Holistique Pianism (8) – Drilling: Rethinking the Way We Practice

Why repetition alone doesn’t create music and how to reconnect with the flow of sound

Practice is supposed to make us better, yet not all practice leads to progress. There is a fine line between repetition and understanding, between effort and awareness. “Drilling” often crosses that line, and I learned it the hard way.

Coming back to the stage for the first time in decades, I began to see how easily the habit of repetition can silence the real purpose of practice, which is to make music come alive.

Drilling

Probably one of the biggest misconceptions in our practice is “drilling.”We have all done it, repeating a tricky passage again and again, or following a teacher’s instruction to “practice it ten times” to make it better.

But did it really work for you?

Never, for me.

I stopped doing simple drilling, the “repeat this phrase ten times” type of practice. Instead, I tried rhythmic variations, or focused only on one spot until it sounded smooth.

My practice time became longer and longer, but not necessarily more effective.

It was like a bad investment, high risk, almost no return.

While preparing for my recent concert, which included a piece full of endless notes, I stretched my practice time as much as I could. Yet, I started to feel that the more I practiced, the less progress I made.

Of course, I learned a lot through this process. It was my first public performance after more than a decade. But now that this big event is behind me, my first mission is to completely turn my practice habits upside down.

So let’s talk about drilling.

When you practice a passage that you are not satisfied with, how do you usually approach it?

I can almost guess, because I used to do the same.

If your way works for you, that is great.But if not, would you like to know why?

The answer is actually simple once you realize it, but incredibly hard to change, because it is deeply printed in our habits after years and years of practice.

When you practice that particular passage, do you match its feeling, tone, expression, and flow with the parts that come before and after?

I didn’t.

That is why everything started to feel like patchwork. The musical flow was disconnected. I could play the drilled passage perfectly on its own, but not in context.

How, how, how???

Beyond Isolated Practice

No matter how much we polish an isolated section, if it is disconnected from what comes before and after, the musical flow is lost. The piece may sound technically fine, but it lacks wholeness and stops being music. Through this recent preparation, I realized that deeply.

There is really only one way to change this.Once you identify what is difficult or not working, fix it while also practicing it withinthe musical flow of the surrounding phrases.

When you do that, and the passage begins to flow smoothly, it blends naturally into the whole piece with no gap in tone, color, or expression. Everything just moves through effortlessly.

This is truly difficult to do, especially in complicated or awkward passages. It is so easy to get caught up in just hitting the right keys and forget everything else.

That is why I keep reminding myself:The piano is only a tool for making music.What we, as performers, do is create music.If it were only about pressing keys, a machine could do it better.

Conclusion

Next time you find yourself drilling the same passage again and again, pause for a moment. Step back, breathe, and listen to how the music wants to move.Instead of fixing a passage, aim to understand how it lives within the piece.

We all fall into the habit of drilling because it is what we have been taught for years. But music is not built by repetition alone; it grows through connection, curiosity, and care. When we return to that, every note begins to feel alive again.