What’s Your Focus: Play, Practice, or Perform First
Differentiating Play, Perform and Practice
Practice is the focused, repetitive effort to improve a skill, often involving learning new things and correcting errors. Play is the enjoyable, low-stakes application of skills already known. Performance is the execution of those skills in a high-pressure, public setting, where the goal is to execute under stress.
- What is it to “play” music?
- What is it to “perform” music?
- What is it to “practice” music?
- What do we expect from each?
- What can we learn from each?
Play
“What is Play? It is a state of being that is intensely pleasurable. It energizes and enlivens us. It eases our burdens, renews a natural sense of optimism and opens us up to new possibilities. These wonderful, valuable qualities are just the beginning of what play is.” – Institute for Play
Perform
perform – to adhere to the terms of; fulfill; carry out, do; to do in a formal manner or according to prescribed ritual; to give a rendition of
Practice
“Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire.” Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired. -Martha Graham
Originally written March 12, 2011
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