The Practice of Practice

by Jonathan Harnum

If you’re going to share you goals, choose specific, easily measured goals.

“Silence is a source of great strength.”

Nearly every musician I’ve interviewed—including Bobby Broom—believes that listening to musicians and watching musicians perform are both forms of music practice.

Sometimes a model can be simply listening to a great performer, but to really squeeze the most juice out of a musical experience, it’s best to see the performance unfolding in front of our very eyes, with no digital devices between us and the performance.

This is just one reason why having a teacher you admire is so crucial, because when you learn from a great teacher, you often get to play along.

You can fail many times, but you aren’t a failure until you begin to blame somebody else.

Weiner identified three things people tend to perceive regarding the success or failure of some action. They are the location of the cause (either external or internal); the stability of the cause (constant, variable, or neutral); and whether the cause can be controlled.

The coolest thing about Attribution Theory is that it may not matter what the “true” nature of the cause is. It’s your perception of these three aspects—location (internal or external), stability (stable, unstable, or neutral), and control—that shapes how you tackle the problems.

most people who become great at what they do tend to always see the cause of a failure as internal; they tend to take responsibility for any error that occurs.

Successful people in all fields tend to see otherwise arbitrary external causes of failure as controllable. This means successful people tend to believe the cause for the failure can be fixed or improved through effort, even if it seems impossible.

“Opportunity strikes those who are prepared for it.” You can’t control luck, but you can make your best efforts to place yourself into Lady Luck’s path, and every now and then she might give you a kiss on her way past.

“The role of early instruction and maximal parental support appears to be much more important than innate talent.”

that parents of successful musicians “did whatever they could to make the practice productive and enjoyable.”

“Destiny, quite often, is a determined parent.”

Recording yourself is something pros do all the time. It’s the best way to get a clear idea of how you sound. Plus, it’s fun!

Get the most out of your practice by coming to lessons—or any learning situation—with specific goals in mind. One of the most powerful things you can learn from a teacher is how to practice.

One of my own fundamental research questions was how musicians learn to practice. I asked Hans how he teaches students to practice. He said, “I show them. I practice with them.” He’s not alone.

Any time the student showed aptitude or curiosity or involvement, these early teachers gave lots of rewards and encouragement. Early teachers were less worried about doing things correctly than they were about sustaining the young musician’s interest and enthusiasm. They emphasized playful involvement and encouraged exploration.

Teachers in the second phase would also arrange for students to spend time with like-minded people either after school or on weekends, and would often connect the student with professionals who played the same instrument, or expert teachers.

The most dramatic change in this final phase was that the personal relationship between the student and the teacher was no longer an important aspect of the relationship. What mattered was the music and the shared dedication to the art of performing.

what it boils down to is that a great teacher will help you carve years off your practice time by showing you strategies and techniques that you probably won’t discover on your own, like the breathing trick tuba legend Arnold Jacobs used to avoid passing out.

Teachers are everywhere when you adopt the mindset of being a voracious learner. As the old saying goes, “When the student is ready, the Master appears.”

“Those who can, do; those who do and understand, teach.”

Part of the reason the positive kind of peer pressure is so powerful is that we’re emotionally connected to the desire to do well.

Risk-taking (especially by teens) is demonized because it’s the spectacular failures that stick vividly in our memories. But risk-taking is essential to progress.

On your own journey, the more musical peers you can surround yourself with, the better your practice will be.

What’s important is not the hours you’ve practiced, but the kind of practice in your hours.

Practicing early in the morning was especially important for Maurice André at the height of his career. In 1978 André performed 220 concerts and averaged 180 concerts a year in his prime. He practiced early in the morning so his chops had a chance to recover before the evening concert. Other players and published research find that mornings are best for practice, even if the neighbors might not agree.

Most of the best musicians in Ericsson’s deliberate practice study—as well as most musicians I spoke with—take naps in the afternoon, after their morning practice session.

Early music practice followed by a nap is a one-two punch.

Later, Rex said the thing that had changed the most for his practice over the years was his efficiency.

If your own reverie hasn’t overcome you yet, know that it can happen at any time.

You’re in this for the long haul, so you need the mindset not of a sprinter, but of a marathon runner, or even better, the mindset of a musher on the 1,100-mile Iditarod sled-dog race. Improvement is a long, slow process. Beware of injury, not only physical injury, but psychological burnout.

Taking it a step further, breaking up your practice into two or more sessions per day is also better than one long chunk of time just once a day. Many professional musicians have an intensive practice session earlier in the day and a lighter one later in the day, usually after a nap.

Think of every musical experience as a kind of practice. If you do, you’ll find a kind of all-encompassing focus that will help you get better. Practice is a way of life, not an activity you do for a certain amount of time every day.

My experience spreading out short bursts of practice has been unusually effective, especially when I’m learning a new chord progression on guitar and have little time to do a full practice session.

For Guerrilla practice to work, you have to have a very simple goal, like a nano-goal or a micro-goal.

Even with just one or two minutes of practice a day you can accomplish a significant achievement. Hans Jensen helped one of his cello students learn a tough cello etude with that much daily practice.

They mapped out—in precise detail—a tiny goal for each practice session. At the end of six weeks, practicing only one or two minutes a day, she could play the piece. That’s the power of clear, easily achieved goals and guerrilla practice compounded over time.

Ten or fifteen minutes here and there really adds up. Practicing sporadically is a great way to burn what you’re learning into your memory, whether you’re a sea slug, a musician, or trying to learn something else.

World-renowned cellist Pablo Casals was asked why, at age 90, he still practiced. He said, “Because I think I’m making progress.”

“Any sufficiently advanced ability is indistinguishable from magic.”

And competence is relative. For example, if I judge my competence on trumpet compared to Maurice André or Dizzy Gillespie, I’m doomed to live forever in the unpleasant realm of Conscious Incompetence. I’ll never, ever be as good as either of those guys. At some point, you have to own both your competence and your incompetence. Cultivate a cautious disdain for the infinite ways you’re incompetent.

Better yet, turn the mind off entirely, as jazz pianist Kenny Werner recommends. He said, “This is a practice of hearing a sound, not just accepting it, but—even aggressively—loving it.”4 Sounds kind of easy, doesn’t it? But just like anything useful, it takes practice.

In this phase, you’re aware of what it means to be competent, and you’re aware of the kind of practice you need to do in order to reach that competence, whether it’s totally owning an open mic performance of a new tune you wrote, playing flawlessly for your spring concert, nailing an audition, or dominating a competition. With well-managed goals, diligent practice, and perseverance, anybody can reach this level. There is yet one more level, however, inhabited by the greatest of players.

“The first time I played a bass, I was successful. Success is not a goal. Success is in the doing. Always.”

In one study, 61 older adults in a group piano class showed a dramatic increase in hGH levels (hGH is implicated in such aging phenomena as osteoporosis, energy levels, wrinkling, sexual function, muscle mass, and aches and pains) and a decrease in anxiety, depression, and perception of loneliness, taking into account differences in life events and social support.

Being engaged in musical thinking through practice is not a magic elixir that will make you younger or smarter, but by most measures, engaging in music making does make life just a tiny bit better. It certainly does for me, anyway.

Where you live and who you’re surrounded by matters.

You may not have ambitions to be a professional orchestral musician, but whatever music you want to pursue, few things are better for your progress than surrounding yourself with like-minded people.