Passionate Practice: The Musician's Guide to Learning, Memorizing, and Performing

Rating:
Summary: A must read for musicians & anyone facing challenges in life
Review: This book is fantastic!! It presents excellent techniques for taking your musical practice to the next level. For anyone out there who has a particular hump to get over in their practice, this is the book for you. In a very clear and easy to understand manner, the author shows you how to excel in even the most difficult situations and to do so with a sense of ease. The ideas and lessons presented in this book will help you to face any challenge in life, musical or otherwise.

Rating:
Summary: A must read for musicians & anyone facing challenges in life
Review: This book is fantastic!! It presents excellent techniques for taking your musical practice to the next level. For anyone out there who has a particular hump to get over in their practice, this is the book for you. In a very clear and easy to understand manner, the author shows you how to excel in even the most difficult situations and to do so with a sense of ease. The ideas and lessons presented in this book will help you to face any challenge in life, musical or otherwise.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent self-help for musicians and others
Review: While the book is clearly titled to attract musicians who aim to hone their practicing and focusing skills, I found this book useful for a completely different reason. When I read it, in place of "learning a piece" I read "speaking in public" and really benefitted from the awareness and focusing techniques that are emphasized. Since the book is an easy read, useful ideas and skills can be extracted by reading just a few paragraphs. On the other hand, the depth of the book, and integral and fundamental role of many of its teachings makes it the kind of book you can learn even more from by going back and reading it again, picking up on things you missed the first time. I recommend this book for people interested in learning new techniques for improving their skills, focus, and confidence. It has a very natural flow that makes it an enjoyable read as well.