The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 019 Amy Beth Horman: Success Mindsets & Practicing Habits

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 19. 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 hope you enjoyed last week's conversation with Anthony McGill, Principal Clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic. I'm still incredibly inspired by his mindful approach to focus and performance. And today I have another great interview with you. I speak with Amy Beth Horman, host of the podcast Beyond the Triangle.

Starting point is 00:00:55 Amy Beth is a graduate of the Paris Conservatory, where she studied with Gérard Poulet, and she's a seasoned concert violinist and widely respected pedagogue. She's appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras and continues to give recitals and concerts in the United States. After running a very active and competitive studio in the D.C. area for many years, Amy Beth relocated to San Francisco with her family where she is now a violin professor at the San Francisco Conservatory Pre-College. On her Instagram account Ava Luhu and I'll have a link to that in the show notes Amy Beth documents and shares her daughter's Ava's journey. Ava is eight years old and her dream is to become a professional violinist and following her musical adventures is yes, adorable, but also tremendously interesting and inspirational. Amy Beth shares a lot of insight

Starting point is 00:01:54 in her posts, and there's so many great takeaways for us followers. In this episode, Amy Beth and I discuss guiding young musicians toward a professional career, and more specifically, the mindsets and practicing habits she thinks they should acquire in order to reach their goals. She has wonderful wisdom on the dispositions that can make a huge impact on the progress of young and less young musicians. And I think you'll find this chat highly valuable. Let's go to the show. amy beth horman i'm so excited to have you on the show today i'm so excited to be here thank you so much for inviting me amy beth as i mentioned in the introduction you're a performing violinist pedagogue adjudicator and the conservatory mom of the very dedicated

Starting point is 00:02:53 talented and adorable Ava which is how I first heard about you and I've been following Ava for about a year now it's so inspiring to follow her growth as a musician and to read your posts and hear your perspective of her journey both as her mom and as a fine violinist yourself and this past September you launched the Beyond the Triangle podcast which is a podcast focused on the art of raising young classical musicians it's an incredible value-packed program i love it and i strongly recommend that everyone listening to the mind over finger podcast check it out first of all i feel like your approach to nurturing our musicians is so holistic as you say in one of the episodes all of this goes beyond the nuts and bolts and once the technique is well established

Starting point is 00:03:47 and the foundations are solid, the goal is to help the young artists find their own unique voice and figure out what they want to say with their art. And we hear this message come across in your episodes, and I think it is so important and so inspiring. Thank you so much. And what I also love is that you go into great details in the episodes. You cover all the facets of what is required for young artists to reach their goals and accomplish their dreams. You give us facts and data, but you also make it really relatable through anecdotes and through your personal stories. And you talk about everything from basic practicing techniques to creating solid relationships in the music world and preparing for performances, nutrition, growth mindsets, competition, youth orchestra, scheduling,

Starting point is 00:04:39 networking, emotional health, and so on and so forth. And I find that this information is not only valuable for young artists and their parents, but for musicians of all ages and all levels and backgrounds, you know, from professionals to amateurs. I know that for me, it was really interesting to reflect on my own experience as a young musician and to re-examine things from my current various roles as a hopefully ever-evolving professional musician and as a parent. And I want to talk to you about the podcast a little bit more in a few minutes, but before, I'd love for my listeners to get to know you a little bit more. So can you please tell us about you and your musical journey and how you got to where you are and how that artistic path has

Starting point is 00:05:30 unfolded. Sure. So I started violin when I was in kindergarten. And apparently, according to my mother, I asked to play the violin when I was three, after seeing a soloist play with the National Symphony. So I was very adamant that I wanted to study the violin. And I think as most parents of three-year-olds go, my parents were both musicians, but they looked at me and said, well, that's wonderful. And when you're a little older, we'd be happy to start you on the violin. And I just kept asking. So I apparently was so persistent that my mother had to sit me down at three and say, I know you want to play violin, but it's too early right now. And asking me every day is not going to make it come any sooner. So can you please remember to ask me when you're

Starting point is 00:06:20 in kindergarten? And as soon as you're in kindergarten, I promise you, we will start violin and she told me that the first day of kindergarten well first of all she told me that I did not ask after that so I did listen and I did not ask after that conversation because I had been told to cool it basically and then she said to her surprise on the first day of kindergarten I came right home and I looked at her and I said so when do I get to start violin and she said she knew because I had been silent for so long and then had come home and asked the question she thought, wow, she really does want to start the violin. So I did. And I started with the Suzuki method with a wonderful teacher in our area who's still there. And her name is Patty Hurd.

Starting point is 00:07:03 And she and I are still in touch. And then when I was about 10 or 11, she was very gracious and helped us realize that it was time for us to start with another teacher for more advanced training. And she assisted us in identifying a few possible teachers, one of which became my teacher and his name is Jody Gatwood. And he was the, or he is the former concert master of the National Philharmonic. So I started studying with him, I think around 10 and a half. And then I was, I think, 15 when my dream of going to the Paris Conservatory realized. And I ended up moving over there and starting at the conservatory with Gerard Poulet and studying with him for four years. And so that's my basic training in violin. Of course, I had many, many people

Starting point is 00:08:09 along the way who were at festivals and helping me out with all sorts of musical and emotional growth. But that's where my training comes from. And then when I came back home, I was kind of regrouping because I had my first cycle and also, I guess it would be the equivalent of an artist diploma, but I'd completed the third cycle over at Paris Conservatory, which I bet you know well, Renee? Yes, it's a similar thing in Quebec. So I came back from that and was competing internationally and doing a lot of performing, which is what we were doing over there as well. And while I was in the middle of negotiating my next steps for education and continuing my career, my mother actually became very ill and she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. So when that

Starting point is 00:09:02 happened. I ended up taking a hiatus from performing because I quickly realized that I was not going to be able to meet some of those demands with her in and out of the hospital and some things happening without us being able to know the scheduling. So I ended up taking a hiatus from performing and competing. And I began teaching, which I had done a little bit in Paris with the help of my teacher. And I had enjoyed it in Paris, but of course it was rather intense because I was doing a lot of competing and performing at the same time. And I think I'd grown up a little bit by the time I came home as well. So when I started it, initially I started it as a way of kind of keeping my artistic things going while this transition in my life was occurring and while

