The Joy of Practice. A Case study of Keren by I.Xenakis - The pursuit of happiness in our practice room

Abstract

Name: Georgios Kachrimanis Main Subject: Classical Trombone Research Coach: Paul Scheepers Title of Research: The Joy of Practice: A case study of Keren by Iannis Xenakis Research Question: How can I bring the joy back into my daily practice? Summary of Results: Every musician perceives “hard work” differently in their career or education. For me it was something like weight lifting training with the motto “No Pain, No Gain”. This was my idea about practicing music for more than 15 years. Besides the hard work I was also dealing with anxiety and the outcome was that I was not progressing in my practice and performance. I noticed that I was not enjoying myself anymore as I did as a young boy, but that I was ‘working’ the trombone instead of ‘playing’. When I was accepted for the masters program of the conservatoire I knew I had to change something about my way of practicing. So I came up with my main question for my master research “How can I bring the joy back into my daily practice?” In my research paper I am exploring the flow theory of Csikszentmihalyi and the use of awareness from book of The Inner Game of Music. According to the Csikszentmihalyi flow can help musicians to experience more joy and achieve better work satisfaction. In order to explore this theory and the use of awareness I used a case study, Keren by Iannis Xenakis. Because joy and anxiety also got a lot to do with how you plan your practice and recovery I also made a practice plan. For this I used the information and planning techniques I got from Erja Joukamo-Ampuja, one of the speakers at the conference ‘From Potential to Performance’ in 2013. Putting all the information I gained during my research together, I came up with six conditions that I needed for my daily practice to be flow-like so I could gain some joy out of it: having a clear mind, a goal/outcome, good skill/challenge match, frequent feedback, physical/mental energy, relaxed concentration. During my presentation I will explain the concepts of flow, anxiety and joy in my daily practice and my case study. Biography: The Trombone came into Georgios’ life at the age of 15, although he had started playing music at the age of ten in his local fanfare band. Shortly thereafter he started playing in the Athens Student orchestra. The first time he played music professionally was at the age of 17, with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Greece. In 2002 he won his current position as principal trombone of the Athens Philharmonia and in 2003 finished his studies with a 10 and first prize. During the next 10 years Georgios won other auditions and played with all the major and minor orchestras in Greece, appearing as a soloist on a number of occasions.