The Practice of Practice Quotes

“No matter what gifts you have, practice is the only way to get better at anything.

"If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery it would not seem so wonderful at all” - Michael Angelo”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Practice and playing music has to be like a religious experience. It has to be your religion, you know; it has to be your trance. You get something from a devotion to it and digging deeper into yourself and the nature of reality.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Those who can, do; those who do and understand, teach.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“If you want to get better, you simply have to practice. There’s no way around it. Even though Prasad, Sona, and Rex all had beneficial early experiences with music, each has had to spend thousands of hours in practice to acquire their musical prowess. Rex told me, “If people could’ve lived my life and all the hours I’ve spent practicing the tuba alone in some little room someplace, they probably wouldn’t label me as being particularly talented.”[6]”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“As a musician, when you listen to music, it’s not a passive act; you’re fully engaged in the experience, almost swimming around in it, perceiving detail and depth that casual hearing just can’t pick up. The way musicians listen to music is both more intense and more purposeful than the way “normal” people listen, especially if you’re listening to music you love, or music you want to learn. Tabla player Rupesh Kotecha calls it intricate listening, New York Philharmonic trumpeter Ethan Bensdorf calls it active listening, free-improvising pioneer and composer Pauline Oliveros calls it deep listening. Whatever you call it, listening this intensely takes practice.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Forget about the 10,000-hour rule you’ve heard so much about. It’s a red herring. What’s important is not the hours you’ve practiced, but the kind of practice in your hours. Focus on the tree, not the forest.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“The next micro-goal was to move from that second chord (Emin7) to the third chord (A13), an even more awkward chord for me. You can see there are many possible immediate goals for a practice session, and each of those is made up of numerous micro-goals, which are”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“There is nothing more serious than having fun.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Goals are in a near-constant state of revision, especially the shorter-term goals, because as you come up against the reality of learning something, you have to adapt to adjust to that reality.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Wayne Dyer, author (b. 1940)”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Absorb what is useful; discard what is not; add what is uniquely your own.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Strong and sustained parental encouragement to practice was evident in virtually all successful young musicians.2 Encouragement is very different from enforcement, of course.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“You want to be relaxed when you play, and practicing while worried or anxious won’t help you achieve that relaxation.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“I’m singing for the love of it, have mercy on the man who sings to be adored.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Focus on mastering the music as deeply as you can, and worry less—or not at all if it’s possible—about impressing others”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“If you are irritated by every rub, how can you be polished?”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Beginners often can’t perceive errors unless they’re big ones, massive clams that cause the musical endeavor to come crashing to a halt. At this point, beginning practicers usually compound the error by returning to the top of the tune for another attempt, instead of fixing the error immediately, like experts do.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“When great musicians practice, they go slowly enough that errors are avoided. When an error does crop up, expert practicers fix those errors immediately. That’s the strategy: fixing a mistake immediately. Anybody can do it, and anybody who adopts that strategy will get better faster than those who don’t.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Experts who accumulated 10,000 hours of practice weren’t trying to accumulate those hours; their focus was elsewhere, on the task at hand.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“There is no such thing as maintenance. If you’re not trying to get better, you’re getting worse.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“The fact that mirror neurons are activated when you hear and see a performance only reinforces why hearing live music is such a great idea. What kind of practice could be more enjoyable than kicking back and watching master musicians perform? I”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“butt down”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Practicing slowly (combined with active listening) is the first concrete practice technique I’ve”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Musical ability doesn’t come from either the chicken or the embryo, it’s the chicken and the embryo. Talent isn’t some mysterious natural ability. Talent is practice in disguise.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“There is some pretty solid scientific evidence that babies in the womb can learn songs and sounds, one of the most important sounds being mommy’s voice.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“People with a growth mindset understand that failure is a form of assessment telling you that you need to work harder, or approach the problem from a different angle. Failure is an opportunity to learn for someone with a growth mindset, not an example of your fundamental lack of intelligence. Those with a growth mindset also tend to seek out challenges, they tend to persist in the face of failure, and they adopt deeper learning strategies, because their goal is mastery of the subject, not acquiring the label of “smart” in order to support the ego. So what does this have to do with music, and motivation to practice?”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“On the other hand, those with a growth mindset believe that intelligence is something that can be grown. Effort, work, and challenges are what make intelligence grow and flower and bear juicy fruit. People with a growth mindset aren’t as attached to demonstrating their intelligence because they know intelligence can be increased, and so intelligence isn’t a fundamental, unvarying aspect of their sense of self. Notice I said, “aren’t as attached.”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice

“Those with a fixed mindset tend to learn things in a superficial way, just enough to prove they can do it. That’s bad enough, but it gets worse. When people”
― Jonathan Harnum, The Practice of Practice