Do SOMETHING Every Day

Posted on October 4, 2017 by David Motto

David Motto’s Practice Tip of the Week:
Do Something Every Day

It’s important to make practicing a regular part of your life. Even on the days when you don’t want to do anything musically, it’s important to get started.

And you may be in for a pleasant surprise:

Often, just the process of getting started makes you forget your negative thinking and enjoy the practice process.

On other days you won’t enjoy practicing. So what? It’s not realistic to think you will have fun every time you work on your music. You can’t let any negative thoughts get in your way. Even if you don’t feel like being a musician today, just do something!

Can’t decide what to practice today? Then, do exactly what you did yesterday. It doesn’t matter if you feel you are improving or not. Due to the natural shape of the learning curve, you won’t notice improvement on a daily basis anyway.

By being conscientious and paying attention to the details of your playing, you will be making improvement–whether you recognize it or not! Much of your practice time is spent building muscle memory, and your muscles need a constant reminder of the sequences they need to go through to perform accurately.

Even if you are not consciously aware of this process taking shape, it’s important to give your muscles the practice they so desperately need.

There’s no rule stating you have to or you’re supposed to or you should play through a whole piece flawlessly. That’s called performing! Most practicing is about focusing on small details. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Just go get some work done.

If you skip today, it will be easier to skip tomorrow. At that point, you’ll have a negative trend. This cannot be tolerated…

So, do something today! Do anything! Just make sure you practice your music, even if it’s just for a few minutes. After all, my entire Ten Minute Virtuoso method is based on the premise that a small amount of focused effort each and every day is the only surefire way to make meaningful progress.

To Your Musical Success!
David Motto

Posted in Achieving Goals, Motivation, Music, Music Practice Tips, Positive Thinking | 1 Comment

SMART Goals

Posted on October 2, 2017 by David Motto

Using the SMART Goals System to Get What You Want

Setting goals is great. Accomplishing those goals is even better! Everyone working on new skills, getting ready for competition, growing their business, or trying to get their ideas heard and accepted knows how important goals are.

Yet, few people use a system to help them set and attain goals.

A number of years ago, when I was on the music faculty at San Francisco State University, my students were struggling with achieving their goals. I was determined to help them solve their dilemma.

Unfortunately, the music world was full of advice like, “Practice harder,” “Take more auditions,” and “Perform more often.” This advice wasn’t exactly what my students needed. So, I looked outside the field of music to find a process that could help my students – and, really, anyone succeed.

What I found was the SMART Goals system.

The SMART Goals system was developed decades ago to help businesses assess and achieve their project management goals. That seemed a far cry from what my students needed. But, with some tweaking and experimentation this system has turned out to be just right not only for the business world, but also for creative artists, athletes, and just about anyone with an important goal in their life.

Each letter in the acronym SMART stands for a property that makes it more likely that you will attain your goal. Here they are:

S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Attainable

R = Risky

T = Timed

If any one of these elements is missing, problems will occur when trying to accomplish the goal.

By giving my students a process to develop and analyze their goals, and by having them put these goals in writing, an amazing change took place: They were able to have more success and to feel better about the process that made the successes possible.

This system actually changed how they use their practice time, how they prepare for those auditions and performances, and how they think about themselves. I now encourage everyone to include SMART Goals in their life. This is a terrific tool to help you create what you want in life.

In later posts, I’ll go through each of the properties that make up the SMART Goals system.

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Redefining Success

Posted on October 1, 2017 by David Motto

One of the things that plagues musicians when they practice is stopping playing, making a quick correction, and restarting.

I call this the SAD Syndrome (SAD stands for Stop And Do-it-again), and I’ve seen it happen in my own practicing as well as with my students and musicians who play at my master classes.

There are many reasons that musicians hesitate or briefly stop playing. The main reason is that they “missed” a note. Missing a note to almost every musician I’ve ever talked to means not playing the correct pitch.

For some reason, pitch has become the most important element in defining a “successful” run-through for most musicians. Pitch is deemed more important than rhythm, dynamics, tempo, or tone.

Very few musicians will stop playing if they stretch time to make sure they hit all their notes. The same goes for missing a rhythm.

