Rakhmaninov and Practice
Something I should be doing more often...
Created: July 13, 2023
Around a week ago, I finally finished a Rakhmaninov (Rachmaninoff? I don't know anymore.) biography by Andreas Wehrmeyer after I picked it up from a book store in a city a few months earlier. It took an almost embarassingly long time to finish considering how short it was, but to justify the time taken, I started reading it during finals season. This isn't as structured as my last book review on Coin Locker Babies, as I find it much easier to get my thoughts out when I let myself ramble.
On Rakhmaninov and his biography
Rakhmaninov was one of the many classical artists I knew little about before picking up this book, and I feel as though the long time it took to finish it meant that his life was still a blur once the book was over. I haven't read many biographies, but I found this one quite interesting because it alternates from a retelling of Rakhmaninov's life to other bits of information or musical analysis done by the author himself. The musical analyses were filled with esoteric vocabulary that only those studying music would have understood, and so most of it was sadly lost on me. However, I do think that the idea of being able to comment on someone's work while describing their life was a good one, as it would help the reader better understand the subject in most cases. Another problem I had with the book was its smaller size, which was matched with a relatively large font size, making it easy to get lost in the vast information it delivered.
My poor recount of Rakhmaninov's life will reveal just how much goes straight through my brain through most of my time reading, but I will attempt to do so anyways for the sake of exercising my brain. Born in Russia, young Rakhmaninov had a penchant for music and so he studied piano at a conservatory for a number of years. As he grew older, he was revered as a Russian pianist and gave concerts outside of his homeland. The second World War ended up relocating his family to America, where he spent the last of his days. He was in an unusally privileged place for someone who had immigrated to America due to the war; Rakhmaninov had more than enough money to support his family and so he helped others get back on their feet as well, especially fellow musicians.
The real treat of this book was at the end, told in only two pages: A very brief practice routine done by Rakhmaninov in his later years. Here are a few quotes from the pages in question:
"...at the age of 45 [Rakhmaninov] set to work to build up a new repertoire and perfect his technique. At first he practiced for about five hours a day and later, when he felt more confident, he cut this down to three or four hours.
More important than the length of time were the concentration and self-discipline with which he practised - never just the works he was about to perform but also a whole range of exercises. He admired the studies of Karl Czerny and Charles Hanon.
... There is too little evidence to allow one to reconstruct Rakhmaninov's system of practising, but his rule was definitely to practice with the greatest intensity, as though under performance conditions."
Pages 92-93, Rakhmaninov - Andreas Wehrmeyer
On practice
I only practice the violin from twenty minutes to two hours a day. Some days I don't touch it at all, and it's usually days where I'm outside the house for most of it or I'm at band practice, which leaves me quite tired. I know that's not an excuse, and reading Rakhmaninov's routine gave me more insight as to how I should practice. I've found that it's best to practice at the same time each day, but the contents of the practice session should change from time to time. Otherwise, you'll get bored of playing the same thing again and again, which is one good way to walk yourself onto a progress plateau.
I really want to continue playing the violin past high school, which is going to be difficult if there's no local orchestra around me to join. I've found that there's so many pieces I want to play that I'm not quite skilled enough to, which is motivation enough to keep going.