On Monday of this week I was honoured to be present at Churchill Music!’s annual Young Musician of the Year Competition. The standard was incredibly high, with prizes going to Molly Blundell (Junior Prize), Toby Wilson (Audience Prize), Maisie Vowles (Raymond Hayter Song Prize) and Freddie Maitland-Round (Young Musician of the Year). You can read the report on the Academy website here. To close proceedings, I gave a speech on the theme of “practice doesn’t make perfect,” which is reproduced here.

Practice doesn’t make perfect

I’d like to start by thanking Churchill Music! for all they do to support the music education at our Academy. How lucky we are to have them working alongside us. Thank you, as ever, for all you do.

We’ve been treated tonight to some wonderful performances by some of our finest young musicians. As I’ve been watching these assured, technically skilful performances, bursting with emotive musicality, I’ve been aware that what we are seeing here is really only the tip of the iceberg. What I would like to do this evening, if you will permit me, is to think for a moment about what lies beneath.

In 1992 psychologist K. Anders Ericsson undertook a landmark study at the Music Academy of West Berlin. He asked the music professors at the Academy to select the very best violinists studying there – those that the professors thought had a strong chance of careers as international soloists. He also asked them to identify a group of “good” violinists in the same department – those who were impressive musicians, but perhaps not of the calibre of the “best” group. Finally, he also asked for a group of violinists who were not studying the violin at the Academy – they were specialising in music education – but who also played. So he selected the best, the good, and the teachers.

He asked all the participants in the study to keep a practice diary and also carefully studied the amount of practice they had completed in the years before they had joined the Academy, as well as interviewing them about their practice routines, their love of playing, and their leisure activities.

The findings of the study were quite remarkable. The stories of the “good” and the “best” violinists, and the “music teachers” who also played the violin, started out very similar. They all talked of a love of playing, the joy of music-making, and the feeling of exhilaration they got from performing with their instrument. In fact, there was very little to distinguish between the stories and approaches of the three groups, except in one vital area – the amount of practice they had done. Over their lifetimes prior to joining the Academy, the music teachers had averaged 5,000 hours of practice in total. The “good” violinists averaged 7,500 hours. But the very best – those that had a future ahead of them as soloists – had averaged 10,000 hours of practice. Each.

Ericsson and his colleagues were able to replicate the findings of this study for pianists, and others like Matthew Syed and others have found a similar pattern for elite sportsmen and women. What they have found over and over again is that talent can only get you so far in your chosen field. What marks the true expert out from the enthusiastic amateur actually has very little to do with talent – it’s practice. And tons of it.

The family and friends of the performers here tonight will bear witness to the hard work, the hours of toil that have gone into the performances tonight – the huge bulk of ice sitting beneath the surface of the glittering peaks that we’ve witnessed. But practice isn’t usually – in and of itself- enjoyable. Running through that C# minor arpeggio again can actually – I apologise if I’m breaking a big secret here – be a little bit boring. But what marks out the truly great performers from the enthusiastic amateurs is the grit and determination to keep going when it gets tough, knowing that by really nailing down the fingering and timing in that arpeggio, they will help themselves to be a better, stronger, more accurate and flexible performer. And, as we’ve seen tonight, that perseverance and determination has paid off.

Practice won’t make you perfect – but it will make you better

Mark Sanborn

I’d like to finish tonight, however, with one final reflection on performance, whether it be in music or sport, or drama or dance, or painting or sculpture or literature. In any of these fields, it’s not actually as if we’re striving for perfection. Because – and this is certainly true in music – there is no such thing as a “perfect” performance. Two performances of exactly the same piece will never be the same. They will be subtly – and sometimes dramatically – different from one another, and they can be equally good. The musician’s interpretation of the piece, the sound of the room, the atmosphere and feeling of the audience, will all exert their influence on every performance and make it unique. Practice doesn’t make perfect. As the author Mark Sanborn said, “practice won’t make you perfect – but it will make you better.” The musician, or the artist, or the sculptor, or the gymnast, is not actually striving for perfection. They are striving to be the very best that they can be – and that work is never done. There’s always room to improve. And that’s what makes the practice worth it.

I’d like to thank all the performers here for all the hours of practice they’ve put in, not just to the pieces they performed tonight, but to making sure their technique, their musicality and their understanding of their instrument has reached such impressive levels. I’d also like to thank all the families who have supported them – and, I suspect, occasionally nagged them – to get that practice done. Because, as we’ve seen tonight, all those scales and arpeggios were worth it in the end.