practicing in private

[katygrasslady]

I read a reference to 'playing in the woodshed for years' and it got me to wondering. I tend to practice more when no one is around and I've been wondering why. Is it performance anxiety, or are we being courteous? I do remember once in college a housemate yelled down the hall 'could you PLEASE play something else now!". You guys know when we're learning a new song we sometimes have to play it 10 times in a row to get it down. Do you find it drives people crazy? Why are we practicing in the woodshed? Are other musicians more accommodating, or do you have to have 2 woodsheds in a 2 musician household?
Kathryn

[JeffD]

The ability to ignore the other persons practicing is well developed at my house.

[senglish70]

I do practice more when no one else is around, luckily I'm the only night owl in the house so I practice most when everyone else is in bed(turning a box fan on high in the bedroom will drown out almost all picking and most strumming too). But I also practice a lot when everyone else is up - sometimes drives my wife crazy, sometimes she tells me not to stop. Wish I could get a new song down by just playing it 10 times in a row. I bet I've played through the same song 10 times a day for the last week and I can't
remember the whole thing through yet. I wish I had taken up playing much earlier in life when I could remember so much better and wish I could play by ear too - I just started trying with "Happy Birthday" and if I'm not tone deaf I am at least "tone hard of hearing".

[greg_tsam]

...and wish I could play by ear too - I just started trying with "Happy Birthday" and if I'm not tone deaf I am at least "tone hard of hearing".

You can do it but it'll take time. It's like a muscle and needs exercise. I live in a two musician household right now and she's a professional while I'm a hack. I play in the house and as long as she has her "cave" (detached garage) to run into I'm OK.

[jaycat]

My best friend went to Berklee and we were roommates together. He took arranging courses and had to learn to play lots of different instruments just a little bit to familiarize himself. In the end, it was the clarinet that broke up our happy home.

[Mandobart]

Part of the reason I go out and play in bars is the family doesn't like my playing....But I do prefer to practice when no one else is around. May be subconscious, but no one bothers/interrupts me when I'm fixing dinner or doing the dishes, cutting grass, splitting wood, etc. But as soon as I sit down with an instrument its "hey could you help me with...." or "when are you going to fix the..." etc.

Seriously, practicing in private is fine, and preferable, but without regular playing/jamming with others your progress will proceed at about 1/3 speed.

[catmandu2]

... it was the clarinet that broke up our happy home.

Spurious effect! The clarinet is actually a very mellifluous and dulcet-sounding instrument...but when it goes wrong--it goes very wrong!...very easy to produce loud, shrieking, SQUEAKS!...with just one finger--any finger--being just a little off. Oboe is another notorious for not being very subtle

Do you find it drives people crazy?

...do you have to have 2 woodsheds in a 2 musician household?

Yes, crazy. Yes, definitely--two woodsheds

[FLATROCK HILL]

You guys know when we're learning a new song we sometimes have to play it 10 times in a row to get it down.

If I could 'get it down' after playing something 10 times, I would be thankful. And my wife would be extremely thankful.
I've run over Jeruselem Ridge so many times it's become Jeruselem Gully.

[jaycat]

Spurious effect! The clarinet is actually a very mellifluous and dulcet-sounding instrument...but when it goes wrong--it goes very wrong!...very easy to produce loud, shrieking, SQUEAKS!...with just one finger being just a little off. Oboe is another notorious for not being very subtle

He was no Benny Goodman, believe me. He wasn't even Steve Allen playing Benny Goodman.

[Ryk Loske]

If you are truly practicing~studying and working on technique or phrasing ..... the constant going through a few bars can be brutal for the "other(s)". Piece repetition can certainly lead to non-peace ... but it isn't as tough to take as chunks.

We are a two musician household and do practice in two different areas.

Along the lines of the question ... you may want to read my signature.

Ryk

[stevedenver]

practicing in private
to me-its like meditation of sorts
the metronome, quarters, eigths, sixteenhs, thirty seconds, trem, triplets, endless scales and intervallic stuff, etc.

practicing accuracy, then speed and then the phrases i need to smooth, over and over

while i dont care if someone hears, id rather not worry about it, because im certain its mindnumbing to all else

ten times??!!!! -thats nothing-its ten, plus the ten for each advance of the metronome to gather speed and accuracy in muscle memory, and another 40 for every phrase that i cant get, or, that i need to learn to 'imbed' so thoroughly i can recover if i get derailed at speed and have to come back in

this music stuff is a PITA......LOL

and thats why i practice in the music room , with the door shut when my wife is around-the dogs have yet to protest
or the basment when the amps are used

when i would hear my son practice/ play, who l dearly love and i love his music, enough is enough
even with him-im usre he felt the same

[keebler]

I find I can focus better when practicing in private..