Starting point is 00:09:49 I was taking care of my mother. And I just fell in love with it. And I liked it more and more. I was working with lots of different levels and lots of different ages. And, you know, eventually after my mom passed, my career, you know, was able to thankfully blossom again. And I was able to perform an awful lot and do a lot of concertizing and was under management for a long time. And in that period, I kept teaching. So I ended up kind of mixing the teaching with the performing, which, as you know, is a bit different. and then I had a few years where I started to have a family and now I have three kids so inside of that whole period of time I now have an older kid who's 19 and then I have

Starting point is 00:10:41 an eight-year-old and a six-year-old so lots of family growth happening and and then we had the studio kind of growing much larger than we anticipated that it would my private studio so it became a little bit more difficult for me to manage the especially the concerto performances and right now we're kind of in transition trying to figure out since we've moved out to the west coast you know how to balance all of those things together so I think that's a brief synopsis of what my life has done in the last 20 years of working as a musician. That's a great journey. And you know, we really feel this passion and this love of music and musicians that

Starting point is 00:11:30 you talk about when we hear you talk about your students and listening to the podcast and seeing how you truly and deeply care for every aspect of their development and growth and their successes and very, very inspiring. Thank you. And what about Beyond the Triangle? What has prompted you to create this podcast? Well, you know, when I moved to California, it was about a year and a half ago,

Starting point is 00:11:58 and I made a decision to take a little bit of a break and to acclimate, you know, my kids and my family to a new location. And also it was around that time that we made the decision to have Ava study with not just myself, but with someone else as well, because it seemed like the best thing for her as a person. And so there was a lot to adjust to. And I decided that I would take, you know, a fairly large chunk of time to just, you

Starting point is 00:12:31 know, be with the kids and make sure that they had some traction in their new school and in this new conservatory environment. And certainly Ava had never been taught by anybody but me. And I missed the teaching quite a bit. I was still doing some Skype teaching and a little bit of teaching on the side. Of course, I teach Ava. And I feel at this point we're kind of co-teaching, but I do a lot of practice with her. So it's all, it's not as if it ever stopped.

Starting point is 00:13:00 My teaching brain never stopped. But I started connecting with other teachers in the area and I knew a few before I even moved out here. And we all have such similar feelings about things. We have such immense pride for the students and we care so deeply for them. And we also care very deeply about the music and how it's being presented and just sharing our love for performing. And then we also share the same struggles about how to convey to both the students and the parents, you know, how we feel about, you know, moving on this journey with them and how to do it in a way which really serves each unique, you know, individual child because they are so different. And so I started engaging more in conversations with other teachers and with some of the other parents at the conservatory because I was appearing in the conservatory really as a studio parent, which was a new twist for me because I had never been in that position before. so I kind of found myself in in the cafe at the conservatory and I'm just Ava's mom which is of course one of my favorite things to be and you know when you're a musician you wear many hats but it's definitely one of my favorites to be Ava's mom and they didn't really know that I was

Starting point is 00:14:22 a teacher so I was listening to you know their concerns about things and also their triumphs and certain situations and how happy they were to receive good news or to have a wonderful lesson or a successful rehearsal. And it started to really move me to start writing. And as I spoke with more and more parents and teachers, it seemed like maybe there was a lack of information for this level of training for the parents. So, you know, I remember in Suzuki, there's just this wealth of parent education about what to expect and what their role should be and what they should be doing. But what I was finding in talking to parents at the pre-college level was that they didn't really have a clear idea of what they should be doing some of the time. And their

Starting point is 00:15:16 intentions are always, you know, very, very strong and good, but they seemed a little anxious about certain things and they held a lot of those anxieties in common which was interesting to me and then I found myself having some of those same feelings but I was feeling fortunate also because I have enough of a background to be able to talk myself down out of the anxiety so I could after a rehearsal that was a little bit rocky for Ava I have the capacity thankfully to sit down with myself and think about what I could have done differently and to use the experiences that I've had as a musician in rehearsal to soothe my own anxiety and develop a strategy to maybe re-approach in a different way. And then I can go on with my day. But for them, without that

Starting point is 00:16:09 previous knowledge, it's a little bit harder road to travel. And I think because a lot of them are not in the lessons as much anymore. And of course, we're trying to allow for there to be space so that the children can, as tweens and certainly as teens, learn to take on their own voice and their own responsibilities and find initiative. You know, it's our job as parents to take that step back. And we know that. But then there's also things that they can't do for themselves yet and that are not reasonable to expect them to do so there's this shift that's happening I think in parenting at that juncture and how that relates to the training of a you know a very talented artistic child it's an interesting mix of things so I I began thinking of it in new ways I think

Starting point is 00:17:04 in large part because I found myself on the other side of the fence you know I was sitting with all these parents and I really shared a lot in common with them. So I had a few friends which, you know, who are here in California and they were urging me to try to put some of this down and have it available to other people because they really felt that it would be helpful. And I hesitated for a while, but then I decided, you know, at this stage with things at a little bit of a teaching lull, which is happening for me as I'm regrouping and trying to find new ways of balancing my own life, that this was a good thing for me to be doing. So I started it in the fall. And I have to be honest, I think the response is just really surprised to me and in the most delightful way,

Starting point is 00:17:55 because I hoped that it would be helpful. Of course, I hoped that. And I think it has been much more so than I could have ever imagined. And that gives me such a sense of purpose. So I'm very gratified by that. It's just been a wonderful, a wonderful new thing for me to take on. And, you know, hopefully it'll go on for much longer. Oh, it's fantastic. And I have to tell you, I hope it comes out as a book eventually. Oh, that would be great. I'll be buying the book. And, you know, it's so interesting for me to sit there and listen to these episodes and sit here now and listen to you speak, because whenever I listen to your anecdotes and all the tips that you give us, I kind of see my own experience with my mom. And it helps me see things from her perspective when she was doing all of these things for me when I was a kid. And I am now a mom of an eight-year-old and a six-year-old.

