Rediscover ease musician’s movement mastery

5 habits for healthy

music making









































By Mastaneh Nazarian, certified teacher of Alexander technique,

musician and movement mastery coach
www.rediscoverease.com

Music making .....................................................4
Why do we do it? ..............................................................................................................4

Practice ................................................................ 5
Why do we do it?............................................................................................................... 5

2 super important things….................................. 6

The perception/mindset loop ..............................7
How does your practice grow? .........................................................................................7

Healthy practice ..................................................9

Defining practice quality .................................................................................................9

What does purposeful practice look like? .........10

How long to practice? .....................................................................................................11

#1 Get centred ................................................... 12

The power of attention for getting more done with less effort ......................................12

#2 AIM ...............................................................14
Attention+Intention=Motivation ................................................................................... 14

#3 Core Up .........................................................16
Create Order Reduce Effort ........................................................................................... 16

#4 Let go & move beyond comfort ....................19

Maximise your effort by questioning the status quo ..................................................... 19

#5 Make perfect mistakes .................................21

The power of practice & habits ...................................................................................... 21

Endnotes ............................................................23
Where to now? ................................................... 24







“I do not think I could ever have made any progress if I had practiced six
hours a day. In the first place I have never believed in practicing too much—
it is just as bad as practicing too little! And then there are so many other
things I like to do. I am fond of reading and I like sport: tennis, golf, bicycle
riding, boating, swimming, etc.
I have never believed in grinding. In fact I think that if one has to work very
hard to get his piece, it will show in the execution. To interpret music properly,
it is necessary to eliminate mechanical difficulty; the audience should not feel
the struggle of the artist with what are considered hard passages. I hardly
ever practice more than three hours a day on an average, and besides, I
keep my Sunday when I do not play at all, and sometimes I make an extra
holiday.
As to six or seven hours a day, I would not have been able to stand it at all.”


The legendary Jascha Heifez On practice:

Music making
Why do we do it?
The whole process of ‘why’ might stand beyond reason, but this doesn’t mean that some
investigation on this topic will be fruitless.
Why do we make music? “To express something that we can’t express in any other form”.
Or, we make music because we want to and have to do it. It’s like a magnetic compulsion, but a
compulsion that requires healthy choices for its longevity and cohesion.
So, before you read any further, I want you to ask yourself this simple question and then write
down your own answer.
Go on, take your favourite pen or pencil and open the notebook that you use to write down your
dreams and frustrations and jot something down.
If you don’t have a dedicated writing pad and writing implement, just
use any ordinary piece of paper. But, think about setting something up,
since we will use these alongside this booklet. Get something simple,
or go ‘all out’ and spoil yourself.

Your answer to this simple question

holds a key for understanding how you can create a personalised
and achievable plan for supporting the health of your music
making.
Since this booklet draws from research and practice in the field of
learning, your unique place in your development is a very central
ingredient in the process. So, don’t take what you know about
yourself for granted and write down your answer to this initial
question and give it as much form and detail as you want.
The science of learning has come a long way since the days of people like Jascha Heifez, (see
previous page), the Beatles and John Coltrane, so I wanted to put this booklet together to draw on
some of the central points of the research in this field for application to music making.
As these are some of the same methods that athletes and performing artists use to help support a
healthy and competitive practice, their application to music brings up some unique points and
problems which I hope I can give some pointers to here.
The aim of this booklet is to share a few practical habits that are informed by my personal learning
experiences and combined or ‘fact checked’ with the science of learning and expertise
development.
Next, let’s investigate the most essential ingredient of a musical pursuit. Also know as practice.

Practice
Why do we do it?
Any musician knows that staying motivated for practice isn’t an easy
thing. How many people would welcome the experience of spending
many solitary hours working on scales, studies, exercises, memorisation
and musicianship?
Of course, there are also the sheer physical demands on the body that lead to pain and recurring
injury.
It takes an unusual level of commitment and self-direction to choose to have music as one of the
central element of our life. And after many years of this type of relentless (and rewarding)
commitment, it’s easy to forget why we practice.
We practice to achieve things, and more specifically, to get better at expressing ourselves through
our instrument. There are two parts to this:
1. To get better at developing musical skills over time.
2. To get better at performing and expressing music in the performance situation.
The end results of both point are interlinked, at least one would hope that they are. Since creating
and refining this link is the very purpose of healthy practice. But is mere hoping enough?
If our playing sounds great in the practice room but somehow doesn’t show up on the performing
stage to the level that we want or expect, (based on what happened in the practice room), then
investigating the process is worthwhile.
This is because the main unhealthfulness of making music is hidden in the disconnection between
what we do in the practice or rehearsal room and its relationship to what happens on stage, during
an audition or an exam. But you can practice positive control over the link between practice and
performance.
In this booklet, I want to share 5 habits that form a
combined tool for practicing this positive control:
1. Practicing more efficiently and constructing a solid bridge
between practice and performance
2. Spending less time in the practice room while learning to
develop a more creative musical process
3. Developing healthy strategies for overcoming physical (pain) or mental blocks and setbacks
associated with the process of musical expression.
To accomplish these goals, we need to find practical ways to get our whole self centred, understand
the basics of taking constructive aim, build a simple language for working from the core, learn to
let go and strengthen our understanding of the power of perfect mistakes. Sounds big right? You’ll
be surprised how practical these habits really are!
To get an overview of what the rest of this booklet will focus on I highly recommend that you take
the time to watch this video. Or you can listen by clicking on this audio link.
2 super important things…
There are 2 things that any musician can have in their life at any moment which will help render a
healthier shape to their musical life. Any guesses?

