--- title: Practising when you would rather not — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Practising when you would rather not», a lesson of the arts course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Practising is how your fingers and brain learn new moves, but not all practice is equal: twenty minutes fixing one hard bit can do more --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Arts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/) / Practising when you would rather not # Practising when you would rather not Lesson 3 of the arts course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/0/) — Practising is how your fingers and brain learn new moves, but not all practice is equal: twenty minutes fixing one hard bit can do more than an hour of playing what you already know. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/1/) — Picture Darya, who trips at bar 12 and goes back to the very start each time: she plays the easy bars fifty times and the hard bar only once, so the hard bar stays hard. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/2/) — Pulling out that one bar and playing it slowly fixes it. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/3/) — Slow is the secret: if you practise fast with mistakes, your fingers learn the mistakes; play it slowly and right first, and speed comes later. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/4/) — Nearly everyone is bad for the first weeks and finds practice boring sometimes, even professionals; and pain is a warning sign, so take breaks and stop if it hurts. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/5/) — Different places say it their own way: Gen Z "it's giving prison" means it feels like prison, Singaporeans say "lah" for emphasis and "can or not" for "is it possible", Australians say "arvo" for afternoon, and in Ireland "wojus" means terrible. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/6/) — Focused practice means practising with full attention on one goal; watching the clock while repeating easy parts changes very little. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/7/) — Most musicians say the dull part of practice is where skills grow; short sessions, small goals and a fun piece at the end help. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/8/) — Deliberate practice means working on purpose on the parts you cannot do yet, slowly and carefully. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/9/) — The "10,000 hours" idea was made famous by the writer Malcolm Gladwell, based on research by the psychologist Anders Ericsson. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/10/) — Ericsson himself said 10,000 was not a magic rule and that the quality of practice mattered more than the count. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/11/) — Playing slowly first lets fingers learn the right moves; fast practice full of mistakes trains the mistakes. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/12/) — Neighbours need rest and quiet too; many electric keyboards have a headphone socket for quiet practice. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/13/) — People start with different strengths, but research suggests practice explains a lot of how good people become. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/14/) — To isolate a part means to practise one small bit on its own, then join it back to the bars around it. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/15/) — Many teachers suggest giving a new instrument at least a full term before deciding, and recording yourself shows your progress. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/17/) — Playing too long without breaks can cause overuse injuries, and pushing through pain can make them worse. - ← previous: [Reading music: notes, beats and rhythm](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/2-reading-music-notes-beats-and-rhythm/) - next →: [Starting a band](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/4-starting-a-band/) - ↑ back to [Arts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/)