Desire in Deep Practice
In The Talent Code Daniel, Coyle tells the story of a young girl practicing a song she likes on the clarinet. She plays the first part of the song and stops immediately when she makes a mistake. She figures out what she did wrong and corrects the mistake. Then she goes back and plays that part correctly and goes on to the next place where she makes a mistake and repeats the process.
This is deep practice. She is wrapping myelin around the skills needed to play this song correctly.
When he describes this girl in the process of deep practice we get a real sense that she is very focused and engaged. She is enjoying herself and no one is making her do this work.
We’ve all had experiences like this. So how can we encourage them to happen every time we practice? There are two very important variables at work here.
She likes the song and really wants to play it well
She can tell when she makes a mistake.
So, for instance, if we are working on vocal technique we need to be have a strong desire for a particular sound, or feel, or way of singing that the technical work will give us and we need to be able to tell when we make a “mistake”.
It would be time well spent to acknowledge our own desires for sounds, songs etc. Then we’ll know what we are listening and feeling for.