[JonZ]

My kids grew up listening to me practice. Once they learned to play their instruments, they already knew a lot of bluegrass tunes.

[JeffD]

I tend to practice boring stuff, at least boring to listen to. Scales and arpeggios and exercises and stuff. The advantage is there is not much entertainment value - nothing catches the casual listener's mind. Easy to ignore.

When I work on a tune however, I do prefer to be alone. It can be just as boring I am sure, especially if one does not care for the tune I am working on.

When I practice the fiddle I am irritating, so I try to do that entirely alone. I even wish I wasn't there.

[Cecily_Mandoliner]

My hubby has excellent hearing, and the ability to tune me out. He's gotten used to my noisy hobbies. Before music, there was weaving, which has it's own weird rhythm (thunk, rattle, clunk, thunk, rattle, clunk).
We don't have a music room, so I sit on the piano bench (facing away from the ivories) and pick and strum. He tunes it out, unless something weird comes out and then he'll mention it (so I can make it stop). Strumming is hard for him to tune out, though. My mandolins do project the sound in our little house!
Occasionally, I can sing in front of him, but I do have that "performance anxiety" then.
I do sneak in a little extra practice time in the morning when I'm alone (he works nights), when I should be getting ready to leave for work...
I'm glad that the season is almost spring-like or summery (we've had snow every Thursday for 3 weeks now!), so I can try playing on the deck or in the enclosed porch.

[Phantoj]

wish I could play by ear too - I just started trying with "Happy Birthday" and if I'm not tone deaf I am at least "tone hard of hearing".

"Happy Birthday" is kind of a tough tune to play by ear, IME. I can play OK by ear, but I find it a lot harder than most other simple melodies. I think it has some big jumps and it doesn't start on the tonic.

[nickster60]

I tend to play when no one else is around. I have played the saxophone on and off for many years. When I first started I enjoyed the alto sax. I progressed to tenor, but the last straw for the ex girlfriend was the Baritone Sax. She said "either that sewer pipe goes or I do". Well she was the first to go and Baritone left later. I do miss that horn, nothing gets your attention like one of those. Kind of sounds like a ocean-liner in the living room.

[Londy]

Practice is essential for a musician and those in the house understand that. My playing is pretty much ignored...but my beagle is usually at my side. However, I always get pulled away to do this or that and it frustrates the crap out of me. Therefore, I play late at night but try not to play too loud.

[bmac]

My wife doesn't even complain anymore.... She just endures my efforts. But in fact if possible I believe one needs privacy to practice anything effectively, or an instrument for sure... No one wants to hear your mistakes but wihout mistakes no one improves. some people feel that to hear someone practice should be "entertaining" but it never is.

[David Rambo]

Both my wife and my son suffer from migraines, so I seldom practice with them around. I did buy a Mandobird VIII so I can practice with them in the same house, just not the same room. It seemed to be the best compromise.

[woodwizard]

The ability to ignore the other persons practicing is well developed at my house.

At my house too!

[ash89]

i (and the dog!) tend to wake up first in our household,
so it's coffee and playing/practice for me
while watching the
morning emerge over the east coast.
although i am more comfortable now with playing
when the others start shuffling around in the kitchen
as i'm getting a little better...

i only get ribbed by the wife when i play something on
the 'twangy' side, as her tastes don't quite go there...!

[Bertram Henze]

Yes, practising is 80% bad music and bad music can be torture (they tried it with Manuel Noriega). I have different scenarios and different motivations:

- in the house: I practise with my acoustic instrument and loudly so, because my two neighbors are loud themselves sometimes, and this is my way to say thank you; as a side effect, it helps build the bloodymindedness I need for a calm performance.

- in the backyard or in a hotel room: I practise with my electric instrument and earphones - too many people around whom I either don't know or who don't deserve to be tortured.

[Andy Miller]

I'd much rather practice with nobody around, it's easier for me to stay focused and get things right. I have to put my dog in the other room and shut the door, she sings along. We have sort of a stalemate there.

My ex basically doesn't like the sound of the mandolin. It was hard practicing anywhere in the house when she was around, knowing that it bothered her. That problem simply went away.

My upstairs neighbor says he doesn't mind hearing me practicing one bit, in fact he claims he's tempted to come down and listen and watch. I bet he'd feel differently once he got a taste of what the repetition and stopping and starting and breaking down into phrases and the metronome is really like up close. But I'm glad he doesn't mind it coming up through the floors at him every morning.

[Tobin]

I usually practice alone in the bedroom with the door shut. Not so much to keep my wife from hearing me, but to block out the noise from that damnable television that she insists on owning (and using). I'll also play on the front porch when the weather is nice. No neighbors within earshot. If I want a receptive audience, I'll play for my horses. They love the mandolin, and will crowd around me out of curiosity. Sometimes I have to swat them away because they get right in my face.