The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 007 Nathan Cole: Mindful and Efficient Practice Tips from the LA Phil's First Associate Concertmaster

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, Episode Number 7. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now, your host, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi everyone! I'm really excited about this week's episode with violinist Nathan Cole, First Associate Concert Master of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Nathan is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and he has appeared as guest concert master and soloist with several orchestras around the United States. Before joining the LA Phil, Nathan

Starting point is 00:00:49 was a member of the Chicago Symphony and Principal Second Violin of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. I met Nathan a few years back and I started watching his videos a long time ago and he's been a huge source of motivation for me. If you don't know who he is, you must go visit his website at natesviolin.com and watch his videos and read his articles on practicing, performing, teaching, and auditioning. Nathan is incredible at breaking down information into clear, actionable steps. His content has helped thousands of violinists worldwide, and I have personally gotten so much knowledge and food for thought from his videos. Nathan also hosts a great podcast called Stand Partners for Life with his wife, Akiko Tarumoto, who is the LA Phil's assistant

Starting point is 00:01:36 concertmaster. Talk about power couple. On their podcast, they talk about their individual journeys from Suzuki students to members of the LA Phil, how they manage their professional and home lives with their little ones, and they give us an inside look at orchestra life, going in-depth at the symphony and revealing what happens on stage and backstage during each week. In today's episode, we discuss the nitty-gritty of practicing, and Nathan gives us tons of great tips to deepen our work and get more results.

Starting point is 00:02:09 Stay tuned after the episodes for details about my guest for next week and about a special project he and I are working on for you for the month of November. Let's go to the show. Nathan Cole, I'm so happy to have you on the show today. Oh, thanks. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. I've known you for a while, and I've been a huge fan of your online presence, your blog, your videos, your audition challenge, and you just finished a round of a course, you have a podcast, so much great content out there, I feel that you bring so much value to the musical community, not just for violinists, but for every instrumentalist, and again,

Starting point is 00:03:00 you have so much awesome content out there, I'm so thrilled to have this opportunity for us to talk. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I've been looking forward to this too, because I love the show. Oh, thank you. So can we talk about you and just tell us a little bit about who you are, you know, for the five people that might not know who you are. Can you tell us who Nathan Cole is, how your artistic path has unfolded? Sure. So I'm currently first associate concertmaster in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and I've been playing professionally in orchestras for almost 20 years now. I'm starting to feel old. I thought I remembered just graduating from school last year, but that was almost 20 years ago. I'm originally from Kentucky, and there were a surprising number of string players and string

Starting point is 00:03:51 teachers there, it ended up being a really big Suzuki area. A lot of teachers that actually worked with Suzuki in Japan or took courses with him found their way to the Midwest, you know, Ohio and Indiana and Kentucky and Minnesota. And so growing up, there were actually there was a big Suzuki program there. And both of my parents are professional flutists, teachers mostly. And so when it was time to start me on an instrument, violin was a pretty natural choice. and there were lots of teachers there. So I lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where the university is, where my dad taught. I lived there until I was 18. I just had my Suzuki teacher, Donna Weehee. And then from when I was 10 to 18, my teacher was Daniel Mason. And he still is the violin teacher

Starting point is 00:04:38 at the University of Kentucky there. He was actually part of the Heifetz masterclasses out here in California back in the 70s. So that's part of his background. And so I got lots of stories that I probably should have paid even better attention to back then so that I could remember every detail. But I remember some, and it was great to have that perspective, obviously. After that, I went to Curtis. I was there for four years. And at the very end of my fourth year, I got a position as principal second with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. And so I decided to, you know, after my bachelor's degree there, I just decided to start working because I loved chamber music so much in school, the chamber orchestra idea really appealed to me. I wasn't

Starting point is 00:05:21 sure if I wanted to be in an orchestra per se at that point, but chamber orchestra and getting to sit principal sounded fun. And so I played there for two seasons, played in the section of the Chicago Symphony for nine seasons. And that's where I got to know my wife Akiko, who's, she was a violinist in Chicago as well. And now she's out here as well. She's assistant concertmaster here in LA. So that's how I got here and basically what I've been doing. That's wonderful that both of you are able to work this way. And I'm going to put this in the show note. You have a great podcast together called Stent Partner for Life, if I'm correct. Yeah. You know, if there's one thing I knew about you early on is this, the guy knows how to practice. So I'd like to get into the

Starting point is 00:06:04 nitty gritty details of practicing with you. I've had some incredible guests on the show and we've had amazing discussions on listening and practicing mindfully. And I'd like the two of us to dive further into the minute concrete details of what could help the listeners practice better. Yeah, I love that. Can we begin, if that's okay, with time management? You have a family, you have so many things to handle, orchestra job, some personal projects and recitals. How do you manage your time? Like, what does a day in your life looks like? Well, it's something I do struggle with, and I am always feeling like I can do better.