In the same way, it’s a good idea for musicians to stop reacting so strongly when they play an incorrect pitch. There’s no inherent reason to stop your playing for a wrong pitch any more than there is for a wrong rhythm or dynamic.

One way to avoid the SAD Syndrome is to actually re-define success when you’re playing. This new definition of success is simple: Do Not Stop.

If your new definition is to keep playing, suddenly rhythm becomes as important as pitch. You’ll focus on your count and on placing your notes in their correct locations. Playing an incorrect pitch simply won’t matter. When you keep playing, you will get to the end of your song and be finished.

This process is the true skill musicians need to be successful performers, and you need to work on this in the practice room.

To be successful playing continuously, you may need to play a little slower than you would like. This is absolutely fine. You are trying to eliminate the SAD Syndrome from your practicing, and you will need to take special measures to get this scourge out of your life.

Re-define your musical success by making rhythm as important as pitch. And, whatever you do, work your hardest to eliminate the SAD Syndrome!

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End of 2017 Goals

Posted on October 1, 2017 by David Motto

Time to Set Your 3-Month Goals for the End of 2017!

Happy October! Time to set your 3-month goals for the end of 2017. Then work backwards:

  • monthly goals
  • this week’s goal
  • today’s goal – which is what you practice now!!

This process can be done in minutes. Doesn’t have to be a big deal. Just a little bit of thinking about where you’re heading will make all the difference when you practice today!

I’ll be posting here in my blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter over the next week or two about how to set goals and, more importantly, how to achieve them. Please share these posts and comment on them!

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Two Essential Focusing Strategies

Posted on September 27, 2017 by David Motto

David Motto’s Practice Tip of the Week:
Two Essential Focusing Strategies

Focus is the Key to Success

Intense focus is the key to making real progress in the practice room.

With focus, musicians make great leaps forward in their abilities. Without focus, many musicians flounder.

Two Important Focusing Techniques

The two focusing strategies we’re looking at today are simple in concept. The good news is they will give you amazing results. The less-than-good news is you need to start using these strategies permanently – not just today!!

1. Zero in on the Real Issue
You’ll need to zero in on the exact issue that is making a specific set of notes difficult to learn, master, and/or perform. Being vague won’t help you!

For example, the move from one note to another may be the difficulty. Or, maybe it’s the rhythmic placement of just a couple of notes that’s causing the damage.

In both of these cases, there is no reason to practice the entire song section over and over, hoping that the problem will fix itself. Instead, work on just the specific area that needs your attention.–and play it very slowly, accurately, and deliberately.

Once your attention is focused on the exact location that you need to master, practice very slowly, accurately, and deliberately. It’s at this very point that you’ll be starting the process of building a new, successful muscle memory.

This technique will make an enormous difference in your ability to perform the entire phrase those two notes
are a part of. Your intense focus will fix the problem and, as I mentioned before, create a muscle memory that will keep you going when you perform the song.

2. Think About One Thing at a Time
Another great way to make big gains in the practice room is by focusing on only one aspect of music at a time. I’m talking about the basic music elements: Pitch, Rhythm, Dynamics, Articulations, Phrasing, Timbre.

You can work on a rhythm without paying attention to pitch. Or you can make sure you’re hitting the right pitches without thinking about rhythm.

You can also do a slow runthrough hyper-focuing on your dynamics. Decide exactly when you want to be soft, medium, or loud. Figure out when to grow in strength (crescendo) or taper off your volume (decrescendo or diminuendo).

Another aspect of music to focus in on is tone production. Is your sound big and full? Light and airy? Are you attacking your notes sharply? Caressing the beginning of each note so it just appears from nowhere? Focusing on each of these ways to produce notes will totally change how you sound!

The same idea can be used with your technique. Try thinking about very specific aspects of your physical technique. Depending on what instrument you play or what type of singing you do, you may want to focus in on any of these: (1) only your left hand, (2) only your right hand, (3) your embouchure, (4) your breathing, (5) the position of your neck and shoulders, (6) your overall posture, (7) your knuckles, (8) your balance, (9) your weight distribution (important whether you stand or sit as you perform), and (10) tension in specific muscles.

Any physical attribute of your performing technique can become your target. Just be careful about one thing: Think about just one musical element at a time!

