Music Practice Quotes - Page 2

• As soon as effective listening takes place, the ear identifies what needs to be done and guides the techniques search for a solution

  Howard Snell

  Effective Listening, Technique, Needs

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• . . when the initial excitement of playing starts to evaporate, good habits are needed to sustain the learning process.

  Howard Snell

  Excitement, Habit, Process

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• If we're not actively making things better, chances are we're making them worse.

  William Westney

  Chance, Chances Are, Ifs

  William Westney (2006). “The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self”, p.94, Amadeus Press

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• [perfectionism leads to] a tendency to apologize preemptively for one's efforts, knowing from experience that there's sure to be something wrong with them.

  William Westney

  Knowing, Effort, Apologizing

  William Westney (2003). “The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self”

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• Robotic correctness is the last thing judges want to see or hear

  William Westney

  Judging, Want, Lasts

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• Most of us have very clear memories of the self-critical internal conversation running on in our heads while we were playing poorly, and yet it often seems that we hardly remember noticing it at all while we were playing well.

  Barry Green

  Running, Memories, Self

  W Timothy Gallwey, Barry Green (2015). “The Inner Game of Music”, p.16, Pan Macmillan

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• The reason so many of us lose our bearings about practising early in life is that we practice in living rooms with other family members in earshot - and healthy practice would simply sound too obnoxious, intrusive, repetitious and unmusical for others to hear without annoyance.

  William Westney

  Practice, Healthy, Sound

  William Westney (2003). “The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self”

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• Failing to remember is the primary reason for most performers' poor practising habits.

  Howard Snell

  Remember, Failing, Reason

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• Don't attribute mishaps to a lapse in concentration - if you missed the note you don't know it.

  William Westney

  Lapses, Notes, Mishaps

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• It is the height of professionalism to be able to make an ordinary piece of music sound good. When playing routine melodic studies the player must treat them as if they are musical value.

  Howard Snell

  Player, Musical, Sound

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• If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then why practice?

  Billy Corgan

  Practice, Perfect, Rhetorical Question

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• If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Reality

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

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• If you want money, buy lottery tickets. If you love music, practice and keep your overhead to the bare minimum. Keep your promises, who you are is more important than what licks you know to any band leader.

  Steve Morse

  Practice, Leader, Promise

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• The most efficient way to memorise a piece is to use the one which proceeds in an error free manner

  Sergei Rachmaninoff

  Errors, Use, Pieces

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• Much music teaching seems more concerned with controlling the student than with encouraging the student's own impulses.

  William Westney

  Teaching, Students, Impulse

  William Westney (2006). “The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self”, p.43, Amadeus Press

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• There is a direct parallel in the way that we speak, with natural variations of pitch and volume that give full meaning to our words. This is what is missing in the words on the page of a book, and the notes on the score.

  Howard Snell

  Book, Giving, Missing

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• They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Men

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

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• Man, there's no boundary line to art!

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Men

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

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