The number one killer of continuing music lessons and students reaching their musical goals as adults is loss of interest. And no matter how invigorating that weekly lesson is or how inspiring the teacher, how motivated the student or how dedicated the parent, practicing at home between lessons is where the rubber hits the road. Successful practicing is foundational to successful music education.
Make Beautiful Music – Throw Out the Stopwatch!
To recap, I am commenting on Simon Horsey’s free ebook How to Practice: 5 Habits to Help Make Your Music Practice More Efficient and Effective. Habit 4 is called “Plan Practice By Event” and he makes some excellent points against the common practice of using a clock or (worse!) a timer to make sure practicing gets done. Why? Horsey’s argument is this: “It is easy to become frustrated if we are late starting, it encourages concentrating on the clock instead of practice targets, it means that no matter how much progress is being made towards a goal we feel we should be stopping at the end of the session.” It seems there is no benefit to using a clock or a timer – neither for sitting down to practice (because it makes us think constantly about getting back up) nor for accomplishing practice targets (because it suggests that the job will get done merely by putting the time in).
Sleeping on the Job
The “learning by osmosis” joke is a great illustration of why practicing by the clock doesn’t work. Sleeping on your homework doesn’t count as “studying” and playing your instrument while the timer runs down doesn’t count as “practising.” Another illustration comes from an episode in my life. This weekend, I had to prepare dinner for some guests. I needed to marinate the meat, prepare the stuffing, cut the vegetables and clean the house. If I missed any of these tasks, the dinner “experience” would not be the best I could offer my guests. At least, this was the standard I set myself (it could be that my guests just wanted full bellies regardless of what they put in them, but I doubt it!). I like this comparison to music practice because it highlights the element of a deadline. Practicing goals need to be accomplished by the weekly music lesson, and pieces need to be in tip-top shape by the time of the performance. It is very rare that these deadlines are flexible. My dinner guests were arriving at 7:00 and if I told them I wasn’t ready yet they probably would have left and eaten somewhere else instead. There wouldn’t have been much point in inviting them over for dinner.
Imagine what would happen if my guests arrived and I had said, “Dinner’s not ready yet, but don’t worry, I spent over 3 hours cooking so that means I did my job.” Imagine us sitting down to a meal of raw meat and uncut vegetables and everyone being pleased with that because, after all, I had spent 3 hours in the kitchen doing… “something.” This is what happens when a student shows up for his lesson believing that he is prepared merely because he did 6 days of 30-minute practice sessions. No, your practice time doesn’t matter, what matters is what you accomplish during it.
What Really Happened in the Kitchen
I love Simon Horsey’s suggestion to practice by “event.” What he means by that is to think about your day in terms of its events, not its “clock.” Plan to practice after you come home from soccer practice (whenever that is) rather than 6:00, for example. Because what happens if your soccer goes overtime or there’s a traffic jam and you don’t get home until 6:15? Will you only practice until 6:30, or go overtime until 6:45, or just skip it altogether because you’d have to start late? As you can see, it keeps you thinking about “time” rather than on goals. Horsey has good ideas on what are useful “events” to think about: when you get home from school, after dinner, after your favourite TV show is over, after your morning routine, etc. He suggests doing a week-by-week practice budge – much like adults should do a month-by-month financial budget – rather than having a one-plan-fits-all approach that denies the fact that our schedules vary week-to-week. Remember, “life happens” so set yourself up for success with a reality check.
Without even thinking about Horsey’s suggestions, I naturally used this concept to prepare the dinner for my guests. I have to admit I wasn’t super motivated on Saturday night to think about cooking for Sunday, but I knew it was my only opportunity (you can’t marinate meat overnight if you don’t start the night before!). So I made myself a promise: I’m going to watch some TV shows on DVD and in between episodes, I will accomplish one task. So I watched an episode, then I chopped vegetables. A second episode, and I prepared the meat. A third episode and I made stuffing. I had a lazy evening just like I wanted to have, and got my chores done, too! If I had said I will cook from 5:00-7:00 I may not have gotten everything done and without working in some recreation (it was the weekend after all!) I would have felt a little miserable, too.
The Journey Is About the Destination
My cooking example works because I knew exactly what my goal was – the meal I had planned – and I knew the specific tasks – chop vegetables, prepare the meat, make stuffing. It is one thing to retire your practicing timer, but if you don’t have practicing goals how will you know when to stop practising? Refer to Habit 3 below for my commentary on Horsey’s ideas on practicing goals.
Remember, what matters in practicing is the same as in cooking: it’s the end product that matters. It sounds anti-philosophical to say the journey is not important, but at least in the performing arts the journey is irrelevant if there is no destination.
Stay tuned for Habit 5, and Happy Practicing!