Ask the Experts: Practice and Competition Advice from Pianists Seokyoung Hong 홍석영 (15) and Saehyun Kim 김세현 (16)
The Third Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and Festival for pianists aged 13 to 17 is taking place 8 – 17 June 2023 in Dallas, Texas. TWoA talked to two of the talented young pianists chosen to compete at the competition: Seokyoung Hong 홍석영 (15) and Saehyun Kim 김세현 (16). Both are from Seoul, the capital of South Korea, and attended Yewon School before moving to Massachusetts in the United States in 2021 and 2022 to study piano with HaeSun Paik at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School. They are also students at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts. Read on for some practical advice on the triple challenge of practicing, performing and competing. And then take the lead from Saehyun and ponder the magical calmness of clouds! If you want to find out more about Saehyun’s and Seokyoung’s lives in Korea and the United States, and about the inspiring power of individualism, remember to read Part I of their interview.
Practice Habits
TWoA: How many hours of practice do you aim for every day?
Saehyun: Do you want to go first?
Seokyoung: I don’t know because I don’t count the hours. But usually, I just practice the whole day except the time I’m in class or eating. I don’t know - ten hours???
Saehyun: I think my practice time varies a lot. I think I try to practice at least four hours. My maximum goes to ten, eleven hours, but I don’t recommend that. It’s bad for your physical and mental health. I think last year I used to practice ten hours when I was preparing for a competition, but I got some injuries doing that, so I try to do more mental practicing than actually sitting in front of the piano the whole day.
TWoA: What does your practice routine look like?
Saehyun: That also varies, depending on the piece, I think. But I try not to have so much of a practice routine because I think then our playing also goes into a routine. It becomes habitual. But I do have a routine of looking at my music before I go to sleep, especially the night before my performance and trying to organise my thoughts on what I want to do. What do I want to demonstrate in this piece, what should I think about in specific parts of the music? When it comes to practicing with the piano, I think I take many short breaks. I would really focus for thirty minutes and then take a five-minute break. Because I think it is better to be really focused and practice less hours than to not be so focused and practicing many hours. We have to practice being focused so that we are ready for going on stage: when we are on stage, we are a hundred and twenty percent focused. I try to apply that to my day-to-day practice.
Seokyoung: When I was in Korea, I used to have a pattern: I would practice two hours and then take a ten-minute-break, trying to be disciplined. But here I’m practicing similar to Saehyun. I focus for not that much time, thirty or even twenty minutes, and take a short break.
Mental Practice
TWoA: Saehyun, how do you do mental practice?
Saehyun: I think there are two ways. One way is looking at the music and hearing the sounds in your head, trying to imagine what sound colour or what expression you want to achieve, or the tempo. Everything, basically, like you are playing the piano, but your hands are not moving. I think it’s very similar to athletes. Especially gymnasts, they usually go through what they are going to do in their performance and go through what they want to think. So, one way is looking at music and imagining the sounds and constructing and planning what I want to do. The second way is without music: just closing your eyes and visualising that you are on stage and what you want to portray and everything. It’s actually more difficult than practicing in front of the piano.
TWoA: In the second strategy, are you imagining what you look like on stage, or what you feel on stage? Are you imagining that you are observing yourself or that you are inside yourself?
Saehyun: Both. As performers, we have to be in the first-person perspective but also in the third-person perspective. We have to experience everything with the music and at the same time we have to have a rational perspective, looking at ourselves as if we are looking at someone else. We have to have many different versions of ourselves and that is something that we probably cannot achieve when we are just doing finger practice. We have to be like a conductor of ourselves and be in control of our thoughts and what we aim for. We have to be like a conductor, telling myself what I have to do. That’s basically mental practice.
Remembering Your Teacher’s Comments
TWoA: Any advice on remembering all your teacher’s corrections or suggestions?
