REHEARSAL ADVICE
DON'T TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY
Due to the nature of the activity, you will be judged and critiqued DAILY. This can take a toll on you if you take things personally. Understand that your instructors are helping you when they say things like:
- You are rushing! Slow your hand motions down!
- Your feet are out of time!
- Are you practicing at home? You don't know your music.
Something a lot of students will do is immediately go on the defensive and get upset when they get called out at rehearsal. But getting critiqued isn't getting "called out", it is letting you know what you're doing wrong so you can fix it. The worst thing a teacher could do is tell you things are great when they are not. There is no growth happening then.
So don't take things personally. Don’t mistake critique of your playing as critique of your character.
Instead, look at all critiques as information to make you better. And we get it, sometimes you will work as hard as you can on something ALL WEEK, and still get told to fix it, but that is when you say "Ok, Cool." and keep working on it! Sometimes progress is a slow process and it will take a lot of work to get where you want to be. Just gotta do the time!