I was home alone for about an hour yesterday and so I decided to continue working on a particularly challenging Beethoven Sonata that I had started earlier in the summer. As I sat at the piano, working through some tricky passages—taking them apart and putting them back together again—I noticed that the front window beside the piano was open and that two kids from the neighbourhood had stopped in front of the house to listen. At first I was a little self-conscious—I’ve always done most of my practicing in private—but for some reason I continued playing.
As I went on practicing, I began to wonder about how the act of practicing one’s art or craft is often hidden from public view. While our culture idolize psrofessional musicians, dancers and actors, I suspect that their admiration is based, for the most part, on the finished product: the CD, the performance on a televised competition or the final edit of a movie. We value highly the work of the professional sports figure, but we seldom get a sense of the hours necessary to get to that level of performance.
I’m thinking that there might be a whole lot of value in exposing our young people to the idea that high quality performance takes hours of practice: 10 000 hours, in fact, if you listen to folks like Malcolm Gladwell! I would love to be able to get my hands on resources that clearly demonstrate the discipline (and even the drudgery) involved in achieving excellence.
I fear that people, both young and old, might be too quick to dismiss the possibility of pursuing a particular line of work or leisure simply because they believe that proficiency is something that is innate—something that doesn’t entail a great deal of effort or practice. If we could somehow deprivatize the idea of practice by giving our children insights into the tremendous amount of work that needs to go into the “finished products” with which we are presented, we might open up some new ways of thinking.
What do you think about a reality show called, “Practice Makes Perfect” where viewers are taken behind the scenes into the practice life of people from various walks of life? Would this be compelling enough for prime time? Could it be an effective educational resource? Whose practice life would you like to site down for an hour to watch?
Next: Making Practice Public: Becoming Vulnerable
The best example I can think of where the “practice” was made open to the public is the Michael Jackson video of the making of “This is It”, his final show. How prophetic of him to decide to allow the public in for a peek at how a major stage show is put together. The piece also gave his fans a different perspective on the man himself. The show never happened but the “practice” itself is now an iconic piece of theatre. I think your idea is a good one for all the reasons you mention but also to give us some up close and personal insights into the artists themselves.
I would love to attend rehearsals for artists like Billy Joel, Neil Diamond and The Toronto Symphony Orchestra….and many more I could mention. I encourage you to keep the window open so more people can enjoy your gift of music.
Thanks Mike,
I had forgotten about this video. Your comments have me wondering whether there is a difference between “practice” and “rehearsaL”. Rehearsals and “practices” in sports are often very public in that there are so many pieces of “surrounding material” that is involved.
I was watching an episode of “so you think you can dance” last night with Luke (he chose it). I like the scenes that they show of the practice that the dancers engage in while they prepare for their public performance. I think that I’m going to get in touch with the network and see if there is any way of collecting some of these practice sessions and publish them in a separate video package.
Thanks for the thinking here!
Thanks Mike,
I had forgotten about this video. Your comments have me wondering whether there is a difference between “practice” and “rehearsaL”. Rehearsals and “practices” in sports are often very public in that there are so many pieces of “surrounding material” that is involved.
I was watching an episode of “so you think you can dance” last night with Luke (he chose it). I like the scenes that they show of the practice that the dancers engage in while they prepare for their public performance. I think that I’m going to get in touch with the network and see if there is any way of collecting some of these practice sessions and publish them in a separate video package.
Thanks for the thinking here!
Not only artists, but the mathematicians, the physicists, and any other field for that matter that takes practice to go beyond mastery and expertise level.
“I fear that people, both young and old, might be too quick to dismiss the possibility of pursuing a particular line of work or leisure simply because they believe that proficiency is something that is innate—something that doesn’t entail a great deal of effort or practice. If we could somehow deprivatize the idea of practice by giving our children insights into the tremendous amount of work that needs to go into the “finished products” with which we are presented, we might open up some new ways of thinking.”
