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Recently I have had great difficulty in finding a place to practice. The university at which I am a student is supremely unaccomidating to its students - it is almost impossible to find a place to practice there unless you can sneak into the building to practice during the middle of the night. The apartment complex where I live has limited options as well. There is really no way to practice for several hours at a time every day if my sound is "invading" into the private space of my neighbors. I have good reason to believe that the space I am using now will not be available to me for long.

I should mention I am kind of picky. I do not like playing in to small a space. Some of the practice rooms at the university will give me a headache in about ten minutes. I also am not a fan of sound-proof environments. I have been working a lot on that big resonant, omnipresent tuba sound, and I notice I loose a lot of ground if I regularly practice in such places. Also I am weary of using a practice mute all the time. Every now and then seems fine, but all the time sounds like it could be dangerous to me.

In addition to all of this, I find that if I have to spend more than about fifteen minutes in search of a place to practice that I am drained of all mental energy and productivity for the entire day. It simply sucks the life out of me. At that point I may as well not even touch the horn.

Does anyone have any ideas? Has anyone had to deal with this sort of thing before? Does anyone know of somewhere in the downtown Portland, Oregon area where I can practice on a regular basis?

Thanks for you input.

And I apologize for my probably terrible spelling...

I understand where you're coming from. Our music building has about 25 practice rooms and all of the big ones are used by piano students and a couple of grad. students so really we have 15-18 practice rooms for over 300 people to use. The practice room's acoustics are really bad and you cannot get a good sound. But, you focus more on your sound and making it better. You hear your mistakes and inconsistancies better and you can tell when you play in a big hall. I think you just have to make the best of your situation and just practice in the small rooms.

Schmooze the music secretary, or whomever is in charge of booking rooms (ie if a school quintet wanted to book a larger classroom for rehearsal). Be really nice and comment on his/her abilities and genereally how awesome they are. Be willing to take on small tasks (ie deliver a message to a prof) and stuff like that. Make small talk. At the end of the year, give him/her a box of chocolates or just a nice card thanking them for all their hard work.

Once the secretary loves you, ask if you'd be able to book a room to practice. Assuming there aren't any ear training classes going on nearby, you should have no problem finding a room. Just don't abuse it!

Tip for highschool students: make good friends with the custodial staff. You have no idea how that will be to your advantage when you need to get into a certain room after hours.

Oh yeah, never be a jerk. I know many people who are, they NEVER get their way. Be nice, and things will fall into your lap.

When I lived in Dresden, a local church gave a few musicians a key and 12 hours a week to use a big room with a piano. It was 4 hours a day 3 days a week of their choosing and it was great. Don't know how that works here.
Peace.
Shalom.
Arnold S. Gottlieb

Wrote a detailed reply to a similar question on one of the horn lists within the last two years, but cannot find it.

I am all with the church solution even if it takes a whole lot of respect. Don’t discuss denominations, and play for free at their services.

Along with my musical career I was a plain schoolteacher (some irony after being a college teacher, but I did not trust our then government, and I had graduated as a teacher). However the schoolteacher thing gave me keys and alarm codes, so that I could practise for free, whenever a wing of the school was not occupied by classes.

I know of at least one US based board member who volunteers in a local school band programme. That member does not need classrooms for his personal practising. But if you follow his track, you may get endless practicing opportunities in exchange for a couple of hours’ work a week.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre, who will issue a final advise about being very flexible towards the cleaning staff. They are underpaid and on a very tight schedule.

If you're in good with your band director, equipment manager, instrument manager, etc. you might be able to practice in the band room sometimes. The trick is knowing someone who has a key.

The room is big and rarely is it used all day long. I used go and practice for an hour before band, an hour after band, whatever. A little harder to plan around, but takes a little bit of being resourceful. Get well connected with your fellow students and you'll do fine.

any churches nearby?

I have arranged to practice in hotel conference rooms during the day (when most guests are away) and the room was standing empty. I suppose you could do the reverse at an office building during evening hours. You might have to return favors, but isn't that what life is all about. I will help you get what you want/need if you will help me do the same?

I agree with practicing outside when you can, but even better, as annoying as it is, I believe practicing in a small room (such as I do) is for the better. I sound even more like crap in my house so I make an effor to bring it up to par, then when I hit the hall I have a sound twice as nice. Same idea as running with leg weights. Churches are good............nothing else I can think of



Good luck!

Or... You can do what a great many of us did and still do: Suck it up and play in the practice closets.

If you get headaches from the noise, shove some cotton in your ears.

If you can make yourself sound half as good as you wanted, you'll sound absolutely fantastic in the recital hall. The one good thing about practice rooms of smaller sizes is they're less forgiving. Try an be sure it's not the big, live rooms that are giving you the big sound. Sound good in crap conditions and you'll always sound good.

My $0.02.

Al Carter
Toronto

I think it's a good idea to practice in a big room if you possibly can. I'm not convinced that making your sound as good as possible in a small room always translates to a large hall. I worry that whatever you do to make yourself sound good in a small room may not be what you need to do to make yourself sound good in a bigger room.

Another option is that if you have a job, maybe you can practice there after hours. I had a friend in high school who worked at a local pizza shop, and would stay there and practice at night. Just a thought.

SOTStuba wrote:not to be mean or anything...but...get over it...unless you are talking about the university that i go to (we wont name names in this public setting) you probably have nothing to complain about...we dont even have ac in our 4 (yes thats four) practice rooms...and they lock all of the classrooms up at 5 when all of the professors leave. I absolutely love the university that I am at but we have a practice room issue.

From your description, I'd have to agree with your assessment that you have a practice room issue. Sounds as if someone on faculty should address this. I know I would.

Have you talked to your tuba/low brass prof, or band director, or even the department head yet? If not, start talking to them in that order.

Don't mess around with a practice room, demand the stage!