Practice
by Dave Latchaw
Practice is not a mystery. As a musician and a music educator I have heard plenty of excuses for not practicing, and have even have given one or two of my own. There is no way to avoid practice in the process of expanding one’s capabilities. It’s the bridge that everyone has to travel to achieve a higher level of competence at any skill. The amount of constructive practice put in will directly affect the time that it takes to reach a goal. Of course, natural ability is a factor also. Generally, I look at natural ability as just being at a different starting place on the path of forward progress. Sometimes natural ability allows you to start farther down the path, but it gets you just so far. Usually, the musician who has natural ability and has a good sense of how to practice constructively will be the most successful in their musical progress. The person with natural ability who doesn’t practice then areas they may be lacking in, will end up being limited. For example, a musician who starts out learning everything by ear still needs to learn how to read music. It just makes one complete. Yes, there are exceptions, but that is rare. You can find that person who can listen to very complex music and then be able to play it back perfectly. That’s impressive, and very cool, but if there was no recording and only the written music, that person would be lost.
How to practice? What to practice? When to Practice? These all are questions to ask yourself, and then figure out what steps to take to have practice be a part of the regular routine. As an educator, I am surprised by how often students are “practice challenged”. Since practicing isn’t something we innately know how to do, students need to ask their teachers for help if they are having trouble. Most teachers have loads of ideas to share if they know that a student needs help.
I think it is important to remember to practice slow. Take the time to break down whatever section of music you are working on into small bits, then gradually expand from that. There may be a technique issue or piece of music you need to perform, just decide what is most pressing and focus your available time on that. You have to walk before you can run. Isolating small sections will help with the building of muscle memory when doing a difficult section. This takes patience and time, but is absolutely necessary for improvement. You can’t fake being thorough.
Record yourself. Nothing can give you a more honest and humbling view of your playing. Recording myself has been a great source of information for me to design my practice priorities. I also find that with students, and sometimes professional players, they are so engaged with the physical act of playing that they don’t have a complete perspective on what they sound like. It is sometimes easier for players and students to be in denial about their actual abilities than record how they play. Recording is very truthful and can be the great ego equalizer. The ego is great at leading people into complacency, which is counterproductive to creative growth and expansion of capabilities.
There is a difference between playing and practicing. You really need to practice the things that you can’t do yet, which is not the most fun thing in the world! Make sure that you also give yourself time to just play, because that’s fun and it helps to improve the musical side of you.
When to practice is tough for everyone. With limited time to practice, one should have a prioritized list of what they need to work on, so that when there is time to practice you can be efficient with your time. Most people have a zillion activities all going at once, which means making time for practice isn’t easy. That’s fine, but one can’t expect results without consistent practice. In a lot of ways, results are equal to time spent on a task. Try to find more short periods of time if big chunks of time are not available. I think many people are inclined to bail on practicing if they can’t do a long session.
In this busy world sometimes practice gets put aside. That will happen, but just keep trying to make your practice time important. Remember to have a good time all the time with music, but also respect it with practice. Your musical growth is equal to time you put towards it - keep practicing!
So… someone walked up to a guy on a New York street corner and asked, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?
