My students know I will harp almost every lesson about the importance of repetition.
Practicing new pieces in small sections, playing everything accurately multiple times in a row.
It's at the heart of what we do. It's what helps the myelination process happen in our bodies.
That biological miracle that allows us to play automatically.
Freeing ourselves to express all that is in the music and that is inside us.
It's the shortest path to awesome.
Kids do drills all the time in sports. They're familiar with repetition already. But applying it to music alone in a practice session requires another level of focus and discipline.
It's not for the faint of heart.
But, it's the shortest path to awesome.
The alternative is taking the long winding path of mediocrity. Playing through mistakes, start to finish. And in effect, taking ten times longer to learn a piece of music than we're capable of.
My magic number is 25 good repetitions in a row before moving on.
Sounds extreme, right?
On the contrary...it works wonders for making things automatic as quickly as possible. And I only want to do this kind of work once when I'm learning new music.
For me, it's the shortest path to awesome.
So...what's your shortest path to awesome that you've been avoiding?