Ever wondered why some people seem to have a gift for music have you ever
wished that you could play by ear sing in tune improvise and jam you're in the
right place time to turn those wishes into reality
welcome to the Musicality Podcast with your host Christopher Sutton. Did you
know that often what holds musicians back isn't a lack of good instruction or
a lack of effort is that their practice isn't part of a consistent music habit
that gives their brain body and is a chance to learn what they need to in our
recent interview with David Andrew Wiebe of musicentrepreneurHQ.com and the
new music industry podcast we talked about the importance of a strong habit
for supporting the creative process and this is a topic that cuts broadly across
all of music learning and musicality training there are lots of habits that
can help you in music things like remembering to warm up before you play
going through a pre performance ritual to get your mind in the right state
bothering to introduce yourself to the venue manager when you play a gig but
today we're talking about practice habits what do you do on a consistent
basis to help you improve in music inside musical you we have a training
module called the music habit which walks you through creating a suitable
practice habit for yourself and it's packed with tips and strategies to make
it really effective I'm going to be sharing four ideas and tips from that
module in this episode how is your music habit at the moment do you practice on a
regular basis or just when you happen to find time a you 100 percent clear on how
music fits into the rest of your life are you confident that your music habit
is providing the maximum results from the time and effort that you put in
wherever you are at with your music habit I hope this episode will give you
some new ideas to improve it the first tip is your habit must serve your goals
goal setting and planning is a huge and important topic one that we go into
great detail on in musical you it underpins the effectiveness of
everything else you do we won't dive into it now but if you're not yet clear
on your musical goals and how the time you spend on music is leading you
towards them then I recommend checking out episode 82 of the learn jazz
standards podcast where I was a guest and we talked all about effective goal
setting for musicians we'll have a link to that in the show notes if you are
clear on your goals it's going to be much easier to form an effective
practice habit you're going to have a better sense of how much work is
required to follow your plan and hit that goal and what kind of practice
habit will best serve you some types of music learning are best done in short
sessions a few times a day such as ear training others such as mastering
repertoire or perfecting instrument technique can benefit more from longer
daily sessions and if it's a more creative task like a song writing for
example then you might find your music habit needs to fit around the times in
the week when you're in the right physical and mental state for creating
so tip number one is to make sure your music habit is serving your musical
goals the second tip is be realistic and start small the research results on
habit formation vary in how long they say it takes to form a new habit whether
it's the often mentioned 21 days or longer some people myself included say
it almost doesn't matter because you start getting the benefits of your habit
from day one and it becomes more and more habitual the longer you do it what
all the experts do agree on is that for forming a new habit consistency is the
most important thing that means it's better to establish a daily 5-minute
habit then have a 10-minute one you do randomly every few days that goes doubly
for the kind of listening skills we often talk about on this podcast your
brain really needs that regular input to develop the new neural pathways to
recognize what you're training it to so start small
maybe it's singing through sulfa exercises every day in your car on the
way to work or listening to ear training mp3s while you walk the dog
those are both things I personally recommended to members inside musically
you to help them fit more training into a busy schedule
don't trip yourself up by being too ambitious too soon it's a bit like
dieting to lose weight there are so many diets out there some are extreme some
are more toned down some work great for some people
others can't handle them at all and they say that ultimately the most effective
diet for you is going to be the one that you can stick to it goes the same for
music habits it doesn't do you any favors to try and force an unrealistic
practice habit into a life that's too busy to allow it start with something
you're certain you can stick to get into the habit and then you can always
increase the time or frequency from there so that's tip number two be
realistic and start small the third tip is to embrace the concept of music time
as you move towards your goals you reach them and you establish new ones you're
going to go through a variety of training plans and details of your
practice are going to change over time but your music habit doesn't need to one
thing that's been really useful to our members from the music habit module is
the concept of music time music time is just the time on your calendar that's
marked out for music practice now you might be thinking what difference does
that make I know when I practice music but giving
it the label music time and marking it very clearly on your calendar alongside
your other commitments reframes things it helps you to see music time as
something that gets priority you start to treat it like a doctor's appointment
or a commitment to pick up your kids from school something that you don't
missed that's very different from having a vague intention to slot in some music
practice if you can once you've taken care of all the things that are on your
calendar so start marking out your music time each day or each week and giving it
priority that reframe alone can make it far easier to form a consistent habit so
that's tip number three commit to music time the fourth tip I wanted to pull out
from our music habit module is gay support musicians we're funny creatures
although we love to play and perform together a lot of us are actually very
solitary when it comes to practicing I don't know about you but I certainly
always felt a big mental burden around music practice
I was so keenly aware of all my shortcomings that I didn't want to share
that practice process with anyone else I just wanted to fix it all myself before
anyone else heard me playing but if you try and go it alone like this you're
actually doing yourself a big disservice a musical you we put a big emphasis on
community and that's not because we all have plenty of time to sit around
chit-chatting on social media it's because having support in your training
can transform the results you get so we really encourage our members to share
their journey along the way with other members and with the team as a result
they're able to stick to their plan better overcome obstacles better and
reach their goals faster and more reliably so when setting up your new
music habit give some thought to where you can get support is there a friend or
a family member who could act as an accountability buddy for you that means
they don't need to necessarily listen to you practice or get involved they can
just check in with you regularly and ask if you're keeping to your intended music
habit knowing that someone's going to be asking you like that can actually go a
long way to helping you to keep up the habit this is something we discussed in
my upcoming interview with Matthew Scott Phillips and Jeremy burns of the music
student 101 podcast Jeremy said that for him as an adult learner it's
tremendously helpful to have that support and accountability and it can
actually make the difference between him following through on his intended
training or not so think about where you can get support and accountability for
your music habit whether that's in real life or in an online community those
were just a few tips from our music habit module that helps you figure out
exactly how to fit an effective habit into your life no matter how busy it is
a habit that's going to maximize your results and your satisfaction no matter
what you're studying in music if you're listening to this podcast then
I know that you love music you want to be the best musician you can be and
you're putting in time and effort to make that happen so do yourself a favor
and set up a strong consistent music habit that's going to help you reach
your musical goals faster and more reliably thank you for listening to the
musicality podcast this episode has ended but your musical journey continues
head over to musicality podcast calm where you will find the links and
resources mentioned in this episode as well as bonus content exclusive for
podcast listeners that's musicality podcast calm
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