Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

A very smart person once told me that “Practice does not make perfect, only perfect practice makes perfect.”

The point is that if you repeatedly play the wrong thing, then you have practiced but not perfectly.

So what is perfect practice?

Perfect practice is deliberate, thoughtful, and careful. Each mistake has to be fixed. Then you need to play the corrected passage more times than it was played incorrectly. (Hopefully it was never played incorrectly, but we are human…)

Practicing should not look like a performance…unless you are practicing the performance, which we’ll talk about in a little bit.  Slowly and carefully work through the piece so that you can play through slowly and accurately.

Next, you want to bring up the tempo, little by little.

Soon you will have the passage at full tempo. Work in tiny bite-sized pieces of the work, so you don’t get overwhelmed.

When the entire piece is learned, it’s a good idea to practice the performance. In solo works, you have to have played through many times before the actual performance. This will help you to have a better understanding of how the real performance will feel, and you will have the endurance to get through.

When playing a solo competition, play for as many people as you can to make sure you don’t have nerve issues. Get very comfortable with the piece.

Follow these guidelines and you will always have perfect practice.