{"id":204058,"date":"2023-04-14T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-04-14T13:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/?p=204058"},"modified":"2023-04-12T04:18:43","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T11:18:43","slug":"listening-audience-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"A Listening Trick for Better Musical Performance &#8211; The Audience Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When we can play a guitar piece well, we enjoy the feeling of familiarity. We can play it through easily. We may have memorized it.<\/p>\n<p>And because we know it so well, it\u2019s easy to fall into the trap of playing it the same way each time.<\/p>\n<p>So if we want to revisit our piece, how can we bring a fresh approach to it?<\/p>\n<p>If we\u2019ve got an open mic coming up, or a concert, what\u2019s a good way of making our piece more interesting for the audience?<\/p>\n<p class=\"centerc\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zxokZ2yZST0?rel=0&amp;modestbranding=1\" width=\"700\" height=\"393\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">?<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Has Your Piece Lost its Sparkle?<\/h2>\n<p>If we\u2019ve been playing a piece for a long time, it may have lost some of its original sparkle.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not to say we\u2019ve fallen out of love with it. But if we know a piece so well that we can play it by heart, we\u2019ve often memorized more than just the notes.<\/p>\n<h3>Memorizing it to Death<\/h3>\n<p>So again, say we know our piece well. <a href=\"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/dynamics-phrasing-classical-guitar\/\">We\u2019ve memorized the dynamics<\/a>. We\u2019ve memorized the tone changes. We\u2019ve even memorized the \u2018spontaneous\u2019 moments.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve fallen into the trap of playing our piece the same way each time.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s a powerful way to practice a familiar piece so that it becomes more interesting. It\u2019s a way of listening critically to ourselves and hearing our music as others would hear it.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a way of shedding new light on comfortable repertoire.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Shed New Light on Your Piece<\/h2>\n<p>In his book, <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3U5PF6i\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">By Heart: The Art of Memorizing Music<\/a>, Paul Cienniwa suggests that we can find a fresh approach to our music.<\/p>\n<p>He asks us to visualize ourselves listening to our performance from the audience&#8217;s perspective.<\/p>\n<p>So try this out. Pretend you are an audience member.<\/p>\n<h3>Sit in the Audience<\/h3>\n<p>If we imagine we are sitting in the audience when we\u2019re playing, we hear the piece from a different perspective.<\/p>\n<p>(There\u2019s one proviso here. Don\u2019t do this all the time.<\/p>\n<p>It is important to focus all our full attention on our music most of the time. If we get into the habit of becoming disassociated from it, that\u2019s counter-productive.<\/p>\n<p>But when we want to polish a piece, this is a good exercise to have in the practice toolbox.)<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Listen as an Audience Member<\/h2>\n<p>We know we can play our piece well. We are used to hearing ourselves play it. But how do others hear it?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/classical-guitar-visualization\/\">Let\u2019s visualize it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine listening as an audience member. Imagine listening to yourself playing your guitar. We can imagine listening with our eyes closed. Or we can look back at ourselves on stage. (That might be even more revealing!)<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Remember, They\u2019re Rooting for You.<\/h2>\n<p>An audience wants to have a good time. They are there because they want to hear some beautiful music.<\/p>\n<p>They want us to enjoy it too. They\u2019re rooting for us.<\/p>\n<p>And they assume that everything we do on stage is intentional. They are not waiting for us to make a mistake. So in our visualization, let\u2019s get over the nitty-gritty of note accuracy. Let\u2019s listen to our guitar playing from their perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Just how interesting is our performance?<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">What Do They Hear?<\/h2>\n<p>Let\u2019s put ourselves in the position of the audience.<\/p>\n<p>What do they hear? What do they see? How would our piece sound to them?<\/p>\n<p>Is it fluid, or does it appear to be a struggle? Are we playing it at the right speed, or are we losing control of it just a tad? Perhaps it\u2019s too slow, and sending them to sleep. Is the melody soaring, or is it drowned by the accompaniment?<\/p>\n<p>Ask yourself questions about the way you play your piece. Get a new perspective on it.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Inform Your Playing and Adjust<\/h2>\n<p>When we\u2019re listening critically to ourselves from someone else\u2019s perspective, we can make adjustments.<\/p>\n<p>We can then start to appreciate the audience\u2019s mindset. We could think, \u2018<em>They\u2019ll love this one!\u2019<\/em> Or, \u2018<em>Actually, that\u2019s a bit of a dirge.<\/em>\u2019 And we can adjust our playing accordingly.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Video Your Performance<\/h2>\n<p>We can take this approach further by <a href=\"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/video-yourself\/\">videoing ourselves<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While playing, we need to focus our attention on our performance. But we can become the audience when we watch it back.<\/p>\n<p>We should give ourselves a day\u2019s grace before watching it, so we\u2019re not quite so close. It\u2019s good to have forgotten our original intentions.<\/p>\n<p>Then we can watch it back. We\u2019ve become a member of our audience.<\/p>\n<p>Ask the same <a href=\"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/questions\/\">questions<\/a> as we did during the visualization. Analyze what is good about this piece. Notice what could be better.<\/p>\n<p>Check tone, dynamics, pulse, and rhythm. How did we come across? How could we improve your body language?<\/p>\n<p>Think about how we could communicate better with our audience. And see what it reveals.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">The Small Print<\/h2>\n<p>Remember, don\u2019t do this exercise too much.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no harm in videoing ourselves over and over. It\u2019s great to get that feedback.