The Truth About Mental Practice

[@timothyholman9029]

Hypothetically, Ling Ling could practice physically 20 hours and day and simultaneously practice 20 hours mentally and therefore practice 40 hours a day without breaking any know laws of physics.

[@eriknestaas2270]

interesting

[@derpywarrior4244]

But is it sacrilegious?

[@skoreos5614]

Shh don’t expose the secrets

[@kadenze6176]

Or maybe he practices 40 hours a day physically *and* mentally and is actually practising 80 hours a day without our knowledge.

[@largedarkrooster6371]

Or lives on a different planet

[@marc340]

if you can practice it physically, you can practice it mentally edit: WOAH WTF 1K LIKES??????

[@Synth-ud3hl]

Marc Ferrer 👏👏👏 beat me to it 😂😂

[@ds-yx8pe]

Marc Ferrer l was drinking water and I just spat all of the water out lol

[@theMad_Artist]

other way around would be much funnier

[@aidan9313]

Marc Ferrer 👏👏👏 yesssssiir

[@maryeileenmcnamee2006]

Hi guys, violist here. I say mental practice is a tool, but one of many. Use mental practice to step back and get a more complete understanding of the big picture. I also think it's important to bring your mental practice game with you when you are practicing with your instrument.

[@name8031]

Is no one else impressed at their practicing efficiency?

[@cecilia7259]

Yeah, me

[@jirune8453]

GirlsCanBeSmartToo well they’ve played for 20+ years of violin so at this point they would be able to reach this efficiency

[@shifukoala5543]

oof, me too

[@marlenecruz]

I am!

[@JoanKSX]

@@jirune8453 Serious??? 20+ years?? Mean like they start to play at really young age let's say at three?

[@vate98]

I've never touched the violin before but I've been mentally practicing all the Paganini caprices for 10 years now.

[@JulienJeagal]

Xyphos *deep voice* you are ready child. Release your power unto the world

[@igordreher645]

We've found a new ling ling

[@fire_fux]

@@davidjablanovic2051 ling ling does

[@davedm6345]

hahaha

[@purgemerlin123]

@@davidjablanovic2051 hello teacher

[@bretthavens9259]

If you can play it mentally, then you can play it fast

[@alexk5556]

Interesting.

[@farahnurkamilia7550]

Nah it suppose to be if u can play it physically then you can play it mentally

[@theGameBrass]

I love mental practice. Instruments are loud, man.

[@dalmacietis]

Get a practice mute =)

[@thatsEforEveryone]

@@dalmacietis what if you're broke 😂

[@Subparanon]

There is a caveat to this technique. First of all it works, and it's effective if you approach it the right way. Secondly, you can't do it in your sleep. It requires conscious effort and visualizaton, not dreaming you're playing. Lastly, you must already have some of the muscle memory you're trying to practice. A very long time ago, in a high school far far away, I took one semester of "introduction to typing". We learned on an IBM selectric with blank keys, and I was terrible. At the end of the semester, I could touch type 30WPM after corrections for mistakes. I didn't touch a keyboard again (this was in a land before everybody had a computer) for 2 years or more. But, when I was learning to touch type, I began visualizing my fingers, typing out my inner dialogue. Like cute girl walks by "She is cute" and I mentally imagine left ringfinger hitting S, right index hitting H, etc etc, and this soon became a subconscious thing I did like counting my steps. After forming this habit, just as something to do when bored, after a time I could mentally imagine typing very quickly. Well I got my first pc, some time later, and low and behold, I was touch typing over 70WPM. I had literally had no practice in years, and I was not that good to begin with. But my mind had already mapped the muscle memory for each character, from a base familiarization. After all, if you think about it, it's not the muscles that convert thoughts into letters, or notes on a page into the idea of music in the air, it's the brain, and the brain can learn without doing.

[@blauespony1013]

I love your opinion, but please never describe visual writing again. The moment I read that part of the comment I started "writing" with you. As I'm actually touching a keyboard you are lucky that I did not answer with "She is cute" ;)

[@gracewallis6866]

Yes, this exactly. I’ve found this method works beautifully with learning the notes for piano. As long as I’ve already felt the way my hands feel playing the notes, I can mentally practice just by looking at the music away from the keyboard. It works especially well with large leaps, and as a matter of fact I rely heavily on mental practice and visualization for leaps. However, it’s extremely tiring since you can’t rely on your tactile memory, and it only works with learning the notes, not with playing technique. If I want to get into the sound production itself, I must have a keyboard to play on.

