SOPP332: I believe I have practiced too hard for too long

Vidas: Hi guys, this is Vidas. Ausra: And Ausra. V: Let’s start episode 332 of Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast. This question was sent by Steven and he writes: “Good morning Vidas, Hope all is well with you. Thank you very much for your helpful podcasts. Today and tonight I accompanied several choral numbers and performed a few hymns and Campra's Rigaudon at a very large venue out of town on a very large pipe organ. I'm nearly 70 years old, my memory isn't all that bad any more but it's not quite as quick to store information as it used to be. When I perform at the organ I'm finding it necessary to sight read a good deal more than I used to. I was familiar with the music and the instrument but hadn't performed it there in about 15 years and was given only about a month's notice to get things prepared. The instrument is fully playable with electropneumatic action but has a few quirks -- most noticeably a very deep key fall with stiff action on the pedal keys and very weak manual key springs to where the slightest touch makes an electrical contact to pull pallets. This can cause a lot of strange notes to enter when they shouldn't and leads to a lot of mistakes when playing the pedals. It's like your hands are playing on a soap bubble and your feet are playing in mud. I practiced the music beforehand every day for two weeks, 3 hours a day, to the point where my bottom was even sore to sit on the bench. Last night, due to the excitement, I was unable to get a restful night's sleep and kept waking up every hour, knowing I had to get up very early this morning and leave in the dark to get there on time. I believe I practiced too hard for too long, as I know my playing is much better than what my listeners heard today and tonight, and, to be perfectly honest, I was disappointed with myself. Worst I've ever done. By the time I finished tonight it felt like my mind was brain dead, rebelling against details, and I felt exhausted. Practice is necessary and good, but too much of a good thing can also not be so good. Or so it seemed to me, today. On the way home it occurred to me that this could be something you and Ausra might address in a possible podcast, as many times we don't practice enough. But we can also overdo it the other way, too. By the time I played the closing hymn tonight I was too spent and worn out to even sight read the notes any more and made many, many mistakes. I played this same hymn hundreds, maybe thousands, of times before and knew it forwards and backwards. But my mind just wasn't working. This is not at all like me. I'm thinking a good night's sleep the night before and more moderate practice habits are in store for me, and perhaps some advice about how to arrive at a balance at this would be helpful to others too. We know we can try too little and practice too little. We can also try too hard, which can hold us back. Maybe also, we can practice too much. We can get too little rest. A sleep aid might help some of us, but, then again, something like that could make some of us sleep through the alarm clock and wake up too late to get there on time. If you could shed some light on how to get in the middle of the road with this, I believe it would be very helpful to others as well as myself. It's hard not to get discouraged when things like this happen to us. Many thanks, Steve”