Understanding the Four Types of Practice - Dr. Joseph Montelione

Dr. Jospeh Montelione Florida Tech University montemusic@gmail.com

“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” We all know the answer, of course, is to practice! But what is practicing? Is it the repetition of an exercise? Is it drilling a difficult excerpt? Not necessarily—as an educator, I believe it is essential to teach students how to recognize the four types of practicing. Most students know what to practice but lack the ability to identify the correct type of practice. Identifying the correct type of practice will make efficient use of their practice time to yield their desired result.

As we well know, practicing is the mindful, efficient use of time spent improving technique and mastering artistry. In most cases, younger students are challenged with making the most of their practice time. They play their part with a scale or two thrown in, then perhaps something fun if there’s still time allocated to practicing. In fact, many will play an exercise or a musical excerpt repeatedly until they feel they “get it right,” at which point they either move on to something else or pack it up. This way of practicing—through drilling music and rote exercises—may result in some improvement, but it will not yield sustainable, concrete ownership of the technique needed to express the inner artist. There will always be an abundance of sheet music to practice; because of this, students believe that this is where their focus should lie. While it clearly is important to practice the assigned ensemble piece, merely getting better at that particular piece of music will not address the fundamental needs the student must have in order to build a solid musical foundation.

Whether the student is hoping to improve, or if they’re there just for fun, regardless of their reasons for being or belonging, students need to learn “how to practice” and not necessarily “what to practice.” In other words, they need to practice “smarter” and not “harder.” This is most effective when the student understands the different types of practicing.

There are four different types of practicing—Discovery, Conditioning, Reinforcement and Repertoire. Discovery is where the most amount of time should be spent when a student chooses to practice. In a private lesson, the teacher will take the time to explain and showcase a variety of concepts on how to achieve a goal. The hope is that by the end of the lesson, a student will, in theory, understand “how” to do it. Discovery is realizing how to apply the concept/theory into a reality, and typically involves a student’s weakest area of playing. For example, if an area of weakness is sound and the exercise is long tones, then Discovery involves a student playing a long tone until the desired sound matches the ideal sound. At this point, it is not about playing the long tone, it is about discovering how to match the sound in the student’s head and using the long tone as a means to help get him or her there. Educators need to explain to students that discovery doesn’t necessarily condition a student’s body for peak performance. Rather, it only allows a student to actualize a new concept taught by an instructor—this is due to the majority of time spent on a passage or exercise ending up being a complete failure. Yet, the failure helps the student propel closer to mastering the preferred result. So, once a student has grasped the discovery level, they move on to Conditioning.

Conditioning is the process of taking the discovered concept and acclimatizing a student to perform in the newly discovered way of playing. Conditioning involves a mind focused on replacing the old habit into a new habit. I strive to condition students into only playing in the newly discovered way—this is not achieved by focusing on the mistake or the failed attempt, rather it is achieved by detaching from the old and yielding to the process of how to play in the new way. In the condition phase of practicing, obstacles are the things students see when they take their mind off of the new way of playing.

Remember that the conscious mind can only focus on one thing at a time and conditioning is about practicing how to focus on the new way of playing without allowing any distractions clutter the mind. If successful, the new way of playing will become a new habit. Once it becomes a habit (as a result of conditioning) then a student can move on to the Reinforcement phase of practicing.

Reinforcement is the act of repeating something “over and over” again. This is where most students get into trouble—they think that practicing is reiterating something repeatedly until they “get it,” and then, in some cases they don’t ever truly attain the goal and ultimately quit. The biggest problem here is that they often are repeating something recurrently that is actually flawed, thinking that the repetition will “fix it,” but the only thing that they are actually habituating is how to play something incorrectly. It is only after the discovery of how to play something, followed by conditioning a new habit, that repetition should be employed. Now, as students repeat this new, healthy habit, they need to understand that they have a choice. They either repeat the conditioned technique enough times to “get it right” (tricky) or repeat it enough times so that it can never go wrong—students should endeavor to do the latter, thus ensuring the new skill becomes an extension of their voice. Only then is the student ready to utilize this technique into Repertoire.

The first three stages of practicing can easily be employed into learning a piece of music. Here is where we shift gears. The main purpose of practicing (and the previous three stages) is to have complete ownership over the technical challenges of one’s musical instrument—so much so, that when it is time to work on Repertoire, the focus is on the music itself. As educators, recall that the conscious mind can only effectively focus on one thing at a time, so when students are practicing music, the focus should be solely on the music. Most of the time, I see students struggle with a piece—not because the music is challenging, but because they have deficiencies in their technique. The goal prior to practicing repertoire is to have complete ownership over technique to be able to focus on how to communicate the music. Frustration, in these instances, can be demoralizing to the student. Students must be taught to never become frustrated with themselves, as frustration leads to anxiety. If anxiety is developing in the practice room, then the student is effectively practicing being anxious. Then, when it is time to perform, anxiety will unfurl because that is what has been practiced. In Repertoire, the students’ mind should be focused on how to interpret the music and not the technique to play the instrument. At this point, the instrument should be an extension of the student’s body and not get in the way of what is intended to be expressed artistically. Teach the student to relax; this stage is supposed to be fun. We don’t work music. We play music.

Joe Montelione has been on the trumpet faculty for Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, New England Music Camp, National Trumpet Competition, and Music Academy International’s Trentino Music Festival in Primiero, Italy. He is currently on the faculty of Florida Tech University where he teaches trumpet and directs the jazz band.