Today’s post begins with a quote from Yogi Berra: “Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical”. Berra, who played for the New York Yankees, died recently at the age of 90. He was known for his humorous quotes; check out brainyquote.com for more.

Why this quote? Because as musicians, we can substitute the word “practice” for “baseball”. Most of what we do in the practice room involves that 90%; how we plan our practice sessions; how we work out problems; how we improve our intonation/articulation/technical issues, etc.

But that isn’t everything about practicing. Why do we play our instruments? Because we love the MUSIC. Practicing also includes your thoughts about what you want the music to say, how you want to communicate it to your audience. Save time to be in “performance mode” to complement being in “picky mode”. The practice room is where you find out about yourself as a musician. Be patient, knowing that you will grow and change as a person and a musician.

As Yogi Berra also said: “It ain’t over till it’s over.”