David Motto’s Practice Tip of the Week
Practice Every Day – No Matter What!

Most musicians intuitively understand that practicing every day is the best way to improve.  And, we’ve heard the cute reminders such as, “You don’t have to practice every day– just on the days you eat.”

But, there’s more to it than cute sayings.

Practicing every day has three big benefits that, taken together, are life-altering. Really, practicing daily is simply a game changer for musicians.

Reason #1: Daily Practicing Means More Time Improving

Practicing every day means you’re probably putting in more time than if you don’t practice every day. More time is important. According to research by Anders Ericsson at Florida State University (the world’s leading authority on building expertise and learning skills), time spent practicing by yourself is the #1 indicator of increased skill. Not rehearsals. Not performances. Just spending time alone with your instrument. More time equals more progress.

Here’s the irony of the situation. Most people think they’ll get more practice time by having two or three practice sessions a week and devoting some real time during each of those sessions. Unfortunately, these people are usually wrong. If you tell yourself you’ll practice when you have a lot of uninterrupted time available, chances are you’ll skip practicing more than you’ll do it!

For most people, most of the time, putting in short amounts of daily practice time, as surprising as it seems, will actually mean more overall time practicing music.

Reason #2: Daily Practicing Gives You More Focus

More progress also comes from learning your music in small increments. The human brain cannot absorb huge amounts of information at once. Sure, you can cram a lot of material into your brain (like the night before a final exam), but that information will quickly disappear.

If you’re trying to get all your practicing in during a 3-hour session on the weekend, you’re going to be playing through every single thing on your practice list. All your scales, arpeggios, exercises. All your songs. All the sections of these songs. Your ability to focus in on what will really help you improve when you’ve got so much to cover will be impaired.

Along with time spent practicing, how focused you are while practicing completely changes how much you get out of your practice sessions. Targeting specific goals on a daily basis allows you to totally focus on these goals, give yourself useful feedback, and make changes to your technique or musical approach. These small, daily, focused goals are the key to achieving your musical dreams.

In Professor Ericsson’s book Peak, there’s a great quote about the importance of focus:

“Shorter training sessions with clearer goals are the best way to develop new skills faster. It is better to train at 100 percent effort for less time than at 70 percent effort for a longer period. Once you find you can no longer focus effectively, end the session.”

Reason #3: Daily Practicing Builds Long-Term Memory

Practicing every day helps with your long-term memory. For the brain to transfer information from short-term memory (think: a phone number you heard just once) into long-term memory (think: your own phone number), your brain must perceive this information as being important.

Basically, the brain will only think something is important if there is emotion or repetition attached to that information. Practicing every day gives you the repetition your brain needs to move the information into long-term memory. This is true for musical facts (like music theory rules), song lyrics, physical technique (like an exact movement you need to make to play or sing a note accurately) and anything else you need to remember far into the future so you can perform effectively.

Another aspect of long-term memory is just being understood by research scientists: the importance of sleep. Apparently, one aspect of sleep is a process in the brain where decisions are made about what gets put into long-term memory and what gets erased. If you’re only practicing once a week, it doesn’t seem that anything you do that day will make it through this filter so your work becomes part of your long-term memory.

Daily practice means you’ll do some focused work, sleep, work more tomorrow, sleep again, and so on. Your brain will have multiple opportunities each week to commit important aspects of your music to long-term memory.

Committing to Daily Practicing

Practicing every day gives you more time with your instrument, makes learning more efficient, and increases your ability to remember what you’re playing. For me, these three reasons are an incredibly compelling incentive to put in some daily time improving my musical skills. I hope you feel the same way.

Short practice sessions every day are simply better than one or two long practice sessions per week. You’ll learn faster which means that, in the long run, you’ll get more done in less time.

Commit yourself to practicing music every day – no matter what! If you’re having issues making time in your life to play music each and every day, I recommend reading my blog article Making Time for Music When You’re Busy.

To Your Musical Success!
–David Motto