Excellent if somewhat obvious article on practice habits

N8Ma
Fri, 01 May 2009 17:03:57 +0000

NYT columnist David Brooks has penned an interesting op-ed that touches on topics dear to aspiring musicians:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html

I’m particularly fond of his trouncing the Mozart-as-effortless-genius meme. But I believe most useful is his emphasis on quality, not merely quantity, in practicing anything:

“The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.”

Too many practice rooms are filled with sounds from the exposition of concertos, played thoughtlessly and at full blast, and then when there’s a difficult measure or two, the player slows down, mumbles through the passage, then it’s back to the races. THIS IS NOT PRACTICING.

Enjoy!