The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 111 Ralph Skiano: Preparing Your Next Audition

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 111. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now, your host, violinist, teacher, and high performance coach for musicians, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. I hope you're feeling incredible as you're listening to this episode. I'm really excited about the conversation I bring you today. I sat down and chatted with Ralph Schiano, Principal Clarinetist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and there's so much amazing insight for you ahead.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Before joining the Detroit Symphony, Ralph served as principal clarinetist with the Cincinnati Symphony, the Richmond Symphony, and the Des Moines Metro Opera. He's also appeared as guest principal clarinetist of the Seattle Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra. Critics have praised him for his solo and orchestral performances, describing him as having wisdom beyond his years and the ability to bring the audience closer to the stage, transforming the performance into more of an intimate storytelling. Ralph has toured extensively throughout Europe and Asia with the Detroit Symphony and the Cincinnati Symphony,

Starting point is 00:01:31 and he can be heard in several recent recordings released by the Detroit Symphony. As a soloist, he's been featured with ensembles in the United States, France, Germany, and Switzerland, and he's played as a soloist several times with the Detroit Symphony. He was on the faculty of the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and at the schools of music at James Madison University and the College of William and Mary. An active presenter and clinician, he continues to present masterclasses and workshops at universities all across the United States. In our conversation, Ralph shares with us fantastic tips and tricks on how to practice mindfully, develop a sound process to prepare for auditions, nurturing mental strength, and so much more. You're going to walk away inspired from what he shares with us, so make sure to spread the word and share with everyone you think could benefit from Ralph's wisdom.

Starting point is 00:02:29 Take a screenshot, share on social, and make sure to tag us. Let's go to the show. ralph schiano fantastic to have you on the show today oh it's my pleasure to be here ralph i heard about you several months ago and as soon as i started looking into your work i knew you and i were meant to have a conversation because we seem to share so many points of views and opinions and strategies as well. So this is super fun for me. I'm excited as well. I mean, even though we haven't met in real life, I have read a fair amount about your work too. And so I'm excited to even get some ideas from you. This is going to be fun. But before we jump

Starting point is 00:03:18 in the thick of things, please tell us more about you and your journey and how your artistic path has unfolded. Oh, wow. Well, I mean, currently I'm serving as the principal clarinetist of the Detroit Symphony. And I have been the principal clarinetist of the Cincinnati Symphony and the Des Moines Metro Opera and the Richmond Symphony. And so I guess my journey started in the fifth grade, like I guess many musicians. Well, the fourth grade, actually, I did start to play the viola before I played the clarinet. So I played viola for about a year. And then I switched to the clarinet when the band instruments were available. I just went through the public school music program. I don't come from a musical family. So I was just enjoying playing in school

Starting point is 00:04:10 and I was relatively good at it. And I found a great private teacher. Her name is Marguerite Levin. And I grew up outside of Washington, DC. So she was the principal clarinetist of the Baltimore Opera and she was in the Navy band. And so I was able to hear her perform and she really instilled in me this real love of music um not just like training me for competitions but and I think that was really important for me because I was one of those kids that just would never do anything without knowing why I just kept asking why why why and she always had great answers for me um and then I went to the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and I studied with Richie Hawley the principal clarinetist of the Cincinnati Symphony and he really opened my

Starting point is 00:05:00 eyes to the larger world of music. And shortly after studying with him, I won my job in the Richmond Symphony. And then it's just been Richmond, Detroit, Cincinnati, back to Detroit. Lots of traveling. Thanks for sharing this. I feel like there's so many great lessons for everyone listening to take home and keep in mind. One of them being the influence that a teacher can have in our lives and the importance of the music education in the schools as well. Absolutely. Yeah. I felt really lucky because, I mean, when I look at what's happening in the school systems around me right now, you know, music is usually the first thing that gets cut. And it was such an environment ripe for musicians where I was growing up because,