Combining Focusing Strategies

Both of these approaches will help you concentrate your efforts. And, once you’ve gotten used to using these strategies regularly, they can be combined.

For instance, while you’re fixing a specific note or two, you may need to think about the exact muscle pressure you’ll need to make those notes sound just right.

Putting specific notes, musical elements, and your technique under the microscope through intense focus is a tremendous way to fix subtle musical issues and propel your music to new heights. It’s all about Focus, Focus, Focus.

To Your Musical Success!
David Motto

p.s. If you’re looking for additional ideas for improving your focus, check out my blog post How to Focus Intensely in 6 Steps.

Posted in Achieving Goals, Music, Music Practice Tips | 2 Comments

Focus in 6 Steps

Posted on September 25, 2017 by David Motto

How to Focus Intensely in 6 Easy Steps

Focus and intensity are key components to staying alert while practicing so you can meet your musical goals. Though many musicians want to practice for hours on end, it’s nearly impossible to remain focused for such a long amount of time.

According to Dianne Dukette and David Cornish in their 2009 book The Essential 20: Twenty Components of an Excellent Health Care Team, most teenagers and adults are unable to sustain attention on one thing for more than about 20 minutes at a time. They can, however, choose repeatedly to re-focus on the same thing.

For musicians trying to learn new skills or master a particularly difficult section of a song, I think that 20 minutes actually seems a bit too long. Try no more than 5 to 10 minutes at a time. Even 1 to 2 minutes can be useful if you really need to zero in on something specific.

The Six Steps that Create Focus

To keep your level of intensity high while you’re playing your instrument, try these 6 steps.

STEP 1: Decide on an Ending Time
Have an ending time for your practice session. Whether it’s 10 minutes or 2 hours, make sure you know how much time you’ll have. You’ll get a lot more done and be more focused if your practice time isn’t open-ended.

STEP 2: Have No More Than 3 Goals
Decide on 3 main goals for your music today. This could be 3 sections of one song. Or, a scale, an exercise, and 1 section of your song. Do NOT start playing until you know what you’re trying to accomplish.

STEP 3: Write Down Your Goals
Write down those goals you just decided on. Seeing these details in print makes it seem more real. Use your Practice Planner, a piece of paper, your smartphone, your calendar, or whatever else you’ve got. Just be sure to write down today’s goals.

STEP 4: Start with the Goal that Scares You
After you’ve warmed up, start with the goal that you most want to avoid or that scares you a bit. Tell yourself that you WILL accomplish this goal right now. Tell yourself that this goal is important to you, that you’re up to the challenge, and that this is great use of your time.

STEP 5: Use a Timer
Put on a timer. Give yourself a specific amount of time to accomplish the first goal. Set the timer, and turn it so you cannot see it while you’re practicing.

Remember, for today you may not be able to play that music the way you hear it in your dreams. But, you can definitely work out the technical details and play it accurately at a very slow tempo. This can be accomplished much more quickly than you imagine, and having the timer on will push you to intense levels of focus and to get the job done.

Using a timer allows you to forget about the clock. Without a timer on, many musicians are tempted to look up at the clock to see how long they’ve been working on something. This gets you out of your focused zone. Forget all about time and intensely focus on the matter at hand. When the timer goes off, you’re done with this item for today.

STEP 6: Write Down What You Accomplished
Each time you complete an item on your goal list, write down what you accomplished, your metronome setting for today, and what still needs improvement. Tomorrow, seeing these notes will get you focused immediately.

Putting These Steps to Work

Try these 6 steps right now. Even if you’re not going to practice immediately, schedule your next practice session (with a specific start time and end time) and write down what the goals for that practice session will be.

To make these strategies a regular part of your practicing, you’ll need to try them out for at least 30 days. Every time you’re trying a new process in reaching your goals, be sure to give that process time to become normal and regular in your life. Making changes does not happen in a day or two!

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Being Organized

Posted on September 20, 2017 by David Motto

David Motto’s Practice Tip of the Week:
An Important Way to Save Time and Frustration

Being Organized. It’s essential if you really want to meet your goals, save time, and lower your level of frustration.

To make the best use of your time, you’ll need to be extremely organized about planning the music to be covered in today’s practice session. And, please don’t forget to plan the physical organization of your practice space itself.

