How Deliberate Practice Can Improve Your Music Production

John Hayes, a cognitive psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, wanted to know how long it takes for someone to become truly elite at their craft.

He began his study by looking at the greatest composers in history. He compiled a list of 500 "masterworks" that were commonly played by orchestras around the world. These pieces were written by a total of 76 different composers. When Hayes created timelines of when in a composers career these pieces had been written, he found that 497 of them had been written after year ten, with the remaining three pieces being written in years eight and nine.

These pieces, written by "naturally gifted geniuses" such as Mozart and Beethoven were all written after their authors had put in ten years of hard work, refining their craft. Talent does of course, count for something, but so does hard work.

If you want to improve a skill, you must practice it. Perhaps this is not a huge revelation, but how much do we think about the way in which we practice?

'If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.' – Lord Kelvin, British scientist

Deliberate practice is a type of practice that is systematic and has a purpose. James Clear has written on the subject numerous times, and explains that "while regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance."

It is all too easy to fall into the trap of mindless practice; the thoughtless repetition of the same routines. If we're putting the hours in, then we assume that we will improve, but unless our practice is structured, it is easy to plateau. We merely reinforce our current habits rather than improve them.

Deliberate practice involves looking at the process you are trying to improve and breaking it down into its component parts. Each of these component parts must be analyzed so that methods to improve them can be implemented.

Consider the following example from Aubrey Daniels: Player A shoots 200 practice shots, Player B shoots 50. The Player B retrieves his own shots, dribbles leisurely and takes several breaks to talk to friends. Player A has a colleague who retrieves the ball after each attempt. The colleague keeps a record of shots made.

If the shot is missed, the colleague records whether the miss was short, long, left or right, and the shooter reviews the results after every 10 minutes of practice. To characterize their hour of practice as equal would hardly be accurate.

Assuming this is typical of their practice routine and they are equally skilled at the start, which would you predict would be the better shooter after only 100 hours of practice?

So how do we apply these methods to the world of music production?

Let's give a simple example of how you could use deliberate practice to improve your performance at one of our SoundGym games; Peak Master.

The game is designed to teach you what certain frequencies sound like, in order to improve the speed and accuracy of your EQing. Of course, if you play the game often enough you will get better at it; but without analysis, you will be less efficient at improving in your weaker areas.

Are there specific frequency ranges that you are weaker on than others? Practice those on your own using test tones. Do you consistently guess too high or too low at specific frequencies, then modify your guesses accordingly. You will improve faster using these techniques.

Of course, this is just one small example of how to apply this style of practice. Deliberate practice is difficult, and it is tiring.

Try to make sure you are practicing at times when you are able to keep your concentration levels high – it is better to do half an hour of high-quality practice than to go through the motions for an hour and a half. These methods require commitment, but if you put the work in, results will follow.


Comments:


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Daniel Naron
Jul 23, 2019
Ooo finally! A post about deliberate practice! 😄
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Granted .
Jul 23, 2019
Thanks!
A great reminder "mindless repition" sneaks in way to often.
If someone is interested in this topic check out Mastery by Robert Green.

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