Fundamentals.

I’ve been practicing for 60+ years and writing about it for 10. I keep expecting to find one idea - the one thing - that’s more important than anything else.

I’ve narrowed it down to three. They’re all fundamental. You could organize your practicing around any one of them. Your practicing is yours, and everybody’s practicing is different. It has to work for you. (That’s the fourth one. On another day it would have made the cut.)

The first is motion. Practice motion. Music is not what we do. Music is the result of what we do. What we do is move.

The second is consistency. Practice roughly the same things, for roughly the same amount of time, at roughly the same time of day, every day. Allow for growth, of course, and change things regularly to keep it interesting. But be consistent. It doesn’t work any other way.

The third is enjoyment. Enjoy your practicing. It’s what you’ll do most of the time you are at your instrument. Not playing. Not performing. Practicing. You have to enjoy it in order to do it as much as you need to.

Each of these things will make your practicing better if you change nothing else about what you do. And, of course, you can do them all.

Practice better, and you’ll play better.