A Student Again: Real Musicians Practice

Years ago I saw a sticker on a car in my neighborhood that said, "Real musicians practice." This would seem obvious but in fact I've gone through periods where my skills deteriorated because I fell out of the habit of practicing.

Some of us enjoy practice more (or in my case, less) than others. I find it much easier to play with the rest of a group than to go over scales, exercises and songs all by my lonesome at home. However, the fact is that with much of the music I've played over the years, I would not have been able to make any meaningful contribution to the group if I hadn't practiced my part first. From experience I know how annoying it is when group rehearsal time, which should be used for blending, gets bogged down because someone doesn't know her own part. I've been that person myself on occasion.

Exercises can be tedious but without them, most of us will never get to the fun part, playing the music listeners want to hear. This time around I've decided to approach doing scales and intervals as a sort of Zen-like focusing exercise, doing everything in a mindful way, paying close attention to details on even the most seemingly simple piece. Since I'm not generally a careful-attention-to-minute-detail person, this will be a challenge.

But maybe the point of learning something new isn't just mastering the skill. Maybe it's also about approaching learning itself in a new way and developing traits like patience. Seen from this perspective,it's possible that the benefits of practicing anything at all will spread throughout every area of daily life.