The Fastest Way to Learn a Musical Instrument Guaranteed

Focus and intensity are key components to staying alert while practicing so you can meet your musical goals. Though many musicians want to practice for hours on end, it’s nearly impossible to remain focused for such a long amount of time. According to Dianne Dukette and David Cornish in their 2009 book The Essential 20: [...]

Like most other musicians, I spent most of my life thinking that how much practicing I did directly impacted how much forward progress I made as a musician. I only wanted to practice when I had at least 2 hours of uninterrupted time for playing. I was a slave to this concept. This was fine [...]

How do you know if you sound good when you play?  Most musicians are so busy focusing on playing that they find it difficult to listen to themselves as they play.  Instead, they rely on feeling good about the runthrough. I’ve had countless students who have said to me during a lesson, “It felt good [...]

When I speak to groups of music students about music practice tips, how to learn music, and achieving goals, muscle memory is always one of the main parts of the discussion.  When your muscles can correctly and automatically play all the notes in your music, your performances are easier and more fun. But, one aspect [...]

Online music videos are among the technologies readily available for anyone learning to play a musical instrument.  Both live performances and how-to tutorials are waiting for you online–usually for free–and all musicians absolutely must utilize them. Watching video of music you are currently practicing can have a profound effect on your learning curve and your [...]

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about the importance of practicing distinct sections of music to aid learning and memorization.  However, one element of music composition works against us as we prepare and learn music: repeated sections.  Most pieces contain musical material that keeps coming back throughout.  So, if we break up the music based on the sections [...]

Like me, you’ve probably had a performance where the beginning of your piece sounded great, but the middle was just okay.  Most musicians have experienced this situation, and it can be a bit unsettling while you’re on stage. There are many reasons this situation occurs, including always practicing from the beginning of a piece, not [...]

I’m a big advocate of efficient practicing for all musicians.  If you want to learn a musical instrument, it’s best to practice slowly, work on muscle memory, break your music into small sections, and stay intensely focused while you’re practicing. Unfortunately, quality of practice alone won’t make you a master musician.  You need quantity too.  When all [...]

There is evidence from recent neurological research that supports the concept of breaking music into small sections to learn it better.  Though the majority of musicians still try to learn their pieces by going through them from top to bottom (and stopping to make quick fixes along the way), these musicians are actually working against [...]

Performing should be the goal for all musicians.  Though practicing and learning new music can be rewarding, there is little point in putting in all that hard work if you’re not going to play with other musicians–and hopefully in front of an audience.  There is an easy-to-use 3-step process that will get you ready for any [...]