Practice Guide: Getting it Right the First Time

We set the scene: You have a song to play at 100 BPM and you can just about do it with one or two mistakes. Should you keep going? NO!!!!!

No Mistakes

You should only play as fast as you can without making any mistakes. The issue is less about the musical mistake (playing it wrong) and more about what is happening in your brain when you make the mistake.

Your Brain & Sleep

Your brain keeps track of all the fine motor movements you do throughout the day and stores them for use in the future. Then, while you are sleeping your brain replays the day's movements at five times the speed, essentially confirming and "backing up" your movement data.

If you practice for hours on end but get poor sleep, your "brain backup" will not write into your cortex in the same way.

What Does This Mean?

If you make a mistake while you are practicing, you are getting one set of incorrect data written into your brain. When you sleep, that same incorrect data gets backed up again into your brain.

Avoid bad practice data and play as fast as you can while making no mistakes.