Starting point is 00:18:59 So it's a lot of food for thoughts for me, for sure. And like you say, you know, there's behind every professional musician, there's a whole team. And it takes so much help and wise guidance at home. So for a parent who does not necessarily have a huge knowledge of the music world and the music path, it's so wonderful to have this resource to go to. And you really lay it all out for us there. It's really fantastic. Thank you. Amy, Beth, it was very hard for me to pick questions and topics to discuss with you today because I want to talk to you about all the topics. but i i was thinking that we could brush up on a few down-to-earth practicing items and then my

Starting point is 00:19:46 listeners can find everything else on your podcast how's that that sounds good the first thing i was curious about especially given your vast experience both as a performer and now as ava's mom was regarding mindsets and techniques and i know it's a broad question and it's a broad topic but In your opinion, what are the mindsets and the practicing habits or techniques that you believe are essential and that young musicians should establish? Well, I'm a really big believer in growth mindset, which if anybody's listened to the podcast, they know that straight off the bat because it's something that's really helpful to us and our family.

Starting point is 00:20:28 And it certainly has been very helpful also in my educating young musicians. And for Ava, I think it has been really instrumental in helping her move forward. So, you know, with growth mindset, it's just about believing that you may not be able to do something right now, but that if you are in a positive state that you can, with diligence, produce the ability to understand something and execute whatever technique that is in time. So we talk a lot in our house. I talk a lot with Ava about the power of yet, you know, the word yet that she, if she, and she still does, you know, say when something's hard for her, she'll say, well, oh, this is so hard. And I'll,

Starting point is 00:21:17 and I'll say, yes, it is. It is hard. Um, but you know, you will get it and it's just a matter of time. So it'll be interesting to see how much time this will take. Maybe it'll surprise us. It might be less time than we think. We'll only know if we get started and if we stay positive and calm and try and approach things in a mindful way. And so she gradually, you know, will come off of that cliff of insecurity and join me in calmly approaching something and hopefully relaxing and allowing some fun to happen at the same time. So mindset is a really big one for me. And then, you know, the other thing that I think is very, very key for young musicians who have big goals of being a professional musician is to develop a really healthy commitment to their

Starting point is 00:22:15 fundamental work, which I think is a difficult thing for some children or some teens to make time for, and even for adults too. I know a lot of adults who struggle to make that time. And for me, it was something that I did every morning. And I still do it now because I actually do it with Ava. So when Ava was in kindergarten and had just started, we would just do 10 minutes or so, maybe 15 minutes. Um, and, uh, it became a thing with her and she originally, when we first started it, it was because she looked out into the music room and said that she felt bad for the violin because it never got any breakfast. And I said, well, why don't we give it some breakfast? And she was five, you know, so it was kind of cute. And, and she said, I never thought

Starting point is 00:23:07 we could give the violin some breakfast. And I said, let's head in. So we would bring in our little, you know, waffles and juice and put them on the table and then do a few exercises together, you know, fun little bow exercises or just open strings or rhythms. And we made our food for breakfast into rhythms and then tried it on different strings. And it just kind of gave us this lightness, this joy together, this time before she headed off to school. And I like to think that it kind of lit her brain up a bit so that she was nice and alert and happy and also that she knew that she was loved and that we had had this kind of mental hug in the morning this mental and musical time together and I still look back on it and it's it's kind of a heartwarming

Starting point is 00:24:01 thing to think about because it started so simply from that one request from her and now we're working you know an hour a day and she still calls it violin breakfast and I think it's one of the things that really made our Instagram kind of grow because people started seeing what we were doing and Ava's always awake in the morning I have to caffeinate for this now especially because we're doing thirds and sixths and octaves and things it used to be easier violin breakfast and sometimes I'll bring Ava to her lesson with her teacher whose name is Davis Law and if it's in the morning I'll tell him I'll say well you get you know get ready because you have violent breakfast this morning and he'll he'll write me back this kind of like laughing okay well I better

Starting point is 00:24:50 have a cup of coffee because you just never know what she's going to want to do with these scales and arpeggios. And sometimes it gets a little more challenging than what I'm ready for. A lot of what we do is child led and we'll talk about that later, but I think it makes for kind of an unpredictable session sometimes in the morning. But I think if everybody would commit to really doing their fundamentals in a way which is mindful and has a lot of intention behind it and found a way to embrace it as something that serves them very beautifully, they would do it. And then it's just amazing to see how that grows in their playing, you know, for the, when they actually hit the repertoire, it makes such a beautiful difference in somebody's ease

Starting point is 00:25:38 and ability to communicate. So to me, that is a really, really good thing for young people to be committing themselves to doing. I mean, anything that's good for you, I think you have to take that moment with yourself and say, okay, obviously this is good. This is something that I need to be doing, but we don't need to do it like it's a chore. It's okay for us to take a few more moments to figure out how we can embrace it in a way which is whole and mindful and thoughtful so that you can learn to enjoy it. And I think it's possible to learn to enjoy the fundamentals, especially when you see what they can do for you and to make it part of your daily practice so that's that's a big one you know for me as a teacher and then I guess the last one is it kind of relates

Starting point is 00:26:28 to that but I I feel that you know with a little bit of planning and charting and we do a lot of charting over here as a practice habit, I think it's very useful to have a plan and to, for us, when we have a chart, we have many things on the chart and it might look really scary to some people, but it doesn't look scary to Ava because she knows that she doesn't have to do all of it. She knows that the chart has a lot of things on it because we see it as it almost like a nutritional chart. So one thing that I tell parents a lot is I remember with my son when he was little, because he was my first, I was just horrified that he wasn't eating some of the right things. And I, when I took him to the pediatrician and she was asking as they do,

Starting point is 00:27:17 does he eat vegetables? Does he eat this? How much of it, you know? And I was just getting hot, you know, in the face because I thought, oh, I just, I'm failing at this. You know, I said, yes, he does eat broccoli. He will eat green beans if I serve them a certain way. You know, he eats apples, but he doesn't like mangoes. And I'm just feeling like, oh no, I can't do this. And she just looked at me and she said, it's okay if he doesn't do it every day. I'm looking for the week. Could you write down what he did in the week? How much did he eat in the week? And then I marked everything like any mother can do this. It's so crazy. I just like wrote this huge list of everything that this little boy had eaten in the week. And she looked

Starting point is 00:27:59 at me and she said, you're doing fabulous. And I said, oh, and I went home and I thought, wow, I've been feeling so awful about this. I've been carrying this weight of failing and I wasn't failing at all. I was just thinking that I needed to do it every single day. And so, you know, So Ava and I do, by the end of the week, we do everything on this chart once or twice. It depends on what it is. But she knows what to do each day and she's getting really good at telling me. So like this morning I said, I said, where are we? Because I'm so tired because it's their first day back after.

