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The Musician's Way - Book Review |
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Music Appreciation
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Written by Chad Criswell
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A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness by Gerald Klickstein
Every experienced musician understands how important it is to practice properly if we are to achieve the highest levels of performance on our instrument. Yet effective practice and performance techniques are not instinctive to us. A student must be taught how to do these things if they are to one day master their craft. In The Musician's Way, Gerald Klickstein teaches the reader how to be a better musician, starting with proper and effective routines and venturing on into techniques that will help a student maximize their use of time both in and out of the practice room.
The Musician's Way is divided into three parts. The first, titled Artful Practice, deals solely with the art of practice. It covers issues such as the importance of recording yourself during rehearsals, finding ways to organize your practice time, and then continues into three chapters dedicated to what the author refers to as "practicing deeply." In these chapters he shows ways that a musician can more effectively practice difficult materials and master challenging passages by breaking them down into meaningful segments, rehearsing them, and then finally reassembling them into the completed melodies. All of these ideas are familiar to us as as mature adult musicians, but for amateurs mastering these concepts is essential improving their musical abilities.
Part two of the book deals with Fearless Performance, and begins with a topic that every musician can relate to, that of stage fright and performance anxiety. Stage fright can be a debilitating disease to a young musician, and as Klickstein points out that fear of performance often becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as the musician also becomes scared to practice in the weeks leading to the big event. Klickstein spends a lot of time discussing how to defeat stage fright before it occurs, covering the importance of things like acclimating to a performance venue and developing a regular performance routine. It is my belief (having gone through this myself) that those students that learn how to overcome stage fright at an early age will come to enjoy practicing. Those that do not will struggle with it and never achieve as much success as those who do. This section alone makes the book worth it for any struggling college student.
The final part of the book titled Lifelong Creativity focuses heavily on the prevention of work related injury. As musicians we are so vitally dependent upon our ears, voices, and hands, yet we often ignore the warning signs that we may be inadvertently injuring them. Two full chapters are dedicated to these topics, covering the importance of posture, voice care, and body alignment to prevent repetitive stress injuries from occurring. It also delves into how to physically treat the practice and performance environment to reduce their likelihood. The final chapters are dedicated to helping student musicians realize and plan for how to achieve their goals and how to guide themselves toward more fulfilling careers.
The Musician's Way by Gerald Klickstein would make a wonderful tool for all aspiring musicians to have in their bag as they head off to study their craft. For serious and dedicated students it is even more important to get this information into their hands as early as possible. While it takes years students to develop their own personal routines of practice and performance, providing this information to them at an earlier age will help them achieve their greatest potential as musicians.
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