You know a few. Those really annoying musicians who have excelled with seemingly little effort. The fellow students or colleagues who have a career on the world stages – some of whom partied so much they shouldn’t even be functional. While the rest – those who really tried and worked hard – have had to be content with carving out a career of bits and pieces.
Then answer is in the quality of the practice. Not the quantity. From a study* in Berlin in the 1990s: elite musicians spend an average 3.5 hours a day in two well-defined chunks – morning and afternoon – doing the uncomfortable, methodical, ability-stretching practice. Then they relax. Have fun. Sleep better. And improve.
Average musicians spend more time haphazardly throughout the day – ending up more stressed, sleeping less, and not improving at the same rate.
Startling conclusion: ”Do less. But do what you do with complete and hard focus. Then when you’re done be done, and go enjoy the rest of the day.”
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*All information and quote from an article at Study Hacks. Read the whole article. See also The Science of Productivity, Animated at Brainpickings.
Image: A Good Thing Happened
I’m really working hard on teaching my students to make their practise sessions efficient, and go for quality rather than quantity!
But then sometimes they use that as an excuse to not do enough! No winning for most, I’m afraid! Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Leia.
True! I do try to give them a guideline number, which varies from 10-30 minutes per day for most of my beginners, but I also make sure to teach them how and what to practise, which I think is really important.
I do, too, Leia. In lessons I keep alternating between stressing a minimum amount of time, and a minimum number of go-throughs of a piece, tossing in the “practice the tricky bits more” stuff, and so on and so on…
I laugh (now!) at the stress I put myself through clocking up hours in practice frenzy over my first couple of years at music school…
…while I was one of those who fooled myself into thinking my practice was more qualitative than it really was!
Reminds me of that famous classical guitarist I wrote you about a while back who improved his playing on only 40 minutes a day while on active duty in the military, by what he deliberately chose to focus on while practicing.
The lessons I still have to learn…!