Starting point is 00:06:43 That I don't feel like I have all figured out, but I think partly that's because life keeps changing too, as it wants to do. Before I didn't have kids, and now I have three kids, and they get older, and as we were talking about, they go to school, and so suddenly these days now I have a little more time. So there's probably not one typical day, but easily the most important thing when I've felt successful with time management is when I put it down either on paper or on the screen a calendar app but blocking out the time to work whether that's going to be solo violin practice

Starting point is 00:07:20 you know just what we're talking about regular practicing or if that's going to be planning a course or recording a podcast or whatever it just it has to go in the schedule and I mean now that's a necessity because I have obviously a job that happens at certain times of the day and kids have their schedules that I have to live with. But I noticed even when I was just a single guy living in some apartment and I had all 24 hours of the day to do whatever I wanted, I did better when I put a schedule on paper and said, okay, I'm going to practice from 10 to 12 and then I'm going to watch a movie and then I'm going to practice from three to five and then I'm going to make dinner. And that's it. Because when I just leave everything open, it seems like I have

Starting point is 00:08:05 more time, but other things just constantly creep up and get in the way or maybe I don't really focus when I work. So for me, I have to put it down. And I know it's interesting, Akiko and I are pretty different in terms of when we like to get our work done. She's more a night person. And when she was practicing for her Chicago Symphony audition, before she got in there, she blocked off time like 10 p.m to midnight and she would just like stay at the hall after a concert and practice then because that's when she did her best work so that that's the biggest thing and then once you know how much time you have like if i'm gonna practice for an audition maybe i want pretty consistently three to four hours a day then you can break it up and i'm sure we're

Starting point is 00:08:49 going to talk about that too i agree with you you know i i think what you said is very important to like Akiko knowing yourself if you know that you're a night person blocking off a chunk of time like this at the end of the day is very smart and as you said again things do creep up when we don't plan ahead and it's probably the same for you guys when you look at an orchestra schedule and if you don't look ahead and you realize on Friday night that I don't know Monday morning's rehearsal has a Don Juan, you know, or Helen Laban or both, this would be kind of a stressful weekend, I think. So I think for me, it goes in planning long-term and short-term as well. So what's coming up this month and what's coming up next week and what's coming up tomorrow and just

Starting point is 00:09:38 kind of filling in the blanks and making sure there's no bad surprise at the last minute. Right. And I should say too, that it works when things are busy too, because when I, when I was not writing down my time, there would be a lot of days where I would just kind of throw up my hands at the beginning of the day. Like I've got two orchestra rehearsals and I've got to do this other thing. I'm just, today's a scratch. You know, I can't, there's no way I can get any work done. But if I look at the schedule on paper, I see, you know, I've got a break here of an hour. I've got another break here of an hour I'm just going to get two good hours done and I'm not going to feel bad about it I'm not going to wish that I had more time I'm just going to use those two

Starting point is 00:10:18 hours because the truth is I you know maybe I just don't need to do this etude every day maybe I don't need to do a full warm-up every day you know I'm gonna one hour I'm going to practice a Mozart cadenza and the other hour I'm going to practice this other piece and that's good work Yes, absolutely. And you know, when it does come time to practice, I talk to students a lot about the importance of priming. And I know that for me, priming can take one minute or it can take an hour. So if I'm just getting ready to practice for the day, and I have very little time, let's say I have an hour to practice, like what you just said, then I might just take a second to think about what I want to accomplish. but if I'm preparing for an audition then I go more intense into maybe getting a yoga session in there and some visualization so you know setting up the space setting up your equipment setting up your body and your intentions for the practice ahead how do you prepare for a practice session what do you think or you know what do you think the ideal way to prepare would be if you

Starting point is 00:11:22 have time? Well, it is important to have a space where you can work. And, you know, I didn't know how lucky I was, I think, in music school to have practice rooms and studios. I think back then I thought, oh, it's just always going to be like this. I'm going to be surrounded by other people playing and I'm going to walk from a great quartet rehearsal into the practice room and then from there into the warm night air and um now you know i'm running from the kitchen to some other room to practice and it's maybe not the ideal setup but here at home i do have where i'm talking to you now is a teaching studio and it's just separated from the rest of the house enough that i feel like now i know when i get in here ah this is a place i can get some work done

Starting point is 00:12:11 and like we were talking even if I just have half an hour I take the 30 seconds to run to this room I'm like ah I'm here the next half hour is mine and it's here in this space and yeah I think for me the most important thing is not to separate the warm-up or not to separate the preparation from the playing I used to have some kind of warm-up routine it was like stretching and playing certain things and okay now I'm ready now I'm really ready to play now I'm ready to listen. And what I realized is that I could have been using all that time already to play and listen. So that doesn't mean that I don't warm up, but it means that in my warmup, I'm already paying attention to the kinds of things that I'm going to be paying attention to in my practice.