Have a Designated Practice Area

Most practice experts recommend having one place where you always practice. While this is obvious for pianists and drummers, it is an essential suggestion for guitarists, string players, and woodwind and brass players who can (and do) set up anywhere.

A single space for practicing has three high-level advantages:

  • You know your job is to play music when you’re in this space. This helps your concentration and focus.
  • It’s easy to tell others in your household not to disturb you when you’re in this space.
  • The practice room helps you form the habit of practicing regularly. Stepping into this space becomes a cue for playing music.

Organize Your Practice Accessories

Within your practice space, you can designate specific areas to place all the little items that make playing your instrument easier. You don’t want to waste time searching for your metronome, tuner, pencil, smartphone, sheet music, instrument stand, or other necessities.

The frustration of misplacing just one of these items can be enough to make some musicians simply give up on practicing for the day.

Some musicians keep these things in their instrument case. Others have a specific shelf, drawer, or table for this purpose. Many professional musicians have two sets of these items: one in their practice space, and another in their case for taking to rehearsals and gigs.

A Useful Rule of Thumb

Keep everything you need to practice within arm’s length of where you’re sitting (or standing) as you practice. Any time you have to get up or walk across the room to retrieve something is time wasted and an interruption to your concentration and train of thought.

The importance of keeping your focus and concentration while practicing cannot be over-emphasized. Focus is perhaps the single most important component of building successful skills during practice sessions. If you lose your focus, you’ll need to remember exactly what you were doing, get back into your thought process, and re-start your practicing. That is inefficient, frustrating, and an ineffective way to improve your skills.

Create Your Own Organizational System

There’s no right or wrong way to organize your practice area as long as you have some sort of system. That way, you never waste time during practicing and you eliminate a common source of musicians’ aggravation.

Try to have your practice space ready at all times. Keep a chair and music stand permanently set up. It’s a good idea to store your instrument there too! And, by knowing exactly where your accessories are, you’ll be ready to make music in no time.

To Your Musical Success!
David Motto

p.s. One absolute must-have item to organize your practicing is a practice journal. Using a journal is recommended by every expert on practicing music and goal achievement.

My journal is the Musician’s Practice Planner.

Used by thousands of musicians worldwide, the Musician’s Practice Planner helps you focus on your goals and achieve them!

Posted in Achieving Goals, Motivation, Music, Music Practice Tips | 1 Comment

Control Your Nerves

Posted on September 13, 2017 by David Motto

David Motto’s Practice Tip of the Week:
Know How to Control Your Nerves

Some musicians are lucky. They never get nervous.

They can perform at the drop of a hat. They don’t even give it a second’s thought. If this is you, feel free to skip this week’s Practice Tip.

For the rest of us, we need to understand our nervous cycles. We must learn to use our nervousness to our benefit and even channel this energy into our performances.

Nervousness Equals Caring

First off, know that you are nervous because performing music is important to you. You are actually lucky to have something in your life to feel nervous about!

You don’t get nervous about things that don’t matter to you.

You care so much about your music that it can make you feel nervous. Many people have nothing they are passionate about. You do! This is good news, not bad news.

By just openly admitting to yourself that your performance matters to you, and by committing fully to making it something meaningful for you, you can start the process of suppressing your nervous response. Own the fact that it’s important to you, and you’ll already be more confident.

Recognizing the Physical Effects

Second, learn how your nervousness manifests itself physically. Each of us reacts differently when we feel nervous. Do you get sweaty palms? Dry mouth? The shakes? Increased heart rate? Shallow breathing? Need to go to the bathroom?

By understanding the effect being nervous has on your body, you can decide on the best remedy to counteract your symptoms. It’s very important that you can clearly define and recognize these physical effects as they start to happen.

You may need to carry a towel or a glass of water on stage with you. Perhaps deep breathing exercises will help. Maybe you’ll need to visit the bathroom just before you walk on stage. Musicians even use prescription beta blockers to feel steady.

Do whatever it takes to feel in control physically.

Also, remember that when I say “stage,” I don’t necessarily mean an actual stage in front of a real, live, human audience. Lots of situations feel like being on stage and can trigger nervous reactions: playing for a teacher at a lesson, performing for a friend who will critique you, doing a runthrough in your practice studio while shooting video of yourself, going over something difficult at a rehearsal. As far as your nervous system is concerned, these are all the same as being on stage.

