It’s a busy world we live in, isn’t it? So many of us run from one activity to the next, whether it’s work or school, sports, music lessons, an art class or a night visiting friends. In the midst of our busy lives, it can be tough to carve out time to practice. Here are a few reasons to make the time for it this month.
Practice Makes Perfect
Well, that’s the saying, right? The reality is that perfection might sound nice, but even concert pianists will tell you they never have a perfect performance! Nevertheless, the more we practice, the more we can reliably perform our song well. With each repetition, we’re more likely to play the notes and get our rhythms correct. That frees us up to think about our interpretation, our phrasing, our dynamics…you know, the fun stuff!
Practice Makes You Less Nervous
Believe it or not, the more you practice, the easier it is to get up in front of someone else and perform. That’s because the more you can reliably play a piece for yourself, the more likely you will be to reproduce it when you’ve got performance jitters. Will an audience make you play it worse? There’s a good chance of that. But as you perform more often (i.e. as you practice performing), you can work on channeling the audience’s excitement, and your own excitement, into a stronger performance.
Practice Develops Discipline
Want to develop better habits? Whether you’d like to eat healthier, exercise daily or get enough sleep, all of these things are easier when we make our healthy choices into healthy habits. Likewise, if we teach ourselves to practice for five minutes every day, we develop the discipline required to commit to anything! This is a great lesson for children, but it’s a lesson we can use as adults too.
Why do you find the time to practice? If you don’t, did this give you any ideas on how to develop a practice habit?
Tiny Village Music 