Starting point is 00:28:40 So, you know, Lord help me today. It's their first day after winter break back in school. So, you know, violent breakfast was rough for me this morning. She seemed fine. so I said where where are we on the double start stops today what are we doing and she said well yesterday we did uh thirds and then the day before that we did octaves so it's obviously sixths and I said oh so she's got it up on the wall so she knows where we are we don't hit them every day but by the time we see her teacher next we'll have hit all of them once or twice usually twice

Starting point is 00:29:14 and that you know presents a certain body of work for him to respond to and to make some you know good healthy suggestions for our next week of work. I think that's important for people to start doing so that they get an idea of you know what their weekly violin nutrition is and then if you can see it you know on the chart it also kind of provides a little bit of information for if you're struggling with something. So you could actually think to yourself, well, I'm not really able to play this the way that I would like. And then if you look at your fundamental chart, you might see why, you know, and then maybe you can adjust things a little bit. But so often we're just practicing because we know that we have to, and we're not really keeping

Starting point is 00:30:01 track of what we're doing. And then even when we progress past that, if we're working mindfully and we're doing really good work, but we're not keeping a good log of it, it's very easy for one day to bleed into the next day and the weeks go by very quickly. So you just won't be getting as much productivity, I think, as you could if you were charting. The other thing is over the years, I've become a lot better at identifying different etudes and exercises that are good for specific problems that we encounter in our repertoire and one thing that Ava's teacher is phenomenal at is you know she'll start playing something like she's playing a Schubert arpeggio and right now there's this kind of repetitive you know pattern that occurs in the bowing and he noticed that

Starting point is 00:30:56 it was just a little fuzzy and he immediately found a subject exercise he's like oh we should go to opus two and then it's this one is number six and he's he just knows exactly where to go and I have been trying to you know formulate in my head I know that I also do that but I think that he does it um so easily and I think that if we uh were to encourage students to start keeping track of which etudes what what they're actually trying to achieve like what is the best kreutzer for Martellet, or what is the best one for Spiccato, or, you know, there's some really fabulous Kaiser Spiccato ones, which are a little easier. Things that we can use for when we're on the last page of the Saint-Saëns introduction, Rondo Capriccioso, we go, okay,

Starting point is 00:31:47 let's go to Kaiser 26 and do it in an easier format. And if we had kind of a running log of these things, it would be an arsenal of sorts so that you could not feel helpless with these tremendously difficult pieces and you know they inherently have these spots which are so viciously difficult that we could look at that and go well that's going to be okay because we're going to do these three preparatory exercises in the next three weeks together they don't need to be perfect but they're going to get us going so that we understand how to do a really clean beautiful spiccato or how to do a really brilliantly released martellet and then when we have to do it in these in charity or in the show pieces, it'll just be that much easier. So I, I think he's taught me a

Starting point is 00:32:33 lot in terms of just being able to respond quickly to that. And I have started to think from his teaching that that's something that I could, uh, in my next round, right, of teaching young artists that I could help them develop that skill to be able to identify and look back and not just to the next etude you're going to do next week, but what's the one that you did two years ago that would help you with this, you know, this passage in your Tchaikovsky or, um, in your lyrical piece even. So, uh, those are my, those are my thoughts about just my best tips to try and get people on track. Uh, these are wonderful. I love the nutrition analogy and it's so true when we keep it varied and balanced, how much more productive we can be. And, you know, I agree

Starting point is 00:33:24 with you about the etudes. And I want to go back to this thing that you mentioned first, which was this joy that you talk about. And I love how you talk about, you know, the breakfast, violent breakfast, what do you call it? Yes, violent breakfast. You talk about violent breakfast. And it seems to me like you're creating this beautiful relationship between Ava and her violin. And, you know, I think that some of us coming from older generations, we seem to be struggling a little bit sometimes with really harsh inner critic. And we know now it's scientifically proved that this is not productive. And I think that introducing kids

Starting point is 00:34:07 to performing an instrument with really prioritizing their joy and their awareness The practice and also the enjoyment of the music itself is so important. I really love that. Yeah. And just the disposition of the child. I know for Ava, you know, this has been a really big game changer, whether her disposition is in the right place. And so, you know, I actually had my father here last night. He's visiting San Francisco and I saw him working with my little one, my other daughter,

Starting point is 00:34:46 my younger daughter's name is Freya and she's six and she's just starting to explore in a joyful way how to play different instruments and the instrument that she's exploring right now is xylophone and he was trying to teach her how to do the blue danube and to do, you know, he was doing on the piano, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And she was going, beep, beep, beep, beep. And he was telling her how to do it in solfege. It was possibly the cutest thing I will see in 2019. And we just started.

Starting point is 00:35:15 So that's crazy. And I was watching this. And there are too many changes between the notes that she has to do. So she was able to get through the first couple of bars. But then she became a little frustrated. And once she was frustrated, I saw her disposition shift, right? And she wasn't really as open. And I watched to see what he would do.

Starting point is 00:35:38 And it's interesting now that I'm a parent and a teacher to watch him working with my daughter. And he said, you know what? Let's do something different. How about you just play on the black keys? You can't make any mistakes right now. And he played this accompaniment that he's come up with on the piano, which will match any black key.

