The Art Of Practice

The art of practicing. It's only now I notice it's called an art because you need to exercise your creativity in the many ways to coax yourself to practice and practice fruitfully. At one point you just have to come to grips with repetition being a crucial part of practice. But in my cello practice I'm focusing on the feeling physical sensation of playing the cello, continuously trying to feel more, for lack of a better phrase. Feel more delicately the feedback from the cello, from the bow, your arm, your body. I found a delightful way to trick myself into practicing more. You go through the song however many times you need to play it through as smoothly as you can and when you feel yourself plateau or reach some limit to your ability you move on to the next and repeat. Usually you have a few songs so this takes around an hour more or less. Then you say to yourself, just for good measure, I'll take a break after this hour or so playing, and repeat the same process. I find the effect between practice sessions is not so pronouced like after you sleep on the practice and practice the next day. The body is amazing in how you do something difficult, you experience fully the failure and struggle up to that level, sleep, and you take your cello again and it's easier.

This way you cover all songs because you play them one at a time adding the progress up, and it nurtures personally a sense of properness in practicing your instrument. I know when I'm falling and failing to give every part of myself to the exercise, otherwise known as half assing it, I also know when I'm applying myself fully, otherwise known as practicing properly. These are my findings in applying myself in the art, exercising my creativity, within practicing.