The Importance of the Brain Vacation

So yesterday, I bought a fish tank. I probably should not have, because it ate up all my free time yesterday, and it was expensive, and it’s going to take regular maintenance until I decide I no longer want fish. It was silly, and unnecessary, and maybe a little weird, and it doesn’t even have fish in it yet, but I love it. My fish tank is a good example of…

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You Are Valid

Music is one of the toughest majors out there. Not just because of the classwork – although I can tell you, that part is tough too. No, it’s tough because of the sheer number of people you’ll meet who do not believe in it. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there who will sit through a movie with an amazing soundtrack (written by musicians, performed by instrumentalists), sing…

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Efficient Practice Tips

To practice effectively, you need to be able to do two main things: prioritize, and know when you’ve lost focus. A lot of performance majors feel overwhelmed at the sheer amount of music they need to learn, but that doesn’t need to be the case. If you practice efficiently, you’ll find it much easier to learn all of your music quickly. Don’t dive into the music and try to play…

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Self-Care for Musicians

DID YOU KNOW: Being a music major is widely considered highly stressful. A friend of mine made a joke the other day about how she is always on the verge of tears, she is so stressed as a musician. Then she saw a squirrel and started crying because it had an acorn. Keep in mind, my school has been in session three days. And while that might be a bit extreme,…

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4 Reasons to Stick with Music

I will be completely honest here: one of the strangest but most predictable events of my musical school year is the annual Fleeing of the Freshmen. This event, as regular as the tides and sad like lemmings, occurs around the end of first semester. Freshman who were only three months ago bright-eyed and bushy-tailed head to their advisers’ offices, and for a million reasons drop their music majors and switch…

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Musical Burnout: How To Avoid It

Finals are basically over for most people, which means that burn-out may or may not be on your mind anymore. I know I feel amazing now that all my things are over, but if you had a rough semester, you might be feeling like you got hit by a truck and now you never want to play a note ever again.  Or, on the flip side, you had an awesome…

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