Ask Elaina: Efficient Music Practice and Tips on Concert Wear
Elaina Spiro is a third-year cello student at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. TWoA talked to Elaina about her life in music, but also about her approach to efficient practice and concert wear.
Elaina Spiro.
Efficient Practice
Music students spent much more time practicing on their own than in class with their teacher. Finding a way to remember and absorb as much of the information given by your teacher as possible is therefore crucial. Boston Conservatory cello student Elaina Spiro has found the following solution to this problem: she voice records her lessons: “I have a whole process. Ask your teacher when you begin to study with them if you have their permission to voice record your lessons. I voice record every lesson. I voice record a lot of things: moments in practice I can listen back, because listening is the most important thing. As a musician, you have to get over the disdain people can sometimes feel of listening to themselves back - ‘oh, that’s so bad’. None of that talk is productive. Get over how you sound and listen and take away what you need to. Think more analytically than judgementally.
Basically, every lesson day I feel like I have two lessons, because I have the lesson that I experience and then the lesson I listen back to a few hours later. My lessons are in the morning and then I listen to it usually after dinner and make my notes so that the next day’s practice is really productive. I’ll just listen and I’ll start taking notes. I usually divide my notes into sections of what piece we are working on. I’ll write measure numbers of things I need to focus on so that I’m not writing into my music. When it comes to memorising music, I think it’s helpful not having a lot in your music because then you are not relying on looking at your music for having all of this information about phrasing or all that stuff. All of that should be in your mind. I’ll also quote my teacher on things she actually said. Getting a true compliment from my teacher is something I truly cherish because it shouldn’t be very often: you should earn those compliments. When I do get them, I’ll quote them so that I can remind myself that I made progress somewhere. I’ll also quote her word for word if she says something very artistically that I’ll want to remember. If there is a sound that she produced or something I produced in the lesson that I want to replicate, I’ll write a time stamp of where that happens in the voice recording so that when I practice, I can just go straight to that and listen to that sound so that I can check myself and replicate it. I try to keep my practice very positive, I’m a very positive practicer. Yelling at yourself in the practice room is not beneficial. It took me years to get to this way, but this year has been one of my best years in positive practice. I played Rococo variations that are very hard technically. My teacher told me: ‘Play the variations with a smile on your face, an audible smile. It will relax you.’ I wrote it down and whenever I go and practice, I open my notebook and put it on the floor. I’m always checking back. It also makes you practices super productive because you don’t have to search through your brain to remember: ’What did my teacher say? Wait, what am I supposed to be working on right now?’ I look at my notebook: what do I need to work on? What are the things I need to be thinking about? It’s so mental. Your brain needs to be on, and your brain should be exhausted by the time you are done. And I will cherish these books when I am older, because I can look, and I can hear my teacher’s words exactly.”
Concert Wear
What about choosing the right performance wear? Elaina loves dressing up: “Most of my performance wear is concert black because it is usually accepted anywhere you go: chamber performances, orchestra performances or even solo things. My go-to for that is a black jumpsuit. It looks like concert trousers, but then it has this black top, and it’s seamless, which I really like. I wear this cropped blazer over it, it has padded shoulders: with the cello we don’t have to worry about our shoulders other than if something is going to fall off our shoulders and interfere with the range of motion of the arm. The only area that is touching is the chest area, so you don’t want any raised surfaces of jewels. The sparkles on my dress are flush with the dress because if it’s like an added appliqué, it’s going to rattle with the instrument. Sometimes you have to be careful with buttons, too, because those will rattle. The button has to be in an area that’s not touching the instrument. For dresses, you can’t have anything with a slit, because as a cellist, your legs are completely spread and the slit always goes over the legs. I don’t like playing in long sleeves because I don’t like anything to have the ability to hit my instrument and I like the freedom of having open arms. I don’t want any restriction. So many things you have to think about. I don’t really wear necklaces when I play. Earrings have to be completely flush against your ear. I usually don’t play with them: when I’m really in the moment, I put my head on my cello, and then the earring rattles. With orchestra, I can get away with my hair down, because in orchestra, there are less moments of being very virtuosic and soloistic, where you are just into it. There are many moments when you are just resting and I’m not putting on a show necessarily because I’m part of something bigger than me, so I can get away with having my hair down. But most of the time, to be safe, I will put it in a ponytail, or I put the hair around my face away and then have the rest hanging down.”
Time to Relax
And after you finish your practice or performance – relax! Here some recommendations by Elaina:
Books: John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed; Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo; Tochikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Music: “Even though I’m a classical musician, I’ll be listening to Taylor Swift all the time. I listen to Taylor Swift more than anyone thinks is normal.”
Watch: Cosy little sitcoms: Friends, New Girl, The Office; any 1990s romantic comedy: When Harry met Sally, The Notebook . . .
Interested in reading about Elaina’s path to Boston Conservatory at Berklee? Click here!