Practice Makes... Permanent

by Monica Daniel-Barker


Ah yes --- you thought I was going to say perfect, didn't you?  Well – only Perfect Practice makes perfect, and how many of us really have Perfect Practice??  I mean – if our practice was perfect, would we still have to practice???  Okay – enough of the semantics.  The real point here is that whatever you do repetitively will stick.  On a very simple level, if you are missing the same f# in a passage over and over, and you neglect to mark it in your music, chances are that mistake will become permanent.  All of us teachers have students who neglect to mark mistakes in their music.  They come to a lesson, miss that same f# they missed last week and say “well, I played it right at home!” – hmmmm.  Probably not.    And this doesn't only have to do with note mistakes.  Sometimes, we are breathing in a really unnatural place, or we get a funny crack when we slur into the high register.  Maybe you find you are playing louder in a certain place, just because it's easier than playing that delicate p that the composer asks for.  If you repeat little issues like this too often, they will indeed become permanent in your playing, and may even show up in performance if you haven't done some mindful work.


So what do we do about this?  How do we avoid getting in a trap of permanence with our little mistakes?  What do we do if we've found we're in the trap?  The easiest thing to avoid known trouble-spots is obviously to mark them in your music.  Sometimes it's writing something very specific like an accidental or a breath mark.  Sometimes just circling something, or maybe even just an arrow at the right point in your music will help in directing your attention where it needs to be instead of finding yourself thinking too far ahead on the page.  I can't recommend highly enough using a colored pencil every once in a while to really bring attention to something that seems to escape you.


As with all things though, there is nothing like mindfulness and diligent attention to help in a place like this.  Break the music down to the smallest possible piece that you know you are successful with.  This may be only one measure at a time, or one phrase at a time, but playing that small part correctly 5 times in a row, and then expanding it just a little at a time will help.  Take your one measure and get it 5 times in a row PERFECTLY.  If you only get it 3 times and then mess up on the 4th, start counting back at 1 and start over again.  This will usually take a few attempts to get all the way to 5 times in a row.  But by doing this process, you actually are practicing being perfect on your trouble spot.  Once you've succeeded with the problem measure, add the measure after that and do the same thing, so you are trying to play 2 measures correctly 5 times IN A ROW.  Once you've conquered that, add the one measure BEFORE your problem spot, so you're now working on 3 measures.  Continue to expand your area of attention one way and another, until you find that your problem spot is no longer a factor.  You will find yourself being a more free and confident performer in the process!