ADHD and playing/practicing

[Thom]

I am extremely ADHD, have been diagnosed since 1972. My Dr. at that time put me on Ritalin. It made me sooo.... lethargic that my parents thought I was a 'Zombie'. So they took me off the Ritalin. My Mom discovered, by accident, that caffeine actually calmed me down to an acceptable level. Many years later and due to other health issues I still am unable to take Ritalin or Adderall. I drink a lot of coffee and Coke Zero, now. I still find it a challenge to concentrate, during practice especially. Anyone overcome this issue in their playing/practicing?

[GabrielRice]

I can't speak from direct experience (I've never been diagnosed but who knows?), but a couple of prominent orchestral players here in the US have been very open about their ADHD and how they strategize practicing to meet their goals. I'm speaking specifically of Sasha Romero, co-principal of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and Brian Hecht, bass/tenor trombone with the Dallas Symphony.

I've seen Brian talk about it very specifically in masterclasses. He finds ways to turn his ADHD into an asset, using his particular brain functions to his advantage and not bowing to "conventional wisdom." Very, very smart.

Sasha is very active on social media; I follow her on both instagram and facebook.

[Thom]

I can't speak from direct experience (I've never been diagnosed but who knows?), but a couple of prominent orchestral players here in the US have been very open about their ADHD and how they strategize practicing to meet their goals. I'm speaking specifically of Sasha Romero, co-principal of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and Brian Hecht, bass/tenor trombone with the Dallas Symphony.

I've seen Brian talk about it very specifically in masterclasses. He finds ways to turn his ADHD into an asset, using his particular brain functions to his advantage and not bowing to "conventional wisdom." Very, very smart.

Sasha is very active on social media; I follow her on both instagram and facebook.

Thank you, I will check these out online

[VJOFan]

I saw this author talk about his book in a long form interview a few years back. He had a lot of good strategies he used in his life in general.

https://www.amazon.ca/Gift-ADHD-Transfo ... 1572248505

[Thom]

I saw this author talk about his book in a long form interview a few years back. He had a lot of good strategies he used in his life in general.

https://www.amazon.ca/Gift-ADHD-Transfo ... 1572248505

Thank you

[JLivi]

This is a very interesting question and I look forward to other responses. I can only speak to my experience, but similar to you I was diagnosed at a very young age (7). I was also put on Ritalin and was a zombie for a large part of my childhood. I forget what age I was, but sometime in middle school my parents switched me over to a 24 hour time release medicine called Conserta. I also hated how that made me feel. Once I turned graduated high school I told my parents I don't want to be on any medication anymore just to test how life would be without it. We decided that we would wait until winter break of my freshman year to reassess if I should go back on some kind of medicine. Thankfully I was able to fight through it and not fall behind academically. I did have plenty of struggles, but overall I was happier off the medicine, so I haven't taken it since (except recreationally).

Now to your question about practice. So with ADHD, one of the super power (I guess) is that you an have hyper focus on one particular task. Music is often that hyper focus for me. I have found that having a set routine that I do 5-7 days per week is really helpful because if I get distracted I can at least know that I made it through my routine. After that I will decide what it is I'm trying to practice and determine if it needs short bursts of focus or if I'll be able to hyper focus on it. Usually playing the trombone results in short bursts, but I can sit down and arrange a tune for hours at a time, often losing sleep because I will stay up until 3-4AM. That's not great when you have 2 little kids like I do.

I think a lot of people in today's world claim to have ADD or ADHD, but I think it's the nature of society. We're wired to get distracted and lose focus. My wife is a pharmacist and often mentions how ADD/ADHD gets over diagnosed and people get put on drugs that they don't truly need. But that's a separate conversation that I'm not qualified to have

Hopefully that helps. Like I said, I look forward to hearing other responses to maybe get some more tools.

a couple of prominent orchestral players here in the US have been very open about their ADHD and how they strategize practicing to meet their goals. I'm speaking specifically of Sasha Romero, co-principal of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and Brian Hecht, bass/tenor trombone with the Dallas Symphony.

I've seen Brian talk about it very specifically in masterclasses. He finds ways to turn his ADHD into an asset, using his particular brain functions to his advantage and not bowing to "conventional wisdom." Very, very smart.

Sasha is very active on social media; I follow her on both instagram and facebook.

I'm going to have to look into this. Thanks for sharing!

[mbarbier]

It's definitely a thing I struggle with and a trick that I've found helpful is I watch TV (normally Bake off) while I warmup. Something I've already seen provides the right amount of distraction that basically lets me focus because I'm almost focusing on opposition to it. I also find things like the Michael Davis Warmups or Buzzing Basics really helpful because they're an exact amount of time that just keeps things moving forward.