Starting point is 00:35:55 So you can just play on any of those keys and you can do any rhythm and none of it will be wrong. and her whole face just lit up with joy because she realized she couldn't make a mistake anymore and she was free to just express herself and she was using different rhythms and she was sometimes kind of doing these glissandos with one hand and she returned to a more joyous you know able state and then he was able to teach her the rest of the blue danube so he actually moved her from one disposition to the other. And he was able to do it very seamlessly. And it reminded me, you know, maybe this is where I get it because I know that he used to do these things with me when I was

Starting point is 00:36:39 little. And here I am with Ava every violin breakfast. You know, there are things that come up which are frustrating, but the most important thing for her to be able to learn is for her to be happy. And it's, it seems always that we have too much in a list of practice things to get through. but it's never worth sacrificing the disposition because when she's happy and she feels expressive and relaxed, she learns so much quicker and whatever it is goes in deeper and it's there the next time. So it's actually worth it, I think, with kids. And I think this works all ages, even adults, that if we feel that frustration and like you said, that inner voice, that inner critic we have to learn ways to shift our disposition and ways to help children shift

Starting point is 00:37:31 their disposition so that they can become you know so that they can return to a state where they can learn beautifully and that way their association with the instrument remains beautiful rather than this chore that they need to get something perfect or or right yes alignment over effort it's such a great reminder and it's so important in a different episode we're going to do a little uh transition on a different topic in one episode you talked about spaced repetition technique and i really like this and you and i both know that this is again scientifically based um way to practice and i will put a link in the show note to which specific episode I'm referring to, but I think it's very important. And I would like for you to talk to us

Starting point is 00:38:23 a little bit about this technique, the space repetition technique. What is it in a nutshell and why do you think it's important and how is it effective? Okay. I'm so glad that you want to ask me about this because it's one of the things that I'm really excited to talk about. And I don't think it gets enough. I don't think it gets enough talk time. So even though I did an entire episode, I think on this, but I think spaced repetition has completely changed my life. And when we were doing Suzuki, you know, way back when, there's a lot of repetition in the fundamentals and in the foundational studies. And I completely understand why that is so, because there's so much that you're learning at once. But I think there comes a time where once you have some of

Starting point is 00:39:06 those things established, and it may come earlier than some people believe it does too, I think you can start doing spaced repetition in your practice and what how I describe it is and how I think people have understood it when I've tried to explain it before is to tell them that it happened to me by accident and it happened to me because I became a mom and because I was teaching 40 hours a week and I was still having to play concerti not having to I was blessed with the opportunity to play concerti and I had to practice them and so there was really not multiple times in the day that I could sit down and practice. There was one time in the day. And especially if I were learning things on a tight schedule, this was a problem. Or it seemed to me initially that it was

Starting point is 00:39:54 a problem because I thought, how am I going to make any progress if I can only get in one practice on these new materials and particularly on a tight timeline? And I was on this list of emergency soloists. So sometimes I would get hired to play something in eight days and I didn't know it. so that was difficult for me to stomach you know like okay do I need to cancel my whole schedule do I need to bring in child care so I kind of ended up trying to do you know one big practice when I felt like I was you know grounded and able to work well and then I would have an entire day where I wasn't able to touch those materials and then I would wake up the next morning and I would try it again. And there were spots which my body had absolutely no memory of whatsoever.

Starting point is 00:40:41 And that was upsetting. But then there were other spots that if I just tugged at it a little bit, it would pop and it would come right back up. And I thought, wow, I might have practiced that yesterday if I had had time, but I don't know that it would have done me any good. So I started looking and researching a little bit to figure out why I was retaining some things and not others and what I could do to maybe maximize my practice sessions and just the placement of them and the scheduling of them. So it was kind of astonishing to me, some of what I read. And it basically states in a nutshell that if you practice something that at a certain level, it does not do you much good to be mindlessly repeating it. That this drilling and repetition

Starting point is 00:41:28 that a lot of us do, mostly out of anxiety, I think, and fear that we're going to mess up, that that actually doesn't move us forward. But that instead what we should do is that we should space that practice from the next one. And then the timing of that should be almost exactly at the point where your body has no memory of it. So if you were to imagine like a tank, If you fill up your tank with information, then the next time you hit it should be almost at the bottom again. So the thing about that is if you're doing something which is incredibly complex, you might hit the bottom of your tank a little earlier. So those were the things where I had no recollection because they were so complex. Maybe they were 20th century or they were just way up high and their architecture was difficult, but my body had no memory of them.

Starting point is 00:42:24 So I probably hit the tank earlier, and I would have had to have gotten up in the middle of the night. But the other things, which were a little bit easier, still hard, but not as hard, I was at the bottom of my tank. So I was almost at an empty tank of memory, and then I was able to surge it. And that actually produces a better, more long-lasting result. It's kind of like when they tell you when you get a new appliance to let it go completely, you know, void of battery and then to surge it. So these are the images that I have in my head about how to handle. So now when I practice and when I do Ava's practice with her, we think about that. And we think about, you know, this morning in Violin Breakfast, where we usually just do fundamentals, there was something in her Sibelius yesterday from her six pieces that she's doing.

Starting point is 00:43:19 We did something which was hard for her, and I changed it, so it became a little harder. And so today, I just spent three minutes in her Violin Breakfast going over it because I didn't want the tank to go dry. uh so that's a spaced repetition from her session yesterday where she rehearsed with piano and that was at um three in the afternoon and i knew that if i waited until uh three o'clock when she gets home from school today that her body would not remember what it had worked so hard to achieve in that rehearsal yesterday so i make notes you know of these things so that i can be really strategic and how I place things inside of practice from one session to the next. And it also, it prevents us from repeating things before it's necessary so that we can hit other

Starting point is 00:44:11 things and find more variety in our work. And I think that helps us stay happy and engaged because we're not just doing the same thing over and over again. And particularly if it's not going to yield progress. So I don't know whether that explains it fully, but that's what spaced repetition is. And I encourage everyone to read up about it because it's not as easy as just saying, well, we're going to practice now and then we're going to put some space in between and then practice again. I mean, certainly we've all had, I think everyone has had this phenomenon where they have a good night's sleep and then they wake up and they play better. And that's also spaced repetition because you were sleeping, but it could also be during the day, you know,

Starting point is 00:44:57 not during the nighttime. So I think that we have examples already in our lives, which do indicate the success of spaced repetition, but we have to be prompted a little bit to think about it. So if everybody would do that and figure some of those things out and then do some further research the way I did, I think that they would find ways to really optimize their practice. Yes. Oh, this is so great. It's like this act of recalling the information to the brain that seems to be really, you know, ingraining the information in the way that's different or maybe bringing up new information that we had not noticed before. This is really great.