Starting point is 00:12:57 It's part of practice. In other words, I feel my fingers on the strings. I hear the pitches a lot more exactly than I used to. I used to just kind of try to get the hands moving, get the fingers moving. So I do temper my expectations. I don't expect to just take the violin out of the case and be playing really fast and really loud. So I know that's not going to work, but instead of just playing a scale or just doing some kind of exercise, I will really listen to the sound and center the pitch. It's very relaxing. So I think when you mentioned yoga, that could be a perfect way i i don't i haven't actually done yoga before so for me it's more it's like yoga of the instrument i guess but but it's that same kind of yeah opening the senses and opening yourself

Starting point is 00:13:44 to the sound that's going to come in i think that's so important what you're saying because this concept of not separating the preparation from the playing is something that i might still forget these days but like you I have kids so there's a lot less time and you know busy commutes and so many things to do that every minute in the practice room counts and I see it in students so often well they'll just be practicing and kind of playing mindlessly through the scales not paying attention to the sound and the intonation and one can help thinking you know how can you expect to sound your best in the repertoire if you are not paying attention to what you sound like in those very crucial moments where you're playing scales and long tones and exercises I think it's

Starting point is 00:14:34 really really important this point that you bring up yes and just to jump ahead because I know we're going to talk about this too but in addition to not separating the warm-up from practice I came to discover for me at least that I was also separating practice from performance in a way that I didn't like. And really, it should all be a seamless transition or as seamless as we can make it. When you're thinking long term, that's one of the best ways to make performance more natural, less scary, less a separate thing that you do, but just an extension of what you're doing in the practice room. And that's what we all want, right? We want to feel like what we're doing in the practice room carries on the stage or into auditions or what have you. So when I say not

Starting point is 00:15:18 separating practice from performance it's what you're talking about paying attention to how you sound all the time and here's one quick thing that anybody can try the very next time they take the instrument out of the case pay attention to the way that you start every time you put the bow to the string many people i've run across whether they're students or professionals they're surprised at how many extra sounds they make before they play and a lot of times it's because they're practicing right they're trying to play a shift a few times or they're trying to play a fast passage a few times and so to get started they make if i had my violin here we could do the noises but i think everybody can imagine themselves holding the bow and the violin you're kind of finding notes

Starting point is 00:16:01 like and there's a few little bows few little squeaks and then you play well what that does is when it's time to perform and you suddenly you know you can't make all those noises everything feels very foreign yes and so the next practice session you have see if every time you put the bow to the string you have a great sound right from the beginning nothing extra some people find that very difficult in it but then it changes the way they practice completely I am nodding and smiling here I agree with this so much it's so true and I'm sure there's equivalent for wind instruments as well but i yes i completely agree with you yeah i think the wind players have an advantage on us there because they must prepare you can't just throw the wind or brass instrument

Starting point is 00:16:49 up to the face and start making sounds there has to be a breath and you know obviously they work on improving their breathing and support and all that but there's always a breath and you know we would do well to remember that too i'm gonna try this next time actually think like a wind player always prepare yeah you know how about practicing when you approach a new piece and you take it from performance to ready how does that work for you well I like to be somewhat organized I don't want to map everything out in advance because that could stand in the way of creativity but I do look to see what are the difficulties you know Heifetz had said that you know you shouldn't be playing a piece that you can't already play like if if you're trying to learn

Starting point is 00:17:36 a piece and there are things in it that you just you can't do then that's not a piece for you and you know maybe we say okay that's easy for hyphus to say because he could do anything but in general you know my i was fortunate to have teachers that that picked pieces for me that would expand what i could do a little bit but they weren't full of things that i just couldn't do so when I open a piece at this point I'm looking for those things that I know are going to take work or that I know are going to take some review like if a piece has a posticato that's one of those things for me that goes away after a little while if I don't practice it so I know okay if I'm playing introduction and Rondo Capriccio so oh like uh Josh Bell is going to be rehearsing that

Starting point is 00:18:20 with us this afternoon so I'm going to keep as keep an eye on his up posticato but if I'm playing that piece, I know I have to start doing some etudes on the postdocado to get that back. And if there are a bunch of passages with octaves, I try to play octaves every day anyway. But whatever it might be, I look for where the difficulties are. And I'm actually going to instead of just working on those passages right away, I'm going to strengthen those things away from that piece, because I don't want to start playing those passages badly and build in some bad associations. So if it's a passage in octaves or thirds or something, I'm going to increase the time that I spend maybe in scales and etudes on octaves and thirds so that when I play those,

