The Art of Practice
I probably should just get this out of the way from the start. There is NO substitute for practice. No shortcuts, no quick methods, no magic wand. No “You can amaze your friends in just days by learning the piano.” It does not exist. If you choose to read on, you will not find an article about bypassing practice time. What I hope to explain is a bit of my journey to understanding practice, a few methods for making the most of your time, and how you can use this time in the ‘woodyard’ to its fullest benefit.
There is a music camp in Westport, NY that says they will teach you a years worth of music in six weeks. The first time I heard this I laughed. (To myself of course.) How can you possibly learn a years worth of music in six weeks. Practice is long, boring, and filled with many hours of boring labor. Brazilian soccer players continue to confound the world with their wizardry in handling a soccer ball. Tiger Woods dominated the golf world for some time and would seem to be on his way back. Mozart is still considered to be the pinnacle of the piano composition world. And Bobby Fischer held the keys to the kingdom in the chess world for a number of years.
What do all of these people have in common? Myelin. Or rather, a lot of deep practice that developed myelin in their bodies and enabled them to do things most people only dream of. So what is this mystery substance, what does it do, and how do I get some?
What is the Big Deal?
What is the big deal regarding myelin? I can remember the first time I heard of quantum computing and how it was to change the computer world. I remember studying protons, neutrons, and electrons in high school only to find out my parents did not know these particles existed. I read in history books of the struggles Galileo endured when introducing the idea that the earth was round. It appears that the discovery of myelin is in its infant stages as scientists seek to uncover its content and behavior. It appears to be a fatty substance our bodies use to wrap neuro circuits to speed the process of signal (electrical) transfer. This is a fancy way of saying it makes our brain signals faster in and out of home base. Some scientists believe that over time it can improve the electrical flow up to one-hundred times its normal speed.
The bad part, it is organic and if it is not used it is lost. The good part, you never quit growing myelin. There seems to be a peak growth period from ages 15 to 50. But the ability to produce myelin never goes away. However, it MUST be exercised to keep it in place. And how is it exercised? You have no doubt already guessed the answer, practice. However, this will not be your ordinary, go through the motions mindlessly for hundreds of times practice. It is referred to as deep practice and involves concentrated, focused, purposeful practice. Practice in large quantities, often, and full of growth.
Hard Work
This kind of practice is hard work. It is said that all the top musicians in the world practice 1.5 to 2 hours, 3 to 4 times a day. Any longer in any one session and the body and mind are too weak to make any more progress. A number of top musicians will take naps during the day to recover from the strain in order to have another productive practice session.
This seems to hold true for other professionals as well. Tiger Woods was noted for his grueling workouts where he would take a golf ball, throw it in a sand trap, stand on the golf ball, and then practice lifting it out of the sand onto the green at various distances. His reasoning? He would see a lot of these buried golf balls from long fairway shots that landed in the sand trap.
Leopold Mozart was reported to have had his son, Wolfgang, practicing three to four hours a day from the age of three. It is also reported that this practicing was not open ended repetition of a piece but deep practicing by correcting errors when they occurred, using many repetitions to establish a new pattern, and starting at VERY slow speeds, gaining speed, interpretation, and other essential skills during the process.
The list of successes that used this type of deep practicing stretches from inner-city schools in Los Angeles that have fifth graders visiting colleges to Brazilian soccer players who play a much faster version of the game with a much smaller ball in an area no bigger than a basketball court. The question for us is how do we deep practice the piano to make the most of our time.
Deep Practicing Piano
Before we begin to practice, we need to discuss motivation. It might seem like motivation for a parent to stand over their child and threaten bodily harm. And, in fact, many so called prodigies have experienced this very phenomenon. However, if being the worlds best chess player is not an aspiration, it very likely will never happen. To aspire to greatness is typically something that is ignited in an individual and often is an individualistic experience.
Carissa heard a version of Woody Herman’s Golden Wedding on the radio and wanted to learn to play the piece. She was seven years old, not very talented according to her parents and clarinet teacher, a bit dull according to her school teacher, and yet, she deep practiced the piece until she could play it perfectly. About the same time her clarinet teacher suggested she learn a classical piece. I don’t know that she ever played it all the way through, but the rendition I heard would not set the world afire. What was the difference? She aspired to play Golden Wedding. She did not give a flip about the classical piece.
Deep practicing, involves starting and stopping often, making lots of mistakes and correcting them, practicing consistently and in depth every time we rehearse. As we do the work, our body creates myelin and wraps it around the nerve fibers to increase the speed of this much used path. Enough time, enough myelin, and we see significant improvement. Less myelin and the improvement is much less and takes much longer.
Some scientists have estimated that it takes 10,000 hours of deep practice to become an expert at anything. ANYTHING. You want to be a top business executive. Better get ready from hard work. Want to surf the great waves at the highest levels in the world? You are likely going to get pretty sore along the way. At this stage in my life, myelin is a slow growing and I am a slow learner. This is why I recommend that parents and guardians encourage their students to pick something the student truly aspires to, and teaches them how to deep practice.
The Good News!
The good news is that no matter how old you are, you can grow myelin. The bad news, at least for us older folks, is that our 10,000 hours of deep practice is hard to come by when so many other responsibilities call for our attention.
My personal trip down this path follows quite closely to these findings. I was forty-eight years old and decided I needed to return to practicing scales. I had practiced scales for hours when I was younger but honesty requires me to admit it was not deep practicing. I dedicated myself to learn a B scale and begin the work. Using a metronome, I started at 60 bpm. The first days were filled of starts and stops, slowing down even further to make sure my fingers new their place and time, and downright hard work. However, with time and effort, I eventually built up to 200 bpm. After about two months of this type of work, I stopped. I don’t remember what happened or why but life got busy.
Fast forward to today. I am now 63 years old and have started my scale work again. After one month of work, I am making progress, but not at the pace I did when I was 48. I am determined to continue the work but my point here is that if your desire is to be the best at your chosen work, you need to get busy RIGHT NOW. I do not care how old you are or what responsibilities you think you have. If you do not aspire to greatness, it is very likely you will hit your target, mediocrity.