Remember this is meant to be fun

I think this week has helped me to remember to just go with the flow a bit more regarding practice.  This is meant to be fun!  I can get too caught up in making everything structured and sticking to the same routine every day. Sometimes that just doesn't work and it all becomes a bit of a chore.  Sometimes it is good to do something different, sometimes it is good to take a day off.  Take this weekend for example:

On Friday I got home to find some orchestral music on my door mat.  They are practice parts for a "play day" event I'm booked on with a professional orchestra in June.  It is an opportunity for amateurs to play along with the professional orchestra - with rehearsals in the day and a concert in the early evening.  The places are very limited and I needed to be quick to book before it sold out.  I was quite excited to see the music, so  it was nice to be able to just dive in and have a play through.  I did do some "normal" practice too but it was nice to put the routine aside for a while and just play what I wanted to play!

On Saturday I had a migraine and spent the afternoon asleep.  By the time I felt human again, I could maybe have practiced...but there were more pressing jobs to do (like making sure I coudl play the hymns for church on Sunday morning).  I took a day off and chose not to feel guilty about it.

Sunday afternoon I had the house to myself and had a very productive practice session.  The study is coming along and I was able to increase the speed and plan in my breathing better.  The Mozart is improving - there are a couple of bars with tricky rhythms and I spent some time getting them right.  I played through a lot of the Rite of Spring - trying to get the tricky rhythms right with a metronome.  And I worked on some of the play day pieces.  I ended up doing a longer session than planned without even realising it.  The time seemed to fly by.

Yesterday I had a long and tiring day at work, I feel like I am going down with a cold.  Practice happened but it felt like a bit of slog.  I got a few useful things done, but by the end I was more clock watching and my embouchure was tired.  I may have been recovering from overdoing it the day before as well.  I decided to stop earlier than planned.

The upshot of all that is, between a day off, a longer session, a shorter session, a normal session - it all eventually  balanced out to be roughly the same amount of weekly practice that I normally do.  I do appreciate having structure and discipline in my practising and I think it is important.  But I need to stop that becoming a strait jacket and be more flexible at times and trust that in the long term it will all balance out.  This is meant to be fun!