Starting point is 00:19:03 practice those passages in the piece, they already feel better and I'm not starting them as difficult passages, if you know what I mean. Yes, I agree with you so much there. We have a tendency, I feel, sometimes to maybe want to skip steps. I see it a lot in my students and I'm sure I was the same way when I was in school, but to make sure to select repertoire that has a gradient that is really suited for the level, which is what you said, where maybe there's a level of challenge, but that not everything is a challenge. It's something that one can tackle and progress, but also it goes with understanding that the technique that we so often don't want to do, it really is there to help us acquire the skills that will then give us this freedom in the repertoire. And it's a tool to get

Starting point is 00:19:55 to self-expression, not just some boring routine that we have to get through because our teacher said so. Right. And that reminds me of, well, it brings to my mind the topic of etudes. I did a lot of etudes when i was young because um you know my teacher dan mason who had studied with heifetz heifetz made them all do kreutzer and don't those were his two big books that he would always teach but um and then i had a gap like i i just stopped doing etudes for about six or seven years um i guess i figured i was done with them and needed a break yeah well i think i was more a little more arrogant than that i probably just thought well i've done the you know it's like i've i've played the mozart three i'm i've mastered it you know now i now it's time for mozart four or you know

Starting point is 00:20:47 i've played kreitzer so now i don't need to play it anymore i kind of thought of it like oh it's like the suzuki books i don't need to do those anymore and oh i had a surprise when someone asked me to record a bunch of the kreitzer for video and to teach them and i was like oh okay well, this should be interesting, maybe a little boring. But I opened the book back up after so many years and tried playing some of them. They were really, really hard. And I realized that some of the skills that were necessary to play those etudes, I had let those deteriorate a little bit or a lot, maybe in some cases. And I went back to my teacher and said, you know what, this etude is troubling me. How do I approach it? What's the key? What's the point of this etude?

Starting point is 00:21:33 And I realized that he had taught me what the point of each etude was way back then, but I hadn't, you know, I'd forgotten after so many years. And so I would encourage anybody to study etudes, make that a regular part of your work, but then also to find out from your teacher, or if you don't have a teacher, a colleague or mentor or somebody, what is the point of each etude? Because great etudes like the Kreutzer's basically have one or maybe two skills that they're working on in each one. And if you're not conscious of those skills when you're working on them, then you can

Starting point is 00:22:08 miss the point. And it's just, it becomes an etude in the bad sense of the word. Like when people listen to you play and they say, oh, it sounds like an etude. Yes. It's a little like if you've ever done strength training, lifting weights in the gym, or I know it's the same for yoga. I've heard it's the same for yoga, but you have to be conscious of the muscles or the muscle groups that you're working in a particular exercise or motion so if you're doing the bench

Starting point is 00:22:34 press for example you need to focus on the muscles of the chest that are doing the work because if you don't other muscle groups will help out and you won't get the full benefit so yeah same thing and you know speaking of etudes this is directly inspired by your um new york phil audition challenge that you held for the first time was it two years ago or three years ago i think now it was three summers ago yeah 2015 okay and i took it because i watch and read everything everything you put out there i watch and read and i recommend that everybody else does too it's really great i can't say it enough but there was i think maybe the second or third week where you talked about etude and now i forget i would have to go i have saved all of these posts so i could go back and

Starting point is 00:23:22 read them, but you had talked about practicing one of the Croats or Etude. And at the time I was preparing for an audition. It was not the New York Phil. And I felt a little bit what I would call audition doubt. I was just a little sick of taking auditions. And I figured that I had played these excerpts so many times that I just needed to play better in general. There's only so many times you can play Don Juan through and so this post came at exactly the right time and I thought you know what I'm gonna have some fun with this audition I'll make the bulk of my practice technique but in a way that is closely related to the excerpts I'm about to play so picking exercises and etudes and scales in relation to what I was working on repertoire wise and I had

Starting point is 00:24:16 so much fun and things went well and you know it completely gave a new aspect to practicing so i have you to thank for that because the idea really came directly from this post about practicing again i forget which etude but well i'm so happy to hear that i'm guessing it was probably kreutzer number nine that's all the 16th notes with lots of fourth finger that was one of them at least it could be I might go fish it out and put in the show notes well but yeah to specifically with that etude and how it related to the auditions um you know when I had to go back and play that etude I just couldn't play it fast at all and I started doubting myself I was in the I guess I was in the Chicago Symphony at that point and I'm like what's wrong with me I can't play a Kreitzer

