Transforming Practice
Harp practice that gets such good results, it’s addictive
6-week program with Christy-Lyn
Transforming Practice
Harp practice that gets such good results, it’s addictive
6-week program with Christy-Lyn
Is this you?
It’s hard to find time to practice. Life is busy, and finding time for your harp sometimes feels impossible, so you need every minute to count.
You’re not sure what to focus on when you practice or if what you’re doing is actually effective!
You make the same mistakes when returning to pieces you’ve learned as if you never learned them properly! Nothing seems to ‘stick’.
Maybe your practice time has just started to feel like a chore! It’s damped your motivation to learn, and you’re desperate to find that spark again!
I struggled with practicing too!
Christy-Lyn’s Story
You might be surprised that I wasn’t always a ‘model student’ with practicing. When I was learning violin as a child, I avoided practicing so much that I felt like a terrible person. I knew I should be practicing more and I didn’t want to let my teacher down, but I just had no motivation!
I also learned piano, and toward the end of school I took lessons with a teacher who was a perfectionist. Instead of letting me play through my pieces, she would spend the whole lesson focusing on small areas that needed improving – sometimes we would spend a whole hour playing the same few measures over and over! At the time I found it so demoralizing that I would cry of frustration in my lessons. I wasn’t used to that level of detailed feedback and the process was really painful. Luckily I came from a family where you don’t give up even when it’s not pleasant! I ended up growing more than I’d ever grown and I got really great results in my piano exams that year.
I also learned piano, and toward the end of school I took lessons with a teacher who was a perfectionist. Instead of letting me play through my pieces, she would spend the whole lesson focusing on small areas that needed improving – sometimes we would spend a whole hour playing the same few measures over and over! At the time I found it so demoralizing that I would cry of frustration in my lessons. I wasn’t used to that level of detailed feedback and the process was really painful. Luckily I came from a family where you don’t give up even when it’s not pleasant! I ended up growing more than I’d ever grown and I got really great results in my piano exams that year.
What I didn’t realize was that instead of just teaching me how to play, that piano teacher was teaching me how to practice like a professional musician. Although it wasn’t done in the most pleasant way, it was the most valuable thing I’ve ever learned in my music journey.
When I finally started learning the harp as an adult, I was able to use all the practice skills I had learned. This time I didn’t feel frustrated or demoralized, and I progressed faster that I could have imagined. I had so much fun! I found it addictive to see myself progressing and my skills increasing each day.
I felt like I was finally achieving something and becoming a person who can overcome challenges. That by playing the harp well, I was contributing something worthwhile to the world.
That’s my dream for you: Instead of being stuck feeling guilty and avoiding practicing, I want your practice time to feel exciting and worthwhile. I want you to see yourself improving and experience the positive snowball effect of success in practice. I really believe it’s possible, if you transform how you think about practicing the harp!
Deliberate Practice:
The secret to making more progress in less time
Be willing to change how you think
Imagine the difference between a customer and a chef in a restaurant. The customer orders and eats the dish without thinking much, but the chef plans and executes every detail of the meal with focus. To practice well, the first step is to go from thinking like a customer to thinking like a chef – from enjoying listening to music to focusing on everything needed to create beautiful music.
Learn how to practice like experts do
Research tells us that experts practice completely differently to ordinary people, and each of us can apply the same methods! It includes hyper-focus on an aspect you want to improve, getting immediate feedback in the moment and adjusting what you’re doing so that you get the results you want. Learn how to “stack the odds in your favor” so that you always succeed at what you’re working on.
Choose the right elements to work on
Exercises? Keeping up old repertoire? Learning new pieces? Deciding what to focus on can be overwhelming, and you might be looking for an elusive ‘perfect practice schedule’ to help move you forward. But the secret is that canned practice schedules don’t work, because they aren’t created with your specific goals in mind. That’s why you need to be equipped to understand how to work towards your goals, no matter what season of your harp playing you’re in.
Lay down healthy practice habits to sustain you
Inspiration and motivation are important, but habits are what define your success in the long-term. But what do you do when ‘life happens’ and your harp playing gets derailed? Or when you just don’t have the energy to practice at the end of a long day? Psychology helps us to understand how habits are formed, why motivation is overrated and how we can create a system that will keep us coming back to the habits we want, even when life gets in the way.
The differences between expert performers and normal adults are NOT due to genetically prescribed talent. Instead, these differences reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance.
– K. Anders Ericsson, cognitive psychologist who did ground-breaking research on what makes experts different
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