Written by Elizabeth Monkemeier, Class of 2023
Last Wednesday, 9/16, I was incredibly excited to host the “Open Forum on Practice Accounts” event for RU NAfME. The event was a success, as we had enlightening and inspiring discussions about our thoughts and experiences with using social media.
I truly believe that the people who enriched the event the most were guest speakers who presented about their own accounts. I reached out to MGSA students and alumni that were actively creating content on practice or music accounts on Instagram, who were more than happy to participate. We had Kathleen Lonski (@kathleen_e11e), Nathan Bishop (@violintriguing), Ben Harris (@ben.harris.music), Claire Oplinger (@claire_flute), Natalie Tews (@tptnct), and myself, (@emmonke.music).
The event began with a brief slideshow regarding the nature of practice accounts and the versatility of using one. Accounts are primarily workspaces, journals, or portfolios of our music making and come in many different forms. They can drive our work or be driven by the work we produce for them. The people who presented at the event even noted their different reasons for having an account, and some of the reasons I thought of were inspiration, the virtual community culture, visual representation of hard work, and the break-down of the myth of “perfect practice.” I emphasized the different uses for the account, such as following @runafme (shameless plug!), experimenting with online content/editing/improv/chamber music, documenting progress, and marketing as musicians and teachers!
The presenters offered vastly different interpretations on their accounts. Kathleen, a Mason Gross alum in music composition and a vocalist, discussed her use of Instagram live and her 100 day nightly concerts that she hosted in quarantine. Her social media platform offered her opportunities to still perform with live audiences virtually and experiment with genres through song requests and genuine curiosity.
Nathan, another Mason Gross alum in music education and a fiddler, discussed his short clips of quarantine fiddling and jamming on Instagram that featured idyllic landscapes and adorable animals. His posts offered a serene moment in his day that soothed both him and his followers, and I appreciated watching them in quarantine as well.
Ben, a current student taking a gap semester in music education and avid woodwind doubler, offered a short presentation of his process for his clean-cut and edited arrangements of show tunes. His Instagram feed is aesthetically pleasing to the eye and ear, as he arranges the music himself and plays on flute, clarinet, and various saxophones. His account is a portfolio of his work as he takes a semester off and delves deeper in his playing and other skills for creating his own content and collaborating with others.
Claire, a current student in music education and flautist, discussed her use of Instagram as both a practice journal and place to flesh out her thoughts about being a musician and a Christian. Her posts were snippets of her practice along with thought-provoking reflections on life and music. I thoroughly enjoyed her ideas on how her posts were timed and her captions were always a process throughout the week.
Natalie, president of RU NAfME, current student in music education and trumpeter, showed us her new account where she posts daily to watch her progress and experiment with etudes. She mentioned the challenge of posting everyday but embraces the benefit of knowing that she picked up her trumpet and played each day more so than how much she accomplished each day. She also discussed her inspiration for the account which was sparked by young women trumpet players who were posting their creative collaboration and practice videos.
I also presented, but discussed how my account has helped me in challenging myself to post each day like Natalie and also the importance of watching other clarinetists and musicians posting their practice processes and their drafts of pieces.
So often in recorded music, we hear a near-perfect final recording of music with no reference to the countless hours and thoughtful interpretation that came before it. With practice accounts, we create a community culture of seeing each other improvise and improve our practicing, along with creating collaborative music that would have been done in our ensembles on campus. It fills a void of the loneliness of only hearing ourselves make music when we miss walking past practice rooms on campus just to hear other people doing the same thing as us and makes us feel a sense of camaraderie. The event was so motivating to me and the other attendees to hear what others were doing in their own experience as a quarantined musician. It was a place to voice thoughts and strategies for online learning and music making, and I believe that it was a wonderful way to start the semester. I hope to see you at our next event!
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