All About Over-Practicing
By Alyse Hokamp
What is over-practicing?
1. Practicing more than usual (your personal usual) as a performance approaches.
-Results in mental and/or physical fatigue, and diminishes performance.
2. Practicing to quiet self-criticism and neuroses.
-Are you practicing to move forward with a skill or a goal, or to placate fear and self-punishment?
3. Practicing with pain.
-Do not ignore your body’s pain signals! This will cause injury, sooner or later.
Signs of over-practicing
1. Physical exhaustion (from exertion, or lack of sleep).
2. Constant anxiety about needing to practice more, or feeling like you should always be practicing.
3. Physical pain during or because of practicing.
What causes over-practicing?
1. Pressure from teachers.
If a teacher says you absolutely must practice for X hours a day to succeed, be suspicious. Bodies are always in flux. Some days you have more energy, and some days you need more rest.
2. Pressure from self.
It’s normal to feel the pressure ramping up as a performance approaches. If you have procrastinated on your preparation to the point where you are scrambling… do better next time. You messed up, and have a valid reason to be worried. If you didn’t take the appropriate time to prepare, you will have to adjust your expectations for the performance.
3. Unrealistic expectations.
Many musicians and performers have a perfectionistic streak- this is what pushes us to always be better. However, the pursuit of perfection should not go so far that it turns performing into a negative experience. In any case, with art, beauty is in humanity, not perfection.
Just a note to clarify- over-practicing is not the same as over-preparing. And honestly, I’m not sure there’s even such a thing as over-preparing 🙂 Subscribe below for next week’s post on preparation.
What to do instead of over-practicing
If you have prepared to the best of your ability, as the week of the performance approaches, shift your focus to tending to your emotional and mental state, as well as physical wellness.
-Let your mind relax- spend time outside, go for a walk, or read a book for pleasure.
-Do things slowly and deliberately, and avoid cramming days with activities, chores, or errands.
-Spend more time observing- listen to practice recordings, watch practice videos, and determine your specific performance goals. Observing your practice is an excellent way to get more out of each practice session with less fatigue.
-Sleep! Even if you are getting a good amount of sleep, the quality of sleep suffers when we are anxious, so we feel more tired than usual.
My experience with over-practicing
Between 2014-2020, I was totally focused on orchestra auditions. There was a year here and there when I was taking care of my babies, but otherwise, I was constantly auditioning.
There were several instances where I felt my lips get shaky during an audition, and I had a hard time controlling the soft spots of my excerpts. Definitely the worst feeling for a flutist!
I thought I needed to practice my diminuendos more, but even after I did that, I was still getting the shaky lips.
For one audition, I tracked my practice hours for several months leading up to the audition. I noticed that I increased my practice time significantly in the couple of weeks leading up to the audition. This made sense, because as my anxiety increased, I tried to alleviate it by practicing more.
Eventually, I realized that the shaky lips were actually fatigue, not nerves or lack of muscle control. For the next audition, I logged my practice hours again, but decided to not practice more than I had been for the month preceding the audition, and to practice a little less than usual for the week of the audition.
This limitation forced me to figure out creative ways to practice my music besides simply playing through it again. It also made me realize I was using practicing to cope with anxiety, instead of considering it more deeply and addressing my unhealthy expectations.
The happy ending: I don’t have problems with shaky lips anymore… unless I break my own rule about over-practicing!
Alyse Hokamp is a flutist and multi-faceted artist based in Denton, TX. She is active in the Dallas/Fort Worth music community with her flute band the Pan-Tones. She also performs as an orchestral player, chamber musician, and solo recitalist, and has appeared with The Dallas Opera, Allen Philharmonic Orchestra, Highland Park Chorale, Flower Mound Symphony Orchestra, and Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth.
Alyse has created online events and resources for the flute community, with a focus on accessibility, honesty, and connection. These include flute duet arrangements of standard flute repertoire, an online mock audition, and a free mentorship program.