Something that a lot of musicians hear constantly is that 'Practice makes Perfect' or that 'Perfect Practice makes Perfect' and to folks who say either of those two things frequently I say: phooey.
The notion that practice should be perfect is a mistake. We practice in order to play more perfectly, but there really is no perfect way to practice. Each practice session is best approached from the perspective of a Doctor or a Mechanic trying to diagnose why something is not working the way we want it to.
Playing music isn't just an automatic reaction to symbols on a page. Music is an interpretation by a smart, savvy young musician, of those symbols into something that makes sense to both player and listener.
The best way to approach new material, is to take it SLOW.
I cannot emphasize it enough. I know, playing everything slow is no fun. It sounds lame and it feels like it is too hard to do (that is me pretending to be you making excuses about why playing slow is dumb).
I am telling you you've got it all wrong.
Playing slow, while possibly somewhat difficult to do, is very important to developing as a musician. When you first start doing something, or learn how to perform a new skill, you can't do it very quickly can you? You have to think about, and try to force yourself to do this thing you just started doing.
Playing music is the same way. You have to think about doing it. This is why we start practicing slowly. If you have time to think about it, you have a much better opportunity to be successful while you practice.
Think of your brain performing a skill as a vehicle leaving one place, to go to another. At first, for new skills, the path to get where you want to go is narrow, or bumpy, and takes a long time to traverse. The more you travel down the path to finish this skill, the easier it gets. The road gets wider, or perhaps it gets smoother.
Once you have done it a couple dozen times, all of a sudden, instead of, say, a dirt path, you have a gravel path. After a few more dozen times, you're traveling down a brick path, or a decently paved sidewalk. The more you practice and perform this skill, the wider your path gets. Eventually you are traveling down a decently smooth, paved road.
After you master a skill, sequence, or piece of music, your brain is sending its signals down an eight lane wide, super highway, where you barely have to think about how to perform the task at all.
This is the way of practicing. You start off having to think about, and force yourself to perform an action, until you do it enough times that it seems like you could never get it wrong.
To get to that end point though, you need to start SLOW in order to build up to the awesome speeds of that super highway.
Obviously you don't have to play slowly forever. Just like our example above, the more you practice and concentrate on improving a skill, the faster you are able to go.
Please, budding musicians, do not be discouraged by not being able to practice or play perfectly the very first time. Try your hardest to, instead, work hard to improve the ability of your brain and body to interpret, and perform what is being asked of you on a piece of music until you have no choice but to play it 100% correctly, and beautifully.
Happy practicing!
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