[@ogthekingofbashan333]

I honestly do a lot of mental practice on piano throughout the day, but I rarely ever visualize (because I'm terrible at visualizing in general). I "hear" the piece in my head and sometimes act it out with my fingers, but I mostly use it as a tool to figure out what I want to express with the piece. Most technical difficulties I have to iron out on the piano, except for things like fingerings which I can figure out mentally. But for me it REALLY helps me figure out the expression I want in a piece, with articulation, dynamics, voicing and such. I've seen videos of Glenn Gould practicing, and sometimes he would actually get up from the piano and go look at the score and sing to himself.

[@MD-zm6sn]

Clearly you've never hung out outside east Falador bank.

[@GoodMorning-b2w]

too bad i am aphantasic...

[@heyyitsnikkiii]

Yuzuru Hanyu 🇯🇵 was injured a few months before the 2018 Winter Olympics and couldn’t practice on the ice. He did mental practice, did research and thought of ways to improve his performance. He stepped back on the ice about 6 weeks before the olympics. He won the gold. 🥇

[@toupeiragamer8564]

Ling Ling's brain is a violin, so when he mentally practices, he is actually normally practicing

[@greenshark11]

As a dancer, mental practice is practically a necessity. Muscle memory and full out practicing movements can’t be beat, but the process of review all your movements, sequences, corrections, and expressions is absolutely necessary to perform well. Love this vid for that.

[@moriahsuarez6347]

Actually I'm a pianist and I do something like this where I tap on the table or the side of my leg Idk if it helps me It's just sort of a twitch

[@Synth-ud3hl]

Moriah Suarez Drummers do the same. It helps with patterns and rhythm. But mental practice would be exclusively in your head. The taping might help with a number of things.

[@moriahsuarez6347]

Synth Sings oh okay yeah I get that I'm just thinking cuz you have to hear the music in your head

[@robertlaskarzewski5885]

Same, did this so much with one song it's become like a tic for me - whenever I'm nervous I start doing it.

[@musicofthesoul7383]

Im a cellist and i do the same thing😂 i dont find it weird but other people do

[@freehoelay]

I do the same with my piano and trumpet XDD

[@hollydavies3934]

Me after practicing 40 hours a day: still crap Brett and eddy after 5 mins: ling ling

[@Graeme171]

I've done a lot of mental practice, and I think it works especially well for fast passages - the difficulty in these passages stems from your brain not being able to keep up with your fingers, so training your brain to be quicker will in turn help you massively when you add physically moving your fingers back into the equation. I also use it quite a bit when I'm trying to memorize a piece - I'll visualize myself fingering and bowing the piece when I'm away from my music and it'll help train me to remember how the piece goes. You guys are completely right about double stops though - mental practice won't help at all when you need to practice tuning a passage, since that is almost entirely up to where your fingers physically press on your instrument, and not whether your brain can keep up with your left hand.

[@theMad_Artist]

There's no substitute for physically practicing on the instrument if you're dealing with technical issues. When it comes to musicality though, the mental practice is probably most effective because there's no physical distraction.

[@WasabiNoise]

If you can mentally practice it slow you can mentally practice it fast

[@oganessonplayz3428]

WasabiNoise n

[@Elle-ok9ti]

yes.

[@Ion_thruster]

"If you can mental practice it slowly, you can mental practice it fast!" ~ Paganini

[@valentina.puskas_soprano]

actually, mental practice is most effective for sick opera singers :) i use it a lot, since the voice is a fragile instrument and cant be overly abused, and also functions on resting. Mental practice includes reading on your role, studying acting, posture, gestures and faces, reading your music, reading into the text/subtext, the relationships between the characters etc etc etc. Technique-wise, helps a lot to listen to your recorded lessons with your teacher and empathize with your own self, since studying voice goes a lot on self sensations and all that. Singers cant actually sing 40 hrs a day, we would snap our chords in half. We sing couple of hours, but the rest of the time we do have a lot of research to do. Our music may be easy to learn, but we have the extra elements of text and character which needs attention :) hope this gave some insight

[@saramaynichol9533]

Brett's Paganini is amazing!

