Practicing

When I was still formally learning piano my mom (my teacher) would always tell me that "practice makes perfect". I carried this on with me as I took on the violin and consequently dropped piano, though over the years it's become second nature that I didn't even hear the phrase anymore. I picked up the piano again two years ago as a method to channel my emotions after a break-up.

I always went to the practice rooms every chance I could during that period and that was when my then ex-boyfriend noticed and helped me practice piano better. Over the years, I had either forgotten or never learned how to practice well, because when "practice makes perfect" suggests that the focus is perfection, I had only thought of the end result. And the end result should indeed be perfect, but what I didn't catch years ago is that the journey to perfection is just as important. Perfection and how to get there are equal, so we have to know how to practice before even getting to sounding right.

It's easy enough for people who have had private instructors to understand. Looking back my mom emphasized slowing down to be able to catch mistakes often. I just never really thought about it and why it works. And it always bothered me to slow down, because I am young and energetic and I like things to be fast-paced. It wasn't until two years ago when I decided to pick up very pointillistic, impressionist piano music that I practiced slow deliberately and saw how effective it was (with the help of my ex-boyfriend, of course, who is in every way a much more accomplished musician than I am). I took it as I was investigating a martial arts fight while I slowed down the time. It's much easier to see precisely how the fighters move about as they move slower than in real time.

Now as a high school senior who finally understands this paradigm, I am more critical of other people's playing, but also more understanding. One of my friends (I'll call "T.") is a skilled pianist and violinist and is continuing to study music in college. I commemorate her, except she is lacking in proper violin skills for one reason only: she does not practice slow. T. has a common issue where in order to sound better, she speeds up her playing each time. She is a much more agile player than I am, but because she doesn't see the importance of slowing down, her playing has become sloppy. Another friend (I'll call "A.") just naturally speeds up as he plays because he has not been a disciplined counter through the years, so he has an even harder time practicing and getting better at home, I imagine, because he is constantly lost.

The problem, here, I believe, is that practicing slow was never enforced and reinforced in them as musicians, and they're not alone. Anyone who is studying music in grade schools is probably lost in understanding the importance of practicing properly. In class, the teachers only have time to enforce how to sound correct without explaining how to get there. It's a terrible loss for students who want to better themselves as performers but can't because they don't have the resources to grow. And this group of people, frankly, make up more than half of my high school orchestra.

Dear Mom, I should be a music education major.