Starting point is 00:25:02 what's what's going on and then I remember I think I actually found some old lesson notes and this is one that has just really repetitive finger patterns if you look it up kreutzer number nine it'll be like two four three four two four three four and so but really fast and you know in my lesson notes it said you always have to put down two fingers at the same time so like if you're starting with two then instead of putting down four and then three and then four again you put down four and three together and then you can just lift four to create one of the notes but but making that a rule of the etude basically like this is one of the key things you always have to put down two fingers at once and once you build that habit the etude goes from almost unplayable

Starting point is 00:25:46 to actually not too difficult and so it's something that you would never get just from practicing it and trying to make it a little better a little better a little faster is you have to fundamentally change the way you put down the fingers and then it really unlocks that etude And in that audition, you know, we had the Schumann scherzo, which, you know, it's famously difficult for for good reason. But that's one where you absolutely must put down multiple fingers and leave them down and just do some lifting. Because if you're trying to place every one of those 16th notes right when you need it, it becomes impossible and your hand gets tired, it's not going to sync up with the bow and the intonation is going to be all over the place. you'll be trying to fix individual notes rather than fixing patterns. So I remember that being the point of that etude. I think you're right. And I remember having a little bit more fun with the etude

Starting point is 00:26:37 because I would start it with the rhythm from Schumann 2. So on the second 16th and try to mimic the dynamics from Schumann 2. And that's hard. And it was kind of fun, actually. Yeah. Well, that's a great idea. You could try that if you're a violinist to check into playing Kreutzer 9, but in the style and with the rhythm and accents and dynamics of

Starting point is 00:27:02 Schumann 2. Well, that's great. I'm going to have to try that now. You know, this is kind of a segue into something I wanted to ask you about problem solving difficult passages. And I'm going to refer the listeners to your many incredible videos, and I can link a few in the show notes. But Can you give us an example? We've talked about, you know, relating etudes and technique to difficulties in repertoire, but how would you tackle a very difficult passage? Let's say one that is really terrifying. What would be your approach to fix such a passage? Well, so, I mean, would you be thinking maybe of something like in Don Juan, the run up to the high D? Well, that's a good one for sure. Yeah. Okay, let's take something like that. You know, the first step is really identifying what the problem is. It's kind of like, if you go to the doctor and you complain about something, obviously, they're not going to just start cutting you open, or giving you medicine if they're a good doctor. Anyway, they're going to be asking a lot of questions. And some things may seem to relate to you, but and other things may not, but they're trying to build that complete picture. So that's what you have to do for yourself when you're practicing and to avoid the value judgments of this is good, this is bad, or even worse, you know, I'm good, I'm bad. Mostly we say I'm bad. Why can't I get this? You know, I worked on this so much. Why isn't it getting better? You know, these things, not only do they not help, but they really hurt your progress and they hurt your chances of ever pulling these passages off successfully in performance.

Starting point is 00:28:40 so all you're interested in is what's going on and where the difficulties are so like in that Don Juan passage most of us are always worried about the finishing note you know when we practice we want to hit that top D but for most people problems start a lot earlier and I just like to reassure people it's like don't worry that you're not hitting the top note you really you never had a chance to play the top note well because there's some things going on before that where you're just not giving your hand a chance so I would play it slowly but always when I practice slowly I want the sound and the dynamic and also importantly the shape and the bow distribution that I'm going to have when I play in tempo so for that Don Juan passage I might play it at two-thirds tempo but

Starting point is 00:29:29 it's going to be loud you know it's going to be forte to fortissimo and I'm going to use a decent amount of bow on all the notes then as the notes get faster it's a little bit less bow and when i'm making a crescendo each note has more bow i have to put that into the slow practice otherwise it's going to change completely when i speed things up and i'm going to wonder why why didn't this slow practice translate this because the bow is completely different so i would start there so you're keeping the context in mind absolutely yeah it's just it's going to be a slow motion version of the performance. It's not going to be, you know, we'll call it practicing because I'm practicing, but I would call it slow motion performing. And that lets me

Starting point is 00:30:11 feel the first thing I'm looking for, for myself, and this is true for most players of all instruments actually, is where's the tension? Is there extra tension somewhere? And okay, identifying its existence is the first step, but then figuring out exactly when it starts to appear. And so in that Don Juan passage, it's funny, almost everybody who comes through my door, if they're playing that for me, that tension starts almost exactly in the same spot, like same measure. And so we then I would use if I'm doctoring myself, let's say, I'm going to use that slow motion performing to bridge that gap. If I know the tension is starting right here, I'm going to focus on that area and lose all the tension as I go through my slow motion performance. And then after I get used to that, I can see if I

