Dear Students,
This month, I am only home for one short week between travel. Thank you to all who registered for lessons during this time! It is not uncommon, for various reasons, for students to experience a break from voice or piano lessons. This may happen because of a voice teacher absence, but it can also occur because of busy student schedules, prolonged illness, a student vacation, etc. How can you, as a singer or pianist, stay sharp and not lose the gains that you have made in lessons?
One thing that I have noticed in my students and in my own singing is that taking a break from all intentional study and practice is actually quite beneficial. This doesn’t mean that you don’t play or sing at all; rather, it means that during that time, you don’t devote any intentional time to practice with the goal of sounding better. There are a couple of benefits from this. Firstly, this frees up time to “play”. Without personal or external expectations, you are free be playful with your musical expression - to experiment or even take risks. Perhaps you might try a new genre or sing that song that you don’t feel quite ready to tackle in the context of lessons. Perhaps, if you’re feeling burnt out or stagnant, you might even rekindle your love of your instrument! Secondly, this allows your body and brain to process all of the technical skills you’ve been working on. I have noticed that, after a short break, students are able to perform skills more accurately with less tension. Our bodies have a lot of inherent wisdom and tend to organize and strengthen neural pathways most efficiently with sufficient rest time.
All of this being said, after a prolonged break from study, you may start to lose muscular strength and coordination. This concept is described within the discipline of exercise physiology, which is the science of conditioning the body. According to an exercise physiology principle known as reversibility, muscles will lose strength, flexibility, and coordination with disuse. The effect is magnified the longer the disuse. You might never forget HOW to do a musical task (like riding a bike!), but you will get physically weaker and rustier the longer the gap in practice. This might manifest in singing as vocal fatigue, diminished lung capacity, less pitch accuracy, a diminished vocal range, and difficulty singing fast or complicated phrases. In playing this piano, it could manifest as wrist, hand, or shoulder pain/ fatigue, difficulty playing large chords or complicated passages, and difficulty sightreading. According to exercise physiology, it takes roughly 6 weeks to start to see muscle growth, so, depending on how long your break, you may need at least that length of time to recondition the body.
So, how do you get the benefits of a break without starting to lose your technical skills? For a short break (1-2 weeks), even if you are not playing or singing at all, you probably will only experience the benefits. For longer periods of time than that, semiregular practice (1x per week) or (more importantly) singing/playing just “for fun” will help keep the muscles conditioned. For several months or longer, come up with a regular practice schedule (3-5x per week), similar to what you might do while in lessons. More specifically, for the next few weeks, I suggest you take a week of no playing/singing followed by “for fun” or regular practice for the rest of the time.
Have you ever taken a prolonged break from singing or playing? What did you notice? Let me know what you think – I’d love to hear from you. I look forward to connecting with all of you later in April!
Dr. Jane
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