Starting point is 00:05:49 you know, I didn't even realize this until I left, but growing up in Northern Virginia, we have any number of professional military bands in the area and each band has like 30 or 40 clarinetists in it and so I was able to hear great clarinet playing growing up whereas like you know when I started in school in Cincinnati I was teaching in the high schools around there those and those kids had never heard a professional clarinetist before because there just wasn't anybody near them so um but i do think that the public the public school music programs are really important to support obviously right and as we know it doesn't only teach us about music but so much about life and skills that anyone can use in all aspects of of their future the career family

Starting point is 00:06:41 life so yeah we really need to keep the music education going in the schools agreed ralph in preparation for our conversation i ordered a copy of your book behind the screen a winner's guide to preparing your next audition and i didn't make it far before i started nodding my head hard in agreement the fourth sentence of your preface you mention many things that are at the core of everything that I teach and work on with my students and my coaching clients. And you're talking about how you secured your position as principal clarinetist with the Detroit Symphony and many other orchestras that you just mentioned. And here's what you say. You say that it happened because you stayed curious and by constantly evaluating my preparation methods to make them

Starting point is 00:07:36 more effective and, dare I say, more fun. So let me just say that you and I are speaking the same language. Can you speak more to that here? What that means to you, staying curious, evaluating your preparation methods, how to make them more effective and more fun? This is kind of a loaded question. Lots of things here. I think the big turning point for me probably was when I started thinking about competing, especially in the audition circuit, as just being like almost like a laboratory for solving problems. And so every time I would go out, it was like an experiment and I would learn new things and I would face new challenges. And at first, I think I was frustrated. I think I was, you know, you practice so hard and you go out there and something

Starting point is 00:08:32 unexpected happens and throws you off your game and it can be really frustrating. But once I started sort of embracing each of those new challenges and saying, okay, well, what am I going to do next time so that I'm ready if something like this happens again? It got to be kind of fun and creative because then the next time you go out, it's like, well, I've never really tried preparing like this before. Let's see what works. And I mean, I'll give you, I think I I write about this in the book, but one of my favorite examples is when I remember that, I'm sure you know this feeling, you get behind the screen and it's so quiet. And especially when you're in school, it's like finding space to practice that's that quiet can be really

Starting point is 00:09:16 difficult. So it can be a very unfamiliar experience to be in that kind of silence. And it always made me feel super self-conscious. And like I was aware of so many more things than i wouldn't normally be aware of and the one that was always driving me crazy was like i'll see if i can it'd be like this see if you can hear it yes okay and so i found like my my brain was just like every time i heard that pencil going i was imagining oh yeah that was out of tune oh he missed it and then if i heard this i just figured well i guess they're done listening to me and it would just make me insane while i was it was so distracting and it was i was the thoughts were so unhelpful that i remember after that experience i went home and i recorded

Starting point is 00:10:09 this sound and the page turning and i put it on a loop in my studio while i would do my mock auditions and i would practice thinking about all of the amazing things that they were writing about my playing and when they turned the page they were like i don't have to hear anymore we're going to hire this person. And the next time I went out for an audition, after I practiced that for, you know, probably two weeks or so every day, I went out to the next audition and I heard that sound and what was, you know, debilitating fear before became kind of like a superpower. It was kind of cool. That's what I call neuro associative conditioning. Yeah. And I love how creative you were in, first of all, you talk about laboratory and investigative powers, and you identified

Starting point is 00:11:00 something that was unsettling for you. You set on a course to figure out how to overcome that very creatively. You did the recording, found a way, and made it work for you. I think it's so incredible. It's what makes it more fun for me. And, you know, especially, I just keep thinking about as technology keeps moving, you know, the opportunities for creativity are so much more. I mean, you know, I was working with a student not too long ago and they were asking me, well, how do you prepare for, let's say a final round where you would play in the orchestra? Do you do anything special? And I said, well, yeah, I mean, in the past you would just play along with a bunch of recordings, but now almost every orchestra is broadcasting. And so just go and play along

Starting point is 00:11:48 with the orchestra you're auditioning for even if the repertoire isn't on the audition list find the music play along with them so you get a sense of like where the pitch sits and how they move together and you know and i just think there are going to be more and more and more tools available if you stay creative and curious to solve the problems yes i love this it's such an important tool and to give ourselves permission to go out of the beaten paths of, you know, what would my teacher tell me to do here? So yes, we want to keep those things in mind because usually it's time and tested advice, but also what am I going to do with this if I were to come up with something new and creative and different? And oftentimes so much insight comes

