how to nail excerpts consistently

why can you still screw up excerpts after hours and hours of practice? in today's video, i'm showing you my "back and forthing" method, which is exactly how i develop consistency for auditions. it's how i practice so that i can trust that the right thing is going to come out, every time.
(or in today's case, the lick from hell™ from The Hours at the Met Opera.)
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ABOUT ME
i'm a percussionist in the metropolitan opera orchestra in new york city, and i create videos and blogs to help you stop sucking at drums and master your craft. there's so much more at www.robknopper.com
0:00 intro
0:40 the lick from hell
1:37 the back and forthing method
2:23 the audition cheat sheet
2:41 step 1: choose 2 excerpts
3:33 step 2: practice both excerpts
5:30 step 3: 'back and forth' them
7:33 step 4: narrow to 0 minutes
10:49 the test
12:09 thumbs up

[@ColinMroczko]

It’s reassuring to know that even professional musicians go through these kinds of things.

[@davidpickar7614]

Rob, this is excellent! This perfectly describes the frustration I feel while self-recording and preparing excerpts, and gives a method to help tackle the obstacles I'm facing. Keep up the great work! - A grateful auditioner! :)

[@ThrivexStrive]

It’s funny how many of us just practice without thinking so strategically, but happened to be instinctively doing the alternative way you explained. And yes, usually I cram concert music in a few days and each day it gets more secure and easy until the first rehearsal.

[@lucscott3631]

So excited to see you back!!

[@lisanickl7025]

Awesome, Rob! I love how you have nicknames for each excerpt!

[@kristenkinnear-ohlmann4674]

I'm glad you are back making these videos! This comes just in time for some repertoire I need to learn, and I feel like this technique will help me nail the music!

[@kylekolanowski23]

Amazing - I love the transparency in sharing the tough moments in the beginning of practice. Thanks for the great ideas!

[@dianafarahflorido200]

Amazing. I am a violinist from Brazil and your videos are helping me a lot. That's excatly what I needed. Thank you !

[@JoshuaVonderheide]

Genius, Rob! Very helpful

[@gleabesguitarchannel3305]

You’re back! Amazing!

[@robknopperstudio]

thanks! 😊

[@sugarcookiecoffee9463]

this was awesome thanks Rob!

[@MusicaBambi]

Great video! I'll be trying this out on some excerpts of my solos I'm prepping!

[@mz4802]

The return of the (audition-)king 😎

[@byoung1150]

Thanks for this excellent technique and for being transparent enough to highlight your mistakes. I've got an idea for a future video. I'm a marimba player, so I'd like to suggest a video that shows how you might mark up an excerpt from a marimba solo to help you learn/practice/perform it. Maybe walk us through an example of how practicing something with proper phrasing after initial read-through helps us progress to performing better. Basically- a master class on marking up a solo and seeing how those markings show up in playing an excerpt. Thanks for considering!

[@danielliang9266]

I think I've heard this learning concept called Interleaving, and it's applicable to other things too. Nice channel!

[@haydenfloro5561]

He’s back!!🎉

[@finleyjones1780]

Oh my god Rob is back babbby!!! 😮

[@robknopperstudio]

woohoo!!

[@MiguelPadillaOficial]

Thanks for your content. Is amazing 🎶🙏🥁

[@robknopperstudio]

thank you!!!

[@SWilla00946]

This is the problem I've been having lately so I'm going to try this out over the next couple weeks and hope it works :)

[@Feedback13]

Fantastic!

[@musokid89]

Rob! I love all your videos so much! So great to see you’re back! What’s with the black rock looking thing in front of your laptop? Something to hide the mic? 😂👍

[@erinmarks4079]

Thank youuuuu

[@mohammedkebir8696]

Amazing video! Thank you Rob. Could advise when to use this strategy and when you use your ROAM strategy? For me it is difficult not to practice slowly first.

[@spidernh]

this is how i've been practicing my pit orchestra music recently. not because I watched your video or because I thought it would be better, but because I keep getting annoyed at difficult passages and so I switch to something else. after about a week I was able to run through a few sections and play them first try!

[@robknopperstudio]

excellent!!

[@bgclarinet]

I’ve been showing this to all of my students, not to encourage the technique, but to tell them, “See? One of the best percussionists in one of the best orchestras in the world makes mistakes the day after getting it ‘perfect’.” So many students these days lose their mind if they make a single mistake, and I constantly have to remind them mistakes are part of the learning process!

[@JTBPercussion]

so im currently working on Bach's violin concerto in a minor on xylophone, which as im sure you know, is 3-4 mins of constant playing. how would you use this method on that? im overall very good with it, (i played it for a youth orchestra concerto contest and was picked!) but there are still multiple spots that i just cannot get right, and i will practice those out of context, but when i work them back into the piece, i still play them wrong. love you videos Rob, so glad you're back!

[@gleabesguitarchannel3305]

I suppose that this method works great only for excerpts. Maybe you should choose two or more tough places and use that method. This is just my opinion, maybe it will help you. (Sorry for bad English)

[@marcushawkinsmusic]

Yesss!!!

[@mlevitt]

I love this approach and have found this effective for smaller sections of music. How could this be applied to a longer piece of music? Say, a whole movement of something like a sonata?

[@valerieplushie1031]

in my experience, after a certain amount of time in a longer solo piece I get 'in the zone' and the music flows. so my guess is that it's good to practice the entire piece as you would just to know it, and then use this method on the first 30 seconds of music or so, in order to work on getting comfortable and settling into it from the get go. then the rest should hopefully just follow on

[@chrystalvillalongo7658]

I wonder, if the excerpts are more than two staff. Do you practice only the beggining or do you go through all the excerpt and then switch?

[@GumzOnTheTrack]

What do you think about back and forthing with multiple excerpts? For example back and forthing between snare drum, triangle, castanets and tambourine in capriccio espagnol. How much do you think is too much?

[@robknopperstudio]

that's an incredibly effective technique to get used to switching between instruments! i've used it extensively. not sure what you mean by how much is too much, but if it's working for you then go crazy!

[@brianyoung2368]

Dragonfly ebonite 👀 nice.

[@tmossperc2716]

🤘🏾

[@TubaTones]

If I was you, I wouldn’t pull faces when you makes mistakes, and I wouldn’t give negative names to the difficult sections. Just my two cents. Great video, nice that “lick from hell” was at a more comfortable tempo in the pit. Shows how valuable it is to practice things at a higher tempo correctly.

[@reillybova]

I think there’s some real educational value in the negative names here - they remind us that even the pros struggle to conquer the very same challenges everyone else faces. This relatability helps draw a stronger connection between teacher and student - we’ve all been there. Plus the names and faces add some humor and levity 🤪

[@DanLoFat]

Is there like a an original cast recording of this I'm assuming it's some kind of a male or musical or play with music and that there is a recording of you guys or recorded by another group altogether or is this such a new piece for that hasn't been done?

[@robknopperstudio]

i think it was performed on a concert stage by the philadelphia orchestra before we did it.

[@wilesnic2]

wonderful advice! but you talking about consistency then having only one collar button buttoned is driving me crazy.