Reddit mentions of The Practice of Practice: How to Boost Your Music Skills

I assure you it's not an issue that you just have or don't have. "Talent" is not a fixed issue.

It's almost certainly an issue of you just not approaching it correctly. This is common with self-teaching musicians and it's honestly especially common with musicians who have background or fluency in one instrument and try to take up another.

Both are rooted in the same problem. Both groups want to be too good too fast and when they can't instantly surmount something difficult, they give up. For those with proficiency in another instrument, it's usually because they try to skip the technical fundamentals of a new instrument because "I already know all this stuff... I'm a good musician." Their ego cripples them putting on the training wheels and sounding like a 3 year-old for several weeks.

For the self-teaching, it's similar. They want something to sounds like a song ASAP. They want it to be an awesome song too... not just something simple. No children's songs. They want to sound cool.

And for both groups, once they get good at one type of thing, they abandon anything else. For you, there's a pattern that you're good at... so you stick to it. If it's something else and it's hard, you give up fast and go back to your safe pattern. For so many musicians they stick to the style or (often with pianists) composer they are best at. It makes them look good. It makes them feel good and gives them that sweet dopamine hit.

It's the same reason people are convinced that you either can play by ear or can play by music, but not both. Most people just get good at one and won't work on the other. For them it's too hard (ear to sheets) or it seems like magic (sheets to ear).


>A) am practicing incorrectly, B) not practicing enough, C) started learning to play instruments too later in life or D) my brain just isn't wired correctly for this stuff. It's probably all four, but lately I'm leaning more towards C and D.

I'd wager it's almost certainly A. B is not as relevant as people thing since quality trumps quantity (see A again).

As for C and D, they are just excuses. I started a lot of things late. Sure I went and got a degree in music, but before college I'd only played trumpet... one not at a time. I was pretty terrible at most of the compulsory piano stuff we had to do and abandoned it after scraping by the requirements.

But then I took up piano seriously at 26 and I now make most of my living playing piano. I've taken up guitar. I've taken up accordion. I gig on the 4 mentioned instruments to varying degrees and I dabble in plenty of others.

I don't have great hands for any of it. I have small hands with fat fingers. I have a mild webbing on my left. I struggle to play barre chords on guitar due to the size of my hands and some chords are physically beyond me because my thumb doesn't wrap around enough.

The thing is, I spend most of my time working on whatever I suck at. I never sound impressive because I'm not working on showy pieces or things that make me feel like I'm awesome. I'm zeroing in on anything that I'm bad at and working on it.

I can think of many times working on my left hand on accordion where my brain felt like it was absolutely melting because it was so mentally taxing and beyond me... at the time. And despite playing the piano, I still have plenty of coordination issues that I have to work through on accordion. In some ways it's easier, and in some ways it's harder. The bellows definitely add a wrinkle.

But if you want to get good at something, you just need to slow it down and work on it consistently...not over minutes or hours... but over days and weeks and months. Slow it down so much you barely know what you're playing and make things line up. Sure, it's really frustrating on accordion (bellows make this more of a chore than most instruments), but the concept is the exact same as working on anything hard. Do it slow... so slow you can't even recognize what you're doing. Line it up and speed it up.

Don't go cower into your comfortable waltz patterns. Don't go work exclusively on just your right or your left hand because they individually make you feel better... Practice isn't about sounding good. It's about sounding like shit so that one day you'll sound less like shit.

I'd highly recommend you read this book not only to dispel you're notion that you just don't have it, but also to give you some understanding and strategies for how to practice effectively.

I'm a beginner, too. Is this your first instrument? I would suggest reading The Practice of Practice. You will need to practice, but don't call it practice to yourself. Call it playing or spending time with your instrument. Practice just has the conotation of being arduous and boring. Playing guitar is really playing with something and exploring what you can do and what your instrument can do. This has given me motivation when I'm having trouble getting beyond a barrier in my musical ability.

I have a feeling this isn't what you're looking for, but this book on practice could be of value to you. Perhaps if you understand the reasons why you're practicing and how to practice in a way that will most benefit you you'll be more willing to commit to it.

Good practice is one of the best skills you can learn for almost anything in life.

The thing is as a mid-30s human you'll have an easier time actually learning a new skill, because you've had all this experiencing learning, the trouble comes with retaining it because of complex neurological reasons.

You'll basically have to practice more than you would have when you were mid teens to really ingrain those movement patterns into your nervous system.

And since you're a relative blank slate, check out The Practice of Practice

Berklee?

There's some good writeups in a couple books Jack Hatfield's "Exercises for 3 Finger" and Ross Nickerson's Encyclopedia

Also endless hangout threads

https://www.banjohangout.org/archive/88575

https://www.banjohangout.org/archive/181239

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books and blogs

https://www.jazzadvice.com/category/jazz-practice-routines/

https://www.amazon.com/Music-Practice-Practicing-Instrument-Professional/dp/151221583X

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Boost-Your-Music-Skills-ebook/dp/B00KVP372M

That was one of the first books I picked up when I started learning. Really helps with being in the right mindset.

Also recommend The Musicians Way and The Practice of Practice.