Perfect practice makes perfect | Claire Tueller | TEDxRexburg

Claire Tueller offers three steps to perfect practice - in whatever you do.

Claire Tueller began formal piano study at age five. She recently received her Master of Music degree from the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music. She won the Northwest title in Young Artist Piano in 2015 and competed at the national level of the MTNA Young Artists' Competition.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.

Thank you so much.

When I was first approached
to perform at TEDxRexburg,

I had every intention of sitting down
and playing my piece,

taking a bow and being finished
and not saying anything.

As an instrumental musician,
I prefer to let my hands do the talking.

But when I heard
the theme of TEDxRexburg,

which is "Rethinking the Ordinary,"

I decided that I wanted to talk to you all
about the most ordinary thing in my life,

which is practice.

I did a little bit of estimating,

and in my lifetime,

I've spent 6,440 hours, approximately,

on the bench, practicing.

Now, we've all been told
at some point in our life,

"Practice makes perfect."

Well, I'm here tonight
to burst the bubble.

That's not true.

Practice does not make perfect.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

And tonight I want to share with you
my three-step process to perfect practice.

Now, as a quick disclaimer,

I know that perfect
is kind of an intimidating word.

I like to think of the Russian
figure skater Evgeni Plushenko,

who, after he withdrew
from the Winter Olympics,

said in an interview, in broken English,

"I'm not robot."

I'm not suggesting that we should try
to become perfect robots,

just that we should strive

for the highest level of excellence
that we each can possibly achieve.

That just doesn't roll
off the tongue quite as nicely

as "Perfect practice makes perfect."

So, the first step
in this process is consistency.

I had a lesson, a piano lesson,
during my freshman year.

It was really discouraging for me;

I felt like I was making
a lot of mistakes,

and I was just not really getting
to where I needed to be,

and I sat down with my teacher
and said, "I'm so discouraged.

I feel like I'm doing so badly."

And he said, "You just need
to increase your sitting power."

I was, like, sitting power?

He basically said, "Sitting power
is you're on the right track,

you're doing the right things,

but you're not doing them enough."

When we develop sitting power,

we develop the patience
and the perseverance

to sit down and work at something.

Now, as another aside,

I recognize that most of this audience

is not going to go home tomorrow
and practice a musical instrument.

I know I'm in the minority.

However, this applies to anything
that we do in our lives

that's commonplace or ordinary.

And when we rethink
the way we do ordinary things,

like me practicing,

our results become extraordinary.

So, sitting power.

I did a little bit more calculation.

In the past year,

I've spent 828 hours
at the piano, practicing.

The bare minimum practice requirement
for music performance major at BYU-Idaho

is three hours a day,

six days a week.

Now, admittedly, I am a millennial,

and we like our information
short and to the point.

We are notorious
for our lack of investment

and our penchant for getting bored easily

and not investing in things.

However, excellence was never achieved
within the length of a tweet,

and this is why I think
sitting power is so important.

When we are able to do things
that we don't feel like doing,

sit down and put in the work
and put in the time,

that's when we're able
to get more work done.

So the next thing is evaluation.

Sitting power by itself is not enough.

I could sit at the piano
for eight hours a day,

and if I was practicing mistakes,

it would actually be doing
more harm than it does good.

My teacher - I refer to him,
affectionately, as a crazed perfectionist.

At his most picky,

I once spent an entire lesson
on the same three chords.

I would play them for you,

but I don't want
to step down and back up -

it's a little precarious up here.

I will never forget those three chords.

It was a hard lesson.

But this is where perfection
and striving for perfection in my practice

really comes into play

in this evaluation step.

I could sit down every day,

and if I played,
from end-to-end, my piece,

inevitably made a few mistakes,

then patted myself on the back
for, you know, getting 80% of it right

and then did it over
and over and over again

until I met my allotted three hours a day

that's required
for me to get course credit,

that would never really benefit me at all.

Instead, you have to split
your activities up.

So there is stuff that I know is good,

stuff that I can do,

and I put that in the "I don't need
to practice this as much" box.

Then there's also stuff
that's not so good.

And in this step of evaluation,
I ask myself two questions.

The first is, Was that perfect?

Now, there's that word again.

But, essentially,
Was that right? Was it correct?

Did I play what the composer intended?

This can apply to any of us.

You know, Did I get
the answer right on this test?

Did I do this task
that I was given correctly?

If the answer is yes,

the next question
you ask yourself is, Was that easy?

Did I get lucky?

Was I white-knuckling it
around the corners,

or did I actually do it well

and it was natural for me and it was easy?

Now, if the answer
to both those questions is yes,

you can take that thing that you're doing

and put it in the "I don't need
to work on this so hard" box.

However, if the answer
is no, that leads us -

which it often is -

that leads us to the last step
of the process,

which is repetition.

Now, when I was young,

my teacher would give you
what she called "skill spots."

She would go to the music,

and she would pick
a measure or a small section

that she knew was tricky or challenging,

and she would put a little
smiley-face star sticker on it

and then send me home to do repetitions.

Her required number?

My age.

So, 5 repetitions was not a problem.

12 repetitions I can handle.

16 repetitions, you know,
whatever - it's not that many.

I've gotten to the point in my life

where 21 repetitions
doesn't cut it anymore,

and so I developed a system

that makes me kind of accountable
for my repetitions.

And this is just a scan
that I took of one of my pieces,

and you can see
these numbers on the sides.

I basically divided
every single piece of music that I play

into, you know, 50 or 60 skill spots.

It's just that I use the whole piece now

instead of just a little,
small part of it,

like my teacher used to.

Then, once I've done this -

I know this is a little bit small -

but I make a spreadsheet

and across the top you have the date

and across the bottom is sections,

and I go through,

and the number of repetitions
that I do, I keep track of it.

So, if I was playing something
50 times a day, incorrectly,

I'd be enforcing a bad habit.

However, when I play something
multiple times a week -

45 or 50 times a day -

and I'm playing it right,

I'm building, in my personal case,
a tactile foundation.

I'm training my muscle memory
how it feels to do something right.

So when I get in a situation
where I'm nervous

or when I'm playing faster

or if I have a memory slip,

I can fall back on this tactile
foundation that I've built,

and I know how to do something right.

Now, let's apply this to an athlete.

Someone who skis

does not think about every little
anatomical shift that they have to make

in order to execute a turn.

They just do it because it's natural.

So, essentially, whatever it is
that you're doing every day,

rethink it.

Get in touch with
your inner crazed perfectionist,

like my teacher.

Increase your sitting power.

Work a little bit harder.

And train your instincts
to do something excellent.

Just remember that
in everything that you do,

practice does not make perfect.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

Thank you.

(Applause)