They are perception and mindset and without these concepts, practice (healthy or unhealthy),
would be impossible to imagine.
I want to briefly define these two principles (I had to start by calling them things), very briefly here,
but it would be beneficial if you started to journal on them for yourself. Remember your special
notebook? I have jotted down a few different definitions of these principles/words/things below:
Perception:
1. The ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through
the senses.
2. Awareness of something through the senses.
3. The way in which something is regarded, understood, or
interpreted.

Midset:
1. The established set of attitudes held by someone.
2. An attitude, disposition, or mood.
3. An intention or inclination.
These two principles are so interlinked with each other and also
such a core part of growing healthy music making habits, that
they appear here under their own heading. They are also
constantly refillable with the instrument we know as our whole mind and body; the most
indispensable instruments for our music making pleasure. 

The perception/mindset loop
How does your practice grow?
Do you have a perception of how you practice? If you had to put this into words what would your
perception of your practice be?
Let’s play a game: Imagine that someone is working on a tune or playing through a set of scales
and patterns and they have decided to record themselves. When they listen back, how can they
describe what they hear? What is their perception of what they are listening to? Aside from
naming the obvious.

Rules for playing the loop game:

1. Provide specific details: If a note is ‘not in tune’, ‘too slow’ etc, then the specifics must
be provided.
2. No words or phrases that are either negative, non-descriptive or subjective are allowed.

Here are some examples of what our imaginary person might be perceiving when listening back to
the recording:
• It sounds like someone who keeps stoping and starting
• There doesn’t seem to be any clear idea behind why this person keeps starting and stoping
If our imaginary person is tempted to say things like: ‘Oh, I can guess why the player kept starting
and stoping! What they heard was out of tune…’, then the game’s rules demand that he/she provide
specific details. Such as:
How out of tune? Too sharp or too flat? Or how off tempo? Too fast or too slow?
If our imaginary person isn’t able to fill in the specifics, chances are that the mindset that was being
used during that practice session was haphazard.
The practitioner perceived a feeling of ‘out-of-tuneness’ and proceeded to stop and try again but
without knowing exactly how to relate the feeling to a practical process.
If a haphazard and misdirected mindset becomes something that we rely on when we practice,
then chances are that the outcomes of the practice will be imbued with this same quality.

But…here’s the cool thing

There is a really nice relationship between mindset and perception that when used in a constructive
(the opposite of distractive and destructive) way, can help shape a path for growing our practice.
Another name for this type of constructive practice is purposeful practice.
Once something is perceived as ‘being so’, then it is easy to change the actual action and mindset
that makes it ‘so’.
If we can not see or perceive something then it’s really difficult to change that thing, since it
doesn’t actually exist. When it comes to healthy and unhealthy practice, we might feel tired and
frustrated one day and happy and exuberant the next and not ever detect any useful connections or
patterns between how we perceive and the application of a mindset to our practice. We might risk
relying on haphazard practice without even realising it! Or blame negative feelings and
experiences that we have on ‘lack of talent’ or ‘bad technique’!
Here is a positive example or the ‘perception/mindset loop’:
Once we hear and understand and can give a descriptive language to what haphazard practice
sounds like, then we have taken an important step towards bringing efficiency and positive control
into the practice.
Perceiving the mindset behind and within our practice helps unlock doors that we always had the
keys to and didn’t even know that we did. It is extremely refreshing to harness the power of this
linked relationships between perception and mindset. So, if reducing the use of a haphazard
mindset is what we’re after, developing a purposeful practice mindset is the thing to aim for.
But, we have to stop and take the time needed to give voice to a descriptive language that energises
the ‘perception/mindset loop’. Here is a good place to start:

Let’s do the imaginary exercise from the previous page. Remember your pen and
writing pad? Get them out and either record yourself during your practice or reciting a
favourite poem as the material for this exercise. Alternatively, if you frequent a music
school or commercial rehearsal studio, record a few minutes of someone else’s
practice secretly! (Do it in the name of social research so that you don’t feel bad about
it). What ever you do, do the exercise before you decide on its value.