Starting point is 00:12:38 from that. Yeah. I mean, the best and most effective tools for solving these problems often come from yourself, because you know best what you struggle with. Yes. I love that. In the book, you also share at the very beginning of the first chapter, one of my absolute favorite quotes, which I use all the time. And notice here, we're not even in the first chapter yet. We're already been talking for, you know, 10 minutes and we're still at page 15. So if this is not me endorsing this book, I don't know what it is, what is, but here's the quote and people will recognize it. It's the famous one from Abraham Lincoln. Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax. This is at the core

Starting point is 00:13:27 of my approach with mind over finger, which is alignment over effort. Can we unpack this a little bit? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I just think about it in very simple terms. If you fail to plan, you're planning to fail. So for me, having a really clear idea of exactly what I want to do and having all of the tools that I know I'm going to need throughout the process available to me from the very beginning, I can be much more efficient and I spend less energy and less mental bandwidth wrestling with what am I going to be doing? How much time should I be spending? And much more time just engaging with the material. So for instance, you know, it's easy to accept that you're going to have to be practicing the music. You're going to have to

Starting point is 00:14:23 be studying the music. There's going to have to be some sort of a plan in place for rotating yourself through the repertoire, because oftentimes just the sheer amount of repertoire that you're expected to be able to play is so huge that you can't get through it every day. And there's this instinct, at least for me, there's this instinctual habit of only focusing on the technical, scary, quote unquote, scary excerpts, because those are the ones that seem the most difficult. And so without a plan in place, I would just end up practicing the most difficult technical passages and end up completely ignoring some of the beautiful musical moments that I could be making in some of the other excerpts. And inevitably, I would get eliminated for the

Starting point is 00:15:07 simpler excerpts without even having the chance to play the technical ones. So I focus a lot at the very beginning to assemble all of my materials and to make a plan of action so that then when I'm practicing, it's just sitting down and going through the plan. I love that. Another thing that you mentioned a few times already is having this clear idea, this clarity in your approach. And I think it's so important to take that time to identify this. And oftentimes what I see people do is they rush into the action of things without a plan, which is what you're talking about. But this also reminds me of something very important you said earlier, which is you were identifying these thoughts that were so unhelpful. And that's a big one as well, to take the time to also clarify things in our mind in terms of what am I thinking? What is helpful? What is not helpful?

Starting point is 00:16:07 Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Being mindful of the way you're thinking from the very beginning is super important. Because I think of these thoughts as being like little tiny seeds. And when you first get your list together and you're starting to practice, these thoughts come up. And if you don't do anything, then they're going to take root and they're going to grow. And if you're not mindful about which ones you let take root, you'll find out pretty quickly when you get to the audition what sort of like subconscious thinking you've been doing the whole time because that is the voice that's going to come through loud and clear. Yeah. And oftentimes I tell my students, you know, this, this isn't really even at least I, I know you're married to a neuroscientist. So I apologize if I say anything that's not scientifically factual, but to me, it's not even important whether it's true or false. It's just whether or not the thought is helpful. So for example, maybe one that I struggled with

Starting point is 00:17:13 when I turned 40 was like, I can't win an audition anymore because everyone who wins auditions is like 25 years old. It's impossible. I'm too old. And that is a thought that crosses my mind just as I'm making my audition list. And if I'm mindful and I recognize that thought is happening and it's looping, maybe I can turn it into something. Maybe I can think about it in a way that's a lot more helpful. Like for example, I'm not too old to win an audition. I'm experienced, I'm seasoned, and I know the repertoire so well that I don't even have to learn it anymore. Now I just get to perform it. And I think trying to find a way to tell helpful stories from the very beginning, let them take root and water them throughout the process,

Starting point is 00:18:06 then you'll find that the voices inside your head on stage when you finally show up and are under pressure might be a lot more helpful. Really well put. Yes. I hope people are paying close attention because you really get it. This is great. You know, first of all, I think everybody should get your book. And it's really perfect to have you on the podcast because this month, the topic I'm exploring more in the episodes in the Mind Over Finger Facebook community is audition preparation and I feel that in the book you give us essential information in a concise way which I really appreciate and I resonate so much with what you share in the book because your process is really very similar to my process and the process I share with my students and clients

