quarter notes to eighth notes back to quarter notes and to eighth notes can be a real challenge. And I'm curious to
know like like what would you suggest in a situation like that when someone is in earnest really, you know, trying to do
that? So I know like with with the with the little kids when I'm teaching little kids, you know, we always use t and tati, right? like you know but even even
the little kids will they'll they'll instead of saying tat tat tat they'll say tat tat
tat right so so h how do you nudge somebody into viewing the subdivisions
right yeah that's a great question I think the most powerful thing is walking walking and and playing or singing so
that you are because when people have when people can't stay with a metronome
or they're they're having difficulty with subdivision it means that they're internal sense of pulse is really weak
and having the sense of pulse be really embodied is the most important skill to
develop. Um, and if you walk in time, so you don't have to walk around the room,
just like walk at the speed of whatever beat you have to have. And like with your example of of little kids that like
you, the student and the teacher are walking together at the same speed and saying together tat tat tat tat tat tat.
So the student can feel how those syllables fit in with the beat because the beat is in their body and it's not a
cognitive thing and it's not something outside their body. Um it's better than clapping, it's better than tapping your
foot because it gets it embodied. Um so if someone can't stay with the metronome because they're rushing or dragging, I
take the metronome away and I just have them walk at the pace of the beat, whatever that may be, and sing along
first. Don't play along. And you don't even have to sing out pitches. Just sing just sing the rhythm and the approximate
contour, right? the pitches are kind of irrelevant. Um, and you will be able to feel how the music fits with the beat
because you're doing you're making the beat with your body. And then once you can walk the beat and sing it, then play
on your instrument. It really helps to have the teacher walking if you're in the same space. If not, that's fine. It might not sound very good, especially
for wind players because it disrupts things, right, when you when you walk. But that's fine. It doesn't really matter. You're just trying to feel how
the rhythms fit in with with the beat. Um, so that would be the way to start
and then after that going to the different rhythm games that I talk about offbeats only, beats one and three, you
know, random beats missing, that kind of thing. I tried my hardest to retain this and I and I I haven't and it's what I
because I I felt like what was super particularly the second time I read the book that just like it was like whoa was
talking about you know how to play in time which we we we covered or how to learn how to use a metronome and it
really confirmed all the things that that I thought for so long which is a metronome is a tool that we should use
primarily to make it not something that we need right it's It's to other we want
to start to get it out of of what we're doing or use it in a way that helps us check ourselves, but we are actually
doing what the metronome is doing for us. But also the the idea of the tuner.
I've been I've been playing with drones for years and hearing resultant tones which people like that to me is the way
to learn how to play in tune. And you know the and the tonal energy app you know again is the only place that I know
I can make I can give myself a rooe and a fifth and I can practice playing the third and two right because it make two
notes. I I've never seen another app make two notes and I think it's just like it's oh audible. Uh, the one that I
I I actually find Total Energy to be really really overwhelming as an app. I use Tunable and you can put in seven
notes into Tunable. Put a whole chord in. It's so cool. I'll be checking I'll be Yeah, lot lots of apps actually now
do multiple note drones and it's so useful. Like you said, well, the part that I want to get more clarity on is
the ability to sing that note and sing it in tune. I can't remember whether it
helps translate it into play in tune or does not. There was it was something that I want I want to understand better.
Yeah, totally. So, yeah, the research on singing and playing in tune, what the research shows is just practicing
singing in general as just a thing divorced from your instrument does not
help you play more in tune. But singing what you are trying to play does help
you play more in tune. So, if you give yourself the root and the fifth and you're trying to play the third in tune, if you can't sing that third in tune,
you're not going to be able to play that third in tune. If you can sing in a tune, that doesn't automatically translate to being able to play it in
tune. But if you can't sing it, you certainly can't play it because that means you don't know what it's supposed to sound like, right? Which which I think to me, everything about your book
goes to this whole idea that we need to hear what we're what we want to make, the sound we want to make and then learn
how to make that sound, whether it it's a time issue or a sound issue. I have a question for you that that it's you're
going to know exactly what I'm talking about. go to the credit convention and you find a new mouthpiece. It solves all of your
problems, man. I'm never going to need another mouthpiece again. I only have a
hundred, right? You know, like I said, I've had that same experience point because it solved everything. And then 3 weeks later, you
sound the same and you got the same problems. Is there a way to use that moment of excitement and exhilaration of
I found this great piece of equipment to foster what we're hearing in our head to
get that to actually hold with us so that like we do actually sound different 3 weeks later or 4 weeks later or this
does actually impact us in a positive way rather than we just going back to what we used to sound like before and
we've we found a way to create all those problems because those are the problems that are in our ears. Did you have any
ideas? Yeah, that's a great question. And that's a great question. And that is such like I feel like that is such a
