The case against "perfect practice"

Mistakes can be a powerful learning tool that speed up your overall improvement

Photo by František G. on Unsplash

Happy new year, everyone.

I’m sure many of you have decided, “This is going to be the year I learn X, Y, or Z!” I did, and so far so good.

I thought I’d offer a friendly reminder that perfectionism in your guitar practice is not always helpful. To illustrate, a story:

A couple month ago, I jammed with my 7 year old niece who just started learning guitar that day.

I showed her a “G” chord (just one finger on the 3rd fret of the low E string) and a “C” chord (one finger on the 3rd fret of the A string). I would count us in and we’d strum. I played a straight forward pattern and she downstrummed on the quarter notes. I counted us to the chord change and we’d switch back and forth between the two chords, then, on my signal, end the song by triumphantly putting our strumming hand up in the air.

Although she just started that day, she had a full on, legitimate jam.

The accuracy of the chords weren’t important at all. At 7 years old, she only cared that the chords sounded good enough (which they did). She didn’t spend the whole time stressing out about the minutia of technique - that kind of self-criticism is for adults. She cared that she was actually playing chords in time, in sync with another person, and that her performance actually mattered.

After going through our song a few times, she started getting a better tone out of the guitar and her timing got a lot more steady. I didn’t tell her what to do. In effect, she was teaching herself.

The whole situation reminded me of a quote by Robert Duke I wrote about recently. He asks the question, ”How can we get our students to the good stuff as soon as possible?” He argues there’s always a path to the good stuff, even for young beginners.

In this case, my niece had a really positive guitar playing experience on her first day.

Seeking perfection has its downfalls.

It perpetuates this myth: if you practice the wrong way, you'll learn the wrong way, and it will be too difficult to change later.

In this podcast, Dr. Andrew Huberman says you can learn new skills more quickly by trying them repeatedly, allowing incorrect repetitions, paying attention to what’s going wrong, and making adjustments toward correct repetitions. If the new skill is on the cusp of your abilities, and if you know what the correct repetition looks and feels like, you get a shot of dopamine when you perform it after trying a bunch of incorrect repetitions. Your brain wires the good one while shooing away the bad ones. Huberman uses a tennis analogy: instead of learning to return the ball in slow motion to ensure perfection, there is benefit in paying attention to what is going wrong during the incorrect repetitions and making adjustments on the fly.

Similarly, in music, sometimes practicing slowly with precision and gradually getting up to tempo is great for establishing good habits. But depending on the physicality of what you’re learning, you might be shooting yourself in the foot. At around the 1 hour mark in this podcast, Noa Kageyama alludes to the idea it can be better to work up the passage around the right tempo (which might mean mistakes):

“Because you can afford to do things slow that are not possible at tempo, you can actually create bad motor habits at slow tempo (even though it sounds good). But because you’re reinforcing things that aren’t possible at tempo, you’ll have to unlearn them at some point.”

To be clear, I’m not advocating for carelessly making mistakes without any critical thought because they are good for you. Instead, I’m making the case that perfectionism is often harmful to your guitar playing experience in a number of different ways. And taking a more free (yet still thoughtful) approach will include mistakes - they don’t need to be avoided at all costs.

I've taught guitar lessons where I emphasized the importance of avoiding mistakes. I've also seen tons of online lessons, videos, articles, and replies on forums where this idea is mentioned.

While proper technique and a clear understanding of music is obviously important for all guitarists, I sometimes wonder if these things aren't as important as fumbling around in your own musical pursuits. In other words, if getting by with the least amount of work thwarts a necessary amount of fumbling around involved in learning guitar.

I get it, though. It's really tough for adults to pick up the guitar and start learning all the micro-movements you need to make it sound good. Making mistakes all the time is annoying because it's not clear you're on the path forward. Frustration builds up quickly and whatever initial motivation you had dissolves.

This story is so common because adults already have an ear for music and they know what sounds good and what doesn't. But for kids like my niece, it's different.

I remember first learning guitar. Plugging in my cheap electric guitar into my shitty amp and thrashing through "Back In Black" was the best thing ever. It sounded objectively terrible, but I didn't care.

I made so many mistakes when I started learning, even under the tutelage of a teacher. Everyone around my age made so many mistakes, too. And I think these mistakes are invaluable to the nature of learning guitar. Not everyone can maintain motivation and diligence with perfection at all times and consistent practice routines. And that's fine.

As a self-taught guitarist, you'll overcome your mistakes and learn the right way when the time comes. But until then, try not to be too hard on yourself for your mistakes.