Some advice from Pedro Martinez
Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2018 5:27 am
At about 3:00 into this video, Mr. Martinez talks about executing your idea when you're pitching. I.e., inside pitches should be inside, and outside pitches should be outside. If you mean to pitch inside but throw outside, you're in trouble:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIssqBfNp3g" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank
As is my general theory (hope?), I think baseball and music have more parallels than not. I was recently listening to a recording of myself from a couple years ago (with a purpose, not just to listen to myself; I promise). My basic takeaway was that it was a good performance but had some hiccups. However, the hiccups were consistent with "my idea." Notes I intended to accent got away from me; some of my dynamics didn't blend right with the piano (both loud and soft - again, I promise). The short Pedro Martinez video popped into my head. I wasn't at all disappointed in what I heard - I very clearly did what I intended while playing the piece. Any fixes I would make were I to perform it again were refinement rather than basic rethinking.
This isn't really a "now take this lesson and put it into your daily practice" post. But it is a useful way to think about self-criticism I think. A note that doesn't sound how you want isn't just "a mistake." It's either a mistake consistent with what you intended, or it's a mistake inconsistent with what you intended, and they can be processed different ways. One may require working on fundamentals, and the other may simply require some experimentation within the specific piece.
I've said for a while now that mastery of anything is learning to work within smaller and smaller margins of error. And the discussion in the video is another way of saying that. If you can throw inside when you want and outside when you want, the margin of error becomes "how" inside and "how" outside, and how consistently you do each.
Per usual, I may be overthinking, but if I can't overthink about tuba playing in a post here, where can I?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIssqBfNp3g" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank
As is my general theory (hope?), I think baseball and music have more parallels than not. I was recently listening to a recording of myself from a couple years ago (with a purpose, not just to listen to myself; I promise). My basic takeaway was that it was a good performance but had some hiccups. However, the hiccups were consistent with "my idea." Notes I intended to accent got away from me; some of my dynamics didn't blend right with the piano (both loud and soft - again, I promise). The short Pedro Martinez video popped into my head. I wasn't at all disappointed in what I heard - I very clearly did what I intended while playing the piece. Any fixes I would make were I to perform it again were refinement rather than basic rethinking.
This isn't really a "now take this lesson and put it into your daily practice" post. But it is a useful way to think about self-criticism I think. A note that doesn't sound how you want isn't just "a mistake." It's either a mistake consistent with what you intended, or it's a mistake inconsistent with what you intended, and they can be processed different ways. One may require working on fundamentals, and the other may simply require some experimentation within the specific piece.
I've said for a while now that mastery of anything is learning to work within smaller and smaller margins of error. And the discussion in the video is another way of saying that. If you can throw inside when you want and outside when you want, the margin of error becomes "how" inside and "how" outside, and how consistently you do each.
Per usual, I may be overthinking, but if I can't overthink about tuba playing in a post here, where can I?