Starting point is 00:18:56 and I love these quick guides that you have at the end so much great information and I really appreciate that you encourage people to inspire themselves from what you share, but also develop their own approach in systems along the way, which goes with what we've been discussing in terms of having clarity of what you want, what you're trying to say, have this curiosity, exploration, all of these things. And I'll put the links in the show notes on where people can get your book. in the meantime while they're waiting for it to come in the mail can you sum up some of the most essential parts of an audition preparation journey and you've already shared a few but can you elaborate a little bit more on that for us sure so let me see if i can just yeah let me

Starting point is 00:19:50 see if i can give you the cliff's notes version um so i spend a lot of time at the beginning assembling all of my materials, and making some sort of a plan for not only my practicing, but also training my body and training my mind. And I feel very strongly that both of those things should be considered practice time. So training my body would just be moving my body in some way. It could be riding a bike. It could be doing yoga. It could be lifting weights. It could be going for a jog. Everybody's different. Everybody's level of physical activity is different. But just recognizing that anxiety is energy and the work that we're putting into the practicing can be really hard on our bodies. So, you know, moving the body, you know, let's go of some of that

Starting point is 00:20:39 excess energy and it just sort of counteracts some of the negative effects that long practice hours can have. With the mental training, whether you're doing visualization, whether you're doing just mindfulness training every day, or whether you've got something like a self-hypnosis that you do every day, just checking in and saying like, am I paying attention to the way I'm thinking every day? I really recommend that people keep track of all of their work on a practice chart, including the exercise and the mental work. I feel very strongly that people should not neglect their fundamentals while they're preparing for an audition. So that is a daily part of your audition preparation should be some, in my opinion, 20 to 30 minute session, just focusing

Starting point is 00:21:24 on your fundamentals. Towards the beginning, I would focus only on unfamiliar or very difficult repertoire. Then in the middle, develop some sort of a rotation system that's equal parts expressive and technical excerpts each day so that you're not practicing just the technical excerpts one day and just the expressive ones the next day. You want to be training these abilities every day with different excerpts. And then as you get closer to the audition, I suggest that people start pulling numbers out of a hat and performing in randomized rounds where they think of each round as being almost like a mini recital. So that you're kind of like, I think of them as unaccompanied works for the clarinet. But every round should have a low point and a high point

Starting point is 00:22:17 dynamically. Every round should have as much variety of expression as possible. And sometimes pushing yourself to think about this particular group of excerpts and how you might approach performing excerpts in different ways if they fall side by side and don't necessarily have much contrast between them can be a creative exercise in and of itself. And then as I get really close to the audition, I don't even record the excerpts anymore or practice them through. I just record the beginnings of everything over and over again so that I'm sure that I'm capturing exactly what I want from the very first note. lots of mock auditions, just to practice showing up for yourself and doing it under pressure and to really learn what your body does under pressure. And then, and I always try to get people to think in a few days before they leave for their audition, how can they just kind of

Starting point is 00:23:08 loosen up and have some fun? Because if you go tight and you're not happy, you're probably not going to play your best. So what kinds of things can you do to really just amp up the joy in your life as much as possible. So I guess that's in a nutshell what I would do. Yes. So much valuable information right there. Thank you so much. So great. And as I was doing when I was reading your book, I keep nodding my head because I agree with everything you said. As I was listening to you, I was thinking also that, and I think that's something you share in the book too, how everybody developed their own system and process. But I think you'll agree with me that from audition to audition, we don't adhere strictly to the process that as we change as

Starting point is 00:23:54 people and as our life circumstances change, the process evolves too. I remember one of the last audition I took after I had kids, I was a little bit auditioned out, if you may call it that. And I was asking the question, do I want to do this audition? Yes, absolutely. I do. And the next question was, well, let's make that process enjoyable. How can I make it meaningful and motivating for me so that I want to show up in the practice room? And I was comfortable with most of the excerpts and I didn't have a lot of time. And I realized that as the ever-growing nerd that I am, I love practicing technique. And going back to that quote from Abraham Lincoln, And I was thinking, I need to just have a really sharp axe.

