George Kimery
From:
Limestone, TN, USA
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Posted 23 Jan 2016 7:53 am |
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This article may change the way you view practicing and the way you practice. I think this would be an excellent article to give as a handout to students. The advice is as valid today as it was in 1923.
This article was published in Etude magazine, October 1923. The author is H. Ernest Hunt, an English Psychology expert.
NEW ASPECTS OF THE SCIENCE OF PRACTICING
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: We've heard this expression
many times, but rarely is it in the same breath. ...QUALIFIED! The object of any practice, whether it be a piece of music, song, dance, or whatever....is to enable the performer to acquire some semblance of perfection in his performance. It is only thru constant repetition of a practice session accompanied by absolute mental concentration that a certain POSITIVE engraving can be made on the brain. Without establishing this pattern and impressing it on the brain in a positive manner, one can never hope to acquire any amount of sureness or positiveness in his presentation.
Let us consider for a moment: A record player can only play the particular record that has been positioned on the machine for playing. At this time of the recording, the engraving has been on the record in a POSITIVE manner and without mistakes or deviation of any kind, and the playing of it faithfully reproduces the same identical pattern that has been engraved upon it. By the same token, the impressions that are left on the brain as a result of careful, positive concentration and practice is the ESSENTIAL and the the amount of time spent in practicing, or the amount of labor involved.
When you practice you allow your mind to wander away from what you are attempting to accomplish, and a mistake is made as the result of faulty concentration. This same error is very likely to occur again and again and if allowed to go on uncorrected, soon it will be impossible to do it any other way, because a pattern has been established in the thought channels and a habit has been acquired. From the very first, one must be careful and engrave correctly. Carelessly "running through" something with no thought of acquiring perfection will result in mistakes that are impossible to eradicate later.
We are all aware that an action tends to become easier by repetition. This is the way habits are formed...good one's and bad ones...that allow us to do a thing without apparently thinking. It is not, however, done without thinking, but by virtue of past, stored-up thinking which serves as a record, of which the action is the record of the reproduction.
REMEMBER: If we do a thing with care, accuracy, and with attention ONCE, the repetition will be easier. If we do it TWICE, exactly the same way and allow no variation, the THIRD time wil be easier still. Then in all probability the fourth repetition will follow the lines as a matter of course.
CANCELLATION
If we do a thing right once and the wrong once, then our efforts are cancelled and we have wasted our time, as we have accomplished absolutely nothing!
The sub-conscious mind and it's working, is truly the most astounding thing known to man. It can be developed to very unexpected lengths. Attending to a process with care, establishing it as a habit, and then passing it into the automatic and subconscious department of our brain is the natural process of life. It is an absolute essential for the progress of anything. |
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