Are you prepared?

Have you ever gone into a performance, audition, or important rehearsal feeling unprepared? No shame—I have. If you have too, you know that it is not fun.

How do we make sure that we are adequately prepared ALL OF THE TIME? 

I like to think about preparedness in two broad categories: general and specific. Both types of preparedness are essential for any successful performance. Having one doesn’t necessarily ensure that you have the other. Let’s define each of these categories.

General Preparation:

How well are you prepared to do any one thing on any given day of your life? This is your baseline—your general preparedness.

In your playing, general preparedness takes many shapes. Can you play all of your scales? Can you articulate lightly and cleanly in all styles? Can you play in tune across the entire range of the instrument? 

While these skills certainly require a lot of practice, they aren’t necessarily tied to a particular performance. In fact, they are applicable to any and every performance you give. Therefore, they are examples of your general preparedness.

Specific Preparation:

Unlike general preparedness, specific preparedness requires the contextualization of a specific performance.

Examples of specific preparedness include being able to play a specific piece without stopping, memorizing your music for a performance, or mastery of a difficult passage in your music. 

These skills are related to but not the same as your general preparedness. 

So what?

Now that you know there are two main types of preparedness, how can you leverage them in your daily life and practice?

Knowing which type of skill you are building, which is the first step, is vitally important. When planning my practice sessions I like to ask myself what each task will accomplish. Will this help improve my general preparedness or my specific preparedness. It is crucial that you properly balance your efforts toward each. I believe that increasing your general preparedness should be the focus of your practicing on any given day, week, or month. As you approach a performance or audition, shift your practicing to become increasingly specific. Practicing your fundamentals well in advance and with purpose will increase your general preparedness—your baseline—so that your practice for a specific concert or audition can be more efficient and focused on artistic decision making. 

Here is an analogy:

Imagine LeBron James and I were to participate in an impromptu football throwing contest. Although neither one of us are professional football players, only one of us is a professional athlete. The pro being LeBron, if that wasn’t clear. Although neither of us have extensive specific preparation for the activity of throwing a football, his general level of athletic preparation would almost certainly allow him to win the contest easily. 

Much like LeBron is simply more “ready” to throw a football farther than I am, we as musicians can increase our general readiness so that when an opportunity presents itself we can perform confidently and successfully. A high level of general preparedness allows us to feel secure in our fundamentals and focus our efforts on relevant specific tasks when needed. 

If you’re preparing for a major performance like a solo recital or an audition, you’ll be much better off if you have all of your fundamental skills in shape through diligent daily practice before you embark on undertaking any specific repertoire. Your specific skills build off of your general skills. You won’t need to learn your pieces and build your skills at the same time. You’ll be able to maintain the fundamental skills you’ve already developed and focus on learning the new repertoire and expressing yourself through your performance.

This is how professional musicians are able to prepare large amounts of difficult music at an extremely high level. Years and years of building up general preparedness allows experienced performers to prepare for specific events very quickly and efficiently. As an aside, this is why live music is (rightfully) so costly. You’re paying the musicians for the years they’ve spent preparing themselves in addition to the one rehearsal and the gig. Alas.

The takeaway:

Too often we get caught up in increasing our specific preparedness. Neglecting your general preparedness in favor of pursuing specific goals may seem necessary, especially when you feel short on time, but will always result in a slower learning process and a less consistent result. 

Increasing your baseline performance level will pay off every time you perform.

Take the time to build up your general preparedness. Yes, it will take a long time. Yes, it will be worth it!