The Art of Practicing Music

“Practice Makes Perfect” & “Practice, Practice, Practice.” We have all heard variations on these expressions. Practicing takes time, effort and patience. So how do you practice a piece to get the most out of the session in the least amount of time and also see progress?

It took me years to really understand this process. My husband is in the technology field. There is an expression that asks, “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: “One bite at a time!”  This is such a great analogy for practicing.  I call this process “chunking it” as that is how I approach a piece.

After sight reading through the selection, I go back and take small sections. I work for notes, rhythms, articulations, phrasing, etc. I might work on a two-measure phrase for 10 minutes. However, at the end of that time, I know those two measures backwards and forwards. I know it in my fingers, in my head and in my heart and soul.

Now putting that difficult passage into the rest of the piece takes time and work. However, if you play through the mistakes and not stop to correct them immediately, it takes so much more time to undo the damage. Learning it correctly the first time saves hours and hours of what I call “backwards practice.”

Definition of Backwards Practice: Learning a passage incorrectly and then having to unlearn it. Such a time waster! The connections in your brain have been wired incorrectly and now have to be rewired. That takes so much more time and effort. Imagine if you did that while building a house. You would be wiring incorrectly and then having to tear everything out and then redo it. This would be frustrating, time consuming and not fun!

The next time you start a new piece, take it in very small sections and learn it correctly. Trust me, you will learn it in 1/10th of the time and enjoy the process so much more. So, I will practice what I preach and chunk.

To see the results of this method, watch my next performance piece on my YouTube channel or below.