Instead of crunches and sprints, there are scales and arpeggios. Instead of endurance, there are long hours of practice and focus. Daniel Zlatkin ’11, Sam Weiser ’12, and Rachael Shapiro ’12 are some of the pro-musicians of Staples—instead of scoring touchdowns, they make music.   

But what separates the “pros” from the amateurs?

The Works
Zlatkin started with the cello at age 10, and has become a young success in composing as well as playing, as he was awarded a two-year internship with Pulitzer Prize-nominated composer Augusta Read Thomas through the New Haven Youth Symphony Young Composers program.

 Each day he spends anywhere between two and half to four hours practicing his cello—that can be about as long as a car ride from Westport to Baltimore, Md. A third of the practice time is solely devoted to carefully practicing scales and arpeggios, perfecting pitches and technicality.

Shapiro started playing the piano at age 7, though she was singing before even laying a finger on the keys. She generally practices for about three hours a day, though her routine varies, as she focuses on different components on different days. Sometimes it’s arm movements, some times it’s fingerings, other times it’s phrasing or dynamics:

“Covering two pieces a day could mean that I get through less than a page of each piece, if I’m really paying close attention to details,” Shapiro said.

With the intense practicing, draining homework and everything in between, life become a juggling act, yet these musicians seem to have their routines down:

“I’m a big believer in the quality of the practice you do rather than just putting in hours. So whatever I can do, I can do, and I make sure that it is an efficient time where I am really being focused and making everything count,” Weiser said.

Weiser started his musical career when he was 3-years-old. And for him, it all began with a neighbor and some jealousy.

“My neighbor came over to babysit and showed off to me what she learned in fourth grade orchestra and I thought it was awesome, so I asked my mom for like six months until she finally caved in,” Sam Weiser ’12 said.

And from there, before he could read or write, Weiser was hooked on music.

Achievements
Their practicing seems to have paid off, as all three students have attained a skilled level of playing. Shapiro and Zlatkin have spent time playing with the New York Youth Symphony as well as other groups; Weiser studies at the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College program for classical and jazz.

Zlatkin has won numerous awards and scholarships, recently including the 2011 Dorothy Gluckman Greenwich Symphony Scholarship Competition and the 2011 Staples Concerto Competition.

Shapiro has given benefit concerts at the Steinway Gallery in Westport for Leukemia and Chrons Disease—collectively, she has raised over $9,000.

Weiser was awarded the Daniel Pearl Memorial violin and came in third for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s 2011 Young Artists Competition.

Secrets to Success
“Practice hard! Practice smart! Get an excellent teacher. Don’t be afraid to express yourself,” Zlatkin said.

But no matter what you do, competition is inevitable. All three of these musicians have had experience with this beast, as Weiser would call it. He sees it as “a totally different animal from performing because it’s a different kind of nervous. It’s really easy to blow it up out of perspective.”

Shapiro emphasizes the importance of minimizing the external pressures and focusing on the intrinsic joy music should bring, as what’s really important “is the piece of yourself you bring to the music.”

Zlatkin agrees, saying, “Art, especially music, is a subjective almost impractical thing to judge. How can somebody measure another person’s ideas, technique, and expressions so precisely? I just want to make sure that I know in my heart that I play and continue to play well, and that I have no regrets.”