How a world-class musician practices

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Now, onto Issue 02.

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In Today’s Issue

We’re going to explore how one of the world’s greatest musicians practices.

There are five key principles:

• Practice slowly

• Practice accurately

• Practice purposefully

• Practice in small increments

• Practice enough (but not too much)

Let’s dive in.

How to practice like a world-class performer

Practice.

We know it’s essential to improvement.

But how do you do it effectively?

Practicing is not enough. How you approach practice matters — significantly.

It’s possible to practice and get worse. We don’t want that.

So today, we’re going to learn how to practice from one of the best musicians in the world.

Meet Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman is one of the world’s greatest violinists.

Some of his credentials:

• 4-time Emmy winner

• 16-time Grammy winner

• Played at President Obama’s inauguration

• Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015

• Played at a State Dinner at the White House honoring Queen Elizabeth II

That’s just scratching the surface.

In short, he’s one of the greatest musicians and performers of our time.

I stumbled across a 12-year-old YouTube video of Perlman discussing his practice philosophy, and it sent me down a rabbit hole.

Turns out, Perlman is passionate about practice and has given a handful of talks on it.

Here are five principles of practice from Perlman and what we can learn from them:

1. Practice slowly

When Perlman practices the violin, most of the time he plays at a speed far below what he would in a live performance.

Why?

His thinking is simple:

Our brains need time to absorb information and build new pathways.

When we learn slowly, we have a better chance of remembering the information.

When we learn something quickly, we forget it almost immediately.

Perlman is so passionate about this principle that when kids ask him for his autograph, he signs it and then underneath adds “Practice slowly.”

If you remember only one principle from this issue, make it this one.

2. Practice accurately

What’s worse than not practicing at all?

Practicing lots of reps of the wrong thing.

Perlman is adamant about practicing accurately.

As a violinist, Perlman may want to remember the distance between one particular position on the fingerboard and another.

So he will practice slowly and ensure each rep is correct. The last thing he wants to do is train his fingers to perform the wrong movement hundreds of times.

Repetition breeds mastery, but it must be accurate repetition.

3. Practice purposefully

Practicing slowly and accurately is a great foundation, but it’s not enough.

To maximize your practice, there must be a deliberate purpose for each session.

• What are you practicing?

• Why are you practicing that?

• What does getting better look like in this session?

To Perlman, two hours of mindful practice is far better than 8 hours of mindless practice.

Perlman’s wife told a great story about the intense level of focus Itzhak brings to practice.

Years ago, living in California, an earthquake hit. The chandeliers in the house were swaying, and the house was shifting on its foundation. Itzhak — in the middle of a practice session — was oblivious. He played through the earthquake as if it never happened.

He was immersed in the purpose of that practice session.

4. Practice in small increments

You now have a purpose for practice and are drilling your skill slowly and accurately.

The next principle is to practice a little at a time.

Repeating small increments slowly and deliberately is how to get better. Perlman is adamant about this.

For a violinist, this may mean practicing one or two bars at a time.

For you, it may mean something different, but the principle is the same. Mastery is developed one small chunk at a time in practice.

Perlman practices for 50 minutes followed by 10 minutes of rest to allow his mind and body to reset.

Practicing in small increments makes practicing slowly, accurately and purposefully more attainable.

5. Practice enough (but not too much)

Perlman has a rule: 5 hours is the absolute maximum he will practice in a single day.

Beyond that, he feels like practice starts to make him worse.

We think more reps are always better, but it’s not necessarily true.

There is such a thing as too much practice.

The brain can absorb only so much information at one time, and the body can make purposeful movement only so many times before becoming fatigued.

There’s a line where practice becomes counterproductive.

Finding it is far more “art” than “science.”

Two questions that may help you find the line:

• At what point do I become cognitively overloaded?

• At what point am I no longer capable of performing precise movements accurately and consistently?

That is your “too much practice” line.

If you push beyond it, the odds you start practicing incorrect techniques increases.

Design your practice sessions to stop a step or two before that line.

Summary

The five principles of practice from Itzhak Perlman:

• Practice slowly

• Practice accurately

• Practice purposefully

• Practice in small increments

• Practice enough (but not too much)

These principles can be applied to any skill in sports, business or life in general.

I hope they make you better at your craft.

Now, I’ll leave you with this clip of Itzhak playing Fiddler on the Roof (start at 0:44). Enjoy!

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See you next Sunday.

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