Over 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to study guitar from a professional classical guitarist. One piece of his advice stays with me to this day. He said that when practicing music, “Don’t practice mistakes.”
What he meant by that was as soon as you make a mistake in playing the score of music, you stop at that specific measure where you played the wrong note. Then take the time to understand the error.
Don’t Practice Mistakes
Stop and dial down the tempo to a languid pace, and practice the measure one note at a time. Break down the section into its most straightforward beats and at the slowest speed possible to play the notes correctly. Practice the measure over and over until you can play the measure with flawless precision. Do not practice mistakes but practice accuracy, one note at a time. You do not move to the next measure until you have played the mistaken section error-free. Then go to the next measure. Keep playing until you make another mistake, and when that happens, stop. The point is to practice no mistakes, work through the error, and keep working until you can play the section accurately.
A Summary of the Steps
- Analyze the section where you make a mistake and understand what happened
- Slow down
- Practice at the tempo that facilitates precision
- Tap out the notes in your mind and on your instrument
- Then play each note slowly and with precision
- Each time you make a mistake, stop, back up and re-play/re-work that note and measure
- Isolate the error and work through those few notes until you can play them flawlessly
- Then go to the next measure
Don’t practice mistakes — practice precision.
How Do We Practice in Life?
I am a recovering perfectionist, and I appreciate this methodology of practicing music that can also be applied to life lessons, helping me keep perspective and strive for excellence in a healthy way.
Some takeaway life learnings from this experience:
- Life is not about perfection but learning and growing through the mistakes
- When you make a mistake, pause to figure out what happened and why
- Slow down
- Break down the error into smaller chunks of workable pieces/scenarios/fragments
- Practice the small chunks into achievable activities
- Repeat the work until the effort becomes flawless
- Learn by working through the error
Practice Growth
Personal growth is about working through the mistakes until you learn the insights. Don’t practice making the error; discover what went wrong and learn until the error becomes a flawless effort of precision and excellent execution of your work. Then move on to the next task, the next measure in life.
Your Turn
What helps you improve your mistakes? How do you get better?
Comments welcome here.
Bal says
This presumes that there really is a correct way. And sometimes, that is true enough. But there are also times where we unnecessarily say that something is the right way and that other ways are mistakes. And this can deprive us of what might be thought of as unintended, unanticipated creative moments. When these moments happen, I find it is good to observe what happened and think about (a) whether you like what happened (even if, on the surface it was a mistake) and/or (b) how you can use the “mistake” to move in a new way.
Denise Pyles says
Great insights Bal – I like the opportunity for unintended creative moments. Well said. Thank you.