Value of investigating the soundness of the perception/mindset loop

A disconnected loop can really block the flow of developing purposeful practice, when we start to
investigate this connection we start to:
1. Save time: practicing without knowing ‘what, how and why’ helps ingrain two things:
strengthen inefficient habits and feed a negative self image. These two things take a lot of time
and effort to unravel and undo.
2. Increase creative efficiency: Playing and practicing with a disconnected loop can be both
boring and disheartening. Paying attention to the connection between perception and mindset
might initially feel like a chore, but once you realise the benefits to your whole system, you will
start to change your mindset about the process.
It is tempting to want to get the relationship between perception and mindset ‘right’. It’s a delicate
balance at play. These two things and the loop that connects them are so dynamic and unfixable
that wanting to ‘get them fixed’ will only add to the challenge and create deeper levels of
frustration.
Having said this, there is a lot to learn and many practical things to apply to continually improve
their dialogue.
I hope that the fruit of our 2 page investigation has been a starting point for the formation of a
common language. A recap of the perception/mindset loop gives us some useful terms for growing
healthier music making habits:
1. Haphazard mindset practice: How to notice and reduce it.
2. Purposeful mindset practice: How do define and cultivate it.
3. Continuous improvement: How to keep it as a motivating force and be gentle with our progress.
Healthy practice
Defining practice quality
The previous exercise of recording a part of your practice and
describing what you heard was a starting point for becoming
more aware of your practice habits.
Have you got a practice notebook
Purposeful or deliberate practice is considered the ‘gold and a favourite writing tool by
now? These are simple but
standard’ when it comes to skill development. So, what does it important tools for healthy music
look like and most importantly how can we grow it? making.

Purposeful practice is solution focused, goal-directed, process-

driven and relies of accurate feedback for constructive problem-
solving. It relies on and develops an active curiosity in our
perception and mindset.
It requires that we are not in a hurry to put a proverbial bandaid over problems but muster up the
ability to stop and analyse the basic elements of the situation:
• What
• Why
• How
With purposeful practice, we want our practice and playing habits to become more and more
related, so that they support each other more and more.
Pat Metheny relates healthy music making as allowing a state of deep listening. Click here and
listen to a short clip of this enduring musician speak about his take on the art of music making.
To play at the level at which Pat is speaking of, it is necessary that we have a plan, purpose and
practical solution based approach to how we practice. The place of ‘listening’ that I hope any
musician aspires towards, is not a mindless or haphazard place. It’s a place of play, exploration and
experimentation that thrives on a defined shape and structure.
With purposeful practice and healthy music making, we want to aim to cultivate and grow this
listening place. We might face failures, setbacks or unfamiliar feelings upon the path, but this is
exactly what a purposeful mindset sets up for dealing with.
Is there a precedent for what I’m saying here? Apparently there is. Deliberate or purposeful
practice is the research field of Dr. Andres Ericsson. And before that, the field of research and
practice of people like F.M. Alexander who was the founder of Alexander technique. A technique
which has been used worldwide by performing artist to improve their efficiency and expressive
potential. Both views converge on one point: 



It isn’t how long we practice, but the quality and the purpose of our practice (the what, why and
how), that makes the difference in outcome. Practicing any ordinary way might be more harmful
than good.
What does purposeful practice look
like?
Let’s say you are trying to learn a new tune from the sheet music.
You might start at the beginning and read through it a few times.
You are hoping that after a time you will learn the tune well. But,
there are so many parameters involved that a type of overwhelm
might start to set in on the task.
With purposeful practice, you might start with some questions about
the task at hand: What are the parameters involved in the tune, and to my instrument? What is
gained from learning and studying this tune? What do I as a musician want to learn and express
through it?
There are elements of pure musical execution, as well as those of style involved in learning a new
tune. The habit might be to want to answer all of them at the same time. Again, the main aim is to
avoid overwhelm and mental exhaustion! So don’t be tempted.
Instead, let’s imaging that simply memorising the core structure of the piece is the first step to build
on. Now, put your instrument away and simple study the sheet music for about 5 to 10 minutes.
Your aim here get a sense for the basic formal structure and try to get into the head of the
composer. You might also listen to a few versions of the piece. Basically, it’s like doing
archeology work so that you can take the music a step further.
Next, you decide that the memorisation process can help free up your melodic interpretation.
Make a simple recording of yourself playing the melody of the tune. If you play a harmonic
instrument, you might want to make a seperate recording of the harmonic structure as well.
Now, with memorisation as your purpose, and having done some digging about the structure of the
piece, start to play along with the recorded melody. It doesn’t matter if you have the written music
in front of you. Focus on the whole structure, even if the edges seem rough. But, write down
simple observations about the how, what and the why relating to the elements that seem rough in
this process.
Aim with a purpose, do the process, jot down observations.
The most important part of purposeful practice is TIME. Don’t memorise the tune forever and a
few more hours! Have a set amount of time to do what you have planned out to do and then STOP.
10 minutes is a good chunk of time to practice this type of intense memorisation! Then STOP and
take a 5 minute break to problem solve. Remember, even if you aren’t playing, the 5 minute break
is still intense music making practice of a new kind; a purposeful and deliberate kind.
Use your sense of musical problem solving at every step. This is the adaptable and priceless skill
that you are cultivating, and it is the main ingredient of healthy music making both in the practice
room and on stage.
How long to practice?
Once we start aiming for purposeful practice, we also have to consider how much. Purposeful
practice can seem intense in comparison to haphazard practice. But it’s way more satisfying to
have specific aims when we practice!
The studies on the subject of expertise development show that after 2 hours of practice the quality
of attention starts to dwindle considerably.
Regardless of the style of music you are involved in, I have come to think that Itzhak Perlman’s
advice makes a lot of applicable sense.
Another brave suggestion is to take a mini one day vacation from one’s instrument every week. If
skipping a whole day seems daunting, maybe try doing one day’s practice as early as possible and
the next day’s as late as possible.
Practical and lasting changes in practice habits takes time to develop. It’s easy to be tempted into
wanting to change everything all at once. But remember, this is a life-long refining process.
Have your notebook and favourite writing implement handy in your practice room or the the
communal area so that you can keep track of ideas and insights that evolve as you evolve with
purposeful practice. Try journaling for yourself about the importance of what you are passionate
about, focus on how you are doing what you’re doing and why it’s necessary to have a sustainable
and healthy relationship with music making.
The sensual pleasure of writing and the ability to record your progress over time will become (if
they already aren’t) great friends on the path of bringing healthier and more creative habits to your
music making.
#1 Get centred
The power of attention for getting more done with less effort
It is good to be resilient. But no one ever just ‘gets’ resilience overnight. No one is ever just born
with it either. Similarly, getting centred is a process and it forms the cornerstone of healthy music
making.
Getting centred is something that is desirable to do in response to
something. On the inside and outside of any creative life change is an
absolute constant and this is exactly why getting centred is such an
important habit to cultivate.
Change uncenters us. That’s its job. Getting on stage, taking new
creative risks, dedicating oneself to daily music practice and many other
things still, require that we learn tools for finding our centre and cultivate
attitudes for maintaining it in the face of the unexpected.

