Practically Perfect Practicing

Practically Perfect Practicing Robert Jesselson Reprinted from Glaesel String Notes

At one point in my life I truly thought that successful musicians were just born knowing how to play their instruments. Making music seemed to me to be so magical that I had a difficult time separating out raw talent from hard work. As I grew older I began to realize the truth of the old saw about genius being “99% perspiration and 1% inspiration”. The finest musicians do not rely just on their talent; they are hard workers who have put in many hours of practice at some point in their lives (usually very early).

Realizing this, by the time I was a student at the Conservatory in Freiburg, Germany I practiced the cello about 9 hours a day. As I look back to those halcyon days when I was immersed in studying technique and building my repertoire, I realize that much of that time was actually wasted. I now can accomplish in one or two hours what earlier took all day. However, on the process of learning how better to use my time I also figured out many things about how to practice more efficiently and effectively.

Practicing is the process of acquiring new skills and making them into good habits. It is really just a set of learned behavior patterns and responses. Good practicing requires thoughtful self-analysis and self- criticism in the process of improving one’s ability.

The bottom-line, a tell tale sign of successful practicing is if it achieves results. If a student goes into a lesson and is able to play the assignment competently, then that is a sign of successful practicing. If a performer goes on stage and is able to perform well, that is a result of good preparation. How this is achieved may differ from person to person. It is the responsibility of each of us to figure out how we work best and then to replicate these conditions on a regular basis.

The following is a self-diagnostic test of important practice skills. I often use this list to have my students check their own practicing.

I invite you to review this checklist for yourself, and then perhaps give it to your students to rate themselves. Read each of the ten categories of practice habits and then give yourself a grade from 1 – 10 in each category, with 10 being the best and 1 being the worst.

1. Proper Environment Are you practicing in a space conducive to thoughtful work? Is there good light? Is the temperature appropriate and comfortable? Are there distractions, such as a TV, telephone, or siblings walking in and out?

2. Regular Practice Have you established a routine for your practicing, much like brushing your teeth, so that if you miss a day you feel “unclean”? Do you practice at the same time every day, in the same place? Are you consistent in this in this and other aspects of your practicing? Are you aware when your best time is to practice? As a student I found that it was best for me to do warm-ups and scale routines early in the morning, and to do “musical” work in the evening.

3. Planning: have goals! It is useful to divide your total practice time into smaller units and to have very specific goals for each segment. Research has shown that most people are able to sustain their best concentration for about twenty minutes at a time. After that the mind may wander and they are unable to maximize their efforts. I like to divide my students’ total practice time into four general categories: scales and arpeggios, exercise, etudes, and pieces. Before beginning to practice on a given day I ask them to think about how much time they would like to devote to each of these four categories. It is important also to schedule in warm-ups and stretches and relaxation segments. Do you set specific goals? Realistic goals? Do you really know what you are working on at the moment? Is it technique, tone, intonation, phrasing, speed, endurance, kinesthetics, memory, performance, sight-reading, etc. I often make a distinction between a “workout” and a “playthrough”. In a workout I can stop, start, analyze, try something, or experiment. In a playthrough I do not allow myself to stop under any circumstances, trying to mimic a performance situation.

4. Disciplined and intelligent practice Are you strict with yourself in your practicing? Are you focused and concentrating on what you are doing, or are you wasting precious time? Does your mind wander away from the tasks at hand? Do you practice methodically, or are you “all over the map”? Do you use a practice chart to measure your progress? Paul Bazelaire (1960) defined intelligent practicing in the following steps: “Locate the problem. Penetrate and analyze the problem. Fix the problem.”

5. Left-brain: be analytical Are you using your left-brain to think about what you are doing and to learn a new task, or are you just relying on your creative right-brain? Remember that the left-brain can only handle one new piece of information at a time. Are you giving yourself time to absorb that one piece of new information before going on to the next, or are you overloading yourself and getting frustrated? Are you moving sequentially through the new tasks as you learn a passage of music? Are you analyzing the technical difficulties in a passage and breaking them down into bite-sized chunks that you are able to solve? Just as a successful military strategy is to “divide and conquer”, a useful musical strategy is to work on small sections of a difficult passage by tearing them apart before putting them back together. Are you questioning your own solutions to the problems – your fingerings, bowings, phrasings, intonation, etc.? Are you thinking, or just playing?

6. Right-brain: be musical! Are you using your right-brain to solve musical problems? Are you thinking metaphorically and using images to elicit a variety of tonal colors? Do you have a story, philosophy or other extra-musical concept for your piece that will help you connect it to something larger? Are you thinking of color, pulse, motion, architecture, energy, and/or expressivity in your playing? Are you practicing mechanically – if so, you will probably play mechanically? Superachievers can switch from the left-brain to the right-brain as needed. This is called “integrative” brain usage, in which the intuitive and imaginative right-brain can work together with the analytical left-brain to maximize the outcome.

7. Use successful strategies The central tenet of good practicing is the development of good strategies and techniques of learning. Since there are so many methods for working on and solving problems, a complete discussion of these strategies could fill a book. However, these techniques seem to fall into seven basic categories: a) Rote Practice: this is the most basic practice technique, and the most misused. While it can be useful to a point, it is better to think ten times and play once than to play ten times without thinking. b) Imitative Practice c) Aural Practice d) Mental Practice e) Memorization Practice: Just as a muscle needs to be exercised, the brain should be activated with daily memorization work. If this is done daily and memorization techniques are explored, then the result is a consistently strong and secure memory. Do you do daily memory work? f) Discovery Practice g) Performance Practice

8. Relaxed Practice Are you in a constant rush while practicing? Are you patient in your practicing? Are you aware of reducing tension in your playing? Do you use techniques such as yoga, Alexander technique, self-hypnosis, and square breathing to help yourself relax?

9. Be your own teacher Are you constructively self-critical about your practicing? Do you try to improve your practice techniques? Do you use a tape-recorder regularly in your practicing in order to get an “objective” view of your playing? What about a mirror, intonation tuner, metronome, videotape? These are all great tools that should be used regularly.

10. Enjoy practicing! This is the crux of it all. For if you do not – at least on some level – enjoy playing your instrument, improving your technique, deepening your musical understanding, discovering new ideas, working on new music, getting satisfaction from your efforts, and at least to some extent enjoying being by yourself in a practice room, then you will not want to do the necessary work that is required to be a successful musician. For just going through the motions of practicing is not enough. As it is said: “Practice does not make perfect; perfect practice make perfect.”

Robert Jesselson is Professor of Cello at the University of South Carolina where he teaches cello and plays in the American Arts Trio. He was the national President of ASTA, the American String Teachers Association, from 2000-2002. During his tenure as president he initiated the National Studio Teachers Forums (2000 and 2002), started the National String Project Consortium (with sites at 26 universities and grants of $2.2 million), and began the planning for the first stand-alone ASTA national convention in 2003.