The Musician Insight

L.Park: When you heard the term “myth of practicing”, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

Lobke Sprenkeling: There is a human limit to the quantity of practicing, both physical and mental. I would even advocate for no more than four hours a day. As for wind instruments, I think that three hours is the maximum. There is a quality-poor kind of practicing, which is mindless repetition, that fails to create good muscle memory. But it is also true that things do need time, and repetition in itself is not a bad thing; I myself think that going over small sections apparently repeating over and over again, yet there are very slight changes and perspectives. We do need to take care of our bodies, since practice involves repetitive muscle movements, which is the reason why we should limit the number of hours.

L.Park: Talking of impact, what do you think of the pressure it creates on young musicians?

Lobke Sprenkeling: I heard of students at specific conservatories who were told to play five hours a day and who were still scolded. They became ill a lot and did not look healthy. Personally I think the scolding was worse than the amount of hours, and that they also wasted time during their study hours.

L.Park: We all heard the saying “work smarter, not harder”. What is your take on it and how would you explain it to your students?

Lobke Sprenkeling: I always say: “The brain still has to be able to follow what the fingers do.” The first couple of times we cannot play with mistakes, since these are the crucial moments when the brain records what the muscles are doing.

That includes any possible tension in the body. So in the end, it is a mindful practice: you have to know what your body is doing and listen closely with your ears. Then you can start playing small sections fast, to feel how the notes connect, as long as you do not tense up.

L.Park: The ideal of artists fully devoting themselves to art (neglecting personal issues) is often represented as an ideal by the media. What are the long lasting impacts in your opinion?

Lobke Sprenkeling: I think that idea, luckily, is starting to be outdated. I suppose it comes from the end of the 19th century, perhaps, with the idea of musician stars. In the Early Music world, things were a bit different, it was rather in the 1960s that the practice became highly virtuosic.Those first generations took over the same mentality though, but this was not as generalized as in the main classical world.

L.Park: Were there some things in your conservatory and/or music college education that were actually more damaging than good, and why?

Lobke Sprenkeling: There are some teachers who, instead of trying to guide each student in a way that adapts to their best way of learning, are letting their ego get in the way, and in the worst case scenario, they can destroy a student’s spirit completely.

L.Park: Students are often anxious regarding on how they perform, whether in class or on stage, do you think that parts of it comes from the perfectionism asked from them as future professionals?

Lobke Sprenkeling: We are perfectionists ourselves, and this has its advantages (it is high performance, after all, and a competitive world) and its disadvantages (tendency of focussing on what is felt not “good enough” – which it is never). Mental training is part of performance preparation: if the internal monologue is not prepared, it can be counterproductive. If I tell myself that I am nervous and that I am going to suffer, I will make it very hard for myself.

L.Park: If there is one thing that music institutions should change, what would it be?

Lobke Sprenkeling: They do not always think about attracting the best teachers but rather the most famous performers: these are not always the most pedagogical teachers, and possibly they create a copy methodology, instead of guiding the students to find their own sound and ideas.

L.Park: Coming back to the image of glorifying the sacrifice of musicians, why do you think us as artists and the general public as such a fascination with it?

Lobke Sprenkeling: I am not sure if the general public realizes how much work there is behind a musician’s performance. I do not think that the idea of sacrifice is present in the general public, honestly. They rather think we have made our hobby into work and that we are very talented. I think this idea is not really present in our times anymore.

L.Park: How does a typical day of practice look for you?

Lobke Sprenkeling: If I do not have concerts, about an hour, and not all days of the week. In concert periods, two daily practice sessions of about forty-five to sixty minutes (or more, if necessary). Physical exercise is very important in order to strengthen our muscles and prevent injuries, as well as using the muscles in other ways than the repeated ways in which we use them when playing our instruments.

L.Park: Self-compassion is not a subject often talked about, when did you first learn to be kind to yourself and what advice would you give to young music students?

Lobke Sprenkeling: I had a lovely teacher until I was seventeen years old: with her I had a very good time and no real issues of lack of self-esteem; these came after with a more harmful teacher. My advice would be that you are unique. You have your own story to tell when sharing music with others, you have your own dialogue with the music and with yourself, every day.

L.Park: Why, in your opinion, is it so tough for us to separate our artistic value and our human value?

Lobke Sprenkeling: I would say that this is especially true for singers, since they carry their instrument as part of themselves. But all musicians’ training is one of being criticised all the time, so it becomes something very personal. I think that as we get older, we begin to relativize things. But it is true that we are musicians and it is a part of our identity. We think music, we feel music, we are music.

Photo source: http://www.lobke.world