[@EE-ky5nt]

Pagina

[@lizzetter]

Eddy should have went first with Paganini. He's hearing the piece before playing it which can also affect the outcome

[@okeyyess]

It's a very popular piece so i bet they both already heard the piece, but okay

[@jacobhegardt6238]

@@okeyyess Yea they're definently familiar with the piece all ready so it probably didn't affect it.

[@UtauReni]

brett is so cute and fluffy.. how he do that

[@grapesofwrath361]

Mental practice is a great way to give yourself a break when you are injured

[@psh7193]

They’re awesome. Too awesome. I’m starting violin because of them. Damn you twosets.

[@mithinie]

2021 bing watching

[@filippopassarella7804]

I think that the most useful aspect of mental practising is that frees you from the instrument and from the risk of playing instead of practice and from the risk of playing with "automatic pilot". Personally I use it mostly for intonation and interpretation, that are the easiest part to mentally visualize, but it's very useful also to read a piece, in order to not spend a lot of practicing time trying to understand notes, position and bowing.

[@jenshoffmann2210]

One important aspect of mental practice is missing here: using mental practice always in between real practice whenever the student hits a problem makes a practice session much more effective. Mental practice is also not only about "playing a piece in mind" but also about "thinking about a problem and its causes and imagining a solution to the problem".

[@ivana9133]

*ling ling practices mentally while practicing physically*

[@tabs4211]

That's how he practices two pieces at once.

[@freehoelay]

I was about to say this sjsjsjsjsj 🗿

[@ivana9133]

@Shadow lol hahaha sry

[@ivana9133]

@@freehoelay hahahaha

[@gillyweedniharry]

The secret of 40 hours

[@el_quba]

I can say, "mental practicing" is what advanced players do automatically. Thinking about what you play and how you play is crucial to play well. However, with experience this thinking becomes an intuition and practicing with instrument in hand is simply more time-efficient than physcial AND mental practicing one by one.

[@gretikalceva8874]

Mental practising is a good thing but it's not enough. And actually I think that it is even harder than actual practising. The thing is mental practicing helps really much with nervosity on the stage. You just imagine you're playing the piece on the stage, of course you have to close your eyes and have a good imagination. You have to feel it, you have to do everything you normally do on stage (in that "dream"). You repeat doing that until you feel comfortable on the stage (in your head). Than you play on the real stage and there is no nervosity, you are prepared for that situation, you have been there before. I absolutely recommend this exercise. It helps me a lot.. But okey, I know its not what mental practising mean, but its kind of connected with it..

[@Red-gl2cb]

As an artist, i want to confirm mental practice works. I am a graffiti artist, and musician. In my experience, the best time to practice mentally, is just before ur about to fall asleep. I found i started having vivid dreams about art, and id wake up, sketch, and to my own amazement, my sketches were a lot better, also i found myself working a quicker. This worked with music as well. Id suggest doing it. Especially b4 bed.

[@5688gamble]

Well, you have to visualize before you play, it probably can help, but it's no substitute for physical practice. Good thing to do when you don't have an instrument but you have nothing else to do, sitting on a bus or in traffic, etc

[@freakedout99]

I experienced mental practice myself with a sport by watching others doing it and it improved my skills by imitating what I saw or analysing it even though I didn't play as much as the other players. I don't know if that counts but I can tell you that focusing on something actually helps a lot.

[@shellingf]

i don't have a violin, i guess i can still practice. no excuses.

[@deathrow0888]

Mental practice absolutely works as long as you are already experienced in what you're doing, and I could argue that it also has effectiveness to a degree even if you have never done something before. My most notable experiences with mental practice would be those in which I had not done something in a long time, like play the piano or a video game, but I had thought a lot about it before getting back into it such that when I finally do, I feel at least as good if not better than I was the last time i did it.

[@PrinceWesterburg]

I've done mental practice and known other musicians do the same. As a guitarist, sometimes miming music (playing air guitar!) means you don't have the blockage of the mechanical workings of the instrument and haptic feedback in your path and allows the brain to discover something new. Jordan Ruddess of DreamTheater uses mental practice and miming and he's ex-Paris Conservatoir!

[@ecesrkn]

I'm a dancer and I also mental practise the choreography while walking to the dance class. I think it helps a lot.

