Throughout time, there has been a saying that ‘practice makes perfect’. I firmly believe in this saying, but with one caveat: I believe that quality practice makes perfect. I believe in 'quality over quantity', which raises the question: ‘What exactly is a quality practice?’. This question will be discussed and answered in this essay.
Quality practice comes in many forms depending on the musician’s learning style, and to achieve this, there must be more stress on efficient and effective methods of practice. Firstly, Barry and McArthur showed that teachers and students must learn to evaluate and reflect upon their progress, as showing progress while developing their repertoire will prove to make the process of learning more efficient. They then steered this conversation to question the best method of teaching quality practice. Secondly, Zhukov’s article showed that practice is a skill that requires evaluation and reflection to be developed, which then directed the discussion about the process of becoming a professional musician. Thirdly, documenting one's practice sessions is a useful method in determining and discovering better methods of practice as demonstrated in Chaffin and Imreh’s article who have moved this discussion towards the application of ‘conceptual memory’ to other forms of performing arts. Overall, reflections upon their practice sessions are vital to the development of an artist as they allow themselves to ensure that their methods are useful. This has led me to think more about practice as it is not a mere action, but an essential skill that all musicians must further develop.
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Barry and McArthur’s article proved that learning how to evaluate our practice routines is key to quality practice, as it allows us to efficiently learn our repertoire by surveying teachers to expose them to the reality of their teaching methods. They discussed methods such as ‘mental practice’ where students listen to the piece by sight. The validity of this method was proven by referring to Ross’s experiment, where mental practice was proved to be superior to physical practice. Their article also agreed upon the importance of organized practice, as they quoted Pearce, “A daily guide for structured practice is a MUST for maximum accomplishment”. Ross and Pearce’s information helped Barry and McArthur to encourage the idea of utilizing and teaching a range of methods as they allow different outcomes. However, there is a gap, which the article asked: “How can effective practice best be taught?”. Barry and McArthur suggested that setting goals leads to quality practice. I agree that goal-setting is key to quality practice as it motivates, from my experience, and tracks a student’s progress, however, I believe that learning how to set goals is key. Barry and McArthur used their data to propel this conversation in which teachers have answered that they do indeed help their students set goals for themselves. This evidence was used to add to the effectiveness of goal-setting which we have discussed previously. Moving on, Barry and McArthur’s discussion on possible plans of interviewing teachers about their method of teaching how to practice, and see “what elements students remember and apply... regular[ly]...” to seek the answer to their question. While reading Barry and McArthur’s article, it is evident that one has questioned how an individual determines what is quality practice, as seen in Jorgensen’s book, where he explained the importance of individual learning of quality practice as teachers do not typically discuss how to practice. Furthermore, it has opened up more questions such as: ‘How would we help develop skills to obtain quality practice in a classroom setting?’ and ‘How do we measure quality practice?’. Hence, reflection and evaluation are important skills that accelerate the progress of practice.
The quality of each practice session relies upon our practice skills, and Zhukov explained that practice is an essential skill that must be learned or taught. This article aimed to persuade teachers to teach different methods of practicing an instrument with their students. She does this by referring to McPherson and Renwick’s argument of utilizing diaries to improve our practice skills. Additionally, Zhukov used Barry’s findings to show that “systematic approaches to practice yield better results”. McPherson and Renwick’s argument and Barry's findings converged the idea that one can improve their practice, which further proved Zhukov’s point that teachers must help their students develop their practice skills by exposing different methods. While reading, I questioned how we would teach these methods, and Zhukov suggested the idea of a ‘systematic approach’, where clear communication about practice and goal setting is key to quality practice. She explained that teachers must adjust their selection of methods for different students to provide quality practice. I agree with this statement and believe that teachers should make students reflect and evaluate themselves to invite them to independently attempt other methods on their own. She then propelled this discussion to focus more on the students, where they can be “participating in many other musical activities”, which showed that quality practice can be achieved independently. As discussed, Zhukov has explained that skill is required to achieve quality practice, which has steered this into a new direction in that the process of becoming a highly skilled musician comes with many factors such as the duration of their practice sessions. Additionally, it has led to other directions such as how to independently learn their instrument in Varela, Abrami and Upitis’s article, ‘Self-Regulation and Music Learning: A Systematic Review’, where they used Zhukov’s discussion about ‘practice habits’. Also, Zhukov’s article has opened up new questions such as: ‘How do we measure our practice skills?’ and ‘And how do we know if we have achieved quality practice?’. It is evident that skill is needed to achieve quality practice and hence, practice is an essential skill that must be taught to all musicians.
Analyzing others and our practice sessions is a form of quality practice, as demonstrated throughout Chaffin and Imreh’s article as they studied the documentation of a concert pianist’s practice routine. They drew sources from their observations from the documentation and discovered 10 dimensions of practice, which were categorized into four: basic (technique), interpretive (expressive techniques), performance (combination of basic and interpretive), and musical structure (analyzing the piece). Additionally, the pianist focused on ‘crucial points’ in the piece. These examples demonstrate how the analysis of documentation can be utilized to expose ourselves to other means of practice. However, we should question the phenomenon of memory being key to quality practice or if it is only a 'hallmark of expertise'. Chaffin and Imreh explained that one can better understand their pieces when one memorizes them. They discussed that this type of memorization helps the performer take control after making mistakes during performances. Additionally, it allows more 'focus on expressive goals during the performance'. From my experience, I agree with this statement, as I was able to listen better to what I was playing by memory, which allowed me to put in more expressive techniques. Chaffin and Imreh steered this conversation by expanding the application of ‘conceptual memory’ upon other performing arts, which opened up a question on how one can obtain and apply ‘conceptual memory’ in all performing arts, which helped them to reiterate the importance of memorization to all performers. Additionally, this has opened up more questions such as: ‘How may a teacher help their student to approach this kind of practice?’ and ‘What is conceptual memory?’.
In Rentflow and Gosling’s article, Chaffin and Imreh’s article was cited to explain the psychological aspect of music to propel their conversation to discuss the phenomenon of musical preferences. The documentation of each practice session of an instrumentalist has allowed further understanding of what type of quality practice is valid, and hence analyzing others’ and our practice session is another form of quality practice.
In conclusion, quality practice comes in many forms depending on the individual as everyone functions differently. This conversation has led me to conclude that practice is psychological which teachers may have neglected throughout their lessons as they emphasized mostly the physical aspect. I found that Chaffin and Imreh’s idea was counterintuitive from my perspective, as I fear of memory slips, however, this has led me to think about memorization in a different light. McPherson and Renwick’s argument has persuaded me to use practice diaries throughout learning my future and current repertoires, as I believe that the sight of progress is a key motivator for me. Moreover, Pearce’s statement in Barry and McArthur’s article has made me aware of how my piano teacher in the conservatorium was able to help me progress through my repertoire more efficiently as he structured the piano lessons around my pieces. These ideas have led me to think about practice in a new light, as it is more than a mere drill of playing a piece repeatedly. It is the approach to understanding the piece and how we function while practicing. I plan to document my practice routines by keeping a practice diary to be aware of my methods and evaluate whether it was the quality practice in my future classes, as well as plan out my lessons and emphasize the importance of quality practice.
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