Practice Does Not Make Perfect

Consistency matters.

We know that.

If you want to get good at something, do it a lot. The old phrase tells us: ‘Practice Makes Perfect’.

I wonder if this is true. If I practice something a lot, there’s no guarantee that what I produce will be perfect - if by perfect we mean ‘incapable of improvement’.

Everything (except the most basic things) is capable of improvement. Most things can be done differently. Anything can be reimagined.

Practice does not make us perfect, it makes us competent.

That doesn’t sound very ‘high-esteem’ - who aspires to competence?

Well actually I do - not as the pinnacle of what I do, but as a baseline I don't fall below.

When I taught and performed a lot, my primary intention was not to be ‘amazing’ on every occasion. It was always to achieve a baseline.

Sometimes a workshop or performance would fly. I’d achieve things I’d not imagined possible. Frequently sessions went well, but were not ‘pinnacle-performances’. Sometimes I struggled. Always - and this was my basic professional pride - I tried to ensure I delivered the fundamentals of my job in effective and efficient ways.

When I was struggling, practice gave me foundations to rely on.

Inspiration or circumstance might sometimes enable me to fly, but the launchpad was always repeated and regular practice.

Now I neither teach nor perform much, the same is true.

Whether in my painting, my piano-playing, my writing, my qi-gong, or any other area of life, practice builds the robust soil from which - occasionally - brilliant things emerge.

When I started taking my painting more seriously, a couple of years ago, I felt every attempt had to be of saleable quality. What pressure to put on myself! And how pointless!

In fact, every time I apply ink to paper, I simply need to pay enough attention to learn something. That, gradually, will make my work more robust and more consistently competent.

Without this commitment to practice - and the inevitable flaws practice reveals in my skills and creative courage - the ‘doing of things’ can become very high pressured.

I love making music - composing from my computer/keyboard into a software and making something that feels perhaps the most personal of all the work I do. I don’t do it often though. Partly that’s because it seldom makes me money and - like any artist - the practicalities of survival are never far from my thoughts. Partly though I don’t often play the piano nor compose music because I don’t often play the piano or compose music. So when I come to sit at my keyboard, I feel rusty. I bore myself, I feel I’ve ‘lost it’.

I become dispirited. I lose faith. I stop.

The point of practice is to remind me - unequivocally - that regular work does NOT make me perfect. Nor should I want it to. After all, if I made the perfect piece of music, or painting, how would I go back to work the next day, knowing the ‘best’ was forever behind me?

Practice makes me competent enough to go to my art desk, my piano, my computer, and deliver something that has enough value to justify - primarily to me - the time I spent on it.

Some - only some - of what I make, I put out into the world. I’ve started posting some ink studies on my webpage. The ones I post are all - I think - of value. None are perfect, for ‘perfection’ is meaningless.

There are many other ink studies on my pile of scrap paper. Not wasted, part of the sediment of practice I rely on when I start ‘making a picture’.

The intention of my practice(s) is the development of competence.

I try to apply the same self-discipline I have in painting to writing and making music. Occasionally I manage - but I try to be gentle. For me any practice based on ‘forcing’ or ‘obligation’ is neither sustainable nor healthy.

I make because I love to make.

By making, I get better at making.

Sometimes what I make speaks (or I believe could speak) to others. That’s when my practice becomes product. That’s where love generates income.

If you want to listen to some of the music I’ve made over the years, it’s here: https://soundcloud.com/johnbritton1964

If you want to see the ink studies I’ve put into the world, they’re here:

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How’s your practice these days? I’d genuinely love to hear!

Warmest love to you

John