My Practice Notes this Week (3/12/26)
How I Juggle Tons of Pieces at the Same Time!
Happy Thursday! I’m so glad to be back with another round of weekly practice notes for you all today. If you thought my life post-graduation recital was going to slow down…. you would be WRONG (trust me, I did too). Instead, everything got significantly more busy and challenging, with tons of projects on the go mixed with the familiar sensation of March Madness. Today, we’re going to be discussing how I’m managing all of these projects and still staying semi-upright. It took me a long time to learn to ‘juggle,’ so I’m excited to share these time management & practice tips with you today!
Aside from the copious amounts of thunderstorms and tornado warnings we’ve been having in Pittsburgh, the weather has been so nice, warm and totally gorgeous— the kind of weather that makes you frustrated that you have to stay in the practice room all day! This is the only issue I have with Spring; after a long Winter of staying inside to practice, the beautiful Spring weather makes me want to jump outside and stay there, rather than spend my time inside practicing. Luckily, my practice room inside my home in Pittsburgh has tons of windows, so I have been throwing them all open first thing in the morning and practicing with tons of fresh air, which has been so refreshing after a long, challenging Winter. Additionally, I’ve been making sure to get outside 2-3 times a day for a walk, run, or just 15 minutes of fresh air so that I am properly partaking in the mood-boosting that comes with Spring beginning again. I’ve been considering a lot the notion that Winter is nature’s time of ‘purging’— stripping everything away, resting, restoring, and then beginning anew, which I think is not just a beautiful example of how we should treat transition periods in our lives, but also an example of what we do often in the practice room (especially as students, when we are often still making major changes to embouchure, articulation, hand position, etc.) With all that said, I hope you are also beginning to experience Spring wherever you are, and that tiny flowers are beginning to pop out both in your garden and in your practice room. Every day we plant seeds for flowers that will eventually bloom…. the beauty is, most of the time we just don’t know when!
Well, I think it’s about time we get into my practice notes for this week! These practice notes are a weekly check-in between myself and my paid subscribers, so if you aren’t a paid subscriber, feel free to become one here! This publication helps to support me as I finish my studies and transition into a full career, and is an intimate and honest look at my life in the practice room. It is my hope that by sharing my work so candidly with you all that you’ll be able to learn alongside me, and learn from some of my practice room mistakes a lot quicker than I did!