Day One Hundred Forty Two (Year Two)

I got an email today from SL with a link to an interesting blog post.  The post details a study of practice habits.  It dates from the early '90s, and discusses two groups of violinists in West Berlin.  The scientists involved wanted to study the differences between violinists who were on the way to professional performers, and those who were on a path to teach the instrument, but not play professionally.  They were curious about practice habits, amounts of time put in on the instrument per week, and the like.

Here's what they discovered.  Each group spent roughly the same amount of time (50 hours) per week practicing their instrument.  The differences, they discovered, were in other spots.  The professional players consolidated their work into two distinct sessions per day (one in the morning, one in the afternoon).  They also devoted about 3x more of their time to deliberate practice.  This, as defined by psychology professor Anders Ericsson is:

"[A]ctivities designed, typically by a teacher, for the sole purpose of effectively improving specific aspects of an individual’s performance."

An editor at Fortune Magazine named Jeff Colvin expanded on this idea, stating that, among other things, deliberate practice ought to include the following:

1. It’s designed to improve performance. “The essence of deliberate practice is continually stretching an individual just beyond his or her current abilities. That may sound obvious, but most of us don’t do it in the activities we think of as practice.”
2. It’s repeated a lot. “High repetition is the most important difference between deliberate practice of a task and performing the task for real, when it counts.”
3. Feedback on results is continuously available. “You may think that your rehearsal of a job interview was flawless, but your opinion isn’t what counts.”
4. It’s highly demanding mentally. “Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration. That is what makes it ‘deliberate,’ as distinct from the mindless playing of scales or hitting of tennis balls that most people engage in.”
5. It’s hard. “Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that’s exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands.”
6. It requires (good) goals. “The best performers set goals that are not about the outcome but rather about the process of reaching the outcome.”

To go back, for a second, to the other group of violinists I mentioned above, while they spent the same 50 hours playing, their practice was less focused on things that would improve their abilities on a measurable, consistent basis.  Also of note, they spread their playing out throughout the course of the day, so while they put in an equal amount of time, they were more stressed, and slept an hour less per night because their efforts were more haphazard.

So, what does all this mean for me and my playing?  In analyzing that question, here's what jumps out as immediately obvious:

1) I'm nowhere near the 50 hours/week mark.
2) My approach has been closer to that of the less focused group.  I tend to do things all throughout the day, and as those of you that read regularly know, frequently burn the midnight oil with both my playing and my posting.

3) I spent about a half an hour of time tonight practicing deliberately.  Knowing the way that felt (purposeful, relaxed, focused), I can't wait to try and get into that headspace more frequently.

4) I think, in spite of my odd work schedule, I'm going to try and practice in the two session format that the article puts forth, if only to see how it impacts my progress.