How very true, as I found out with my own children. The oldest as a three year old, played Chariots of God for my birthday gift. She was never exposed to formal or informal lessons of piano, and she did it by ear. When we eventually got around to formal piano lessons, she had the gift of the ear to where learning new pieces posed no problem what so ever. However, she played the pieces with very little emotion. Practice sessions at home, became a series of perfectly played pieces without the emotions. Recitals was hell, because everyone knew she could place first if only she showed passion when playing the piece. As for my oldest child, practice to her was to master the piece of music, and that she did in short order. Than move on to a new piece to learn, but she did not have the passion to take herself beyond mastery.
My youngest was a different story, who was the one with the learning difficulties. It was her passion that took her beyond what the learning difficulties was stopping her to do. She discovered, it was practice and more practice – no matter how many hours – to go beyond mastery. When she sets out to learned something, the naysayers would say impossible, and she says, “Watch me”.
Far too many people think that proficiency is innate, and I believed it is a common belief in the education system. Some tried to discouraged the practices of drills and other practice sessions at home for my youngest child, for the reasons of that is was a waste of time and effort for so little gain. I prove their statements wrong concerning my child, but “10.000 hours” of practice is what it takes to move beyond mastery and expertise levels to the levels that have never been travel.
Hi Stephen – I came across a book that I am currently reading that touches upon the idea of practice and willpower in proficiency and professionalism. It’s called “The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business”, by Charles Duhigg. In a nut shell it discusses why habits exist and how they can be changed for positive life transformations. It’s very interesting to think about how much of what we do is by default of habit, and how much more we can achieve if we can reconstruct the routines of our habits to achieve that same reward that are driven from the same cues. I am trying to think of ways I can use this book as a teacher to help my students and make my classes better. For example, a student habit of disengagement due to a lack of understanding (the cue) results in distracting themselves from boredom by disrupting the class or pulling out their cell phone (the routine) in order to become engaged in something (the reward). How can students who struggle or are just bored can be empowered to advocate for themselves to stay engaged? How can I change the routine in light if the same cues and rewards? Although the book draws upon examples largely from a business perspective, it does delve into a broad spectrum of examples to support that many different goals such as exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building resiliency and willpower in students, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success can be done through understanding how habits work. Anyway, it’s a bit of a stretch from your idea of the public viewing of the practicing aspect of becoming a professional, but it does make connections and it’s been an interesting read so far. Thought I would share
Nicole – “For example, a student habit of disengagement due to a lack of understanding (the cue) results in distracting themselves from boredom by disrupting the class or pulling out their cell phone (the routine) in order to become engaged in something (the reward). How can students who struggle or are just bored can be empowered to advocate for themselves to stay engaged? How can I change the routine in light if the same cues and rewards? ”
As a parent, I find this to be one of the truths. Even though I never heard of the book, The Power of Habit, when my dyslexic child was younger, I stumbled along on a journey of detours. One of the detours was participation in class and what I could do to improve my child’s participation in class. Tall order back then, but I am glad that I had all kinds of detours because I would never have learned my child disengages herself when she no longer understands the material, disengages within 5 minutes in the beginning of a lesson and always with new knowledge to learn.
I pointed it out to teachers, and to my surprise and delight, my child has greatly benefited. The bonus, as a parent I no longer had to spend the time re-teaching the lessons of the day at home. I could now concentrate on other issues such as note taking, that facilitates learning and in the end engagement in class. By the way, this disengagement also occurred in the home setting, and the reason why I was talking too fast, and sometimes I was not expressing myself in clear explicit language.
I used modeling techniques such as preparing and writing her notes in the younger grades, of what good notes should look like, since she had great difficulties in taking notes at the time. After constant exposure of good note taking, by high school she was now able to take notes and participate in class. I have to laugh now, because she is one of students to go to, if a student has missed class. It gives a boost of self-esteem to my 17 year old, and the same kid who could not string a few words together to form a sentence in grade 3.
Thanks Nancy for your continued participation here, and for the insights and perspective that you bring through our story. Just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate it!