From Beginner to Pro: The Key to Mastery

Scheduling for Success

With anything in life, mastery requires time and dedication. Research has shown that it takes around 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert in a particular domain.
In times past, devoting thousands of hours to your craft was simply part of life. But in today’s fast paced world, finding extra hours can be increasingly challenging. Luckily, you already know the secret to making the most of your busy lifestyles - scheduling!

In our busy lives, a strict schedule or routine is often the cornerstone of success for both adults and children. When a task is scheduled, the likelihood of completing it skyrockets. As a result, we schedule practice for many important skills that take time to learn: Sports practice, Dance practice, Debate practice. Scheduling ensures the consistent practice essential for mastering a skill.

Sports teams have long stressed the importance of scheduled practice. Most sports teams at the competitive levels utilize extra incentives just to get their players to practice. If you miss practice, you may get less playing time, you might have extra workouts at practice, or you may even get moved to a worse team. For all of the kids that aren't passionate or motivated enough to practice on their own, the scheduled practices and extra incentives are vital to their athletic progress.

Kids are also busier and have more distractions than ever! When a child gets home from school, plays outside, then attends swim lessons, then plays video games, does their homework, then watches television, and finally attends their basketball practice, any other obligations that are not scheduled can seem unnecessary. What if we could replace some of that video game/television time with music practice

Getting students to practice is one of the biggest problems for music teachers. If many of society’s educational systems rely on scheduling practice, why doesn’t music education?