Not practicing regularly
enough
How many times have you heard of someone who, in
preparing for next week’s lesson shrugs off any notion of practicing
for the first 6 days and then crams a 9-hour session the day before the
dreaded class? WHAT??! You did that too?! Let me let you in on a secret.
Try it if you have to. I DARE YA!
I have learnt (ya, the hard way too) that with 15
minutes a day , you would have done more than your ‘9-hour-in-one-day’
session. Okay, okay, so the math don’t add up but hey, I was never
really good at math anyway! However, it seems that music, to some
extent, involves a lot of motor skills, and these get developed with
constant input, not like the petrol tank in your car. (Fill-her-up once
a week?! Geddit??) Sort of like a
picking up a habit! You don't know that you're picking anything up until
one day you just realize you simply must have your legs up while you're
reading in bed! Now imagine having the ‘motor skills’ of Hancock, Jarrett
& Corea as a habit! Awesome huh?!
Not setting goals
Is
it just me or does this seem the one trap that a lot of musicians fall
into. We sit down regularly everyday yet nothing much seems to come out
of it.
When you don't set goals,
you tend to be less focused on what you want to achieve. Or you end up
practicing something different almost every day. That's not going to
work. Earlier I talked about 'motor skills' and consistency. Now it
doesn't take a genius to see why the no-goal-ers don't see much
success. And then we GIVE UP?!
Setting
goals has one distinct advantage. First you list a set of things
you want t achieve. Then work out how much you want to practice them.
The list is too long? OK, then ... divide them into to the 'must get'
and the 'it'll be nice to get'. Your list may look like this:
