Surgical Precision

We have to practice with surgical precision. This is necessary to save time and to solve problems properly. When we practice in a sloppy manner - letting problems slip by; postponing the necessary work to fix them; working on chunks that are too large and include material that  doesn’t need particular focus - we waste time, and often solidify mistakes, making it more difficult to fix them later.


Surgical precision is done by immediately zooming in on trouble spots, not wasting time on passages that we can play properly. Once we have identified and zoomed in on a problematic spot, we should memorize it right away so that we can pay full attention to our interaction with our instrument without the distraction of having to read the score. 

The next step is to lower the tempo and intensity of sensory stimuli so that we can make finer distinctions. If we play too fast, loud and tense, things become blurry, preventing us from the quality feedback required for refining how we play. To clean up sloppy playing, we need to slow down, play softer and rid ourselves of excess tension. 

Then we should engineer a solution (or solutions) by:

• Having a clear idea of the outcome we want (what it would sound like, look like, and feel like)
• Noticing what prevents us from achieving it (what kind of problem is it: fingering? Shifting? Intonation? Sound? Tempo? Coordination? Way of thinking? etc.)
• Figuring out how to solve it
• Experimenting with different potential solutions till we find what works best
• Repeating the solution sufficiently to become an automatic skill
• Reintegrating it into the larger musical context to test for efficacy there