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Another recent question that came in had to do with the acoustics of the ideal practice space. More specifically, what acoustics I would prefer in a practice environment.
For me personally I prefer “medium.” Not a real big or small room, not very live or very dry. More important to me really is that it be a fairly quiet place with no major distractions.
Continuing that thought, in a sense my office is pretty ideal except that there are distractions such as lessons going on in neighboring studios. Early in the morning, when things are still quiet, I do enjoy practicing in my office.
At home my favorite practice space is our family room over our garage. It is good sized and acoustically pretty neutral. On the down side, I can’t really “set up shop” there as it is the family room. The stand goes back into a corner when not in use.
When my kids were small I often practiced inside a walk in closet. It kept the noise way down (so I could practice when they were sleeping) and there were no distractions but was very dry acoustically. I rarely practice there at this point, the kids are in high school (!) and a closet is just way too small given any other options.
Going back a few years, one of my favorite practice spaces ever was along the stream that runs through the campus of the Aspen Music Festival. The mountains, the stream … great memories, but not a practical space to duplicate.
But going back to the beginning, probably my favorite practice space ever was the basement at my parents’ house. The space in the big room was fairly large and I could comfortably practice there day after day with no distractions, which I did!
It is the type of space that won’t work for everyone. I once had a student who never practiced at home unless her parents were not there. The comfortable acoustic space probably was available, but it was not good in terms of people and their distractions.
A couple years ago Bruce Hembd posted a nice photo essay of his home practice space, which may be seen here in full (the photo above is from his article). It looks like a comfortable space! Wishing you all good practice over the holidays.