Starting point is 00:45:41 yes and the timing of it yes another turn here i'm sorry i'm taking you all over the place but again i wish we i wish we had so much more time on instagram we have the privilege to watch your daughter ava evolve and grow as an artist and i know how important this position and mindsets are for you when it comes to her as we discussed earlier and i feel that it makes a big difference when it comes to motivation of a child. Again, as we talked about, what are some of your findings watching Ava go on her path

Starting point is 00:46:15 to a professional career that you think are interesting or useful or important? And you think that might be helpful for our listeners? Well, Ava and I, because she started so early and because we had kind of,

Starting point is 00:46:31 you know, the good fortune of having a lot of time together, it allowed me something that I think a lot of parents don't necessarily have, which is the time to just watch her exploring with the instrument in a supervised kind of way. So I think when I've spoken to parents before about, well, have you allowed them to explore and maybe do some child blood exercises, they get a little bit stumped, like, well, what does that look like? And if we do that, are you sure that we aren't going to risk them doing something incorrectly? Or it's just kind

Starting point is 00:47:06 of a foreign concept to them. But because I'm a violinist and I'm a teacher, I'm able to kind of watch her, you know, start her brain kind of deciding, well, I think I'd like to play this, you know, in this way, or what if we, so frequently right now, she'll say, well, what if I started it on an up bow? And I think most people's response to that, most parents that I know, studio parents definitely would be like, no, no, it's a down bow. And, you know, in essence And that I understand why they're doing that, because it is marked as a downvote. And so we think that as a studio parent, we need to do things as we're instructed. But one thing that I think has helped Ava an enormous amount is that giving her that time and space and encouragement to really work her versatility and to be working those fine motor skills in ways which are a little bit unexpected and allowing her ear to come forward. and for her to trust her ear to lead her to something which is fun. You know, so when she said she wanted to do her three octave scales

Starting point is 00:48:11 in the rhythm of jingle bells, that sounds ridiculous, but we did it. And it took a little longer than I thought it would. So I know some parents would have been like, well, aren't we supposed to be doing, you know, the other 8,000 things on our practice list? But we had time, so that one day we did it. And then because I'm a violin teacher, I was watching her do jingle bells in her three octave scale.

Starting point is 00:48:38 And I thought, okay, this is insane, but I think this is useful. And look at how she's having to figure out her shifts better. And it's making, you know, the time between the shifts in certain spots a little quicker because of the rhythm. And so then she has to know where her half steps are. And this is crazy. she's having to template up and down and she's joyful because she's singing jingle bells in her head. So then we started doing it more and more. So the fact that I allowed that to happen

Starting point is 00:49:11 sparked, you know, pedagogically this thing in our house, which has been quite useful. So we still allow, and I say allow, it sounds like it's, you know, something that we're allowing her to do. She just does it. And she'll ask me, for example, she asked me the other day if she could play a minor scale. And then she said, can you start your scale, the same scale, but starting on my second note? And I looked at her and I said, I don't know how that's going to sound. I didn't want to tell her it was going to sound bad because I'm really against predisposing her to something being hard or bad or ugly or I just I want her to discover it so I said I don't know how that will sound and she said I don't either but I just want to know and I said okay so we played it I thought she would stop because it sounded awful you know I thought she would stop but instead I saw her starting to try and tune it and I thought this is so weird but she's tuning

Starting point is 00:50:15 minor seconds and then there were these pockets and I can't even describe where they were because it was so weird but there were these times where we weren't playing in dissonance anymore and she told me she said those sound like sunshine to me like suddenly it sounds good and then it would go back in the clouds and she was so fascinated by this that she's wanted to do it a couple of times sense. Nobody else wants to listen to this but Ava. But I'm convinced that she's ear training. She's memorizing intervals. There are all these wonderful things that are happening from this crazy little exercise she wanted to do. And it's really only two or three minutes of our time. But it's allowing her to, first of all, you know, retain that beautiful disposition

Starting point is 00:50:57 that she's pretty good at finding. But like all kids, you know, she needs a little help maintaining. And it also lets her ear kind of lead the way. So it empowers her so that she knows that it's okay for her, for her to explore. So, you know, inside of that, I think the things that have been the most useful for Ava, I know probably people might think that it's, you know, her working and practicing a lot. And, but I think the thing that has helped Ava the most is the child-led exercises, us engaging in that together and embracing it as being not just fun, but also taking a second to acknowledge that it's pedagogically very useful. And then also allowing her to discover things on her own. So the decision that we've made, both I've made

Starting point is 00:51:47 this decision and I've also encouraged her teacher to not predispose her. So when we started Octaves, I did not tell her that they were difficult. I just said, you know, this is, there are eight spaces between. I showed her, she said, oh, eight, oct, octopus. You know, she started listing words with oct. And then I said, yes. And then we tried it. It took her a second to figure it out. And then by the end she was getting some of them in tune. And she said, these are like peaches. They're really juicy. And I said, you know, they, they are. And she said, they ring a lot, like the juice and a peach. And I said, yeah, they do. And she said, I like them. And I said, well, I like them too. And in my head, I thought, do I like octaves? I mean, I think octaves are so hard, but I do like

Starting point is 00:52:32 hearing them. And it's just, she's taught me a lot in these interactions that if I were to have said to her, look, we're going to do octaves together. Let me tell you, they're awful, you know, get ready. It's going to be, you know, rocky. So focus up. And if I'd said that to her, you know like get ready ava it's going to be really difficult um she would have tensed up and uh i just think just approaching it from that uh from that way from that direction is it has been enormously helpful to her and it's it's actually showed me a lot about where her natural strengths are and i think her teacher has appreciated from appreciated it from the standpoint that he can select literature for her with a lot more confidence because he knows

