Developing a Practicing Mindset

The Practicing Mind is really about understanding that absolutely everything that we do in life is a skill.

We learn skills from starting at a place where we have no skill. And then we move on this linear line, which is skill building. And we can call that mastery...but it's really the process of learning.

So, how do we convert that and transmute that process of learning into the place we want to be and that we find joy in instead of being attached to the goal, which is the reason that we undertook this endeavor in the first place?

I want to be a jazz pianist. OK, so if I say to myself, "Well, when I am a jazz pianist, then I'll be happy." That makes the process of becoming a jazz pianist, this drudgery that I have to go through so I can get to this, uh, place at here, wherever that is.

And so that's really what The Practicing Mind is about. It's about learning to enjoy the process of developing any skill, of changing yourself, and an understanding that our ability to change and to learn is infinite, and so we never really get...That's what perfection is.

Perfection is the ability to expand infinitely. It's not a number. It's not a level of skill.

Those are all limits. If, if as a musician, we would say, "Well, when I can play Chopin's Nocturne in D flat, then I'm going to be happy." You know what? When you can play that, you're going to want to play something else. That's just the way we are.

When we start out, the very first day on, on our music lesson, whatever the instrument is the instructor is showing us where the note is on the paper. Where it is on the instrument and how you articulate that with your hands, or your mouth, if you're playing a woodwind instrument or a brass instrument.

And at that moment, we're overwhelmed and our brain is at its threshold. And we have this feeling inside that this is difficult. But that's a label, difficult. It's funny; we have these labels for things but it's just a feeling. We're just labeling it with this word that we then interpret as a bad thing, but it's just telling us this is the level we're at in this skill development.

Now, what happens two years later when you're way past all of that and now you're learning a simple Mozart piece, you're no longer trying to figure out where the notes are on the page. You do not have to figure out where they are on your instrument, but the feeling is still there. This feeling of reaching your threshold. This is a property of art. In art, -- and life in general -- we're always up against our threshold. We're always noticing what we haven't mastered yet. The stuff that we can do, we don't notice.

You don't pay attention to walking across the floor. You don't pay attention to buttoning your shirt or to looking at the music and say that's a G and here it is on the instrument, because you're past that. You've mastered that.

So, we only notice it when we're up against something that we're in the process of mastering and so that feeling is there. So we never really escape that feeling, because as artists, we're always trying to be more and to expand.

And that's what The Practicing Mind is about. It's learning that the process is a gift and it's something that we need to treasure. And when you shift your focus, your interpretation of the experience creates your behavior towards the experience, which creates how the whole thing feels. And when you shift that, what happens is that you find that practicing is a respite. It's something that you look forward to, because when you're practicing your instrument, when you're practicing anything, your art form, right in that moment is where you're supposed to be and you can completely relax and shut everything off.

I think for students new to music, it's really backward technology to try to get them to figure out where the note is, and also the timing of it. It's brain overload.

I think you would find if you worked with students and you just said, "Look, for next week, forget about the timing, just play the notes. I want you to just play the notes over and over again." Now they know where the notes are on the keyboard when they come back and you focus on the time, so that you're playing actually what's written on the page.

I think the skill would develop to a point where the two of them would just converge. Then you would start to be able to do both of them at the same time. Just like in the golf swing. I've had golf lessons where the pro gave me one thing to do and I would say, "This is really easy." And he would say, "That's because you're only thinking of one thing, you are thinking of 20 things that have to happen in the actual golf swing." But after you've learned all of them, and they are committed to your brain, you're just tweaking one thing.

I think the same thing could happen in music, your brain would just get to where it could look at the note on the page and play it. The barrier would drop away. Then reading the timing would do the same thing. When you combine the two, your brain would be working way less. If you look at the way other motor skills are trained, like golf which I'm very familiar with. You learn the different aspects of the swing very independently.

I read one study that said, "If you grip a golf club 60 times a day for 21 days, it will be a total habit in the brain." You won't have to think about it anymore. When you pick up the club, you're going to grip it that way.

The way most people instruct is you do a drill that is just one part of the swing because you're teaching your brain.

You do it with a conscious intention, but without judgment. It's just if I do this 50 times, the brain is just going to do it. I'm not going to think about it.

How I learned music as a child; the teacher would put the sheet music on there and you were learning the notes and the rhythm and everything at the same time. They counted out, and you would be sitting there playing.

I wonder if it would be advantageous to take a page out of sports psychologists' books, and just say, "Look, I just want you to learn where the notes are on the keyboard. Forget about the timing, just read the notes." Once you know where the notes are, you're done with that.

Now, your brain isn't switch tasking because that's what happens. We know now that there's no such thing as multitasking. People call it multi-tasking, but there is really no such thing as multitasking. The brain just stops one thing and starts another so quickly that we experience it as one activity but it isn't one activity.

Looking at where the note is on the paper, and looking at what the timing is are two different brain functions. The brain is having to stop, start, stop, start, stop, start is exhausting.

I'm wondering if it would be a better idea to start a student and just say, "Look, just play the notes, that's all I want you to do is to play the notes. For the next time, I just want you to play the first eight measures. Just play those notes with your fingers." Then they're done with that.

Then you go, "OK, now let's focus on the time, let's tap the time out." So that their brain isn't trying to learn too many things at one time. I think that might be an interesting experiment.