Starting point is 00:24:44 I need to be on top of my technical skills. And I just started to think of all sorts of drills to practice any of the difficulties that were present in the excerpts. I worked a lot on my mental preparation, a lot of performances. And it ended up being such a fun process because most of my time was spent practicing things I really wanted to practice, inventing new fun drills um taking the rhythm and dynamics of an excerpt and using the notes from an etude for example these type of things and again i was familiar with all of the excerpts on the list right of course but um so for me it's spending the mental time to establish a process and then having fun with it and i love that your book offers this in terms of ideas to establish

Starting point is 00:25:37 a process and also this encouragement of making it our own. Yeah, I think it's crucial because everything changes as you go through life. Your experience level obviously changes. Where the fear is coming from changes. You have children now. Maybe you have elderly parents at home. Who knows? Your life situation changes dramatically. And so even just the way that you're going to approach practicing has to be flexible, but there are underlying kind of like overlaps between all of the processes that you and I and our colleagues have all come up with. And so I think it's important to remember certain things are important, like recording yourself early, like doing mock auditions. These are kind of, for me, some immovable components of the

Starting point is 00:26:30 process. But everything else is just sort of, I mean, as you were talking, I was just thinking about, you know, the practice chart. So the practice chart is kind of a dry tool, but it provides so much information if you're just, if your brain is on, instead of just turning your brain off, if your brain is on, like I just realized you've got this record of what you've done. And I love this idea that, you know, if you look at where you are right now and how you're playing right now, what kind of a musician you are right now, it's a direct result of the choices that you're making in the practice room. So whatever habits you're forming in the practice room are creating the musician that you are right now. And so having this record of what you have

Starting point is 00:27:14 done in the practice room can show you why things may not be working as well as they should be right now. Or, you know, they'll provide some insight into why they might be working better than normal. So for a clarinetist, one important insight I remember having in the last preparation I had was Pines of Rome has this beautiful, soft clarinet solo, like some of the softest playing in the repertoire. And Rhapsody in Blue is like one of the more wild, extroverted, loose solos that clarinet can have. And I found that one day Pines of Rome was going extremely well. And I looked back and I realized that in my rotation system, for whatever reason, I had been doing Rhapsody in Blue right before Pines of Rome. And it was like the flexibility of Rhapsody in Blue was allowing me not to be so tight while I was playing Pines of Rome. And I realized, wow, this is a really effective juxtaposition. And I wouldn't have known that if I didn't have this chart and if I wasn't mindful of what it was telling me. Right. So the record provides so much crucial information. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yes, you have a plan. Yes, you're flexible and you can modify the plan as

Starting point is 00:28:34 you go. But also you have this important feedback loop that's informing the changes that you're making. At the end of every week, I usually tell people like, okay, you had this plan. How's it going? What kind of modifications would make sense based on what you experienced this past week. And I mean, if I have a class of five people who are all doing the same audition with the same quote unquote process, everybody's reaction to the week is going to be slightly different and they're all going to modify it slightly differently. And it's fascinating to see. Yes. And another thing you mentioned that people neglect too often is that tapering out at the end of saving the energy of trusting the work. I think that's what it is at times is people,

Starting point is 00:29:19 as the date approaches start to have doubts about their process and this lack of trust it has us do what i call the stress-induced practicing yes and then we just overwork tire ourselves out but also this has an effect on our self-confidence at you know the subconscious level or maybe the conscious level as well but so this tapering out at the end is so important both emotionally physically, mentally, all of those things. Yeah. I talk to more people who have won jobs who tell me that in the last week or so before the audition, they almost canceled because they didn't feel ready. And then you hear about like famous authors who experienced the exact same thing. The deadline for their book is coming up. And like right at the last minute,

