Consider someone learning a piano piece, and having difficulty with some passage.
If they merely try to play it over and over again, resulting in the same mistakes every time and the same frustration, they fail to make progress.
What they need to do in such a case is think about how they are trying to play it, work out why they are going wrong, and experiment with different fingerings and arm postures. The repetitive practice is still necessary, but it must be directed by an awareness of the possibilities that are available to explore, rather than a narrow focus on something that is not working.
As Edward de Bono puts it, “You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.”
Consider someone learning a piano piece, and having difficulty with some passage.
If they merely try to play it over and over again, resulting in the same mistakes every time and the same frustration, they fail to make progress.
What they need to do in such a case is think about how they are trying to play it, work out why they are going wrong, and experiment with different fingerings and arm postures. The repetitive practice is still necessary, but it must be directed by an awareness of the possibilities that are available to explore, rather than a narrow focus on something that is not working.
As Edward de Bono puts it, “You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.”