clarinet especially phenomenon because string players we we don't do that. If we're going to get more equipment, we're
going to be spending many many many many many thousands of dollars and so people don't do that, you know. Um but I mean,
yeah, like if you try something and it's like, "Oh my gosh, this is how I want to sound." And then, you know, 3 weeks
later you sound the way you sounded, it's because of two things. Yeah. like you have the an old sound in your head
of this is how I've always sounded. You haven't updated your sound, but it's also a physical thing that you have old
muscle memory that you're playing your new mouthpiece subtly like your your old
mouthpiece, right? And you're not really sort of listening and paying attention to what this new mouth mouthpiece will
will give you. And so I think yeah, like like you were saying, like it all goes back to like do you really know how you
want to sound? Can you really hear that? Are you very clear in your mind about what you want to sound or is it just
kind of vague? Do you have this like general sense of I just want to sound good or I just want to sound like
exfamous clarinet player without actually hearing that sound in your
mind? without actually having that sound in your mind that you are trying to to match or recreate or whatever. And also
being able to feel, okay, this is the sound I want. How do I create that sound
on my instrument? And being able to feel that also. So yeah, I think it gets back to the mental mental clarity thing of
just being as precise with yourself as you can and not sort of settling for
just a general, well, I want to sound good. Okay, well that's my thing. I say it all the time is that the since I'm
talking about clarinet, I'll say it about clarinet. I've heard myself play the clarinet for thousands of more hours than I've ever heard anyone else play
the clarinet. And but whatever idiosyncrasies that I might want to change my clarinet playing, I have a
hard time identifying them because I don't know that they're happening because I'm so used to hearing them. How
do I battle that? Right. Yeah. I mean, I think couple things. One is it's funny
to me that once we're done with school and we're like professionals, we don't take lessons anymore like that. It
singers take lessons their entire career. Actors take lessons their entire career. We as musicians once we're done
with our training, we're done. We never take another lesson or it's very rare that people do. And that's kind of
weird, right? Because it gets you stuck in what you were just talking about. So I think the first thing is to like play
for other people and get their opinion and they will point out things that you hadn't noticed and then you're able to
hear them with more clarity because somebody else pointed them out to you. The second is using listening to
recordings in a very intentional way. I talk about this a little bit in the book where you know pick pick a recording,
pick a piece, pick a particular artist and listen very specifically to how does
this person use their articulation or how does this person use timing or how does this person use XYZ. Um, and that's
a much more specific way of listening than I think a lot of us do most of the time. We just listen. We're like, "Oh
yeah, that sounds great." Um, but we're not listening for specific details. And listening in that way can help you
listen to yourself in a different way when you're playing. If you've just spent a whole afternoon listening to how
different clarinetists use their articulation at the beginning of Mozar Certo, let's say, and then you go practice Mozar Certo, you're going to be
much more aware of how you're using your articulation, and you might discover things that you hadn't heard before,
especially if you're recording and and listening back like we were talking about at at the beginning. I think I think the biggest way to get out of that
is to play for other people and have other people's ears on you in the way that we are in school, but we tend not
to do once we're done. Right. This has been amazing. Thank you for having me. I didn't leave myself the amount of time I
would have liked to read your book the second time this past week, but I Yeah, I was tell my daughter's seven. I've
been much more actively reading around the house. And and then I I explain I say I'm talking to a genius. I' I've got
to finish this book. That's the thing. I'm hardly a genius. You don't have to agree with me, but I'm
going to still say that that's true. This is really a book every everybody that that cares about learning how to
play music should have. I've read a lot about books about how to play music. And a lot of them are great, but this is the
real thing. Like like it's the real thing. And you're, you know, having I,
you know, I have a parasocial relationship with you because I've watched your videos. I know I know your my videos. the kindness and the joy and
the love of music and all these things about how to practice shine through in how you wrote the book. It's not only
great information, it's fun. It's fun to read and it's good. Good. Thank you.
That that means a lot to me. That was my goal. I really wanted to write something that was accessible and enjoyable to
read because if it's not enjoyable to read, like why are you going to waste your time reading it, you know? Um or at least it's going to be harder to sort of
get through and and and be receptive to the information. It's it's amazing. So, thank you very much. I'm Thank you.
Thanks for having me. So, there it is. Dr. Molly Gabrien delivering advice that
we all should listen to. So, thank you very much, Dr. Gabrian, for coming in.
These ideas are going to really, really help. So, buy the book, Learn Faster, Perform Better. There's really not much
of a reason not to. It is a real tour to force and one that we should all have in
our home. one that we should reflect upon that will help us really refine our practice, refine our goals, and get us
to where we want to go. And that is something that the clarinet ninja dojo
will also do. So check it out. All of it's in the show notes in the description. And don't forget to rate us
and review us. Give us five stars, would you? Come on.
