Mental Practicing

Do you ever wish that you can improve without touching your instrument? 

Surprisingly, this is possible. With the power of mental practicing, you can strengthen your skills just by thinking about practicing. 

I have found mental practice to be a useful tool in my experiences. Being a high school musician, it is sometimes hard to find sufficient time to practice everything. Therefore, a bit of mental practice each day is essential for me. 

Before I go to sleep, I spend a bit of time visualizing practice. When I am in the shower, I am thinking through my music. When I am brushing my teeth, I am thinking through my techniques. When I am changing clothes, I am thinking about new ways to improve my skills. This routine that I have has been beneficial. It has helped me work out difficulties in my playing. 

So what is mental practice, and how can I do it? 

Mental practice is the act of visualizing and hearing yourself play your instrument in your head. While doing this, you should be thinking about what your body needs to do to play the piece. Even though it is entirely in your head, mistakes can happen. You may find your body movements and music getting off from each other. When that happens make sure to stop, think about what happened, and then try again. Focusing during these mental practice sessions is imperative, and by doing so, it will help you the next time you pick up your instrument. 

The benefits of mental practice are backed by research. In a study, researchers had participants learn golf putting in four different ways - reading about putting, practicing putting physically, practicing putting mentally, and practicing putting physically and mentally. 

After using these different techniques of learning, the researchers tested the participants on their putting. They found that the physical practice and mixed practice group performed the most accurately. However, the researchers tested the participants once again after 72 hours and found that the mixed practice group performed the best. 

This study demonstrates the power of mental practice. We do not always have to be physically playing our instruments to improve. According to the research, we can get equal, if not, better results with a mix of mental and physical practice. 

However, we cannot solely rely on mental practice. In the golf study, the mental practice group performed poorly compared to the physical and mixed practice groups. 

Mental practice is a useful tool that everyone should know about. If you haven’t already, I challenge you to incorporate mental practicing into your routine. With this new addition, you will be able to refine your playing without working as hard. I promise you will not regret it. 

- Written by William Zhu | June 17, 2020