Starting point is 00:30:12 they just think it's a disaster. It's not going to be done. I'm not ready to publish this. And I remember, I wish I could remember who it was, but they were talking about that moment as being like giving them the confidence that they were doing the right thing. It became a welcome guest. Oh, here comes that self-doubt that tells me like, well, you're not really ready. And I know it always comes in the last week. And I know that it's not a helpful, it's not true. And so when you expect it and it comes, it can actually feed your confidence because

Starting point is 00:30:44 you're like, that must mean that I'm like, I mean, obviously some people just, aren't ready. There's no denying that. Yes, for sure. But when you get to the point where, like you said, your self-doubt is just chipping away at your confidence for no reason, reframing it as a welcome guest, like, oh, I know this happens, just part of the process. It's okay. I'm fine. Yes. What you're saying reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my coaches, because as a coach, I have many coaches, because I believe in coaching, and where she was saying the issue is that you're seeing doubt showing up as something's going wrong what if you start to see doubt showing up as this is it this is the process things are going as

Starting point is 00:31:26 should be expected and the accompanying reflection that comes with that can be used as such a powerful tool in what's coming up next yeah you know it strikes me that it's never going to be perfect. And the closer we get to that moment of competition is probably where our analytical mind is spinning at top speed. And it's finding all of the little blemishes at a much higher rate than it normally does. And so I think that's part of what feeds the self-doubt is like you're being harder and harder and harder on yourself, expecting perfection. And so sometimes for me, it's helpful to just recognize, first, it's never going to be perfect. Second, everybody's going to be experiencing the same challenges. They're playing the same

Starting point is 00:32:18 kind of instruments I am. They're playing the same music I am. It's going to be about who deals with those challenges most successfully. No one's going to be perfect. And so just deal with the challenges and embrace that there are difficulties and everybody's facing them and don't expect perfection. But you do continue to refine as much as possible. So much great wisdom. We're going to have lots to talk about if we meet in person one day. Ralph, how about a round of rapid fire question before I let you go? Okay, sure. For the people who are dreaming of a career that resemble yours,

Starting point is 00:32:55 can you tell us a little bit about what your life looks like? Sure, yeah. So I think one of the things that I didn't quite realize was that I would have to be self-motivated in a big way. I think that I was always someone who was kind of motivated by others, by being around people in the practice room, by competitions, by auditions. And so that has come as a huge surprise to me. I mean, it seems like it would be obvious, but maintaining your workflow, keeping your artistic standards at a really high level,

Starting point is 00:33:28 despite, you know, the lack of real consequences. I mean, you might have a bad performance, but it would be hard to lose your job. So that's one thing. And the other thing is that there's a fair, I guess it goes arm in arm. There's a fair amount of unstructured free time that needs to be managed. And what's kind of interesting is that it's kind of opposite normal people. You know, your weekends are spoken for. A lot of times your evenings, your Friday evening is spoken for.

Starting point is 00:33:56 You're busy when other people are relaxing. Right. And so, you know, that is that that does make things interesting. We miss all of the football tailgating parties. Exactly. And even if you go, you can't have anything to drink because you have to work later. Exactly. Yes. What's a habit that you have that you think contributed to your success? Probably. Well, two, probably I love to plan. So and I'm like that in my real life as well.

Starting point is 00:34:26 and the other is probably just this it's just a natural curiosity I just like to know how things work I like to optimize so that's served me well those are really good what skills do you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments Ooh, that's a tough one. Definitely communication skills are valuable anywhere. So I think public speaking, any chance that you have to learn how to be a more effective and compelling communicator is probably going to be well worth your time. anything in technology you know if you have sort of a natural interest in audio engineering or video production or you know it seems like now students are expected to be a little more fluent with these tools than than we were when we were growing up but I think going as far as your interest will take you into those domains will just it's just more and more value to what you

Starting point is 00:35:33 can bring to an organization. I think that it's possible that even symphony orchestras are going to be looking at the hiring process a little bit differently in the not too distant future. So having skills, even in arts administration capacities, whether it's like learning how to do some fundraising, learning how to do some marketing, I think those skills are going to become more and more valuable to the organizations as time goes on. Many great points there. Do you have a favorite book that you would recommend to our listeners? I guess the book that's had the biggest impact on me recently is Atomic Habits by James Clear. I'm sure you're familiar with this book.

