Skip to main content

Dealing with Mistakes

Dealing with Mistakes
As horn players, mistakes are just in the nature of our instrument. The Guinness Book of World Records lists us as the hardest instrument to play, along with the oboe. Every time we feel comfortable with the horn and things are going great, something bad happens. It is in that moment of comfort that we relax and let our focus slip just enough for mistakes to creep in. There are countless variables that lead to our success and if one of those gets slightly off, we can crash and burn before we know what happened.
It is important to learn to accept these mistakes. Take a moment when you can to analyse what happened and make sure you can recover quickly. It does no good to spend time being mad at yourself and beating up your mindset just because you cracked a note. By no means am I saying that we should not be striving for perfection at all times, I am just saying to give yourself a break.
Your mental health is important and you need to take care of yourself and check in with your thoughts from time to time. Find a system that works for you so that instead of hating yourself for making mistakes, you learn from them and grow as a musician. It can be very frustrating to fumble in front of important audiences and it can leave you feeling embarrassed, but the show must go on and you have to move past your mistakes and keep going. It will all be ok. It was not as bad as you think it was and honestly, most people are not going to walk away from your performance remembering what you think was catastrophic. Accept that you are not perfect and as long as you are putting your best foot forward, you will survive.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women Writing Chamber Music

Women Writing Chamber Music For my Chamber Music Literature class, I created a presentation on chamber music works that have been written by women that include the horn. I wanted to write about works by women because they are so seldom heard. My goal was to find a video performance of each work so that the audience would have an audio and visual representation of the piece. This project was more difficult than expected in some ways. While there are a few resources that highlight chamber music by female composers, they are typically outdated and include pieces that I was not able to find any information on the composer, let alone the piece itself. The project was enjoyable to work on and I hope to be adding more pieces in the future. The current list highlights selections from 1849 to 2018. If you have any suggestions on pieces to add, please comment below! https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MMmnOz8YykQakaPRcjYDzzHg0uwH97ch5ClT6KJjK8U
Post a Comment
Read more

Intonation

Intonation Learning how to play in tune with yourself and others should be a fun process for you. It takes patience and attention to detail, but the end results are life changing for your playing. First off, make sure you have a metronome and a tuner. There are lots of apps that exist today for these, but if you are willing to spend a little money, I recommend the TonalEnergy Tuner. This app lets you have the metronome and tuner going at the same time. You can also have the app play drones, which we will get to shortly. First, make sure that your horn is in tune with itself and a tuner. There are many different types of horns with different tuning systems so it is best to get help from someone with experience tuning the horn the first time you do this. I also have found this video by Matthew Hogan useful for students to get an introduction to tuning the horn. The best place to start is by learning your tendencies. Each note will require a little adjustment to get perfectly in
Post a Comment
Read more

Articulations

Articulations When you are playing each note, remember that there is a beginning, middle, and end. Each part of the note requires definition and equal attention. Articulations are often what causes us to make the most mistakes. There are different ways to approach articulations, but we are going to keep it simple with a “too” approach. Start by just slowly saying the word “too.” Feel the shape your mouth makes and where the tip of your tongue makes contact. It should be around the back of your top teeth, just where the roof of your mouth meets the teeth. This creates a well-rounded attack that works great on the horn. The higher in the range you are playing, your tongue will move further up from that position, and the lower you play, your tongue will move further down. This motion should happen naturally, but if you find yourself making unclear beginnings to notes, check in with where your tongue is making the initial attack. Make sure that after you make the attack, your t
Post a Comment
Read more