What experts recommend

No great talent is required for learning to get centred. Experts agree that the biggest gift that every
human being is endowed with is the gift of adaptability. So, it’s appropriate to think of getting
centred as cultivating adaptability.

How to make it simple

Get enough sleep: Sleep is the foundation of a happy and centred person. Improving sleep
patterns and choices can have a healthy effect on everything from mood to cognition. Sleep can
help with learning and memory skills, which are two of the biggest challenges in music making.
What is ‘enough sleep’? This might not be as standardised as society wants us to think! Sleep is a
learned habit and we can always improve on it.
Just like good music making, good sleep relies on a rhythm. The amount of natural light that we
get during the day also has a great effect on sleep. Find out more and blow up a few myths.
Pursue a centring practice: This can be as simple and slack-proof as regular walking or
meditation and as disciplined and complex as martial arts. It doesn’t matter if it’s archery,
basketball or swimming, just anything that relies on a moving/centring mind inside a moving/
centring body. For many, Alexander technique forms a bedrock for a centring practice. Most
important ingredient here is to find something that works for you, pushes your envelope to a degree
and attracts you.
Nourish simplicity: Getting centred doesn’t have to depend on complex, expensive and fancy
things. The simplicity of eating nourishing foods, and regulating caffeine intake can be centring to
both mind and body. But your practice environment is also important. Do you have adequate light
and air, a suitable chair, a clock, metronome, a mirror, an audio recorder, a music stand and a
notepad and pencil in your practice area? What about water? Simple
things can make a big positive difference.
Cultivate calm-time: Performing is an exhilarating practice. When
we can be calm we have a clearer access to all the moment by
moment choices that need our attention during the sheer joy and
exhilaration of performance. What ever time and attention we put
towards getting centred repays us in the moment when it’s most needed. A musician’s life isn’t
boring. There are many factors involved that can tinker with schedule and timing, so it’s very
important to be calm about the changes.
But this doesn’t mean time management has to fall by the way side. A healthy musician makes a
commitment to renewing and revisiting their long and short term goals and day to day scheduling
habits at least a few times a year.
The simplest way to getting centred is to start by managing music practice time. Plan out every
part of it and allocate time to each element. An excellent planning guide for getting this off the
ground can be found here.

Super quick tip

To get centred, go internet free during at least part of your practice. Many times a musician’s
metronome, tuner, and audio recorder are all on the phone, which is the same place where
Facebook and other major distractions live. If stress brings on a social media checking habit for
you, (as it does for millions of other humans), use your musician’s luck and make yourself a rule
that mimics your instrument playing rule:
“I will never play the violin with chocolate on my fingers” = “I will never act on the inner social/
FB checking inner voice while practicing”.
The trick is not to ban yourself from doing a digital social chill, the trick is to limit its use and give
that habit a system and structure.

Renew and rewire daily music making

It’s difficult to express on the written page the gratifying feeling I get after Aikido practice. The
gift of having put away all worries and distractions and give my complete attention to developing
that art is immense. Not that there aren’t frustrations and difficulties involved. Afterwards there is
more of me for myself and for my family and for my music.
Treat your practice and music making as if it was the most valuable event that takes place
everyday. No, most people don’t get paid to do their practice. But there is nothing stoping us from
treating that time as if we were. Try imagining how a surgeon would prepare and set up for a heart
transplant. Try thinking of your daily price as a life giving procedure.
#2 AIM
Attention+Intention=Motivation
The manner with which we aim at a goal has a lot of
bearing on the quality of the experience we have. Let’s revisit that short
chapter on the importance of perception and mindset. Here again we want to
remind ourselves of the importance of both the manner and quality of our attention and intention
and the effect these can have on healthy music making.

What experts recommend

Purposeful practice isn’t instinctively wired in. But this doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible,
achievable or fun to practice deliberately or purposefully. The research in the field of expertise
development shows that purposeful practice does pay the highest dividends. Having a plan, aiming
for a goal, while adopting a positive problem solving attitude in the face of unknown bends in the
road, prepares us for owning up to our shortcomings and pushing our perceived limits; a double
perspective that defines resilience.

