The other day, as I was practicing some rapid finger passages, I found, much to my surprise, that I wasn't breathing, just holding my breath. I had never noticed before if I did the same thing when I was practicing these and other similar passages, but I was wondering what I can do to remind myself to breathe short of writing such a reminder in big screaming red letters (well, not really, but hopefully, you get the idea).

Thanks for your time.

-- Lyn Francisco (cartilagineol@hotmail.com), July 05, 2001

Answers

Hi Lyn,

Try singing your music and breathing with the phrases as you play. It keeps you from passing out, and will actually make the difficult places easier to play. If you do that all the time you begin to feel the whole idea and not just the individual notes. My teacher has to tell me to breathe sometimes because I forget, but when I remember, I play MUCH better. AND I don't get so nervous.

-- Mary Jo (noname-poster@yahoo.com), July 05, 2001.