“Whatever music you play or sing, your objective is to express musical ideas, not spew out notes.” -The Musician’s Way, p. 24 Accomplished musicians bring vibrancy to every sound they make – there’s an emotional power to their music that...
“To escalate the tempo of newly learned material, you first have to reduce the effort required to play or sing it at your initial tempo.” –The Musician’s Way, p. 73 Some of the thorniest challenges we encounter in practice surround increasing the tempos of newly...
“The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” –Carl Jung, psychologist Psychological Types, p. 123 Can deliberate practice be both productive and playful? That is, can we zero in on specific tasks in practice, work intensely, and feel exuberant at...
“How can we have a goal in practice, feel inspired by a sense of purpose and direction, and yet avoid becoming caught in a tangle of straining and striving?” –Joseph Goldstein, author Insight Meditation, p. 29 Have you ever felt entangled by your musical aspirations,...
“When, through repetition, you practice being inventive and playful, your concerts will resound with those same spontaneous traits.” –The Musician’s Way, p. 53 We musicians do a lot of repeating. In practice, we necessarily repeat material to refine our skills, learn...
“I’m very mistrustful of tactile memory. I think it’s the first thing that goes.” –André Watts, pianist The Musician’s Way, p. 82 Have you ever been blindsided by a memory lapse? Maybe you felt secure in practice, but, during a performance, you blanked on a...
“If you start with something that’s fake, you’re always covering your tracks.” –Paul Simon, singer-songwriter Is there really a fast track to mastering an unfamiliar composition? I’m convinced that there is. And its use can not only speed up the learning process but...
Let’s say that you’re about to practice a new piece of music: What’s your typical plan of attack? Researchers have observed that expert and student musicians display profound differences in their approaches to learning new material, and those differences lead to huge...