Starting point is 00:53:19 what she comes by very naturally. And he also can see where she needs some work because there's nothing predisposing her. So she's just kind of coming about it on her own. So those are things that I think have really helped Ava along her way in the last couple of years, especially. I love that and I think that all of us should keep this kind of you know child's approach to things and I love how you don't fill her with these preconception and she can really develop her own concept of things you know void of any kind of idea that well this should be difficult this I you know this example that you gave and her feeling that octaves are peaches I think it's it's brilliant I love it well and I have my own I'm sure everybody does you know it might be the

Starting point is 00:54:10 plight of a professional musician who teaches their own child but I have my own uh experiences with different techniques um and things that I struggled with and so it does take me a moment I have to really have a talk with myself before we approach those things um so that I allow her to pave her own way. And that's been very healing for me to see her approach something that has caused me a lot of grief, but to then be seamless about it and to be joyful. It's allowed me to rediscover some techniques in a way without the same stress. And now I feel differently about them. So there's been a really cathartic set of experiences with technical work with Ava and I haven't actually performed a lot since I got back or since I moved to California, but I'm going to

Starting point is 00:55:06 soon. And I'm kind of excited to see how that translates because there are a few things that have shifted in how I perceive them, you know, since I taught them or since I encountered them, let's say, through Ava's eyes, it's been very different. Amy, Beth, as I said, I wish you and I could discuss all the topics, all of them. And I really hope that we end up meeting face to face one day and have the chance to do just that. But I know you have a really busy schedule. I would love that. Yeah, that would be fantastic.

Starting point is 00:55:39 I know you have a really busy schedule. So how about a round of rapid fire questions before I let you go? Sure. So for the people who are dreaming of a career that resemble yours, can you tell us a little bit about what your life looks like? Well, currently what my life looks like is that I wake up in the morning and I do this violin breakfast routine with Ava, which serves as my violin breakfast. I think we can call it that for me too.

Starting point is 00:56:05 And then I get the kids off to school. I usually have a bit of correspondence to do either for myself or rehearsals or a performance coming up. And now I also have the same for Ava. So applications and formatting programs and recital requests at the conservatory. So there's kind of like a business side to things, which I think all musicians need to learn how to handle that and to do it in a way that doesn't make them feel panicked. and then I do my own practice and then I usually mix in a little bit of just taking care of the house and maybe prepping dinner or just getting ready for the second part of our day so that I don't feel hassled and then I go get the kids and I bring them back and they're usually around during some of my practice a little bit and then I also help Ava with hers and luckily we live in an open

Starting point is 00:56:59 plan. So there's kind of like dinner happening and kids doing homework and one of us practicing. So it's, it's a pretty noisy house, but, but there's certainly a lot of, of joy and there's always something coming up. So, you know, there's always something that we're looking forward to that's either visiting someone or sharing music with someone or another lesson or a rehearsal or an opportunity. So, you know, we love it. And that's kind of how our days go from one to the next. And you just mentioned organizational skills, but are there any other skills that you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments? Well, I mean, I think there's the learning to play the instrument. And then one

Starting point is 00:57:45 thing that I discussed a lot on the podcast was that I just, I firmly believe that we need to just start almost just throwing young artists on stage just as much as possible that they need to get yes or really a really fine sense of how to move in the day in a way which allows them to hit that stage for a little bit so that it doesn't come as a huge adrenaline shock to them but more just part of who they are this beautiful part of who they are so the more the kids perform the the better they get at that. And I think we need to stop thinking that it needs to be perfect. There's this, you know, whole thing with CDs that are spliced, you know, to the ends of the earth and everybody thinks it needs to be perfect. And I think we need to transition that into it just

Starting point is 00:58:31 being honest and where we are in that moment so that they feel comfortable coming from backstage out to the front and center stage and doing what they really love. So that's something that I think needs to happen. And then they do need to learn how to build contacts and keep relationships that, you know, really span years so that they can use those contacts and communicate with those people in a way which serves everyone, not just them, but, you know, even saying thank you and showing that appreciation, it enriches that person's life. So if you were to reach back and thank somebody that helped you a couple of years ago because you just heard that same piece they helped you with on the radio, it helps them feel like they had a purpose too in what they were

Starting point is 00:59:19 doing that year. And those things all add up. So I think when it becomes a little bit more natural for young artists to do that and for parents to do it for them so that they model it, it leads to more music making, better productivity, more creative people doing what they do best. So it's kind of a community thing that I believe in. I love that answer. And you have a great episode about that very topic. Do you have a favorite tool in the practice room? I think that my favorite tool in the practice room is probably those charts, but we also have one that Ava really likes and she really likes those sand timers. So the sand timers are good because they tell us that there is an end to something. So sometimes it's hard for little people and big people to do

Starting point is 01:00:10 what needs to be done and to do it mindfully and calm and to really silence that inner critic and to just put in that really wholesome time with the instrument. But if you have a sand timer and it's on five minutes, you can see that it's not going to be forever. And children are fearful of us making them do things longer than we said. So I, you know, if I put the sand timers up, she'll choose the one and it's become very interesting. I think it's good for parents to try to have a few sand timers, because I'll say, which one do you think you should use for this? And then she'll choose. Sometimes she chooses the longer one. And I think somewhere inside each child, there's this genuine wish to do their best. And we have to work with them

Starting point is 01:00:52 to celebrate that. And so when she picks the larger one, I always look at her and I'll say, I'm so proud that you picked the larger one. Let's get some good time in then. Because she doesn't always pick the one minute. And when she picks the one minute one, I look at her and I say, I understand. It's probably been a long day. Let's see what we can get done in one minute because we're all like that. We all have days where we can spend a little bit more energy gunning for something. And then we all have a day where we're just mentally exhausted, but we can still do something that is a value. So those sand timers, there, it's kind of like a window into what is going on inside of her head and her heart so that I can kind of use that

