As I've spent this morning and afternoon practicing Brouwer pieces, interval seeds, and jazz standards while massively sleep deprived, I'm reminded yet again of one of the crucial components of really getting the guitar to do what I want it to do. Mindfulness. Focus. Attention.
Popular authors, such as Malcom Gladwell and Daniel Levetin to name a couple, have made a rather big deal out of this 10,000 hours of practice stuff. While it's nice to have to some contemporary research that tells us we really DO have to put in 10k hours of practice to master an instrument (or most any other activity), it's been all over Chinese folklore and Taoism in various forms for, well, over a couple thousand years.
If 10,000 hours sounds like a lot, you're right! It's no coincidence that the number 10,000 is also used to symbolize infinity or eternity in that literature. And trying to get to that number will feel like an eternity sometimes. But even that isn't enough...
I've often felt that just putting in that 10k hours is insufficient. There has to be something else to make it work. It needs to be done mindfully. Practicing must become a meditation and, as the 10 thousandth hour approaches, it becomes an effortless meditation.
There's an interesting bit of research a student of mine recently shared with me which supports this:
If You're Busy, You're Doing Something Wrong
If you don't want to read the whole thing, here's a summary. Really Good violinists and EXCEPTIONAL violinists in this study were found to practice the SAME amount of time on average. Yeah. That's right. There were a couple of differences in HOW they practice, though. The truly exceptional musicians concentrated their practicing into two big chunks every day instead of a little here, a little there, and a bit more after dinner. They also focused their attention on repetition and refinement.
Mindfulness. They weren't distracted and that focus allowed them to do something over and over again to make it better.
Here are a couple of quotes from Pablo Casals on practicing:
"I always practiced as if I had forever."
An interviewer once posed this question:
“Mr Casals, you’re the greatest cellist of the 20th Century, perhaps of all-time, and your career has been nothing short of spectacular. Why, at the age of 95, do you still practice 6 hours a day?"
Casals answered, “Because I think I’m making progress.”
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OK, OK. You get the point. But a LOT of people have difficulty focusing on what they're doing for 10 minutes, let alone a couple of hours at a time. Not everyone is going to take up meditation or some other practice to help sharpen this skill, but there are some simple and very practical things you can do while practicing to help.
1 - Turn OFF the ringer on your cell phone.
2 - DON'T check email or facebook while you're practicing.
If you have trouble with either of these, turn your phone and your computer off entirely. Practice in a different room, if need be.
3 - If you have roommates or housemates, let them know that you are not to be disturbed while you're practicing.
4 - When your mind wanders, just reel it back in. If the brain LOVES to do one thing, it's zipping from one crazy idea to another at light speed. "A, C#, F#, apple pie! F, E, bathtub! G..." With practice, you can train it to slow down and, eventually, stay with you and your guitar for longer periods of time. "A, C#, F#, F, E, ice cream!, G..." Improvement!
Brant Grieshaber - guitarist
Guitar Teacher
