Get Better At Music By Practicing Less

It's not how much you practice, it's how you spend the time. Don't practice mistakes! This is wasted time. Learn first - slowly, carefully, with attention to detail; and then practice for smoothness, flow, and speed. And don't get caught in a rut playing the same things over and over! Make sure to make time to practice new things. This is how you grow as a musician. And always remember, if you can play it slowly, you can play it quickly. Or, you can probably *learn* to play it quickly, if you spend your time correctly.

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00:00 - Controversial statements
00:37 - The First Way: Learn first, then practice
03:48 - Practice and learning are not interchangeable
07:10 - The Second Way: Make time to learn new things
10:21 - How to structure your practice time
14:53 - Storytime

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[BradHarrison]

Take private lessons online with me! Trumpet, brass, theory, composition & arranging, improvisation, or whatever musical/life coaching you’d like to work on. More information at www.bradharrison.ca/lessons

[radioforthebirds]

Not to mention, if you are fatigued or sore or anything hurts, just skip the practice. Do ear training or study a great recording or study some music theory. Taking some recovery days will do more for your long term improvement than practicing through pain because you feel you need to hit a number of hours.

[lohphat]

"Practice makes perfect." is a myth. "Practice makes permanent." is the real truth. If you repeat the exercise incorrectly again and again, you'll remember the wrong thing permanently.

[mayer]

as an illustrator (that want to learn music as a hobby) i totally agree with this, in learning to draw for example, people tend to jump rightaway to "practices" without even acknowleging the fundamentals like basic shape, lines, proportion, technique, etc.

no matter what kind style of drawing you want make, this is the most important thing to learn before practicing.

Especially basic SHAPES, most beginner tend to underestimate the magic of understanding and learning basic shapes.

as a result they are confused why they improved so little over a long time, i've been there and most of us been there,
i feel like this video not only applies to music learning, but to most of other skills

great video, really inspired me to think how i'm gonna approach my learning of music

[thomasmartinscott]

As an improvisational guitarist, I really appreciate what you're saying. I tell my students, "Do NOT play it any faster than you can play it perfectly. Speed WILL happen. You can't do anything over and over and NOT get faster... without even trying to get faster." Also, when I work on a song, I work on knowing the Instrument more than the song. I try to play it as many times as I can without playing it the same way twice. To me, that's the fun of making music. Thanks for this video. It's made me think.

[IfUfindthisURlost]

5:00 Reminded me of the saying I use to inspire me, "An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practices until they don't get it wrong."

[nicolasmartin.exchanger]

This rings very true. That being said, some people, including me, have a bit of the opposite problem. We get bored really fast so we always look for new things, new scales, new songs, new genres and never really focus on or consolidate a thing. It makes for versatility but doesn't help build-up clean technique or good habits. So in that case, the advice to focus more on practice and routines does make sense.

[BrandonGarcia-vkgc]

Thank you so much for this vid. Ive been struggling recently with getting the most use out of my practice sessions since I realized ive been practicing completely wrong and wasting time for 8 YEARS

[evelyn]

as a high school violist, this rings incredibly true. i've seen so many kids in my orchestra crash and burn because they start multi-hour long practice sessions on music that they don't fully know and then show up to rehearsal, confident in what they've done, only to realize that they were practicing the piece in the wrong way. soooo many music teachers, at least the ones i've had, have told kids to "practice" but not that they need to be familiar with their music first or even HOW to practice in the first place. i'm gonna try to get my music teacher to show this in class, thank you for making this video :•)

[theMixElite]

Thanks man, would be great to have it 10 years ago when dropping out

[jlcastille]

With drumming, "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast." I found this statement to be true.

[TwoSetViolinEdits]

Why is no one talking about the Twoset “if you can play it slowly, you can play it quickly”?

[ShockwaveZero]

When I switched to shifting at least 50% of my practice sessions to learning I easily overcame my plateau. Being inspired by new artists and songs and theory ideas definitely helps.

Practicing is an art, and there's so much left to discover. What I learned that is not commonly taught:

- my piano teacher was part of a university study to determine the best way to practice: slowly and with accuracy, fast with mistakes, or alternating between the two. The best way (to learn a piece the quickest) is alternating.

It might be because the physical movement at "real" speed has a very different feeling from the one at slow speed, and it's good to have a feel of the real speed movement when doing things slowly. Also, it's more fun to alternate. But more demanding mentally.

- warming up only the body parts which are moving (typically the fingers) is so short-sighted! Our body is a whole. Being grounded through the feet, core and back alive, shoulders relaxed, no neck tension, makes a world of difference, especially for sedentary people (sitting at a desk most of the day). We need to find exercises to get into that "engaged physical state" quickly. It depends on the person: body abilities, daily activities, etc. For me: standing one leg and lifting the other leg up and down multiple times, slowly, engages and relaxes things the right way. Also, pilates and tango on a regular basis have improved my piano abilities by orders of magnitude that a lot of practice never did.

I hope you'll think about, research, and explore those ideas. And may be make a video about them. Thank you for trying to help :)

[bjb]

Yes, "practice" must be defined for each occasion. It's never just mindless repetition. Repetition, at times, but not mindless.

[Notorious_ERD]

Its not just a music lesson, its a life changing video...

[WingmanStudios]

Excellent video. Most people don't know how to practice properly. They forget to learn and end up in loops!

[saraboucherit]

I've learnt so many piano pieces and songs overtime by watching tutorials but i never bothered to understand the theory behind all of it, although i can play the pieces that i love but only relying on my muscle memory, so if i don't replay it in a long time i end up forgetting it, now that i've noticed this i started to read and watch videos about theory, and to be honest it surely takes some time to fully understand the concepts, and i don't really know how to practice them later, but I'm taking my sweet time watching videos here and there, and trying to memorize new infos, and it is making a little difference

[xiartsbkhushbunale]

God! I have been struggling and feeling bad about how my practice session is not productive. Felt like i was running in the same place but this legit showed me the way. Thank you so much for this video. It was the most needed one. 🥺❤

[johnbeard]

14:03
4'33 is definitely one of my favorites songs on guitar. It's great to build finger dexterity. Also a pretty chill tune.