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he First Principle of my Solfa choir workshops is to ‘Use the Ear to Train the Eye’: we

never separate the look of something on the page or on the blackboard from the sound of something they already know how to do.

After this happens, I then am very strict in applying the Second Principle of my Solfa choir workshops: ‘Stop While You Are Ahead’.

Adding one more concept on top of this one – for example modulation to the relative minor, or even to the (!warning!) so-called ‘flat keys’ can immediately burst the delicate bubble of achievement and understanding.

Third Principal: ‘Be Kind, but Apply the Second Principle’. While it can be difficult to curb my own enthusiasm for my subject and my happiness at having conveyed something that leads to interesting questions, I do try to restrict myself to giving only very brief answers to further theoretical questions before closing these conversations and moving on to something else that is practical and that I know my students can do.

Although several lines of research (e.g., deliberate practice, mental practice, modeling, self-regulation) have begun to show links between general practicing approaches and achievement, relatively little is known about which specific behaviors are most effective in eliciting performance gains. Information regarding which behaviors are beneficial to school-age musicians is especially needed, given their often limited formal training and the scarcity of studies with this population. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among observed practice behaviors, self-reported practice habits, and the performance achievement of high school wind players.

In general, the results of this study have shown that the quality of practicing that takes place may be more crucial to improvement than the quantity of time spent playing.

The results also have practical implications for music educators. Although the findings cannot be considered causal, the correlations between performance achievement and the behaviors repeat section, slowing, whole-part-whole, and skipping directly to or just before critical musical sections of the étude indicate that these may be particularly useful strategies for making improvement.

It may be that those who were more accustomed to practicing with specific musical or technical goals in mind were able to practice more effectively during the study

This suggests that teachers should guide students toward practicing with musical and/or technical goals in mind.

This could be done by assigning specific musical passages to students or by asking students to practice applying specific musical concepts (dynamic contrasts, vibrato, expressive tempo manipulation, etc.) to various pieces when working alone.

This suggests students may need to be trained to distinguish between efficient and inefficient practicing.

For example, teachers could demonstrate characteristics of inefficient practicing, such as repetition of errors and physical and/or mental fatigue, and warn students to guard against them. Conversely, teachers could also highlight characteristics of efficient practice, such as focusing on problematic passages and taking appropriate amounts of rest.