How to make it simple

Know your attention: Human mental attention isn’t designed to be constant. Just as anything that
is uniquely human, it too has ebbs and flows. Finding out when the most productive times are for
us can be a great help in our practice.
When you know what parts of the day you have your best levels of focus at, you know that you can
harvest these natural boost to your advantage. In the initial stages, purposeful practice and building
new attention, intention and motivation habits can take more energy than practicing haphazardly.
You can get more done, and feel positive about your progress when you harness the high-energy,
high-focus parts of the day to your advantage. This way, you also save the frustration that comes
from haphazard and sloppy practice.
Plan to succeed: If like many people today you have gone off the rails of keeping a paper diary,
really consider re-entering the world of pen to paper. Here are some simple tools you can print (I
know, I want to save trees too), to help you track the times during the day that you have the most
amount of focus and energy. Using a planner can be a very simple but effective tool for changing
habits and aiming for healthier music making.
Body language: Take your body language seriously! Our attitude, attention and intention doesn’t
just live in our head. Our body has a lot to communicate too. But don’t just buy the recent ‘fake it
till you make it’ advice that is so popular these days. Having a body/mind practice can be an
immense positive force for improving our overall aim. Motivation isn’t just about sheer will
power. Motivation is a force that comes from using our human intelligence.
If you feel that your body just gets over exhausted from the commitment you’ve made to music,
you can gain benefits from understanding your body’s structure in a deeper and more practical way.
Going to the gym helps, doing simple movements that are designed to bring more flexibility and
strength can help too. For now, feel free to try the simple movements in this video.
Mental clarity: Research shows that developing a clear mental image of what you are aiming for
before taking action can greatly increase skill development. This can effect anything from playing
a scale to planning a practice session. Of course this isn’t to limit the power and joy that lives in
the moment of improvisation and performance when and where we haven’t really heard what we
are about to play! Again, in the practice situation, the importance of creating a mental structuring
of something as clearly as possible relates to why it’s essential to record ourselves when aiming to
solve technical or interpretation problems. It is immensely difficult to change something that we
can’t see or hear.

Super quick tip

There is nothing that can improve our overall AIM than placing conscious limits on a specific
aspect of music making. This can be done in a similar way that multiple attacker situations are
practiced in Aikido: “You only got 3 goes. That’s it, then the next person is ‘in’”. Mind you, an
entire class’s worth of focus and purposeful, deliberate practice has been spend on relating a
technique and the principles behind it. But the intensity of intention that these mini practices
induce is very effective!
You can do the same in music practice by giving yourself a timed practice portion. Don’t just play
your scales until you feel like it’s time to check FB again! Give yourself 4 minutes to practice a
specific scale at a specific tempo. When your 4 minute timer is off, well that’s it! You don’t get a
second chance today! Try this tactic and you will see how your overall attention level shifts for the
better immediately!

Renew and rewire daily music making

Aiming for a more purposeful mindset in our practice isn’t a quick-fix or quick-gain process.
When we start to commit to our music making in this way and bring the importance of attention
and intention to the forefront of what we do and how we do it, the overall quality deepens. We
notice changes and opportunities for expressive potential where we didn’t see them before. Aiming
for deliberate and thoughtful practice and music making can help change our perception of our
potential too. If we stop seeking quick results, one day we may notice that we can reach for far
greater and more enlivening challenges that we allowed ourselves.
Forcing ourselves to be more motivated or focused simply isn’t sustainable. The power that comes
from understanding a more relational and interconnected picture of how things (like body support,
motivation, focus and intention), are constructed is far more sustainable and real. Another thing
about any learning process that everyone can agree upon is: Best intentions are better when
coupled with a laugh!
#3 Core Up
Create Order Reduce Effort
The strength of our body, especially its core, is very important in
developing healthy music making habits. This fact also applies to
daily life.
In this section, I also want to highlight the value of Creating Order towards Reducing our overall
Effort and how having a strong physical core can benefit from and have a positive effect on a
healthy mindset. The basic premise here is that healthy music making thrives on the ability to set
goals and devise priorities. But how do we make the changes necessary to behave more
healthfully?

What experts recommend

You don’t have to be born with a perfectly ordered mindset (if there is such a thing), or have a
naturally strong core to develop a healthier music making life. Our core, inbuilt adaptability is the
quality that will aid us at every turn. But don’t take my word for it, for more, watch this short
video.

