Module Four Lesson Nine: Practicing: Reflect & Move Forward!
Congratulations!
You’ve completed the module on practicing!
You’ve covered a lot of ground. You’ve learned about practicing mindset, things like:
What your musical values are, and how to use them in your practice planning
The importance of failure and how it’s just another step toward mastery
The role that effort plays in your practice session and how it’s ultimately more essential than talent
How the quality of your practice is more important than the quantity
And you’ve learned the value of curiosity, experimentation, pleasure, and fun in practicing
You’ve also acquired some new capacities and practical skills. You now know how to:
Create a space that supports your practice
Use the physical, mental, and emotional realms of practicing in your practice sessions.
Break down the music you’re learning into doable chunks
Practice every day with the strategies you’ve learned
Organize your music
Use new practice tools like iReal to make your practice sessions more productive and fun
Plus, you now have a Practice Journal to keep you on track and motivated, deepening your relationship with your practice.
Hopefully, you’re practicing more regularly, having more fun, and getting more out of your practice sessions.
Now, it’s time to think about how to engage with this material moving forward.
Progress is never linear. Some days you’ll feel like you’re on top of all your practice goals, smoothly ticking off each one. Other times you’ll feel lost or stuck, despairing that you’ll ever improve. And then there will be those days, weeks, or maybe even months where no practicing gets done at all. Illness or life events often derail our best-laid plans. And there are times when we all just need a break so we can step back from everything we’re doing and see it from a new perspective.
Whether you’re lost, stuck, despairing, or picking up your practice and starting over again, this course is Evergreen, so it will always be there for you. You can repeat any of the lessons to refresh, reconnect to, or deepen your learning.
As you now know, repetition is the key that opens the door to mastery. So take some time to play with what you’ve learned. Then go through the course again from the beginning. Repeating it might seem like a waste of time. But what I know from my own experience and that of my students is that you’ll absorb the material in a deeper way than you did the first time. Now that you’ve started your own creative practice routine, you’ll look at the lessons through more experienced eyes.
Keep on singing. And happy practicing!