<\/p>\n<p>But don\u2019t become the \u2018audience\u2019 too often. Remember that visualizing ourselves \u2018outside\u2019 the music is an occasional practice tool only. We want to focus our attention on our playing the rest of the time.<\/p>\n<p>And another reminder. We should only visualize ourselves in the audience with pieces we can play well. We can use it to polish a piece from 98% to 100%.<\/p>\n<p>But when we give this exercise a try, we\u2019ll spot surprising ways to improve our playing.<\/p>\n<p>And if we\u2019ve got a performance coming up, we\u2019ll be confident. We will know that our audience is about to enjoy a fresh, thoughtful interpretation of a piece we know and love.<\/p>\n<p>So go ahead and put yourself in the audience.<\/p>\n<p>And enjoy the fact you haven\u2019t had to buy a ticket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we can play a guitar piece well, we enjoy the feeling of familiarity. We can play it through easily. We may have memorized it. And because we know it so well, it\u2019s easy to fall into the trap of playing it the same way each time. So if we want to revisit our piece, how can we bring a &#8230; <\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434,20],"tags":[352,315],"class_list":["post-204058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-content-parent","category-practicing","tag-performance-practice","tag-polishing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.8 (Yoast SEO v25.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Classical Guitar Polishing Trick: Listen from a New Perspective<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here&#039;s a practice technique you can use to bring new life to music you have played in the past. It&#039;s a listening trick that will revitalize!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Listening Trick for Better Musical Performance - The Audience Perspective\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#039;s a practice technique you can use to bring new life to music you have played in the past. It&#039;s a listening trick that will revitalize!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Classical Guitar Shed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ClassicalGuitarShed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-04-14T13:00:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/listen-audience-perspective-640.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"320\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Allen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@CLguitarshed\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CLguitarshed\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Allen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Classical Guitar Polishing Trick: Listen from a New Perspective","description":"Here's a practice technique you can use to bring new life to music you have played in the past. It's a listening trick that will revitalize!","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Listening Trick for Better Musical Performance - The Audience Perspective","og_description":"Here's a practice technique you can use to bring new life to music you have played in the past. It's a listening trick that will revitalize!","og_url":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/","og_site_name":"Classical Guitar Shed","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ClassicalGuitarShed\/","article_published_time":"2023-04-14T13:00:25+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":320,"url":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/listen-audience-perspective-640.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Allen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@CLguitarshed","twitter_site":"@CLguitarshed","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Allen","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/"},"author":{"name":"Allen","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#\/schema\/person\/85d09303adb38d43cdedd2033f6b016e"},"headline":"A Listening Trick for Better Musical Performance &#8211; The Audience Perspective","datePublished":"2023-04-14T13:00:25+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/"},"wordCount":992,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/listen-audience-perspective-640.jpg","keywords":["performance practice","polishing"],"articleSection":["Main Content Parent","On Practicing"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/","url":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/","name":"Classical Guitar Polishing Trick: Listen from a New Perspective","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/listen-audience-perspective-640.jpg","datePublished":"2023-04-14T13:00:25+00:00","description":"Here's a practice technique you can use to bring new life to music you have played in the past. It's a listening trick that will revitalize!","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/listen-audience-perspective-640.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/listen-audience-perspective-640.jpg","width":640,"height":320,"caption":"listening trick for polishing music"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/listening-audience-perspective\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Listening Trick for Better Musical Performance &#8211; The Audience Perspective"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/","name":"Classical Guitar Shed","description":"Learn Classical Guitar Online with No Guesswork","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#organization"},"alternateName":"ClassicalGuitarShed","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#organization","name":"Classical Guitar Shed","url":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CGS-logo-black-400.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CGS-logo-black-400.png","width":400,"height":192,"caption":"Classical Guitar Shed"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ClassicalGuitarShed\/","https:\/\/x.com\/CLguitarshed","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/classicalguitarshed\/","https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/classicalguitarshed\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/ClassicalGuitarShed"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#\/schema\/person\/85d09303adb38d43cdedd2033f6b016e","name":"Allen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fd2cda6ac2676c1fa6a476f9338cd2d0c15e585829ea7de118320c6c9a977400?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fd2cda6ac2676c1fa6a476f9338cd2d0c15e585829ea7de118320c6c9a977400?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Allen"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com","https:\/\/x.com\/CLguitarshed"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204058"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204206,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204058\/revisions\/204206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarshed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}