How to make it simple

Take time-out for your core: We all know that working on our core can help support our music
making, with this video there is something you can do about it right now.
‘Boring’ isn’t the same as ‘structured’: Having a goal in a practice session and making sure you
have everything you need to support your practice (from enough light, air and water to an
instrument holder, metronome, tuner, pencil, eraser and a recording device), doesn’t mean that your
practice will be boring.
Don’t leave the little but important stuff up to chance, and you will have less excuses to let your
mind (which is an important part of your core), go for a vacation while you are truely intending to
stay present for the task at hand. Take a comforting reminder such as a favourite mug or a little
plant-pot (this may not be always possible…)into the practice room to remind you that ‘everything
is fine’ with the world while you are working on your core craft.
When your attention doest drag your energy down, it might be time to take a break. It’s really
important to understand that attention, which again, builds an integral part of what is our true core,
has ebbs and flows. Be sure to build in a break into your practice session. Some experts
recommend 10 minutes off for every 50 minutes.
There is never one right way: Just as in the athletic training world there is never one right way to
reach a goal, building up a more structured and reliable core for music making isn’t a ‘one-size-fits
-all’ matter. From the dojo floor I am always reminded of an important habit for skill-building and
especially the art of memorisation:
Observe, practice, experiment, train for efficiency, repeat.
There have been countless time in Aikido training where just when I thought I was getting the hang
of a concept or technique, it’s time to sit and observe again. I used to think this was an interruption
to the flow of skill building, but after a time I came to see it as a welcome challenge to strengthen
my mental core. That’s why the experts recommend mental practice as part of any expertise
building process.
See how you can find ways to strengthen the core (create order, reduce effort) of your practice by
really taking on the challenge of taking the break you need even when you think everything is going
great.
Don’t accept pain as normal: Understanding your body goes a very long way towards improving
healthy music making. If your relationship with your instrument is filled with unknown black
holes of pain and strain, then it might be a good idea to develop a deeper understanding of what it
takes to support your instrument. Playing a musical instrument has many occupational hazards.
Things such as extended periods of:
• Rotation
• Twists
• Upper limbs extended away from the core of the body
• Sitting with a compressed core
In recent years there has been some attention to the health challenges of the musician; both
mentally and physically, with a move away from inadequate ‘bandaid solutions’. This is good, but
more attention and awareness is necessary in the music school and in the musical community.
Most musicians learn their playing posture by imitation and when pain or injury arrises, the
solutions are also prescribed by imitation. One of the values of learning Alexander technique lies
in the fact that you can learn to become your own core technician very quickly and affordably. The
first step that you can take is to stop accept pain as normal. It sounds simple, but it’s a very
powerful step towards a more integrated musical life.
It’s not what you do; it’s also what you don’t do: Do you know the recent statistics about the
general attention span? If you are looking to build healthier practice and music performance habits,
the way you habitually teach yourself to pay attention during an activity has a huge effect on the
core quality of that type of activity. Imagine the kind of attention needed to perform music in a live
situation. Now, imagine the kind of attention that most of us live with on the day to day and during
the music practice situation.

A buildable list for recognising the different kinds and

attributes of attention
• Wide/relational
• Fixed/narrow
• Coherence
• Stiff or alive
• Centred or dispersed
You can easily measure in your minds eye the discrepancy between the kind of
attention that you allow yourself during musical practice and the kind that you want to
own during performance. Deliberate or purposeful practice does take effort to
cultivate, but it shouldn’t be laborious in quality. Purposeful practice is a process of
development. Its essence can be practiced away from music and this is what makes it
a powerful and useful tool for the purposes of music making health.
Super quick tip
During your practice session, turn off your phone or leave it in another room. If you are finding
yourself constantly having to deal with an internal voice that is drawing your attention towards
social media, try limiting your posts. 

Your core building success depends on what you don’t do as much as what you do. Try setting up
actual time-out for catching up with friends so that you don’t have to strive to make ‘like’ contact
on Facebook to let them know you care.

It doesn’t matter if you are a ‘man’ or a woman, this article has some great tips on attention
management, a skill that stands as the centre of developing an effortless core.
Don’t forget to congratulate yourself for doing that 5 or 10 minute block of purposeful practice!
Most people’s attention span has reduced to around 8 seconds on the average! (Or, so we are told).
#4 Let go & move
beyond comfort
Maximise your effort by questioning the
status quo
One of the primary attributes of developing purposeful practice is being able to move beyond
comfort. This doesn’t equate to not preparing for a important concert just to play on the edge. Nor
does this equate to simply pushing too hard without aim or purpose and getting physically injured.

What experts recommend

Going for overhauling an entire practice and music making life and wanting to do it all right now
can be exhausting. The process of changing something takes energy, attention and effort. A really
good way to set ourselves up for success is to delineate the actual elements that are involved in
creating change, not just the inner details, but the actual pieces that will help you stay or quickly
get back on to the road of change. The basic idea is this: “this road is not a straight one”. It is
anything but that!
Change and learning to get out of our comfort zone is such a cornerstone of purposeful practice,
that it should be approached with some sort of a reasoned plan.
To get a basic mental picture of the process of change that leads to opening up our comfort zone,
you might want to start here.

