Becoming a better musician is truly a lifelong pursuit, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make significant progress this summer.

I am by nature an optimist. Even so, each year about this time I find myself despairing at how fast the summertime flies. I always have so many projects, musical and otherwise, that I want to accomplish in the summer, but the summer seems to fly by.

To counteract that fe...

Counting. Chances are that it’s either something you do nearly automatically or it’s something that you never do.

I can still hear my piano teacher insisting that I count out loud, and I can still feel my resistance. Counting, particularly aloud, didn’t come easily or naturally and I didn’t see the point.

I have now spent decades on the other end of scenario as the insistent teacher instead of t...

Are you a free spirit?

Does the thought of practice schedules, journals and regimens make you dig in your heels?

You understand that discipline promotes growth. You want to grow musically and to play well.  You are not a slacker.  You just want to do it on your own terms, in your own way.

Impossible to reconcile the two? Of course not.

You, the free spirit, take pleasure in experiential and ex...

Do you need a bridge to take you from practice to performance?

Do you feel like you're missing something, because no matter how hard you practice your piece doesn't seem to be "performance-ready"?

You may be right.

We musicians have the idea that if we just keep practicing, we will end up being able to play our music the way we want to, the way we hear it in our heads. So when it doesn't work t...

Perfectionism has a bad reputation.

We have heard about all the evils of perfectionism – the frustration, the self-doubt, the endless critiquing.

But is perfectionism the same thing as trying to get your piece correct, trying to make it right and without mistakes?

And if we allow that we can’t achieve perfection, what’s the point in trying? Do we stop practicing at some point and say, “Never mi...

Do you memorize your music? You should.

Let me be clear. I don’t believe it’s necessary, or even desirable, to memorize every piece you learn or to play all your repertoire from memory. But I do think it’s a good idea to practice your memorization skills. And the best way to do that is…to memorize.

I have written before that memorization is less about remembering than it is about learning. That ...

Creativity is not something we generally associate with music practice.  Our practice is more often about repetition and correction than about exploration and discovery.

Many music students don’t think of themselves as being “creative” in their music. They follow instructions, striving to become more proficient, to improve and to play well.  Creativity is something reserved for people who compose...

The Andrews Sisters

"Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative..."

These motivational words are the opening lyrics of a 1945 song by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer The song won the Academy Award that year and was a huge hit for Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.

Negative thinking is one of the hidden dangers in music practice. It can masquerade as perfectionism, striving to be your b...

When you think of YouTube do you instinctively brace yourself for another cute kitten video or an unfortunate epic fail?

YouTube is not just for viral videos. It's a powerful tool. In fact, YouTube is the world's largest search engine. Tat's right - it's bigger than Bing or Yahoo or even Google which owns it. There are 5 billion video views each day on YouTube and every day people all over the wo...

What would musical success look like for you this year?

I’m guessing that like the rest of us you have made some New Year’s resolutions, and that being a musician, some of those resolutions are about your musical growth. Whether it’s about doing more practice or learning a special piece or taking more frequent lessons, there is always a way we want to improve and grow musically.

But over the las...