Starting point is 00:36:16 Great book, yes. I just love it because it's such practical advice about forming habits. And I find so many different ways that I can apply it to my everyday life, not just like preparing for big high pressure situations, but also just structuring life so that you can be at your best in general. So I suggest that to every student I work with. That's a great one. How about a piece of advice that was given to you that you would like to pass on to the listeners? You may be familiar with Benjamin Zander. No. He wrote the book, The Art of Possibility. And he is one of the most charismatic people I've ever met in my life. And I had the opportunity to work with him for a full week presenting a concert and watching him

Starting point is 00:37:09 interact with students and then watching him interact with just like the general public as he led us through this concert. And he has an unending amount of energy and enthusiasm for what he does. And he is the one that has drilled this idea into me that you just need to remain in a growth mindset. Remaining in a growth mindset makes it easier to, well, obviously keep growing and not getting stuck. But also even things like receiving feedback or dealing with setbacks. If you're stuck in a fixed mindset, you're more often defensive. You see people who maybe do something better than you and you just think like, oh, I'll never be that good. But if you stay in a growth mindset, all of these are just opportunities where it's, you know, you might

Starting point is 00:37:59 see somebody who does something better than you. And instead you might think of them as a possible mentor. You might think, oh, well maybe so-and-so can help me learn how to double tongue or do this other technique that I don't really know how to do yet. So number one piece of advice, cultivate a growth mindset. I love this. This is perfect. The other thing that I have just been experimenting with in my own practicing, and I would be super curious to know, have you ever heard of non-sleep Deep Rest? No. Okay. There's a guy, Andrew Huberman. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know the Huberman podcast? I love this podcast. I actually was sharing an episode that he talked about the micro-rests. Yeah. So that's what this is. Yeah. Okay. The micro-rests. Okay. Yes. I'm

Starting point is 00:38:45 familiar with this. So he coined this term non-sleep deep rest, which he claims will enhance learning ability by up to 50%. So if you do like half an hour of practicing, especially when you're talking about fine motor skills, like technical passages, and then like we've always known that while you sleep, your brain sort of forms all of those connections for you, you know, so it can be really helpful to practice at night and then come back in the morning, you know, and your brain has done so much work while you slept. So he claims that by doing 30 minutes of non-sleep deep rest or NSDR while you're taking a practice break, that it has up to 80% of the same effect as having a good night's sleep does in terms of the neuro connections that end up happening. And I just

Starting point is 00:39:35 discovered this like two or three weeks ago, and I haven't had a chance to really put it into practice yet. But I think if I could get two or three solid practice sessions in in a day, I would split them up with this non-sleep deep rest to really like cement the learning. Yes. I think I need to go pull out the link of that episode. He mentions that when he talks about micro rest, he mentions that he talked about it in the previous episode. I'm going to have to catch because these episodes are really long. They are really long. There's a shorter one where they go into where he talks about the benefits of it a little bit more actually, where Tim Ferriss is interviewing him.

Starting point is 00:40:16 So on the Tim Ferriss podcast, you can find where he interviews Huberman and they talk about it in that one, which is not much shorter, but it's still like two hours long. Yeah, Huberman is wonderful. Ralph, you just mentioned the second book that you wrote. Could you please tell us a little bit more

Starting point is 00:40:36 about these amazing resources that you've created for musicians? Well, sure, yeah. So I've got the one book called Behind the Screen, which is basically an outline of my audition process and some suggestions about how people might be able to make their own audition process with this as a jumping off point. That book was written kind of as a letter to myself about all of the lessons I'd learned along the way.

Starting point is 00:41:03 And in addition to that, there was a resource that I had also created for myself, which was a collection of these almost like mini scores where I could multitrack myself and play through a Brahms symphony with the clarinet solo. And I found it to be so helpful to get the music into my body, into my mind in such an indelible way. So as part of the writing project, I decided to also publish those. And that book is called Little Scores for Audition Success. And it's kind of companion to the first book. That sounds amazing. Both of them, I think there's information about them on my website, which is just ralfschiano.com. Fantastic. I'm going to put all these links in the show notes for the listeners. Finally, how about a quick actionable tip that the listeners

Starting point is 00:41:48 could implement today in their musical lives? Try to record yourself and listen back at least once a day. I think that it's something that we only reserve for like special occasions, and it offers a shortcut to the real problems. And I think so many of us waste time playing the things that we play well, rather than zeroing in on exactly what the issue is. So I think try to record at least one thing every day and stay in touch with the sounds that you're actually making. I think the other advice I would have is to just zero in on the problems. Practicing is problem solving.

