Practice, Practice, Practice

A man with a violin case in his hand walks up to a gentleman at a bus stop in New York City and asks “How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
The gentleman replies “Practice.”

It’s an old joke that has a lot of truth to it. We all must practice to get better at certain things. We’ve all heard the clichés, practice makes perfect or perfect practice makes perfect. It seems that mindful practice helps us to improve.

When I was in the fourth grade my mom took me to the local music shop and bought me a guitar. I learned to read music and tried to play songs but I never got very good. I tried to play for years, I didn’t give up until I was in my thirties because I was playing less and less as the years went by.  I loved it but I couldn’t play it. Recently a friend gave me a guitar that he no longer played. It’s an old Epiphone acoustic 12 string that he restrung to be a 6 string (coincidently just like one I had when I was younger).  It’s been so many years since I played that I forgot almost everything I knew as a kid yet after only playing for about 6 weeks I’m much better than I ever was because of the way I’m practicing.

When I was a kid I just sat down with the songbook and tried to play the songs I liked. They were slow and awkward. It took me about one full second or more to change cords. Try singing along with that.

Now, I found instructors on line that show what to do and a great app that is a fun way of practicing cord changes. I also learned a great way to practice strumming. Now I take a few minutes every day and practice technique. If I’m really busy I only practice the techniques because it only takes ten to fifteen minutes. Now the songs are getting much better.

In pottery we often focus so much on making pots that we don’t practice the techniques that get us there. We want to make pretty pots without practice.

I wanted to play like Jimi Hendrix.

Jimi practiced his guitar playing. I practice my pottery throwing.

When I was at Penland last spring Cynthia showed me a way to improve my juicers. Not the form, that was okay, she thought the reamer could be improved. So I sat down and threw a bunch of domes that looked like the reamer without the bottom. When they were leather hard I practiced carving them so they would juice better. When I was done I recycled the clay.  I now make better juicers. It was worth the time.

Mojito Pitcher with Juicer

My readers who are potters might want to try an exercise. Everyday before you start throwing wedge up a few two pound balls of clay and a few three pound balls of clay. Throw the 2 pounder in only 3 pulls, measure the height, cut it in half and check the consistency of thickness. Then do the same with the three pounder. Now throw another 2 pounds followed by the 3 pound ball. Repeat until you’re out of clay. Keep a log of how tall you’ve gotten the clay each day. You’ll be able to track your progress. Pay careful attention to what you’re doing and try to improve the consistency, height and thickness.

When you’re done practicing you can wedge up the practice clay and throw some pots.

What are some practice techniques that you use?

Check out the gallery page - Future Relics Gallery by Lori Buff