I find that by the time I do those two things I'm pretty locked in and can have a "normal" practice session
I also really second Sash's content on the matter

[LeTromboniste]

Never got diagnosed as a kid because there and then, someone who was good at school and was not "turbulent" couldn't possibly have an attention deficit. I wondered for several years (basically my whole adult life) about my difficulty concentrating in class, in rehearsal, even in concerts, and conversely my extreme tendency to hyperfocus. I finally got diagnosed earlier this year (which is difficult because, at least here in Switzerland, they won't diagnose ADHD in adults unless they are able to also retro-diagnose it based on childhood symptoms, which are often hard to remember clearly and specifically enough). I have been on Concerta since last spring. It's not a miracle pill, but it does help me so far. Less distracted (I especially see a difference in rehearsals and concerts where my mind wanders a lot less), and also better able to avoid and/or snap out of hyperfocus.

One thing with practicing is it's pretty much useless if I'm easily distracted. I need to really turn off all possible distractions, and even then it might not be productive (or be counter-productive). I used to practice a lot, with often not that much to show for it. I really struggled with that in college because I felt I was practicing a ton and not improving anywhere near as much as I should. Through grad school as I transitioned to freelance work and having to deal with ever more admin work (which is difficult and extra time-consuming for me) and having therefore ever less time for practicing, and with a clearer idea of who I am as a musician rather than just going through the motions of what you're supposed to do to build your technique, I just had to find strategies to practice better to achieve my goals. I ultimately removed most routine-style exercises from my regular practicing because those are usually where it's not at all productive for me. Instead, I found that if repertoire was the focus of my practice I usually didn't get distracted nearly as much (often instead going into hyperfocus), and my practice session would be several orders of magnitude more productive, achieving a lot more in less time. So I use this to trick my brain and stay in that productive zone, using challenging repertoire as my main practice material and an excuse to do technical exercises locally to get the piece better (instead of practicing the technical exercises abstractly and only afterwards applying the technique to the rep). Or I challenge myself to dig ever deeper in musical ideas that then require pushing the envelope of what I can do technically. I still do a few routine things, but they are either things I do as a fairly quick warm-up (5-20 minutes), or things I do more or less mindlessly with the practice mute while watching or listening to something on days where I couldn't get a good practice session in – typically shaped longue tones, fast tonguings, lip slurs and/or lip trills (incidentally, that mindless practicing has actually really developped some of aspects of my technique that I'm most proud of). But basically for my proper practice sessions I do the things that tend to get me into hyperfocus and then use that hyperfocus to get big improvements. It often feels like activating a kind of turbo mode.

I know this goes against a lot of conventional wisdom, but that's how I find I improve the most and the fastest. It might very well be that first getting a solid foundation through technical routines was necessary to even get there in the first place, but looking back I find that every period where I made the most progress were times where I was neglecting the routines and was working on repertoire in particular depth. And that just corresponds to how I am generally. I hyperfocus when I'm actively stimulated and engaged intellectually and mentally (as this post probably shows ). So I suspect I would actually be a lot further if I had consciously adopted this approach ten years earlier instead of banging my head against the wall day in, day out, trying to keep doing all the technical routines I felt I was supposed or expected to do.

[GabrielRice]

That's really interesting, Maximilien.

In my teaching I really try to be flexible to the different learning styles of my students and encourage them to find the practice methods that work for them. I've just been working with one recently who hates doing a daily fundamentals routine and wants to base everything on repertoire, but they NEED to be dealing with the fundamentals in order to sound good enough on the repertoire to get the degree they are enrolled in. I have had a very hard time helping them find a consistent enough tone production to make that practice productive.

I am open to any and all suggestions. This is a very interesting and valuable topic!

[Burgerbob]

I really should get checked for this. So many things said here resonate with me.

Thanks for sharing, everyone

[LeTromboniste]

That's really interesting, Maximilien.

In my teaching I really try to be flexible to the different learning styles of my students and encourage them to find the practice methods that work for them. I've just been working with one recently who hates doing a daily fundamentals routine and wants to base everything on repertoire, but they NEED to be dealing with the fundamentals in order to sound good enough on the repertoire to get the degree they are enrolled in. I have had a very hard time helping them find a consistent enough tone production to make that practice productive.

I am open to any and all suggestions. This is a very interesting and valuable topic!

I would be reticent to offer suggestions with any kind of authority because I wouldn't assume that what works for me would work for most (conventional wisdom is conventional for a reason, I guess). Although I do have a student who also struggles with attention and has really thrived working with a similar mindset as I do.

I can only say what works for me. Really I would emphasize that although repertoire is the central point of my practice, I don't think it's helpful to just play the repertoire. I think it works for me because I use it as a framework for practice, not only an end in itself, and I do integrate several diagnostics and practice tools that touch on fundamentals. And I'm constantly improvising new tools. Also possibly because I'm a very cerebral player and I believe a lot (for myself at least) in micro-managing and being purposeful not only with long phrases but also with every small gesture within them and the shape of every note. I'm picky and demanding with myself when working with actual music (in fact I find it easier to be picky than with routine exercises), so when I'm working on a piece in depth, I'm touching on all the technical aspects of it all the time. But because it's music, with a clear short-term goal, and an immediate result in how the piece has improved by the end of the session, that keeps my brain engaged in a way I never managed to have with routines.

I'm not sure how that relates to acquiring the fundamentals in the first place, I'm afraid, and if I did develop my basic trombone technique through that process (I'm not even sure), it certainly wasn't conscious or on purpose.