Everything you do has the potential to become habit

There are thousands of self-help books on how to establish new habits -- for healthy eating or exercise, for example. And equally as many books, I would imagine, on how to break undesirable habits, such as smoking. Our habits determine a huge percentage of what we do in life: our thoughts, our interactions with people, our daily routines, just to name a few. If only we could go back in time, to the time before we developed those habits, and make sure we formed only the most desirable ones! The problem is, however, that most of the time we are developing our habits, we are not even aware we are doing so.

This is true of playing the piano as well. The habits you develop will, to a large extent, determine your physical technique and even how expressively you play. And perhaps most important, your practice habits, what you do (or don't do) when you sit down to practice, will be a huge factor in whether you make progress or spin your wheels.

This is why I tell my students: Everything you do has the potential to become habit.

If you are a student of the piano -- whether beginner or advanced -- you have an opportunity every time you practice to develop the habits you desire and let go of the ones that don't serve you. If you have already played for a number of years, chances are you have developed some "bad" habits that prevent you from playing as well as you would like, or progressing at the rate you want. (This is very likely to be the case if you tried to teach yourself, or had a bad teacher.) Even so, those habits can be replaced with better ones, over time, especially if you have an insightful teacher who can help you become aware of those habits.

I'm still always surprised (and yet also not surprised) that people don't see the connection, for example, between how they practice and how they would ultimately want to play, say, in a performance, even if it's just for friends and family. They mistakenly believe that they can do one thing when they practice, but when it comes to "showtime," they will do something different. (Of course I am not talking about the highest level professional artists here, but of your average person who just wants to learn to play.)

The best example of this is the immediate "correction" of wrong notes. (The reason I put that in quotes is that the wrong note still happened and the new note does not "replace" it. There is no backspace key in music!) Almost everyone has an automatic reaction to playing a wrong note of correcting it with the right one immediately. You usually do it before you even realize it -- it is a knee-jerk reaction. Unfortunately, some teachers will even tell you that this is what you must do, otherwise you will continue to play the wrong note. However, this is not how the brain works. The more autonomic part of the brain does not know you meant the second one you played is the one you want; it just "thinks" this is how it is, the first note followed by the second one, and will very likely continue to make that same mistake. If you don't address the reason you have played the incorrect note (it is very likely having to do with your technique), playing the correct note afterwards won't correct the technical problem. In addition, stopping to "correct" has now destroyed the rhythm of that part of the music, which is something your brain will also absorb. It's funny to me that students are so concerned with getting the right notes, but are willing to throw the rhythm under the bus every time!

I often say that if stopping to correct really worked, we'd all be playing all the right notes all the time by now. But you will find, from your own experience, that is not the case. It may seem counter-intuitive, but you must let the wrong notes go by and focus on playing with continuity and beauty. A better solution is to simplify that passage with fewer notes (see my post on outlining) and gradually build up to all the notes. There are many more techniques to address wrong notes, too numerous and complex to explain here.

In addition, if you always stop and fix, then you can be sure that is what you will do in performance as well, even though you think you won't. After all, it's the habit you developed.

Another example of developing a habit you don't want is practicing without expression and musicality. I can't tell you the number of people with whom I've had this disagreement. They insist that you must first learn "the notes" and then add the expression later. But how can this be? If you are playing with expression, there is something you are doing, physically, that you didn't do when you practiced without it (or vice versa). So why would you practice in a way you don't intend to use later when you perform? You won't be able to change your habit of playing without expression at the flick of a switch.

Maybe there are some things in life or at the piano that we do that won't become habit. But everything you do has the potential to become habit, and almost certainly will if you do it most of the time. When you sit down to practice, be mindful of this. You have an opportunity every time you play to develop the habits you want.