How to practice perfectly

Only perfect practice makes perfect... this is a big deal.  What this means is that when practising, you only ever want to let yourself play anything as you would like to perform it.  That way you are only ever programming in to your brain and body, the perfect result you want to get out.

But how can you practice something perfectly when you can't play it yet?!  Working out this puzzle is the key to practice!

Of course an important part of this puzzle is to first choose your music carefully - enough of a challenge to stretch you, but not so hard that you cannot technically master it.  Beyond this, I have two favourite practice techniques in my toolbox that I always recommend:

1.  Chunking - isolating out one small section to work on, perhaps so small it is only a couple of notes.

2.  Practice slowly (and I mean really slowly... seriously, much more slowly than you are probably thinking right now!).

If you make a problem section small enough, and slow enough, you should be able to master it with all the physical co-ordination requirements clearly ordered.  Then it is just a matter of a few perfect repetitions of this section to 'programme it in'.  Repeat this over a few days and you should see clear progression.

You can then use a method such as 'marbles in a jar' (explained in a later post) to effectively and perfectly practice this section, particularly if you want to be extra secure for performance.

When I was a student, I had a sticky note on my music stand clearly prominent with the words - Practice makes PERMANENT!  It was a very helpful reminder to me during those years, and I think an important thing to always keep in mind whenever you pick up your instrument (or do anything in life).