The Musician's Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness

The subtitle of the book is an outline of what you'll find inside. Part one deals with, "practicing deeply." It begins with the necessary, but mundane, subjects of organizing practice time and creating a supportive practice environment. Klickstein divides practice into five zone: new, developing, and performance material along with technique and musicianship. Some of these are self-explanatory, others explore ares few people venture. How much of your practice includes sight reading and ear training?The following chapters look at how to work with material in each practice zone, and cover things such as mental practice, selecting repertoire, memorization, interpretative issues, and taking breaks in practice. The material is necessarily general. A book could not contain specific practice suggestions for every major piece in every instrument's repertoire. I consider the generality of this advice a strength. The practice concepts in The Musician's Way could be easily integrated with whatever your private instructor is giving you.I have always thought that there needed to be a good, lengthy book on practicing, but I'd never found one I liked. It had gotten to the point where I thought of writing something myself. Now I don't have to. The The Musician's Way fills that gap.Part two deals with performance issues. It begins by discussing anxiety's effects on our bodies, and continues with, "five facets of preparation," and issues of backstage and pre-performance routines.What I like most about the section on performance is its practicality. In short, Mr. Klickstein is not afraid to discuss what most people consider trivial issues. Are your clothes prepared? Do you have the music? How do you start and end a piece? How do you walk out on stage? So much preparation goes into the music itself, but nothing goes into stage deportment or easy issues that, if dealt with, can help a performer be less worried and more focused.Part three covers, "lifelong creativity." This section is a discussion on injury prevention and how to succeed as a student. The injury prevention section deals with, among other things, an issue that musicians don't like to talk about: hearing damage. Simply put, this section is terrifying. I'd never even thought about most of the things the book covers, but I'm certainly glad I know about them now.The portion on succeeding as a student covers things such as the student-teacher relationship and dealing with criticism.--Quote Junkie--One of my favorite things about this book is the relevant quotes placed before each section.--Strength in Formatting--When I first started reading The Musician's Way, I was a bit put off by the numerous lists put in boxed out asides.Over the course of the book, I realized that these were a strength. The formatting and lists allow quick reviewing, making this book a solid, easily-scanned reference.If you are... * a music student * a professional musician * a serious (or not-so-serious) amateur musician * anyone else, reallyYou owe it to yourself to read this book. The concepts found in it might seem like common knowledge, but there are is some powerful gems contained within the pages of The Musician's Way.The Musician's Way and The Savvy Musician make a formidable duo of books for any musician. Together they fill major holes in any music curriculum, and offer a wealth of knowledge collected in a few hundred pages. I can't recommend either highly enough.

A couple weeks ago, I was discussing with my teacher Malcolm Gladwell's  Outliers: The Story of Success  and his belief in 10,000 hours of practice with something is the magic number to hit for mastery in proficiency. This lead to the observation that we both know people who have practiced a lot, but still, to put it in simplest terms, still suck.She suggested that I read Musician's Way, and I cannot be more ecstatic by how this book helped me understand practice. I'm an intermediate level violist who has returned to playing after a hiatus. I had no idea about practice and just went in auto-pilot: no major thought, no concentration, and no plan.This book really points out what practice is suppose to accomplish and how to go about doing that. After reading it, I realized that I wasn't thinking big picture a lot of the time while practicing, I was just trying to get it done - errors and all. A big example of this was the section on how to work on "New Music." It showed the concepts of mapping out songs, working on getting to know it deeply without picking up an instrument, and most of all, avoiding errors that become ingrained.Since I've incorporated suggestions from this book, my practices have been more satisfying, I've shown better improvement and I have a better idea of what I'm trying to accomplish.I would not hesitate to suggest this book to other intermediate players of any instrument. This book hit me at the right time; my old practice techniques weren't working on harder material, but I had grown use to practicing every day. It might be too much for a beginner to start out with and probably too boring for an advanced player.

This is super useful. It's clear, well-organized and the advice made all the difference, giving me the benefit of wisdom regarding practice and performance. I hopped around to topics that seemed particularly relevant to where I am, and that worked just fine. I liked it so much I went back to the other topics just because the initial parts were so valuable to me -- all good. I sincerely recommend this book. I'm a beginning violin player, so every bit of advice was new and useful to me. Why it was particularly useful to me, when I first started playing, I immediately knotted my neck up from practicing way too long without breaks because it was so much fun, and I had visions of virtuosity within a week. Instead, it took me about a week to lessen the knots which haven't completely disappeared. Had I read this before hand I would have known better. Live and learn. But I still am aiming for virtuosity, but now with realistic sensibilities gleaned from this book. Enjoy playing!

This is simply an excellent book in every respect. I have referenced it in other reviews, for it's advice on practice as well as it's reliance on scientific studies about the learning process applied to music, and in addition the supportive "tone" while setting out realistic demands that the musician must make of themselves. The book is actually addressed to students who have had about 8 years of preparation and are a college level study, so his "rule" to repeat a passage until one can play the section perfectly three times, may be too little repetition for less advanced players. Note that some teachers say "five times to perfection"; others, "eight times...". etc. And just because it's perfect one day does not mean the repetition rule won't have to be done again the next day. Nevertheless, the advice on practice habits and strategy per se is very helpful for students at every level. The writing is clear and to the point. One feels that one is being addressed by a very knowledgeable teacher and a rather nice person.

Very informative book. It has helped me to become a much better practitioner by providing guidelines for warming up, practise essentials, habits of excellence, which helped me to play a lot better, easier, and make my practise sessions go from being a bit dull to being thoroughly more enjoyable overall. I highly recommend this product

I don't often write reviews on Amazon, but I felt I should say something about this excellent book. I had previously bought several other books on practice techniques, stage preparation, dealing with performance stress, interpretation etc... but wish I had bought this book first, as it has it all in one place! In addition, what is covered is genuinely good material and is supported by other research I have read elsewhere. I would highly recommend this book - it will be useful for both amateurs and professionals and will help you to move your musicianship forward and reach new highs. Many of us get stuck on a plateau after a while, and this book helped my to get out of that. Definitely worth the money!!

This is a large book packed with useful information for musicians. Consequently, I haven't read all of it yet. The advice given has been well researched and also based on the author's experience. Highly recommended.

Probably the best guide for improving your musicianship. Excellent, practical advice that from my experience 'works'.

Solid guidance for serious practice for musicians and those wanting to develop methodically.