Practice makes... BETTER! (but only if you do it right)

One of the 'catch-phrases' we hear all the time is 'practice makes perfect'. A lot of the time this simply isn't true. Practising something doesn't necessarily make one perform a task 'perfectly', and I have often become discouraged by hours and hours of practice because I do not even begin to get a glimpse of the perfection I believe I am supposed to attain.  

We practice because we want to get better, and that is guaranteed if the practising is done right and done often. 

What is encouraging to me is that getting incrementally better - improving - at a given task is something that can be measured. I find this much more beneficial than getting down on myself every day because the thing I'm working on STILL isn't 'perfect'. I'm very content to just get a little bit better every day because I believe that the process will eventually get me to where I need to be if I stick to it. 

Over the next little while I will be posting tips to the approach to practising that I subscribe to. I believe in it because it has worked for hundreds of years for thousands of musicians, and it's working for me right now. 

I'll end-off this post with a thought from the great Jeff Berlin really makes sense to me. He said: 'Progress in music is like watching your hair grow. You can't necessarily see the growth every day, and then one day you look in the mirror and it's time for a haircut'.