Starting point is 00:30:58 can push it a little further like okay now I've got no tension until this shift right here oh okay so now this shift I I need to work through that without the tension okay now I'm good up until this and once I can get rid of all of that in a slow motion performance then probably a lot of the difficulties have gone away you know if there's still a shift that doesn't feel right I can isolate that and work on it if I'm in the wrong part of the bow then by now I'm probably going to be figuring that out and then i will simply play it faster and not just once and you know it sounds bad let me beat myself up but i play it faster several times maybe instead of 60 tempo 80 tempo and i'll play it five times and see what's happening those five times try to

Starting point is 00:31:44 identify patterns again and just one by one clear the difficulties away and some of them are not going to clear away in a single day. I'm going to have to leave it for the day and come back the next day. But what I'm not going to do is suddenly try to test it out full tempo. Like, okay, I've done all this work. Let me play it at full tempo a bunch of times and see if I can get it. Because that's just setting myself up for failure. And I'm going to leave that day thinking, oh, I failed this passage again. I'd rather say, no, I've done some great work, cleared a bunch of, you know, dirt away. And I'm going to come back for it tomorrow too. I love that you are talking about a real awareness of what's happening in your process. You have this mental awareness with

Starting point is 00:32:27 analyzing what the problems are, really thinking about it. And then this kinesthetic awareness, whereas the tension, monitoring the sensations, all of this is so important and so contrary to what i often see in students or on me on my bad days which is just to play mindlessly over and over in the hopes that things get better magically so this is great thank you so much oh yeah no it's good to have hope but i mean we we couldn't be uh artists or violinists or anything without that but we need to hope in our long-term potential not uh you know not hope and pray for the next five seconds that things are going to turn out all right. Exactly right. Using the scientific method of problem solving a little bit more is sometimes useful. Yeah and I have to say things changed for

Starting point is 00:33:20 me one summer. I was at the same summer program as Midori one time and I got to if she's listening I'm sorry that I spied on you for a little bit Midori but I wasn't watching. I was just kind of standing outside the door. I heard her practice for a while and it was nice. I was just standing outside it was a beautiful day could hear midori practice and um yeah it was as i said it sounded like either performing or slow motion performing and just over and over and i thought why is she playing this over and over when it already sounds good and it wasn't obsessive it wasn't like for three hours but you know she'd play something really really well 10 times in a row kind of slowly and i thought well she probably knows something that i don't like it's probably

Starting point is 00:34:07 important to play things well a lot instead of to play them 10 times you know getting frustrated every time and then hope that you have number 11 is good and then you can stop right and this goes back to what you were saying a little bit earlier in regards to you know practicing in the way that is related to the performance to keep in mind this context of performing in practice yeah definitely I really love that. I could speak with you all day. I know you have places to be. So how about we do a quick round of rapid fire questions before we wrap this up? Sure. So for the people who are dreaming of becoming a professional violinist, can you tell us a little bit about what your life looks like? I mean, we talked about your daily schedule a little bit, but how about something that they might not expect from the life of a musician? Well, that that's a great question. And we do talk about a lot of these things on our show to stand partners for life. That's a lot of the behind the scenes things that you don't see. Well, I think one aspect that we don't often talk about is relating to colleagues. And you can call it people skills, or whatever you want. But it's realizing that unless you're Itzhak Perlman, and you're only going to play solo recitals with no pianists and no conductors and no orchestra,

Starting point is 00:35:26 see even he didn't do that unless you're always going to be by yourself you will always be making music with other people and so it's important to start doing that early and to get as much experience with that as you can playing string quartets playing in orchestras playing with a pianist that's a hard thing that was hard for me growing up just playing with a pianist playing with a grown-up and figuring out, am I with them? Are we together? Should we do something again? How do I ask them if I want it faster or slower? And in my job, I see basically the same hundred colleagues day after day for years or could be decades. And if I'm having a bad day and somebody says something to me I don't like, I have to choose how I'm going to respond

Starting point is 00:36:16 to that and it should be a response that i'm okay with them remembering for 30 years that's a great point how about a performance that has stayed with you throughout the years well one that comes immediately to mind is playing when i was in the chicago symphony and uh daniel barenboim who was then our music director performing mozart piano concertos with him at the keyboard and conducting from the keyboard i just will never forget that sense that anything could happen you know and even though we repeated the performance for three or four nights that week everyone was different and not just in tiny tiny ways but you know tempos might be completely different and it started becoming a game for me i would try to guess what he was going to do at the end of a phrase based on

Starting point is 00:37:08 what he was doing at the beginning and I would think okay I know him now he he played this loud that means the next one's going to be soft and when I was right I was like yeah I get that now I feel like I'm speaking his language but then sometimes he would know the second one's even louder and that's ah how could he surprise me again after I've heard it so many times and and you could feel the audience was playing the same game and it was just it was so different from someone trying to go out there and play well it was just you know it was enjoy everybody in that room was enjoying the music and we were playing chamber music on stage and you know the music was so simple in a way Mozart but um obviously that's why Mozart was a genius yeah that's incredible it