Starting point is 01:01:32 information for the rest of the day. Well, she chose the one minute timer. So let me just be a little gentler. She's clearly had something at school that has kind of worn her down a little bit. So that's one of my favorite tools in there. I know it's her favorite tool. And they can't always express, you know, these things, these emotional things. So I think it helps. Yeah, it kind of gives me a visual for me to see how she's doing. Oh, this is great. Like, I love the idea of the different fun timers. What is the best advice that was given to you that you would like to pass on to the listeners? I was thinking about that earlier, and I think I've received so much advice, but I think that the best advice that anybody ever gave me was to never play with fear. They just really instilled that in me. And I think as you get older, you start to really live in a way which helps you realize why you should not play with fear. but when you're younger you feel like you have all the time in the world so you feel like well

Starting point is 01:02:39 if I don't if I go out on stage today and this piece is so hard I'm just going to try and play it safe and you know there's being smart and then there's being safe to the point where you're not making music so I try and tell my students to just leave it all on the stage you know whatever it is it's honest it's the best you can do right now you're going to give it everything you have and then we'll learn a lot from that and then that helps us direct the next weeks of your practice because it's never the last performance and they kind of know that they're going to have many but as you get older like I played the corn gold concerto before I left the east coast and that is a terrifying concerto especially in the third movement I was terrified but I just said to

Starting point is 01:03:23 myself before I went out and it was easy for me to say this to myself you don't get hired to play the Korn Gold very often. I've gotten hired to play all the other concertos much more often than this. It's my second time on it. That's weird. I'm surprised I got asked to play it twice. So before I went out on stage, I said to myself, you know what? You don't know that you're ever going to play this ever again with orchestra. So you better get everything that you want out of it so that it's just dripping on the stage when you're done, because this might be it. This could be it for you in the Korn Gold with orchestra. And it helps me because I got to that third movement. And I thought, well, if I don't play this, you know, with absolute abandon

Starting point is 01:04:03 and have as much fun as I can, I may never play it again. I might play it with piano or by myself, but it feels so different and so wonderful to play with orchestra. So I kind of gave it everything I had, but I think that it reflects back on that original piece of advice to just never play with fear because there's never a reason never pays off that is a great advice amy beth you have a quick actionable tip listeners can implement today in their musical lives try to work hard in general to not predispose to certain things so that when we work on uh you know a new piece that has a technique which has troubled us before that we try not to see it as something which is going to immediately trouble us again, that we allow ourselves to encounter things fresh and new

Starting point is 01:04:56 and to give ourselves multiple chances to experience things on different levels. And I think that children teach us how to do that. They do it all the time. So when you watch them, you know, they don't have that same fear when they re-approach something. So whether it's a piece or whether it's a technique or maybe it's a style of playing which has troubled you in the past, that we change as people, that everything about us is fluid and it's changing very quickly. So just like our taste buds or anything else, which can change over time. You know, if you didn't like something a couple of years ago and you get the opportunity to try it again, that you should try it with a fresh set of senses so that you can allow yourself

Starting point is 01:05:40 the chance for joy. Because we do have that opportunity every time something new hits our our stand. I love this tip. This is great. I'm going to try it too this week. Because they're just things that we don't like, right? Exactly. Exactly. I forgot to ask you about your favorite book. Oh, I really like the Carol Dweck books on mindset. And I also really like that book on grit which is by oh angela duckworth oh uh yes the angela duckworth on grit just developing grit and how we approach things and how that's how useful that is in young artists and and how to identify it in a young artist and support it and engage with it so that they're empowered by the

Starting point is 01:06:34 presence of it and also how to build it with kids that don't necessarily have it as immediately but how to kind of help them along their way so that they become a little bit more resilient and a little bit braver because sometimes I think it's just circumstantial or maybe just something that they've you know hung on to from something else and I've seen it work in both directions so no understanding the importance of grit in success and being able to identify where somebody is kind of on the grit spectrum so to speak and helping them helping them grow so that they can really use that tool, which I think everybody agrees comes in super handy in music careers these days. Yes. Yes. Great books. Amy Beth, where can people find you and

Starting point is 01:07:25 connect with you? They can connect with me on email. If they ever want to work with me, they can contact me by email at HormanViolentStudio at gmail.com. They can connect with me on Instagram by going to my daughter's Instagram because we kind of have it together. So that's Avaluhu, A-V-A-L-U-W-H-O. And let's see, they can connect with me by writing to my podcast, which is beyond the triangle podcast at gmail.com and hopefully they can feel like they're connecting to me by listening to a few episodes so now we'll put links of all of this in the show notes thank you amy bet a thousand thanks for the gift of your time today thank you i'm a big fan of both ava and you and i can't wait to see what you have in store for us and i wish ava the career of her

Starting point is 01:08:25 dreams. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Renee. You have a wonderful day. Thanks for having me. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoy this chat with Amy Beth Horman. As I mentioned in the discussion, it was so great for me to get to reflect on my own musical journey and think about the mindsets that did help me reach my goals throughout the years. It's also given me a lot of food for thought for my own continuing growth and things to discuss more deeply with my students. And you know, I would love to hear what your favorite takeaway from today's show is. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at Mind Over Finger.

Starting point is 01:09:16 So please reach out and let me know. Or you can also take a screenshot of the podcast, share it on social media and tag me so I can find it. I'd love to have this chance to expand the discussion on mindsets and dispositions with you. You can find the show notes for this episode and more information about Amy Beth at mindoverfinger.com. And you can also join the Mind Over Finger tribe at facebook.com slash groups slash Mind Over Finger tribe for additional content about deliberate practice and performance. Next week, I'm really excited to be talking to Canadian pianist David Jalbert about learning and memorizing repertoire. If you enjoyed this episode

Starting point is 01:09:59 and would like to help me spread the word about the podcast, please take a minute to head over to iTunes and leave a review. It makes a big difference and I really appreciate it. Again, thank you and à bientôt! Thank you.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 019 Amy Beth Horman: Success Mindsets & Practicing Habits

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.