I like languages. They are more of a curiosity than a passion for me and I really only speak English well.  This curiosity has led me down some interesting paths, though.

The first time I traveled to Italy I was told that I was not allowed to come back until I learned the language. This may be because I just resorted to Spanish when there was a language barrier … maybe not the best idea.  In a very Barney Stinson “Challenge Accepted” sort of way I dove head first into learning Italian.  That was when I came across the Youtube channel of one Professor Alexander Arguelles (homepage: here; Youtube: here). He has a very, very dry style but speaks over 40 languages and has a pretty technique that he calls “Shadowing.”  Read more about shadowing here

After trying shadowing a bit and seeing the benefits that it has in developing ability in spoken language I started to wonder if it was possible to apply this to instrumental practice. After all, it is pretty easy to play a barn burner when you are in an ensemble but in the practice room it often all falls apart. Why? I think it is because we don’t have the sense of flow driving us forward and our focus is less on the line of music and more on the individual notes. More so, is it possible to do if you don’t have a recording of the piece in question?

How to “Shadow” in the Practice Room

Supplies:

  • Digital recorder
  • Headphones
  • Your instrument and the music

Step 1: Take out your digital recorder and plug in your headphones.  It is important that your digital recorder has a monitor setting because this is what we are going to rely on.  I’m using a Zoom H4N.

Step 2: We want to make sure the sound is just crackles and peaks so put your recorder as far away as your head phones will allow (maybe even get a cable extender) and adjust the microphone levels until you get a decent sound.  I have to set my levels to about 30%.  The higher the ceilings and larger the room, the less of an issue this will be.

Step 3: Play through the line while getting immediate aural feedback through the headphones.  More likely than not, there will be a slight delay in the monitor, this is actually preferable in my mind.

How This Helps:

There are actually two ways that this might help us. The first can be outlined in a quote from Evelyn Glennies, the a deaf percussion player, who said “The musician is actually in the worst possible position (in relation to the instrument) to experience the music.”  What she means is that when we are behind our bells or lip plates or bars we are on the wrong end of sound production.  We can’t hear what is actually coming out of the bell! Part of what we are hearing is the ambient sound and part is our brain being nice to us and telling us that we sound how we wanted to sound. NOW we know exactly how we sound!

The other way this helps is that it gives us the impression of playing with somebody else.  After learning how to play a difficult line the next, even more difficult part, is learning to play that line musically. Unfortunately, we can’t do that in the same mindset in which we learned the difficult line.  This might act as that catalyst.