Your Nervousness Clock

Third, make sure you are aware of the timeline of your nervous cycle.

Some musicians feel overcome with nerves right before a performance. Others are nervous an hour before going on stage, or even the day before.

You must learn what you can and cannot get accomplished when you feel nervous. Perhaps practicing or warming up during that time period is not realistic for you. You will need to fill that time with something that will calm you down: a visualization, calling/texting a supportive friend, playing your favorite video game – something, anything that makes you feel normal.

Release the Energy into Your Music

Finally, you can decide to push your nervous feelings – which are a by-product of your desire for success – into the intensity of your music.

Don’t let your nerves affect your private thoughts or arouse your inner critic. Instead, take all that bundled-up energy and let it escape through your performance.

Controlling nerves is part of successful practicing and performing. Increasing your awareness and understanding of your own nervous cycle can have a surprisingly positive effect on your music, and your overall well-being.

Here’s my favorite anonymous quote on this topic:

“Nervous” and “excited” are the same thing, so you might as well call it “excited”!

To Your Musical Success!
David Motto

Posted in Achieving Goals, Music, Music Performance Tips, Music Practice Tips | 4 Comments

Your Stage Look

Posted on September 10, 2017 by David Motto

How You Look on Stage Really Matters

There’s been a lot of media attention recently on how our perceptions, expectations, and prejudices influence our decision making.

It turns out that judges in music competitions are influenced by what they see as much as by what they hear. This could have a profound effect not only for musicians in competitions or auditions, but on any performer on any stage.

Now, I don’t think that anyone’s saying that a novice performer who looks terrific will be judged as superior to a world-class performer who looks terrible. But, if two performers are close in their abilities, what they look like while performing could make the difference between success and failure.

This is something for all of us to think about!

There’s more information in this great article from The Atlantic. Check it out!

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Play, Don’t Work

Posted on September 6, 2017 by David Motto

David Motto’s Practice Tip of the Week:
Play Your Instrument, Don’t Work It

Work vs. Play

We live in a world in which a lot of work is drudgery. Some jobs are unfulfilling, and people can be unhappy at work.

These feelings should never exist when you play music. After all, it’s built into our language: We “play” our instruments, we don’t “work” them.

When you are playing your instrument – whether it’s what you do for a living or just as a weekend hobby – there should always be an element of play involved.

Think of young children on a playground. They’re unconscious of time, responsibilities, outcomes, what comes next. They’re just playing.

We have an opportunity to be like those children when we practice, rehearse, and perform. Sure, musicians want to make forward progress. But, sometimes this progress is best achieved by letting go.

Let It Go

Many musicians have difficulty letting go of their serious side, and sometimes you have to be serious to figure out a particularly challenging musical issue. Too much serious effort, however, will get in the way of becoming the musician you’ve always dreamed of being.

You can’t spend every practice session thinking it’s work!

Sometimes, you’ve just got to let go of all your “shoulds” and your usual expectations. You’ve got to let go and enjoy yourself!

Four “Play” Strategies

Here are four simple suggestions to put the element of “Play” into your, uh, playing:

1. Act Crazy
At some point during every practice session, play through something with reckless abandon. Don’t worry about your sound. Just play!

2. Try the Impossible
Try to play something that seems absolutely impossible – and be sure to laugh at yourself as you do it. This can be a lot of fun since you know there’s no possibility of “succeeding.”

3. Purposefully Sound Bad
Pretend it’s the very first time you’re playing, and try to sound like an absolute beginner. Play out of tune. Use horrible tone. Play way too loud. Lose all physical control of your instrument.

4. Play Something You Hate
Play a style of music you absolutely hate. Bring out all the elements of this style that you can’t stand. Overdo it. You can even use the body language of musicians who play this style.

Remembering to Have Fun

Each of these four strategies can add some humor to your practice sessions and reconnect you to “playing” your instrument

Being a musician is fun. We’ve all got to remember this. Recognize that what you’re doing in the practice room, during rehearsals, and on stage is play. This recognition will make all the difference!

To Your Musical Success!
David Motto

Posted in Motivation, Music, Music Practice Tips | 2 Comments