[@laneycluff6361]

If you can practice it awake, you can practice it asleep. Eddy:interesting/10

[@taylorskyrme4919]

me trying to get through Suzuki book two for violin by myself with my knowledge of other instruments

[@geralrandika2098]

Just do 40 hours/day training and you will play paganini caprice in no time

[@taylorskyrme4919]

Geral Randika you only speak FACTS

[@taylorskyrme4919]

Geral Randika I can never be ling ling ,my callouses from cello are peeling off from my E string

[@lifeontheledgerlines8394]

@@taylorskyrme4919 Oof, dude.

[@saranghan]

This was a great topic! I feel the same way about the mental practice: it definitely works but has some limits. And mental practice is way better than not practicing at all.

[@misfitbxscuit]

6:34 “hey camera! focus on eddy not the laptop!” said Brett’s eyes

[@AlexanderGkamanis]

Mental practice is important after you have already practiced the piece. You just look at it again very carefully without touching the instrument. You sing in your head the perfect sound etc... My professor told me to walk around the house, in the tempo of the piece, reading the score and singing the melodies. (I'm a pianist)

[@edvinsmusic]

I think it can be useful for two reasons. One is making use of your time when you don't have access to your instrument, for example on the train as you guys mentioned. The other thing is I think it can be a useful practice to sometimes give that unsplit focus to just reading and thinking about the music, the phrasing and how to carry it out, without having to also focus on physically carrying it out in that same moment.

[@saralingling6212]

I mental practiced my driving and it helped me be more confident of what to do when I first started.

[@KraestBurns]

I’d really like to see more of you guys playing. I love the jokes and comedy and commentary on stuff, but I know I’ll never be able to see you guys live and we see only a few glimpses now and then of you guys actually playing seriously, and it sucks because you’re so talented. I found you guys when I started playing the violin again after 16 years away from it, so you’re quite the inspiration to me.

[@annnaflo5930]

Now they play these pieces with such confidence, beauty and passion - I can't

[@sw9945]

I'm going to see these guys tonight in Boston! Highly looking forward to it!!!

[@sw9945]

I'm not going to leave any spoiler here, but it was the BEST! It was PURELY AWESOME!! Great work, guys!!!!

[@sw9945]

@A.H Unexpectedly, but yes!!!

[@sw9945]

@A.H Yes it was a total surprise and it was epic! I left some comments on what actually happened on stage under this video (Twoset+Hilary's performance), in case it might be interesting to you: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4DNgGeboMh9h6M&lc=UgzwbWyF6brXBtPsc8l4AaABAg

[@link1fan142]

I liked that when Eddie was playing Brett was trying to focus the camera LOL.

[@annietee1115]

The duet sounds so good!!!

[@bossgamer6332]

Does this mean you can practice whilst watching anime?

[@shisuiuchiha5683]

Yeah it works with me

[@nevermind4555]

I usually do my daily warm up exercises routine watching anime

[@derpywarrior4244]

Whilst

[@clairev.g.7361]

Hermione's an otaku?

[@jkvhcjshcsjacbjsabjhasihfz9037]

true story, i was practising long notes while watching naruto. i did not know beforehand, my reed cracked HARD on that moment they revealed kakashi's face. RIP

[@StephanieQuinnMusic]

Oh my Goodness, You guys are SOOOO wonderful. I LOVE your videos and sharing them with my students. Keep them coming!

[@talor99]

it does work! i couldnt practice for six months and when i start practice again i got better!!

[@samanthawee4178]

5 minutes?! I wouldn’t be able to play that in 5 years of practice 😢

[@yingjinghanyi]

Suddenly see you play the violin seriously,I'm just feel soooo handsome😭💝.You fingers are sooooo beautiful😭😭😭

[@alysiaburrows2307]

As a pianist I usually tap on the table for practicing but my mum doesn’t like it so whenever I do it she smashes my fingers into the table. I do this and sometimes I improve a bit so it kind of works for me. Edit: Don’t worry about my fingers didn’t think I’d have to do this but it honestly isn’t that hard and doesn’t effect my playing. Thanks for the concern but I’m fine.

[@carrieheidbrier1925]

Alysia Burrows Mean Mum!

[@nikyl.4333]

Does she also kung pao your chicken?

[@calkestis5817]

Alysia Burrows I’m calling the police

[@xabuinternauta]

Im on a hole new level of practicing... I generally use BLIN on my chair, and BLYAT on my table, and some of KURWA in my bed too, that helps me a lot NAHUI

[@haferbrei7759]

SHE WUT?!?

