Practice Performance vs. Lesson Performance

I need to figure out how practicing can go so well and a lesson can go so…blah sometimes. One of the things I worked on a lot this week (and before my previous lesson) was the opening four notes of the Bach A minor violin concerto.

I thought of them as an inhale and an exhale, inhale and exhale. I thought about how the first note in each pair should be crisp; the bow should lift off the string. The note shouldn’t be cut short, but it should be crisp. The second note in each pair should be accented more, sustained, but not overwrought. Not too much vibrato. “On the one hand, on the other hand.” I thought about this a lot. I practiced it a lot. Not disproportionately so, but I paid attention to it.

And in my lesson yesterday, those four notes dribbled out like overcooked spaghetti. Ms. L. actually stopped me right after them to order a do-over. Luckily I redeemed myself a bit on other lift-plus-accent passages in the first few lines, so I know I have that bow motion/gesture in me. The practice paid off there, I guess.

But in the larger scheme of things, how can I improve my “performance” at lessons? I would say that at lessons, I typically play 70-80% as well as I do when practicing. But wait a second…I bet that I am selectively remembering the best parts of my practice sessions, not the woodshedding. Maybe I played those opening four notes twelve or fifteen times in the last two days alone, and because they came out the way I wanted them to three or four of the last times, I thought I had them. I just didn’t have them secure enough.

I don't buy that practicing more is the answer--it's probably a matter of practicing more mindfully. Or maybe I shouldn't get too cute about the inhale/exhale business, and should just pay attention to what my bow is  actually doing (how close to the frog? how much does it really come off the string?) when I play those notes right.