It’s sort of the same principal as playing tennis with someone much better than you.  It’s really the only way to improve your game.

Since I’ve renewed my interest in writing some songs, I’ve been working on some vocal stuff again.  After years and years of not really singing at all, I was worried that nothing would come out, that those pipes would be more or less rusted over.

However, given that it’s 2010, I realized that with Garage Band already on my computer and a snowball mike in the house, I could record myself and listen to playback to get an honest sense of where things were vocally.

What astonished me, however, is how much I improved in just over a week.  Pitch problems more or less corrected themselves.  Phrasing got better as did the performance as a whole.  I went from a kind of not-too-embarrassing if you are doing drunken karaoke level of performance to something that was actually rather pleasing.

There was an enormous benefit to hearing myself rather than just singing live and moving on to the next song;  what was important is that I was getting really useful FEEDBACK (albeit from myself), and making automatic, easy and continual modifications and improvements.

Today, since I own his recordings of all the sonatas, I began practicing along with Daniel Barenboim.

I started with the two I’ve known longest and best––K332 and K330––and it was quite informative.  Of course, the goal is not ultimately to deliver a duplication of his playing, but I certainly heard wherever he and I were out of synch, and except for a couple of interpretational differences, I concede that Barenboim is no doubt correct wherever and whenever we “disagree.”

This was really useful fine-tuning.  I discovered a few trills I’d somehow been neglecting, or a section where I was rushing a bit.

(I also discovered in K330 the importance of playing all the repeats.  If you’re playing along with the recording, you’re forced to, rather than my usual ignoring them.  The movement really lives and breaths when it’s at its full length.)

What was most informative, however, was playing along with a sonata that’s newer to me, like K311.  It was like having the world’s best piano teacher sitting with me, one who never snaps or grows impatient, but simply exists as a source of pure correctness.  Although K311 mostly comes to me in an easy and friendly way, everything “off” becomes so immediately obvious.

Honestly, I feel I should use this method lots more.  I probably got a better set of corrections than any physically-in-the-room teacher might have given me.

And on a spiritual level, it’s a perfect analogy to so much of the work I’m exploring with “lining up my energy” or “getting centered.”  Forgive the crackpot phraseology, but I now see my greatest spiritual practice as coming into HARMONY with my Soul/Inner Being/Source/What-Have-You-Within.  My process, to quote my teachers, is all about “gently tuning myself” back to that Alignment.

By noticing the contrast between my playing versus Barenboim’s––or noting the resistance that keeps me out of harmony with my True Self––I am indeed taking the fastest path to improving my Game (musical or Cosmic!).