Setting Goals for Music Practice: An Interview with Ángel M. Falú-García

This week on the podcast we’re speaking with freelance artist and viola & violin teacher Ángel Falú-García. We talk about his start in music and how he ended up playing the viola, what he learned the hard way about practice, and how that influences how he works with his students now and more. 

As a freelance artist, Ángel M. Falú-García has performed in a variety of venues including the US Virgin Islands; Guadalajara, Mexico; Dominican Republic; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Akron and Green, Ohio; Westport, New York; Burlington, North Carolina; Portland, Oregon, and Rochester, Minnesota.  

Currently, Falú works as a Suzuki Viola and Violin teacher at his own studio located in downtown Rochester.  He is also the current membership chair and former board president of the Southeastern Minnesota Suzuki Association also known as SEMSA.

Mr. Falú holds a Bachelor’s degree in Viola Performance from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and a Masters of Music degree from the University of Akron. 

To Listen to the full episode you can find the Time to Practice Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Audible , Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also listen directly from the link below: 

Highlights from This Episode

About practice when he was growing up: “In reality, both in the band setup and in the orchestra setup, it was more like we had rehearsals almost every day or we were I would practice in either sectionals or when we had that free time for us to do our own individual practice, I would gather up my friends and be like, “let’s just get together and practice.” So we would sit in a corner here or there and literally just play our instruments as much as we could. We were allowed to take our instruments home so we could practice. But that wasn’t a reality in my household. So I didn’t get to practice at home. I did practice Monday to Friday, but it was more in the social setting of the school and with my friends.”

About learning how to practice as a college student: “It was a process of me not understanding and struggling and struggling and struggling and yet plowing through because that’s what you do when you’re in school. Until you find that someone, that teacher that really inspires you and explains to you, right? And makes you understand or helps you understand what you need to do to help accomplish things. And I think for me, from then on that’s just even how I teach. Like I need to make sure that all of my students understand what to practice, but not what to practice specifically, [but] how to practice and how to accomplish all of those things.”

On getting all the details worked out in a piece of music: “And then at the end, when you have everything put together, I see it kind of like a puzzle. Then you just play everything through. And then we work on little details. I tell my students like ironing a shirt, right. You have to whole shirt put together, but then we still have wrinkles that we need to tackle to make sure that everything is like really nice. And then you wear it and you look really good. Right? You look good. You sound good. And it’s great. But it starts by working hard from the beginning. It’s working hard, but working smart as well.”

“I think listening is very important in practicing. I think it’s the most magical thing that can happen in practice. And I think you’ve mentioned it and Ed Sprunger has mentioned it as well and in music there’s no such thing as magic, but the closest thing to that is listening. If you listen consistently, then your brain will magically make it seem like, “oh, I remember this.” And then your fingers will move appropriately. Your bow arm would move appropriately.”

Links in this episode

Find Ángel M. Falú’s Teaching Page on Facebook

Find Ángel M. Falú-García on Instagram

Pre-order Christine’s New Book Music Practice Makeover, out next week HERE.  

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Transcript