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If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then why practice?
Sep 10, 2025
Sound is not simply what we hear or play, but equally a feeling in the body
What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve.
If you have played "six times wrong, one time right" the problem is not quite corrected.
If you have fun when you practice, you may also learn more and perform better
There will never come a time when you don't have to practice
The most valuable practice aid is patience.
Mistakes are . . . immensely useful. . . they show us . . . where we are right now and what we need to do next
If you want money, buy lottery tickets. If you love music, practice and keep your overhead to the bare minimum. Keep your promises, who you are is more important than what licks you know to any band leader.
If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it.
Most of us have very clear memories of the self-critical internal conversation running on in our heads while we were playing poorly, and yet it often seems that we hardly remember noticing it at all while we were playing well.
You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.
It is the height of professionalism to be able to make an ordinary piece of music sound good. When playing routine melodic studies the player must treat them as if they are musical value.
Failing to remember is the primary reason for most performers' poor practising habits.
It's not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it's what you put into the practice.
There's very little to be said for learning a piece note by note, reading the rhythmic markings, practising the fingerings and following your instructor's suggestions, if you haven't any idea how the music will eventually sound and feel. If you learn a piece mechanically, you may have to 'unlearn' it before you can play it with expression and feeling.
. . when the initial excitement of playing starts to evaporate, good habits are needed to sustain the learning process.
If you sound great in the practice room, you're practicing the wrong thing. Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
The most efficient way to memorise a piece is to use the one which proceeds in an error free manner
As soon as effective listening takes place, the ear identifies what needs to be done and guides the techniques search for a solution
There is a direct parallel in the way that we speak, with natural variations of pitch and volume that give full meaning to our words. This is what is missing in the words on the page of a book, and the notes on the score.
. .the most crucial ingredient by far for success in music is . . .what happens in the practice room.
Robotic correctness is the last thing judges want to see or hear
Much music teaching seems more concerned with controlling the student than with encouraging the student's own impulses.
It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
If we're not actively making things better, chances are we're making them worse.
Good listening is always the first step in the process that creates technique and capability
If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom.
If children hear fine music from the day of their birth and learn to play it, they develop sensitivity, discipline and endurance. They get a beautiful heart.
When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.
Don't attribute mishaps to a lapse in concentration - if you missed the note you don't know it.
They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
Man, there's no boundary line to art!
Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
[perfectionism leads to] a tendency to apologize preemptively for one's efforts, knowing from experience that there's sure to be something wrong with them.
Practice is the best of all instructors.
The reason so many of us lose our bearings about practising early in life is that we practice in living rooms with other family members in earshot - and healthy practice would simply sound too obnoxious, intrusive, repetitious and unmusical for others to hear without annoyance.
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.
The underlying aim of practice . .is to create certainty through the development of high-quality listening.
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