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Do you practice perfectly? If not you might need a little push in the right direction. The howtopractice blog advises you not to open your music and bash your way through it but instead break your practice up into many tiny tasks that you can aim to improve -only then will you see rapid results. The best part of this post is the colorful circle of "perfect practice" that holds your hand through the 5 steps of mastering your pieces. Save the chart to your computer or hand draw it in your practice notebook if you have to. Once you have begun practicing with this colorful piece of wisdom don't be shy to scribble the answers to each of the 5 questions out. Seeing is believing, plus writing it down always seems to work for me. Toodles.

"The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there is no difference and in practice, there is." (practiceofpracitceblog) As a musician you can't always have your instrument in hand, especially if music is only your part time gig. But being instrumentless doesn't mean that you can't practice. It's called mental practice and it's the best use of your time ever, especially if you hate your job.

If you grew up with "rules" rooted around practicing then you might wanna re evaluate if those rules are helping you or hurting you. Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.

So what would you do with the top 50 music practice tips all laid out on one page. This list is a do not miss, make sure your not wasting your time when practice and follow these tips today. 50 Quick music practice tips -

Book on practice makes the usually very monotonous actions of practice seem fun and invigoration. Who are you trying to convince?

Failing is inevitable. It is impossible to go through life without failing but it is the way that you view failure is what makes the difference between the successful and unsuccessful. The Practice of Practice blog has a really good piece on attribution theory. When you fail, where does the cause of the blame lie. Is it external or internal? Is the cause unchanging over time or something that changes? And can it be controlled? It turns out that successful people in all field tend to see causes as internal. As in, there's no excuse for failure. Dig deep in your mind to revisit your past failures and see what valuable lessons you can chalk up in the name of self improvement. what we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

Here's an interesting flow chart that you can use to help use to answer the questions you might ask yourself during practice.

The how to practice guide goes over the essence of simplification, and how exactly it is applied in music. Music simplification is a method of practice that visually breaks music notation down to it's simplest parts. The 7 step example covers 1. Removing dynamics 2. Removing other markings 3. Get rid of tricky notes 4. Taking it further 5. Removing yet more notes 6. holding repeated notes 7. Putting it all back together. Of course it doesn't do justice without the pictures.

JamSession provides a fun new way to practice without a physical backing band. Guitarists or other solo instrumentalists looking for a backing band to practice their lead should look into this app. Personally i haven't used the application but it should be an easy way for musicians to practice with the robot you call your iphone.

Just because your making noise doesn't mean you are getting better. Silence is golden because it provides the perfect setting to reflect. Silence in your practice routines should be equal to the amount of time spent on playing in your practice routine. Meaning that everytime you play a passage it should be followed by slient analysis. The howtopractice blog has a list of questions that your silent time should be based around to get you thinking about so your hands will follow.

Malcolm Gladwell ,author of the book Outliers, is pretty adamant about his 10,000 hour rule. The rule states that in order to master any craft 10,000 + hours of practice must be accumulated. And getting in that many hours of practice can take 10 years or more. Basically, you gotta put in your work. The music promotion blog has a piece on Steve Martin that really attests to the decade journey that one must take to reach celebrity over night. By the time Steve was propelled into great public awareness he was a well oiled machine, ready to deliver the goods. Television (tell a lie to your vision, particularly shows like american idol and other media sources are very good at trivializing the years of work that some of our greatest icons put in to achieve icon status. Record Labels have even been fooled forgoing development for the young inexperienced (We've seen how well that works). Thats actually the equivalent of getting hired for an entry position and then getting promoted to CEO of the company a few weeks later, needless to say, that company's going to fail. I guess the point of this is if you want to increase your chances of success, not being signed but actually be icon status (being remembered for the many things you've done, not just the first thing), then you have to sleep in that car, perform in front of an audience of empty chairs, bounce from label to label because when god finally taps you on the shoulder and says its go time your going to outshine all of the others not even half way through their 10,000 hour mark. Put in the time and you will be rewarded.

Practice is something that all great musicians submerge themselves in. Its not looked at as chore but as a necessity for sharpening ones strengths and talents. What better way to sharpen your skills than a fun exercise. Homegirl from the howtopractice blog challenges you to a game of opposites attract, that forces your brain to go against the conventional to strengthen the conventional.

Hear what you see.

The good the bad and the ugly of the academy awards. Last week i touched on how the music industry was not MY industry in a basic attempt to relay how i felt while watching the Grammys. It was an okay post, but i was really waiting on Eric Beall of the berkleemusicblog to really take the reins on this one and go in. Fortunately we walked away from the grammys with practically the same message. Music has become a spectacle, The recording industry doesn't know how to invest in its future and music is going global. Hit the jump to READ MORE

The techdirt blog goes for the jugular of John Conyers, not the same dude from the terminator movies, but one of the RIAAs biggest backers of forcing radio stations to pay to help promote music. It all started with John delivered a speech at an event put on by the recording industry lobbyists, Conyers made the analogy that the lack of a performance right mandatory fee for radio stations was comparable to slavery and indentured servitude. Techdirt sheds some light on the old practices of shady labels paying off radio stations to spin records fully knowing the momentum that radio promotion can lend to a project. But that was years ago when (the only way to steal music was to run out of best buy with a stack of cds in hand and hope you didn't get spotted by the surveillance)you actually went to jail for stealing music. Techdirt goes on to say that the argument of the lobbyist groups are completely made up and ridiculous, just an excuse for the labels that are unwilling to actually do something to properly capitalize on free promo. As artists who's arguments are more valid the RIAAs or the Radio stations?

Britney Spears: Baby one more time,