Seokyoung: We do take notes in our lessons, but we also audio record so we can go back and listen and take more notes. Also, as I study more and more, I think our fingers and ears learn to memorize things that come back when we are practicing. When we play a section, I think the teacher’s suggestions come out.
Saehyun: I also record my lessons . . . but I think music should be something in the moment. Not something that you go back to and try to think what you thought back then. When I have a lot of comments from my teacher, I don’t really take notes during lessons. Sometimes I do when the piece is very long, thirty, forty minutes. I just try to feel what my teacher said instead of thinking about it nowadays. I sometimes think playing the piano is very much like imposing your own breath into the instrument. That’s something that recordings can’t really show, even when we listen back to recordings. So, I try to absorb the feeling I get from lessons. And then, even if we review our teacher’s comments, it’s also important to make those ideas our own. It’s not like the teacher gives us information and then it comes through our head and then it comes back the other way through our performance. We have to process it and we have to apply those ideas and create our own ideas. When I get so many different comments, I try to be very selective and to just think about the big picture: what was my teacher trying to say, generally, about my playing?
Competition Struggles
TWoA: What is the hardest part about preparing for a competition?
Seokyoung: Do you want to go first?
Saehyun: There are too many difficulties. It’s hard to label them. But I think the most overarching difficulty is being in control of myself and not panicking (laughs). It’s very important to be in a state where you have good mental health and good physical health. That’s a big challenge for me because I have a voice in my head that keeps telling me: “Do better, do better!” And that of course pushes me to improve and to work. But when we are competing it’s also important to have good confidence. Another challenge is that right before competitions, you teacher tends to give you multiple lessons per week. That can be very tiring. When there is so much information going into your head it’s very difficult to process all the information and make it your own ideas. That’s a challenge. We also face a lot of pressure and anxiety when we are competing in competitions because we are not just playing for ourselves, we are playing for the audience. There is also the jury. We don’t know what the jury wants. It’s very different from, let’s say, an exam, because when we are preparing for an exam, we know what’s coming. We know what we have to study, what types of questions they will ask. But in a competition, the environment around you is constantly changing. We don’t know what the piano is going to be like, we don’t know what the concert hall is going to be like. We don’t know about the atmosphere. We basically have no idea about how Cliburn Junior will turn out. I think this sense of uncertainty about the future is always a challenge for musicians, even if it’s not for preparing for a competition, even if it’s for concerts. We don’t know about the everchanging circumstances around us.
TWoA: What about you, Seokyoung?
Seokyoung: Yeah, I think the last part really resonates with me. We don’t know the atmosphere. At least when we are performing in a concert, we get to rehearse in the hall and rehearse on that specific piano. Before you go to a competition, it’s also important to make good decisions: determining whether you have to practice now, or have a lesson, or even if you have to rest. Also, in a competition, you get to decide what you do in the moment while we also have a lot of things we decide before we go on stage.
Stress Management
TWoA: That’s quite stressful. What strategies have you developed to look after your physical and mental health?
Saehyun: That’s a good question because I’m still trying to figure it out. Hmmm. I tend to – my teacher also says this: I’m a big overthinker. I overthink everything in the music. I have to go through every pathway and eliminate all the bad choices and I have to try everything so I can search out something. I am trying to change this because sometimes I think I should be more spontaneous, or I should believe in myself a little more. To answer the question directly: we sometimes play chess together. We try to have time outside of piano, outside of practice rooms. I sometimes just take a walk around my house because the nature here is very beautiful. Just breathing in fresh air gives me a lot of joy. I also like just staring at the clouds, just looking at the shapes. That’s basically all I do. I don’t know if that helps me that much - but at least I haven’t given up piano yet! So, I guess it helps.
Seokyoung: I also often go for a walk on our campus. It’s really beautiful at Walnut Hill. And we play chess. One thing I like to do is eat something sweet, like chocolate. That works really well. But I don’t know if that’s good for my physical health. . . but it’s good for my mental health.
TWoA: Do you do any sports or exercise?
