I once took a weekend music theory class given at the famous Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and during the class breaks the students got together in the cafeteria. Posted on a column one week was a handwritten note, quoting some esteemed character in the school as having said "Practice is a sign of insecurity!" Beyond the initial chuckle this evoked, the quote has stayed with me over the years because it captures so much of the mental baggage around music practice - "You need to practice x minutes each day," "If you don't practice enough, you'll be bad," "I hear that so and so practices 8 hours every day, I'll never be as good as he is," "Only perfect practice makes perfect," etc. With all of these messages coming from teachers, parents and other musicians it's no wonder that music practice is such a loaded topic for many music-makers and those who gave up on an instrument. I can easily imagine that within the high-pressure halls of a top music school that some students would be practicing just to practice, with no objective in mind other than the need to spend more time practicing. So with all this in mind, in this post I'd like to share a few things I've learned on the mental game of music practice.


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