Thoughts on practicing through another musician's eyes

Composer Daniel Barkley at work

You know you've been using social media too long when someone else starts to write down your thoughts better than you ever could yourself.  

I just experienced this for the first time when I received a tweet from a friend who had just written a blogpost based on something I had tweeted while practicing just the day before.  He took my tweet and expounded on it brilliantly, putting into the right words what I often have swimming in my head about practicing.  

So without any more words from me since my friend can do it better, here is what Daniel Barkley, a wonderful composer based in Northern Ireland, had to say...

Erica Sipes' tweet about practicing

@ericasipes: When practicing, I'm always looking 4 what's incredible, riveting, shocking, moving-that's what I want 2 give the audience.  #practicetweets

In the two years or so that I've been on Twitter, this is definitely one of my favourite tweets.  It reminds us of something that usually gets neglected when we talk and think about practice.  Practice is not just about achieving technical fluency and consistency, but should also involve experimenting to achieve something that is musically exciting and electrifying.  


Click here to read the rest of Daniel's post.

If you'd like to read what he tweets about, here's his twitter page.
And if you're interested in his many wonderful compositions, check out his webpage.

And last but not least, if you're curious about reading what I think about while I'm practicing, feel free to do a search on twitter for #practicetweets or just click here.  It's a place where I, and some other musical folks, like to put the scandalous, wacky, inspiring, and sometimes thought-provoking thoughts that occur to us in the moment.  There's a twitter feed in the sidebar of the blog that shows just these tweets.  Enjoy and please do feel free to join in the fun.  We'd love to see you there! 

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