Archived under: Accuracy, Deep thoughts, Teaching | Max Pottag
A Suggestion About Accuracy from Max Pottag
One of my DMA students recently pointed me toward a suggestion found in an old standard beginning method, the Pottag-Hovey Method for French Horn, published by Belwin. The foreword has nine suggestions for hornists, number eight being the quote of the day:
The importance of slow and accurate practice cannot be overemphasized. Careless playing may easily become a deep-rooted habit. “Make every note a good one”.
That last part of the suggestion was placed in quotation marks in the foreword and sounds like something Pottag (or perhaps Hovey) must have heard from his teachers as a student. Something I particularly like about it is that the phrase is stated in a positive way. The teacher could have easily said something negative but instead focused on the positive. “Make every note a good one” is a great suggestion to all of us no matter what our level as players.
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