[@lizzy8147]

I played beethoven triple concert once as an orchestra member and nobody practiced that because we all focused on our main piece which was mahler. So we played not the best. We played one passage and after that our conductor said we have 2 minutes to do mental practice and suddenly we played those passages perfectly, i mean it wasnt difficult because we just accompany the trio but still... mental practice is great

[@ilc_o_O]

Ling Ling did surgery on a blueberry yesterday...

[@samaritan29]

that was never funny

[@vaibhavvivek]

While practising violin mentally...

[@eurypheus6237]

coincidental, I was watching a video about those basketball players and then I got a notification that you guys uploaded aH

[@danielh5621]

If you can play it in your head You can play in on violin

[@sarighasenfeld8228]

Mental practise helps me a lot when I already know the music pretty well and also before performances

[@martagarcia206]

Mental practice is an excelent way to start a new piece. One has to look at the score and get the general panorama. You can start with a few lines, figure out the phrasing, fingering, style, and where the frases lead to.

[@FAHRENHEIT451JL]

You can't build muscle memory or strength through non physical practice. As a harp player I have to shake my freaking hand for an hour a day to work on my vibrato, but I think about songs while I do this

[@Synth-ud3hl]

It might help if you’re in a strange situation where you only have a few minutes to practice and then need to perform but it couldn’t possibly be something a musician uses often. But being a singer mental practice will get you nooooo wheeerrreee. side note: Every time Eddy says “lemme try again” he’s technically practicing.

[@graceandersen8402]

Synth Sings idk I don’t think singers would ever have a situation where they couldn’t physically practice wherein physical practice would be helpful. Like yeah if you’re sick and your voice is out, but then so is your brain. Plus you can’t really visualize singing, considering you are your instrument

[@piccolomaniac]

You can audiate, though ("hearing" the music in your imagination), which is extremely helpful because it develops your ear. I'm an adult amateur musician, and I don't have the time to practice multiple hours per day like professionals do (or like I used to when I was in high school/college). Time spent thinking about music -- listening to recordings while working at the computer, doing some score reading in idle moments at the day job -- is a useful addition to physical practice because it can help you memorize or just know the piece better and be more sure of what you're doing.

[@Synth-ud3hl]

piccolomaniac yeah I can see it’s benefits. It also depends on the level you’re at though. If you’re advanced then yeah thinking about the music can be a quick substitute. But if you’re a beginner I don’t think you can just think about your piece and call it practice. You know?

[@drekfletch]

As a choral singer, I can attest to the fact that mental practice works. Mental practice isn't just thinking, despite it's name; it's the minuscule movements that happen when you think of performing a larger movement.

[@the_bottomfragger]

Mental practise is much more than that. Once you get used to it, you can learn most of orchestra literature by just looking at it carefully, listening to recordings and doing the fingerings without the instrument and you'll need about another 20 mins with the instrument and you're set. It's all about how far your imagination can go. And for pieces that you actually have the time to practise a lot, it greatly increases your consistency with the piece.

[@aaronschilling5556]

mental practice is really helpful for memorizing parts and polish parts, who are good, but not great yet! I also love just visualizing a sequence for a minute before trying again.

[@sorchaaislingoregan1000]

I’m studying opera and I ended up with laryngitis for 3 weeks and couldn’t practice, so I basically read the sheet music and mouthed the words for 3 whole weeks. Then I had a rep class and it turned out I had ended up learning the whole piece off by heart

[@SF-ru3lp]

Brett looking under the computer was hilarious! I'm interested to try the mental practice on pieces that I'm far along with so I can 'think' myself into all the corners so to speak.... G Ire

[@amandatanady376]

When you practice mentally do you imagine yourself in 3rd person or 1st person?

[@Elle-ok9ti]

A psychologist said to switch from both for added benefits and so you don't get bored - various viewpoints...

[@wofi784]

I like your page turner

[@jessramsay5954]

I used to mental practice dance routines all the time :) in the car, at school, whenever

[@catrinacoons390]

1000000000/10 as always, you will always sound amazing, even when you are trying not to!

