Back in shape

Sometimes it`s nice to come back, isn`t it? After a long break we can start again to do what we love, with much more enthusiasm and joy than before.

In the last article I wrote about short, medium and long breaks and about my decision to take this year a longer break than usually. I`m happy about this decision, and for this reason I would like to share with you some good things that happened to me. The warm-up exercises were little longer than usually because the sound quality it was not the same as before. But this was the first impact with my instrument after a long break. For the beginning I started to play some easy pieces. It was not a new material, I played them many years ago. It`s better to start with something what you played before and to let the new material for later. The pieces once played are still there in our memory and they can be recall quite fast. It`s very  interesting to realize that after some minutes of practice our sound and technique are almost the same as before. What it changes sometimes is our point of view about the interpretation. I think there is a very positive aspect when we can see and hear more details than before and we are able to play a piece with more maturity. After spending some time with easy pieces I decided to work some difficult passages from the orchestral repertoire. The difficult passages which I played into the past frustrated me a little, because I expected to recall them faster than it happened. But it is normal, difficult passages are still difficult also if you practiced them a lot, so be patience! With the new passages the result was good and at some point much better than I expected because I was confident and ready to learn something new again.
As a conclusion from my perspective: a short, medium or a long break is just a break, time to rest and to forget about performance. Don`t be scared to play what you want, also after a long break. The sound, technique and interpretation are still there. Start the practice session gradually, with some warm-up exercises, easy pieces and then practice also something difficult. You`ll became more confident realizing that it works and you are very fast in shape again!