Starting point is 00:42:36 So, you know, when you have a problem, stop and work on it. Don't just play through it and assume that it's going to get better on its own. You know, think of the problems like a wrinkle in your shirt while you're ironing your shirt. You've got to like put some pressure on it and work the wrinkle out to smooth it out. That's what practicing is. It's problem solving. It's not just performing.

Starting point is 00:42:57 So much great advice. Ralph, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your wisdom with the listeners. Thank you for the invitation. It's really great talking with you. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this chat with Ralph Schiano. I also hope you're ready to jump in and take action today on the tip he shared with us at the end. It's one of my absolute favorite ways to practice.

Starting point is 00:43:32 So in the coming days, record yourself and listen back at least once a day. Or if you do multiple sessions in a day, at least once a session. As Ralph says, it offers an amazing shortcut to the real problems. and it helps us zero in on what the real issues are. So try this in the coming days and join me on Friday, November 12th at 10 a.m. in the Mind Over Finger community for a discussion on this topic. I want to hear all about your experience and your view on this. And I know that recording ourselves during a practice session is something that maybe feels daunting to some of us,

Starting point is 00:44:14 but it doesn't have to be. It can be so much fun, actually. Trust me, there are ways to make it not only effective, but also easy and fun. That's one of the things I recommend the most to my clients. And I'll share some strategies to get you started and not only benefit from recording yourself, but really start to enjoy it. So get started right away and join me on November 12 for some more tips and tricks on this. You can find the Mind Over Finger community at facebook.com slash groups slash Mind Over Finger. If you relate to this conversation, please let Ralph and I know by getting in touch with us and let's keep this discussion going.

Starting point is 00:45:03 I'm Mind Over Finger on both Instagram and Facebook and he's Detroit Clarinet. Now, if you're looking to take your practicing and performing to the next level, I have something for you. As I've shared with you in the past episodes, Practicing for Peak Performance, my performance preparation workshop is now available for download. If you're looking for a process that works and that will allow you to enjoy more efficient practice sessions, gain confidence, and perform at your best today, check out Practicing for Peak Performance at mindoverfinger.com. When you join PPP, you gain access to all the recorded content that's over seven hours jam-packed with information, guidance, and effective high-performance systems.

Starting point is 00:46:01 You get detailed handouts and worksheets, access to the PPP Facebook group community for support and answers to all your questions, and for a limited time, a complimentary private 30-minute coaching session with me. One of the participants has this to say about practicing for peak performance. For a long time, I've had this belief that learning an instrument is difficult and hard work or that it has to be and there's no other way. Only a few weeks after PPP, I'm starting to feel that change. My everyday practice sessions are now filled with freedom and ease. And another participant shared this. During PPP, I realized a major shift had happened at some point in my musical history. When I was younger, I frequently accessed the flow state and I was fearless.

Starting point is 00:46:57 As I progressed, the pressure to play perfectly became quite overwhelming. And even though I've been able to improve my performing, I haven't been able to access true flow in years. I'm excited that PPP has allowed me to recognize and unpack this on the journey back to fearlessness. Thank you. So, if that sounds like the kind of results you'd like to experience, head to mindoverfinger.com right now and access all the tools that will help you transform your practice, gain confidence in your process, and start performing at your best today. As always, I'll have all the information related to this episode in the show notes. You can find them via your podcast app or by visiting mindoverfinger.com. While there, you can also find more information about mindful and efficient practice, performance preparation, and how to work with me.

Starting point is 00:47:57 And don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to receive your free guide to a productive mindful practice using the metronome. So that's it for today. Again, thank you and à bientôt.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 111 Ralph Skiano: Preparing Your Next Audition

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