[@juliemichellerobinson1841]

Mental practice works because it's focused. Under 'mental practice' I would include things like listening to recordings of a piece, thinking about interpretation, and actually working out fingerings and bowings. Knowing what you want it to sound like (mental practice) then feeds back into thinking about the necessary technique to achieve the desired outcome (actual focused practice - which is focused because you already did the mental practice). Mental practice beats no practice and probably beats "randomly playing through stuff and wondering why you always get stuck". Also when you practice mentally you're effectively 'visualising' the sound (yes I know it's not visual... unless synesthesia!) and therefore concentrating on the sound produced, and I seem to find that if I do that when practising with the instrument my technique miraculously just improves itself. And it's what you have to do in performance - sing the music in your head. As you guys demonstrated with the duet, it's also useful for things like working out how your part fits together with the other parts in an ensemble and, of course, memorising. If you can sing it, you can play it. Or not.

[@tessEnichols]

I was going to mental practice while I was on my way to see your amazing concert, but I got really excited and ended up binge watching all of your videos...

[@ethanrosenberg991]

I just saw your live show in Boston - very INTERESTING... And awesome too, of course

[@Amybozhemoi]

brb gonna mentally practice paganini

[@snowyminnesota6028]

Been playing violin for over 50 years now. I can tell everyone for *sure* that there's a heck of a lot that you have a chance at hitting just because you've done something similar a zillion times before. Like playing even oddball scales in thirds at speed. Mental practice is only good if there's physical practice behind it. Physical practice: there's no substitute.

[@jeffw1267]

Nobody's saying you should ONLY use mental practice. It's just when you are away from your instrument for whatever reason. It is a big advantage to be able to "practice" while you're waiting in line at the grocery store, or when you close your eyes at night and are waiting to go to sleep.

[@stew148]

Nnooooooo! Paganini violin concerto no. 1 (the one that they played) is literally my favourite concerto ever! I can’t fall asleep without listening to music and most of the time I listen to the full 20 min concerto. They completely shredded it! Why!?

[@kewlforever6463]

stew how did they completely shred it?Thats pretty amazing for just 5 minutes.Besides, why would you not expect mistakes at all?

[@jroig824]

You guys are awesome, playing Paganini thst way after only 5 min of practice (phisically or mentally). It looks like you only need 5 more minutes and you've got this

[@mellowyellow6729]

Omg Brett played the Paganini with only practicing for five minutes better than the piece I’m working on that is like 3x easier that I’ve been practicing for a month -_-

[@jocelynwu372]

mental practice usually works for me but i usually do it while i have my violin with me so i alternate between physically playing and mentally practicing. when you mentally practice you probably can notice the same mistakes you make in your playing (is that because you physically play it wrong? or do you physically play it wrong bc you can’t think it correctly?) mental practice is a great way to increase the tempo for a piece. just turn the metronome on at a reasonable tempo you can play a piece at and think it. i play violin so i would think of playing the notes with my left hand and right hand and make sure everything feels relaxed in my head. if you can do that, then just increase the tempo bit by bit while continuing to mentally practice. your mental picture of what you have to do might keep changing as your body will have to do a different motion when you are attempting to play even faster than before. another thing that mental practice is good for is “recalling” which helps make your playing more accurate (and make you feel more confident). say you’re trying theres a triple stop that keeps sounding scratchy and faded out: first envision what you want the double stop to sound like or use words to describe how it could sound like “smooth” or “sustained”. then picture the motion and feeling of what you’d have to do to achieve the right sound. you can picture yourself from your point of view or picture yourself as if you’re someone else seeing yourself it that makes sense. once you’ve done that play the triple stop. if you play it the way you don’t want it to sound then try to forget about the feeling and not hold on to it too much but still remember what you did wrong and fix that. if you played it correctly then pause for a moment and “recall” the feeling of what you did to play the triple stop correctly. if you keep repeating this process on this triple stop during different times and you get it how you want it to sound the first time you try to play it, you’ve built up an accuracy for playing it. mental practice is super helpful when doing recall because if you’re in an audition you really only get one chance to play something. so if you’ve practiced a lot but only can play the piece accurately sometimes you’re really not going to feel confident that you’re going to nail a passage or certain chord when you’re at the audition. but if you practice recall it enhances you’re ability to play something correctly the FIRST time you attempt to.

[@eclaireclair9351]

I find that practicing/slow practice and generally learning how the part is supposed to sound, then mental practice works better. Basically learn the part, then mentally practice and it usually works

[@bryntownshend6528]

My friend at Youth Orchestra in Milton Keynes was wearing your merch today!

