WORSHIP TEAM
THE 8 ROOKIE MISTAKES OF PRACTICING, PART 2 | Jon Nicol
Woodshed (verb) wood’ · shed
perfect.” False. Practice makes permanent.
To practice on a musical instrument so as to
improve or perfect one's technical facility.
3.
Excessive
tenacity
in
practice. After
you’ve been practicing for a while, the law of
When you practice, you’re cutting pathways diminishing returns kicks in—you won’t get any
into your brain. Eventually, those pathways more out of that practice session. Give your
When I was in college, and later in a full-blown become deep grooves, or ruts, that create brain and body a break and come back to it
performance school, ‘woodshedding’ was a the autopilot phenomenon—you know, where when you’re fresh.
given. If you didn’t spend copious amounts you can sing “This is Amazing Grace" while of alone time with your instrument, you risked pondering whether you’d rather have Thai or D = DETOURS
both low grades and public embarrassment. Mexican for lunch. Distracted practice is not effective practice. A
lack of focus in our preparation time ends up
I thought of the term woodshedding today as The rut is a good thing—if you cut the right costing us more time, with fewer results. This
I was reviewing the second half of the eight groove. Make sure you practice parts the right mistake is about losing focus.
rookie mistakes of practicing. These four rookie way with the proper technique. If you don’t, mistakes in part two will help us woodshed our correctly relearning the part will be even harder. Consider using two features on your phone to
worship music the right way. But if we don't, You have to break the corrupt groove and work help you practice. First, use the 'do not disturb'
these four mistakes will cost us musically and to cut a new one. So practice the right stuff to feature to keep your phone and other devices
relationally. get the right rut. you might be using for practice from pinging
text, email, and other social media notifications.
If you remember, we’re using the word E = EXCESSIVE Second, set your phone’s timer for how long
PREPARED to help us frame these mistakes. There’s this idea floating around that you can you want to practice (either for the full session
We won’t take time here to review part one. somehow “suck the life out of the song” if you or for each song). The timer is an external cue
You can read the previous article to find out know it too well. I’ve even had people say to help you focus your attention.
what PREP is. Let’s dive into the next four. that too much practice is detrimental to their
P-R-E-P-A-R-E-D Part 2
A = ALONE
worship—like somehow winging a song gets And if your practice session involves Hulu,
them closer to God. (It does increase your Netflix, ESPN, or HGTV on a nearby screen,
worship leader's prayer life: “God, please don’t here’s my advice: Stop. It. Now. How many
let us train-wreck this set!” more studies have to prove that effective
A mistake that many team members make
multitasking is a myth before you believe it?
is assuming that since they’re able to play or I have two words for this notion of practicing too sing their part by themselves, they must have much: malarky. (OK, that was one word, but go it down. But the context of a live band shines with me on this.) Now, there are three ways that Remember, the point of “woodshedding” isn’t
a bright spotlight on all of our weak and ill- excessive practice can be detrimental: to spend time in the woodshed. It’s to learn our
prepared areas.
Shut it off.
songs for rehearsal in the most efficient way
1. Excessive practice at the expense of higher possible. Practice is a tool, and a means to an
So to avoid this rookie mistake, review “R = priorities. Don't neglect your family, job, school end. And that end is this: musical confidence
Real” and “P = Practicing without a Click” work, etc. just to nail a song for Sunday. Serving that allows us to be engaging lead worshipers.
(in Part 1). Incorporating “the real’ into your on the worship team is important, but not that practice, like forcing yourself to play in time with important. Make sure you prioritize.
a metronome, will help you know that you’re
ready to not be alone.
2 Excessive practice on one song. It’s easy
to get caught up in learning one complicated
R = RUT or new song and neglect the other songs for
You’ve heard the phrase “Practice makes Sunday.
102
April 2019
Jon Nicol
Jon’s the founder of WorshipWorkshop.com and
WorshipTeamCoach.com, two sites that help
worship leaders build strong teams and lead
engaging worship. He lives and serves in Lexington,
Ohio with his wife Shannon and their four kids.
WorshipTeamCoach.com
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