How to make it simple

If your efforts don’t pay off: Here are two familiar scenarios: You might be practicing the right
number of hours, putting in many years of work and feel that you aren’t improving in performance
or in any situation that is more demanding than the practice room. Or, you might have build a
certain level of automatic response in relation to certain musical tasks and feel that you don’t need
to improve in those regards any further.
Having a fixed idea in both scenarios is based on a feeling. Although there is nothing wrong with
playing music with as much feeling as you choose, developing your practice and learning to move
beyond what you know based on feeling alone can be a reason why your actual real-life feedback
tells you that one of these two scenarios is an actual fact.
Letting go of being ruled by feeling alone can be as liberating as it is challenging at first. The best
way to envision this process and put a bit of it into practice is to consider that moving out of the
comfort zone means trying something that you couldn’t do before. The solution isn’t to try harder
in the same way that is familiar to you, but to try in a different way.
The release of perceived effort rule: When we see or experience the work of a master practitioner
in any realm, the first thing that usually grabs our attention is that there seems to be not much effort
involved in what they are doing. This is in comparison to what is being accomplished of course.
The qualities I’m thinking of are: accuracy, fluency, control, consistency and efficiency. But the
list could be much longer.
A case in point is the art of Aikido. There are around 15 techniques that form the basis of Aikido
practice, (although these can be reduced to 6 or 7). Each one can be approached from a handful of
varying attacks. The whole point of training and study in Aikido is to form a practical relationship
in movement and thinking between the forms and to train with intelligence so that awareness of
distance, timing, direction and intention coordinate to replace sheer physical effort or muscular
power alone.
Yet, there is a strong evidence from many so called high level Aikido masters that there should be
much effort involved in the execution of techniques. Because, then it looks like something that is
worth putting effort into. The misunderstanding is so deeply engrained and so unreasoned that this
misconception of the effort required to learn the practice, becomes the greatest barrier to the
learning and continuous study of the art.
This law of perceived effort that usually acts as an initial advertisement for the inherent value of
something, can become the greatest of stumbling blocks for expanding our learning comfort zone.
It is easy to get a sense that something is so difficult to master that we simply won’t even try to
approach our practice in a new and less familiar way.
This is true for mastering jazz vocabulary as it is for playing the piano for an amateur practitioner.
But here is the main take-away from this point…
Practice doesn’t make perfect: More practice isn’t ever better practice. Practice that has an aim
and purpose at its core, practice that has specifics as its basis, and practice that involves both the
body and the brain leads to better results.
Purposeful practice requires that we let go of being in our comfort zone. Purposeful practice does
give back. When we let go of our perceived limits, we gain the capacity to really study something.
The basis of that something is ourselves of course.

Super quick tip

One of the best ways to get stuck in the creative and music making
situations that we find familiar is to rely on the presence of what
some musicians and sport psychology experts refer to as ‘peak
performance’ or ‘flow’ zone. The fact is that to develop healthy
and high standards of music making we can’t rely on being in the
right zone to accomplish our best work. There is much discussion
of peak performance, but this has also created an unnecessary
myth around the subject. It can be perceived that unless we attain a peak inner state, then the
performance won’t be up to a certain perceived standard.
Being ‘in the zone’ is a nice place to be, but it can also be a place to get flustered and overwhelmed
with the negative effects of ‘what if’. Preparing for adaptability leads to mastery. Preparing for
the possibility of a certain undefinable state can take the attention away from making music in a
healthy way. A healthy music maker defines him/herself not through a single performance, but by
how they aimed and achieved a certain new challenge that improved their overall artistry.
In the excellent work titled ‘The musician’s way’, Gerald Klickstein puts it this way:
You need the flexibility to adapt to varied internal and external situations
and without a fuss. The musicians who lack preparatory skills fall apart
when things aren’t just so. They often claim that in an earlier practice
session they were in the zone and performed flawlessly. Actually, their
fragile learning creates only an illusion of control.
The best way to counter reliance on the myth of peak performance? Purposeful practice and
thorough-preparation. There aren’t any short cuts as such, but by training the brain and body as a
whole we can get further with much less effort.

#5 Make perfect mistakes

The power of practice & habits
We are a practicing species and trying to get away from making mistakes is an impossibility. But
there are some practical tools that can be used to bring in more and more refined mistakes in to our
music making game.
I know this sound like a funny concept, but once we give it some thought we realise that as with
anything that is worth pursuing, the refinement lives in our growing capacity to be adaptable.

What experts recommend

One of the outcomes of the research in expertise development has made clear that doctors or
teachers who have been practicing for more than 20 years are more prone to making mistakes.
More practice doesn’t necessarily produce a more skilled practitioner. It’s the type of practice that
makes that difference. Dr. Ericsson who is one of the leading researchers in quality of practice that
helps develop an expert writes:
If anything, the doctor or the teacher of the driver who’s been at it for
twenty years is likely to be a bit worse that the one who’s been doing it for
only five, and the reason is that these automated abilities gradually
deteriorate in the absence of deliberate efforts to improve.
For more on the value of mistakes in developing meaningful and purposeful practice habits, check
out this short video.

How to make it simple

Aim for a balance: During practice there are an almost unlimited number of parameters to ‘get
right’. From phrasing, overall execution, dynamics, intonation and tempo to memorisation,
harmonic/melodic vocabulary to arranging and improvisational facility. The list could go on.
This endless list can lead to some imbalances in music making strategy because honing-in and
polishing the details (getting rid of the mistakes), can create a tyranny of sorts over being able to
look at the whole perspective of that particular piece of music or our musicianship as a whole.
Gradation practice: There is something very useful in Aikido practice that can be modified to
help overcome a tendency for imbalanced or obsessive practice habits.
As I mentioned before, Aikido is based on a very concise set of techniques. This allows for
gradations in the practice. Similar to music, learning the technical system is only a starting point
for practical study and integration. Being afraid of making mistakes or getting discouraged by lack
of perfection can become a handicap.
Gradation practice isn’t just a practical tool for overcoming such handicaps, but it is a beautiful and
health-giving process for developing towards what we are aiming for.
Here is a picture of what Gradation practice can look like in Aikido practice. Try not to get
overwhelmed by the unfamiliar while watching the video. The point that it gets across is that
 Gradation practice


Have a picture of the what you are aiming for in mind

Plan to work through the piece from different gradations or angles for specific
amounts of time, let’s say 5 minutes
Think of each gradation as a pass through different levels of detail
Initial-lever gradation: Practice from relatively comfortable level. Grasping the
overall picture on general terms.