[@norvimilad71]

Mental practice can also includes analysis, planning of phrasing, tempos, tone colors from inner ear....or can be keeping photos of notes inside your brain, thus for photographic memory.

[@TaylorTheOtter]

Probably the most important part to mental practice is knowing your instrument through and through. I can do it with my double ocarina that I've been playing for 2 years and a little with my guitar that I started learning 4 months ago but not with my violin that I've been playing for just shy of 5 weeks.

[@saariyamalik7436]

DUDE THE OPENING SONG WAS THE ONE I DID FOR THE BALLARD OF MY MARCHING BAND SHOW THIS YEAR FLASHBACKKSSSS

[@FacePomagranate]

I don't doubt the effectiveness of mental practice, although it's definitely not an easy way out because you need to focus much harder than if you were actually playing. You've probably heard that great sight-readers will be reading a measure or so ahead of where they're playing - that's essentially just mental practice.

[@eriknystrom5839]

Mental practice. Listen to the music and reading the score and doing the bow and the fingering in your head, is that metal practicing? That’s what I do in a bus, train or on an airplane. That definitely helps. Or just have the music as background when working in the kitchen or even as background when you are sleeping.....

[@chriss.277]

Mental practice works. Once I had very little time to practice during the week. So I did run through my music assignments over in my head whenever I realized I hadn't practiced. My teacher said it was the best improvement she had seen yet. Go Figure! 😊

[@sofiastrand2744]

So here's the thing about mental practice. You have to practice it as much as you practice normally and like it says. It's practice! You have to do it often and a lot to get good at it. This is when you're gonna see results. It's great that you're actually checking this though. As a singer I often practice mentally about that technique I want to use and what the notes are so when I'm finally singing I have an Idea of what I'm doing instead of just sight reading it straight. I do that as well but I see better result from mental practice.

[@lt4045]

You should make a video that compares someone who didn't practice with someone who mental practiced ! Is mental practice worth it ? Thank you for your wonderful videos guys ! (From France)

[@skylake5502]

I can’t believe they relegated Sophie to mere page turner :’(

[@jroig824]

I've been following you guys for 6 months, and just yesterday I googled about mental practice to find out if I would be able to take advantage of the hours I spend on the train to mentally practice the violin. And right now I find out that you made a vid about that yesterday. O_o

[@johnwallar]

For percussion, mental practice is key!

[@SourireBlancNeige]

I do think "real" mental practice as in, really focusing on what you're thinking as in you're doing it works, partially. But, you won't acquire muscle memory that way. And there is also the prerequisit that you have *some* level, or abilities already. Because for exemple, a non violinist could mental practice for hour the violin without getting anywhere. You have to have a sense of what you're doing i think.

[@gnilgnil8992]

I think that mental practive really works. I do it each day before I go to sleep

[@friederiker6280]

Uh that means I can finally practice WHILE watching twoset videos. Best solution

[@Cellooboy]

Mental practice is not to compare with normal practice. But in addition to normal practice, it is very effective.

[@albertberal2882]

A mix of both practices would be the best, because always practicing on the violin is too hard phisically (not for all). I think mental practice is effective if it's done seriously. It should be done mainly when playing the violin is accidentally not possible or when we are phisically tired. it's always better than not playing at all. But we could think about practicing more mentally than phisically. I'm sure it could give good results, but it would be necessary to play phisically sometimes to check if what we're mentally practicing is correct. I'd love to try but I even more love to feel the vibration of the violin around me, so I won't try because nothing prevents me from phisically playing my violin actually. But I believe it works.

[@annette_lu]

Before a competition, yes you can

[@joecatalan]

If you think about it, LingLing can actually practice 40 hours in ONE SECOND!! If in his mind, he visualizes 143,999 other frames, not including the present, he could equal 40 hours in one second.

[@simonfj20]

My experience is that mental practice works so well, because you can do it all the time, without having to schedule practice and all the other hassles.

[@LillieBridgers]

I didn't know this was a thing! I actually do this all the time and i had no idea i was actually doing myself a favour

[@dantesantos9332]

Our chorus practices audiating - singing without making sound, to increase our mastery of a piece. You sing some section silently then have to come in at some random point and hit the right note. Super hard!