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#26 2009-02-19 19:37:41

Tairaku 太楽
Administrator/Performer
From: Tasmania
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 3226
Website

Re: Practice Quotes

edosan wrote:

chikuzen wrote:

I've been a Packers fan for 40 years.

Well, that right THERE's your problem  smile

I beg your PARDON! wink

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc123/Tairaku/IMG_1762.jpg


'Progress means simplifying, not complicating' : Bruno Munari

http://www.myspace.com/tairakubrianritchie

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#27 2009-02-19 19:54:46

rpowers
Member
From: San Francisco
Registered: 2005-10-09
Posts: 285

Re: Practice Quotes

Busy schedules force us to set priorities and make difficult desicions.

How much time can I practice and still have time to talk about what other people have said about practicing?

What should I do, Mr. Zappa?


"Shut up 'n' play . . . " -- Frank Zappa
"Gonna blow some . . ." -- Junior Walker
"It's not the flute." -- Riley Lee

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#28 2009-02-19 20:50:52

edosan
Edomologist
From: Salt Lake City
Registered: 2005-10-09
Posts: 2185

Re: Practice Quotes

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc123/Tairaku/IMG_1762.jpg


          Dude is hard CORE; even wears a Cheesehead watch!

Last edited by edosan (2009-02-19 20:51:11)


Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkes.

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#29 2009-04-07 07:08:05

lizzie01
Member
Registered: 2009-04-07
Posts: 3

Re: Practice Quotes

I so love the humorous side of Mark Twain. Here's my contribution smile.

"In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards."

Another one by Benjamin Franklin:

"Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest."

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#30 2009-05-01 08:11:54

Glenn Swann
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From: Central New Jersey
Registered: 2008-03-01
Posts: 151
Website

Re: Practice Quotes

Interesting article about genius Vs. practice (sent to me by Steven Rowland) by David Brooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opini … .html?_r=1

" The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.

The recent research has been conducted by people like K. Anders Ericsson, the late Benjamin Bloom and others. It’s been summarized in two enjoyable new books: “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle; and “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin........

Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a ball. The aim is to focus meticulously on technique. (Try to slow down your golf swing so it takes 90 seconds to finish. See how many errors you detect.)

By practicing in this way, performers delay the automatizing process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance"

so, there IS hope.....

btw- i do think the arguments in the article are oversimplified- natural talent/inclination certainly must play a part in the very highest levels of whatever skill, but i like the bits i pasted above as a reminder that one can get quite accomplished through detailed practice, and not just give up lamenting lack of talent.

Last edited by Glenn Swann (2009-05-01 09:26:39)


I followed rivers, I followed orders,I followed prophets, I followed leaders
I followed rivers, I followed highways,I followed conscience,
I followed dreamers... And I'm back here,
and I'm back here... At the edge of the sky       (New Model Army)

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#31 2009-05-01 10:18:42

radi0gnome
Member
From: Kingston NY
Registered: 2006-12-29
Posts: 1030
Website

Re: Practice Quotes

Glenn Swann wrote:

btw- i do think the arguments in the article are oversimplified- natural talent/inclination certainly must play a part in the very highest levels of whatever skill, ...

Yes, but how much of the "natural talent" is really good practice skills aquired earlier in life? I personally think a lot of music teachers don't spend enough time teaching their students how to practice. Many that say they do spend a little time passing some information along about how to turn a difficult part in a piece into an excercise and think that's enough. In reality, some students require more guided practice than others.

There are good reasons to skimp on teaching a student how to practice. One is that is that it could discourage a student who wants to rush to learn the piece that he picked up the instrument for in the first place. Another is that it might not only get boring for the teacher, but the student might come away feeling like they aren't being taught enough. Throw that in with the fact that high school band teachers encourage sight reading abilities above good technique and you've got bunch of students who give up music due to a lack of ensembles to play in after high school because it's not much fun to sight read solo with sloppy playing.

Even if the proper time (and that varys depending on the student) is spent teaching how to practice getting all the notes to land on time and in tune at the right volume level with no blips in between them, part of the teaching how to practice needs to be how to emote, and that includes how to forget about the technical stuff you learned so you can feel the music you're playing. Teaching's a tough job, there's no question about it.

BTW, I'm talking from experiences with Western music teachers here. Shakuhachi is an esoteric enough of an instrument here in the West that there are much fewer teachers and the average ability of those teachers is probably way above the dime-a-dozen high school band instrument teachers.


"Now birds record new harmonie, And trees do whistle melodies;
Now everything that nature breeds, Doth clad itself in pleasant weeds."
~ Thomas Watson - England's Helicon ca 1580

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#32 2009-05-01 12:13:23

Glenn Swann
Member
From: Central New Jersey
Registered: 2008-03-01
Posts: 151
Website

Re: Practice Quotes

really good points. but i mean the "one in a million" types to which he was referring in the article must have certain qualities which lend themselves to be expressed, through proper practice, into what we would term "genius".  i don't mean just born prodigiously able to do what "normal" people can't, just that the conditions and causes have to be there for the legwork (practice) to flower.
i firmly believe ANYONE can learn to play shakuhachi, and learn to play well. and yes, the teacher does have the responsibility to give the proper tools and guidance, and yes the student has to actually apply that.
in sen no rikyu's 100 verses (on tea cermony) the first is
その道に入らんと思ふ心こそ
我身ながらの師匠なりけれ

sono michi ni iran to omou kokoro koso
wagami nagara no shishou narikere

" the very heart which aspires to enter that Way
must of itself(by that aspiration) become its own master"

if the student has no inclination to truly engage the practice, there is no way to progress.

Last edited by Glenn Swann (2009-05-01 12:30:56)


I followed rivers, I followed orders,I followed prophets, I followed leaders
I followed rivers, I followed highways,I followed conscience,
I followed dreamers... And I'm back here,
and I'm back here... At the edge of the sky       (New Model Army)

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#33 2009-05-01 12:28:11

Glenn Swann
Member
From: Central New Jersey
Registered: 2008-03-01
Posts: 151
Website

Re: Practice Quotes

actually, another good practice quote from sen no rikyu

稽古とは一より習い十を知り十よりかえるもとのその一

keiko to wa ichi yori narai juu wo shiri juu yori kaeru moto no sono ichi

"Practice is starting from one, knowing ten, then from ten returning to one"


I followed rivers, I followed orders,I followed prophets, I followed leaders
I followed rivers, I followed highways,I followed conscience,
I followed dreamers... And I'm back here,
and I'm back here... At the edge of the sky       (New Model Army)

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#34 2009-06-27 07:04:32

Jason Castner
Member
From: binghamton, ny
Registered: 2007-12-19
Posts: 80

Re: Practice Quotes

I would try to get perfect, but then I would be old and die


north south east and rest of my life...I'm single but the Tao is my wife?

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