Saehyun: I play tennis. I also head the table tennis club at my school. And I always beg Seokyoung to come every week. But I’m not sure whether those sports really help my physical health that much. But they do give me ideas about piano playing: using your energy when you are playing tennis, having energy at the moment of impact is actually quite similar with the mechanism of playing piano. When it comes to exercising, I have a few exercises I do every night that my physical therapist suggested me to do. I just exercise my back muscle because that’s the one you mainly use when you play the piano. Also, my wrist, trying to keep it flexible.
Competition Advice
TWoA: Do you have any advice for someone going to their first competition?
Saehyun: Do you want to go first?
Seokyoung: Don’t overpractice right before your competition because that will make you feel overwhelmed. I don’t know whether I can say this, because I’m not really good at competitions, but I would say: just trust yourself? I think enough time of practicing before the competition begins is good for your confidence. That’s also important.
Saehyun: My advice is that you should just give up. No, I’m not joking. What I mean by giving up is not: “Oh, I’m not going to play. I’m not competing.” You have to let go of all of what you want, let go of your expectations, your high expectations of yourself when you are at a competition and just let go of all thoughts. When you are in the competition, you are creating something spontaneous, and whatever comes out of your performance at the moment, just be really ready to embrace whatever happens at the competition. Because anything might happen. You might play beautifully on that day, or you might play terribly. Of course, we are trained to be professional, but I think being ready to accept any type of result, always having a constant mindset whether you are eliminated in the first round or you win the first prize, always just remaining humble and having that constant joy of creating music.
TWoA: There are a lot of external factors to get used to at a competition: a new city, sometimes a new country, a different piano. Any advice on how to adjust to all of this quickly?
Seokyoung: For the piano, my teacher always says: try many different pianos before you go to the competition. You should learn how to adjust your playing depending on the different pianos. You should also try many different halls.
Saehyun: I pray (laughs). I pray for the best. When you go to competitions, sometimes the practice time is limited because there are not enough pianos for all competitors, and you have to take turns. When you are not able to practice because there is no piano: I maybe try to do some mental practice. I just try to be someone who lives inside music, not someone who feels: “Oh, I have to DO music.” So that music comes out of me. That’s two totally different things. So that music becomes one with me, physically and mentally. I just try to live music as best as I can. And then the adjustments with the piano and everything will come.
TWoA: Do your parents come along to competitions?
Saehyun: Yes, my mom is coming along with me to Cliburn Junior. Also, Seokyoung’s mom. But I think at Cliburn Junior, the parents and the competitors are separated, they live in separate dorms. Your parents play a really big role in competitions. But I think also it’s quite important to be independent.
Rituals
TWoA: Do you have any good luck charms or rituals you do before a competition or before you perform?
Saehyun: Well, I have a lot. I don’t think Seokyoung has many rituals but I’m very particular about everything, which is not really good. I have this specific handkerchief that I have to use and then I always have a heat pack. If you shake it and then put it inside the handkerchief, it becomes warm and it warms your hands. I always bring those to competitions. Also, this might sound weird, but I wear two pairs of socks when I perform because my feet and my hands tend to get cold. I think it’s just something genetic. I don’t know, it just gives me mental comfort. And, again, looking at the music before the night of my performance. Looking through all of the music and trying to absorb it, that’s also a routine I have. Also, for some reason, I try to not drink too much water on the day of the performance, like not too much soup, but something like fish, or some rice.
Seokyoung: I think I’m the kind of person who’s not really particular about everything. I just let it go. But there are some patterns that I just go through at a competition or a performance. I also look at the scores before I play, on the day, and I have some kind of routine of swiping the keys with my handkerchief. But I don’t ask: please, let it go well. It just makes me feel good because I do it every time.
We are keeping our fingers crossed for Saehyun and Seokyoung at Cliburn Junior!
Curious to hear more about Saehyun’s and Seokyoung’s lives in Korea and the United States? Click here for part I of the interview.
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