Starting point is 00:37:53 sounds like such a fun experience how about skills that you think and we've talked about many but skills that you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments? Well, I do think that learning to present yourself in some way, obviously, if we're going to be performers, we're going to be on stage. That doesn't mean that everybody has to be a soloist, but you're going to be on stage and you're probably going to be speaking at some point, whether that's speaking from the stage or talking to people before or after a concert or as I say talking to colleagues just to present your idea like you're in a string quartet you want to try something faster you have to practice telling people that you want to try

Starting point is 00:38:35 something faster you want to see what it sounds like for some people speaking is not their first idea of a good time but writing maybe is then it's important to practice writing something write a little piece it you know doesn't have to be a poem or fiction or a story or something but It could just be writing what you like about a piece of music or writing why you decided to put a certain program together and, you know, write it and edit it and publish it, which today is so easy. Anybody can have a website for free. That's true. And some people, you know, you like hosting a podcast, and I like making videos, but learning how to get out of our practice room, and to talk to communicate with people somehow, whether it's in real time, or, you know, as with writing, it's over a span of time. But that's how we're going to remember what it's all about, you know, that we're making music with people, but but for people as well. Oh, that's so true. So good. How about a favorite tool in the practice room?

Starting point is 00:39:37 Well, these days, it's definitely a recorder. And what my advice to people is always to record quickly and often, you know, it used to be when we were growing up, I think it was tape recorders. Well, I think I'm older. With me, it was tape recorders. And, you know, usually what we do is like i would record myself playing a whole movement of something and then by the time i finished that whole movement i didn't want to listen to it i knew it was going to be bad and i didn't want to sit down for 10 minutes and hear the whole thing and mark all these mistakes because back then it was just it was more difficult to record quick things and find them later but with phones and computers and the apps that we have we can quickly just record five

Starting point is 00:40:25 seconds you want to hear how a shift sounds you want to hear if a passage is in tune to record five or ten seconds listen immediately just to that and then fix what you don't like record it again tinker again record again i mean in two minutes you can have that feedback from yourself that's so valuable i do it all the time and i'm constantly surprised at what comes out then you can make real change in just a couple minutes so it's my recorder my phone i guess i would say That's so important. And, you know, I think it's kind of sad the kids today won't know the joy of stop, rewind, play. Yeah, it was impossible. I mean, that's why we didn't record tiny little snippets because we could never find them again. Rewinding back to the last piece.

Starting point is 00:41:10 How about a favorite book that you would recommend to our listeners? Oh, yeah. Well, if there is a sport that you play, then find the book The Inner Game Of, because there's a lot of inner game books. They were written starting in the 70s. Now, there is an inner game of music, which I also really recommend. But for me, and I know that you think about and live that mental approach to playing in a practice all the time. And this is really what this is about. This is what got me thinking along these lines. I read The Inner Game of Golf because I play golf. And it just, it wasn't one of those books that I read. And like a few months later, I thought, wow, that really made, I mean, I read that book. And that very same day, I went out to the golf course, and I was doing things on the course that I'd never done before. I thought well I've just become twice as good a golfer immediately after reading this book and then you know in the same day I completely fell apart and I played some of the worst golf that I ever played and I thought what what is going on I thought like I read this book I thought I discovered the mental secrets like what happened it all fell apart and I realized that it's exactly the same as on the violin you yes you learn those mental secrets but then you have to practice them

Starting point is 00:42:30 And by putting those things into practice in golf, which is something that's not very high stakes for me, I don't, you know, in the end, it's not life and death. Well, I guess even with violin, it's not life and death how I play, but with golf, I could really feel free to experiment. And that was important to me to kind of have that as my playground for all these practice techniques and then to bring them to the violin. And so if you don't play a sport or if there's no inner game book for your sport, read the inner game of music. It's written by a not the original author, but by a bass player who had Mr. Galway's blessing and wrote the inner game of music based on his principles.

Starting point is 00:43:13 That's a great book, too. But for me, it was even more important to try those things out with a different physical activity. So the inner game for me was the inner game of golf. I think, too, that maybe you had a beginner's mind approach to golf, which might have allowed you to feel very open to the principles in the book. I don't know. I'm just guessing. Oh, yeah, definitely. And again, that's why it was important for me. I feel like if I had read the music one first, I would have been resistant to some of the ideas or some of the changes. How about a piece of advice that you received and that you would like to pass on to our listeners?