Mid-lever gradation: Practice knowing that you will make mistakes. Going for
more detail, but without sacrificing the overall form.

High-level gradation: Practice sections of the piece to work on specific details.
Going for more detail, but knowing the interrelation of the why, what and how.
The process is like learning an aikido technique from static to dynamic speeds,
and gradually relating every technique to one another. 


working on timing, distance, intention, direction within potentially deadly movement, is broken
down into gradations of practice. My actual experience of this kind of practice is that we become
very present and increase our overall body and mind focus immensely by just taking the time to
practice in this way: Without fear of mistakes and with a clear mental model.
With gradation practice you can start to be more structured about the why, what and how of your
mistakes. This type of practice can be very organic when incorporated into chamber group or band
practice. Gradation is about dialogue and conversation as it is about set time limits and structure.
As with all the suggestions in this booklet, they can be used for personal as well as communal
music making. Remember that having a clear mental model to work in response to brings out the
real power of making mistakes. As with Aikido, there is no problems around ‘going wrong’ since
the speed of recovery is where the deepening of the learning process resides.
Getting comfortable with the mistakes, recovery and redirection process through gradation practice
and other purposeful practice tools, helps in becoming aware of the details relating to the structure
and environment of our overall music making.
So, be careful how you relate to the mistakes that you make, but don’t fear their existence.
Problem solving practice: Mistakes lie at the core of learning to problem-solve. Purposeful and
deliberate practice models thrive on the ability to utilise mistakes with refinement. I want finish by
paying more homage to Aikido practice because it’s such a joyful and forgiving way for
understating steps towards healthy development of expertise. And since at their core, all
expressive practices are connected through, there is much that can be learned about music making
through it.
Endnotes
If you’re like me and tend to page through to the end of a document before you commit yourself to
studying it, I want to end this booklet, or start you off, as the case may be, with the main purpose of
this booklet: To develop a problem solving model for practice.

Problem solving practice


1. Pick a technique: Know what you are aiming to work on and what it sounds like
now (record yourself to begin with and at consequent steps).
2. Define the pitfalls: Understand the challenges in specific terms.
3. Develop an ideal mental model: Reason-out a relational model that gives you
possible ways to address the solution.
4. Practice with feedback: You are working on a aural art! Continue to rely not
just on ‘feel’ but on aural feedback too.
5. Refine through gradation: See gradation practice
6. Don’t forget to refine your centre: This integral step is part of every other step,
because if we rely on being comfortable, we will keep practicing the same way
we always do. Problem solving practice will not feel easy during the initial
stages, but if we remember to be present in our body, we can find reserves of
physical and mental sustenance for the process.

Stop everything, sometimes

One of the simplest ways for developing a healthy practice is being able to step away from what
we are doing and give ourselves a chance to have a break and maybe even laugh at ourselves with
joy and gratitude.
There is nothing quite like having an extra side hobby
to recharge our energy reserves. This can be as simple
as tending to houseplants or baking something
delicious for ourselves and friends.
I like to watch things grow, and started planting seeds
in the back garden of my childhood home in
Rockville Maryland. I think green peppers was the
first crop I played around with that became successful.
I managed to get my father addicted to gardening and remember the giant pumpkins that he started
to cultivate in the short summer months.
Now, living in our light-filled apartment in Australia, I’ve taken deeply to house plants. Whenever
I feel a little low or stuck, I reward myself by planning a re-pot of my little house plant babies. It’s
a really rewarding and refreshing hobby that gives back with fresh oxygen. Here’s a simple guide
in case you’re inspired to freshen up your practice room.
 Where to now?
I hope that you have found the suggestions and ideas in this
booklet helpful. The content of this guide represent some of the
techniques for maximising practice habits and bringing out higher
levels of confidence, consistency and artistry in the performance
situation.
The principles of Alexander technique and the practices involved
are a longstanding predecessor to what is now refereed to as the
science of expertise development. As a practitioner of this rich mind-body integrating practice, I
discover much curiosity and joy at the positive results that an improved practice perspective can
have on our expressive potential!
In many ways, the purposeful and curiosity-filled method of refining practice is a way of reducing
music making related pain and injury. What the deliberate practice method has proven is that both
mental and physical attributes combine to help in the learning process that leads our development
beyond our perceived limits.
There is nothing magical or mystical about the Alexander technique process of learning and
improving our performance under high pressure situations. The technique for improving mental
and physical perception and mindset is for everyone and is a direct match for the same deliberate
practice strategies that athletes have been using to improve their outcomes.
If you are interested in learning more, stay tuned for my upcoming 6 week e-course and if you have
any questions, feel free to get in touch via email: [email protected].
Meanwhile, happy and healthy music making!
Mastaneh Nazarian, 

Certified teacher of Alexander technique and musician