Help me think through the ultimate practice question
Hi everyone. I'm a teacher. I started writing this mini-essay to help me think through what I think is really the ultimate question about music practice. But I've realised I can't answer it satisfactorily, at least for now. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts if you are a piano teacher too.
The practice feedback loop:
Are you the type of piano student who runs their fingers along (approximately) the right keys, and then turns around to look expectantly at the teacher, waiting for feedback on whether it was good or not? Or are you the type who gets feedback not from an external source, but from YOURSELF?
Although it may sound counterintuitive, the best kind of feedback is the kind that comes from your own ears, not from your teacher. You are a musician. This not only means that you can play the piano (to a greater or lesser extent), but also that you have the deeply human intuition for music. You understand what sounds good on an instinctual level.
You must USE this instinct in your practice!
If we can practice with open ears, listening to the sound we are making in real time, interspersed with hearing the rich sounds of our imagination, then we are really practising. This better kind of practice consists of repeating passages of music with this feedback loop running, not on a conscious level, where we are explicitly analysing whether the notes, rhythm, dynamics, and articulation of our playing was accurate or not, but on the level of REALLY hearing what we are playing, feeling it emotionally, and noticing how easy it feels, and how pleasurable it is to listen to.
When we can access this deeper level of practice, two things happen. 1) we may find that we enter a flow state of heightened focus, where practice no longer feels tiring and overwhelming, and instead we find we can practice for long periods of time without losing concentration. 2) we may find that our relationship towards a teacher changes completely, rather than being reliant on them for every little detail on how to play, they become more of a guide towards accessing more complex ingredients of music. They will also thank you enormously for making their job a lot more fun.
But the question is - how do we make this shift?