Starting point is 00:43:50 Well, the one that I've been thinking of recently is performing, solo performing more. And so I try to pass on that advice, even for people who are preparing for an audition. I ask them to get out and play solo recitals, even sometimes during their preparation. or at least i asked them to play their concerto movements not just in a little in a mock audition for friends or something but to find a pianist find a performance space and perform their entire concerto movements with piano accompaniment for people because i remember at one point i think again this was during my chicago years i was frustrated with how something had gone and you know this older you know mentor while sympathizing with me and how it feels not to know that you didn't play your best on stage you know he said why would you expect to play your best this is this was your first time performing this music right or your second time or it had

Starting point is 00:44:50 been 10 years he's like you know do you think joshua bell and these guys do you think they learn a piece and perform it here with us for the first time you know they're they're constant they're playing it with piano they're playing it in different venues for small audiences different orchestras when they come here it's not just that they know the piece but they know how to perform the piece and so you know take it easy on yourself in terms of performing but then do something about it by creating more performance opportunity for yourself absolutely how does that feel for you when you practice with this in mind this performance aspect how how do you feel when you practice with this in mind well a lot of the time I will

Starting point is 00:45:36 actually feel uh that that tingle of nerves that excitement that i get in actual performance when i'm really practicing as if i'm on stage in front of people certain things may feel more difficult in the beginning but i actually i like that because i'd rather know that a month in advance or two months in advance than just find out on stage so i feel somehow that i'm playing for someone. So I often, I might just imagine that there's one person in the room with me, or I might imagine that I'm on stage, but I feel a connection to the listener. It's like I'm, I'm hearing the playing from outside myself. That is such important training too, that I think we skip too often because it can be, you know, it can look scary from the outside. Nathan,

Starting point is 00:46:28 Then how about a quick actionable tips for our listener that they can implement today in their musical lives or in their practice room? Well, I would take a passage that's giving you a problem and find the tempo at which you can play it and make it sound good. And for certain passages, that might be quite a slow tempo, but that doesn't matter. Just find whatever that number is and write it down, you know, find it on the metronome and then play the passage 10 times in that tempo. So that should be 10 times of you playing it well and sounding good, even if you feel

Starting point is 00:47:00 like it's slow. And write down what you feel at the end of those 10 times. Maybe you feel bored, or maybe you feel relieved, or maybe you feel hopeful, whatever it might be, and see if there are any difficulties remaining. Because if there aren't, then you've got a great chance at really making that sound good faster. but that is much closer to the way I practice than probably the way many of our listeners practice where you're they're always hanging out at that tempo that's just a little bit out of reach

Starting point is 00:47:33 or practicing slowly but not slowly enough that it actually sounds good and easy I like to hang out where it's easy most of the time that's so great thank you Nathan where can people find you and find out more about you? Just go to natesviolin.com and everything I do, links from there, articles and videos and challenges like that.

Starting point is 00:47:58 And if you're a podcast person, then you can find my show with Akiko at standpartnersforlife.com or if that's too long, sp4l.com. That sounds great. Nathan, I can't thank you enough for carving the time

Starting point is 00:48:13 in your super busy schedule to sit down and talk practice with me you know i've joked with you before that i think i should add you to the list of my teachers in my bio because i've learned so much from watching your videos and reading your posts and as i said at the beginning of our call you have amazing content out there and i hope everyone listening checks it out you're amazing thank you so much oh no thank you so much for having me on it's been really fun thank you guys so much for listening you can find the show notes for this episode at mindoverfinger.com next week i'll be talking to mark galfo founder of the brilliant practicing

Starting point is 00:49:01 app modacity if you've listened to episode number two you might remember how enthusiastic my guest Jason Heath was about the Modacity app. Well, Jason was nice enough to put me in touch with Mark and he and I had a fantastic conversation about mindful music making and productive practice, which you're going to hear next week. But not only that, I have since downloaded the app and used it and loved it and had students tell me that they love it and had more conversations with Mark and one thing leading to another, Mark and I decided to host a Mindful Practice Month challenge for you during the month of November. So tune in next week for my awesome interview with Mark Galfo from Modacity and for more details on this Mindful Practice Challenge.

Starting point is 00:49:52 In the meantime, I would love to connect with you. So join the Mind Over Finger tribe at facebook.com slash groups slash mind over finger tribe and let's keep the conversation going let me know what inspires you what specific questions you have about mindful practice and what other topics and guests you would like to hear about in future episodes you can also find me on instagram twitter and linkedin i am mind over finger on all platforms if you have the chance please take a minute to head over to itunes to subscribe and leave a review it's very much appreciated it. Again, thank you and à bientôt.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 007 Nathan Cole: Mindful and Efficient Practice Tips from the LA Phil's First Associate Concertmaster

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