An exploration of the practice habits and experiences of professional musicians

ABSTRACT

Practice occupies an essential and significant place in every musician’s life, yet the practice habits of highly experienced, professional musicians, remain under-researched. As such, this study sought to contribute to the emerging body of knowledge into professional musicians’ practice. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with six such musicians, and through the qualitative content analysis of the resulting transcripts, and an evaluation of the findings in relation to current literature, insights into professional musicians’ practice time, practice strategies, and motivation were uncovered. The analysis of participant transcripts revealed that, due to greater work and family responsibilities, as well as greater efficiency, the participants spend significantly less time practicing now as professional musicians than they did as university students. The practice strategies reported by participants to be the most helpful in their practice were listening to recordings, slow practice, and employing a mindset of focus and self-awareness. The analysis also revealed that each participant reported intrinsic motivation towards practicing, and used the strategies of taking breaks, and simply picking up their instruments, to increase their motivation. The findings from this study are useful to those who might seek to one day be a professional musician, as well as to professional musicians who might find it interesting to know how their own practice habits align with those of other professional musicians.

KEYWORDS:

• motivation
• music learning
• practice
• practice strategies
• practice time
• professional musicians

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Notes

1 There are many wide-ranging and contradictory definitions of practice in the literature. Some studies provide no definition of practice (Butkovic, Ullén, and Mosing 2015; Cremaschi 2012; Duke, Simmons, and Cash 2009; Hallam et al. 2020; Mosing et al. 2014). If a definition is provided, generally there is a line drawn between informal practice (encompassing ‘work’ such as rehearsing and performing, and ‘play’ such as playing one’s favourite songs) and formal, or deliberate practice. This study is guided by Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer’s (1993) definition of deliberate practice, which includes the following elements: activities whose primary purpose is to facilitate the attainment and improvement of skills, a subject who is motivated to improve, immediate feedback and knowledge of results, and repetition of tasks.

2 ‘Expert’ in the music literature is generally applied to those who have undergone extensive formal training and practice in music for over ten years, and consistently perform at a superior level (Barrett 2011; Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer 1993; Hambrick et al. 2014; Lehmann, Sloboda, and Woody 2007).

3 Some researchers, though, assert that a sate of flow is antithetic to deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer 1993).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Vellacott

Christine Vellacott completed her BMus(Hons) at the University of Queensland in 2020. This article represents her keen interest in the intersection of psychology and music. She is a flute teacher and performer, currently working with the Australian Army Band Brisbane.

Julie Ballantyne

Julie Ballantyne is known for her work in the areas of music teacher identities, social justice, music teacher education, and the social and psychological impacts of musical engagement. An Associate Professor in Music Education in the School of Music at the University of Queensland, Australia, she has won commendations and fellowships for her teaching, and also holds leadership positions with organisations such as the International Society for Music Education. Currently Editor-in-chief for the journal Research Studies in Music Education, Julie has published her own work in key journals and has co-edited a book Navigating Music and Sound Education. She enjoys teaching pre-service and in-service teachers at the Bachelor and Masters Level, as well as supervising several PhD students.