2 hours? 4 hours? 8 hours? 12 hours?
How much is enough?
Is there such a thing as practicing too much?
Is there an optimal（ [ˋɑptəməl]，最理想的） number of hours that one should practice?
兩小時？四小時？八小時？十二小時？
足夠的練習時間到底多長？
真的有一個對需要練習的人來說最理想的練習時間嗎？
What Do Performers Say?
表演者會說什麼？
Some of the great artists of the 20th century have shared their thoughts on these questions. I once read an interview with Rubinstein (or it may have been Horowitz – I can’t remember exactly whom), in which he stated（聲明） that nobody should have to practice more than four hours a day, explaining that if you needed to practice more than four hours a day, you probably weren’t doing it right.
有些二十世紀最棒的藝術家已經分享了他們對於這些問題的想法。我有一次讀到對魯賓斯坦的訪談過程（或可能是霍羅威茨——我記不太清到底確切是誰），他在其中聲明任何人都不應一天練習多於四小時，因為如果你需要一天練習多於四小時，你可能不會做得很好。
Other great artists have expressed similar sentiments. Violinist Nathan Milstein is said to have once asked his teacher Leopold Auer how many hours a day he should be practicing. “If you practice with your fingers, no amount is enough,” was Auer’s response. “If you practice with your head, two hours is plenty.”
其他偉大的藝術家也闡述過相似的意見。小提琴家密爾斯坦據傳有一次問他的老師奧爾，他每天應該練習幾小時。奧爾回說：「如果你是用你的手指在練習，不管多久都是不夠的；如果你用你的頭腦在練習，兩小時就很多了。」
Heifetz also indicated that he never believed in practicing too much, and that excessive practice is “just as bad as practicing too little!” He claimed that he practiced no more than three hours per day on average, and that he didn’t practice at all on Sundays. You know, this is not a bad idea – one of my own teachers, Donald Weilerstein, once suggested that I establish a 24-hour period of time every week where I was not allowed to pick up my instrument. 海飛茲也指出他不相信練習會太多，並且他說過度練習「就像練習太少一樣壞！」他申明他平均每天練習不超過三小時，而且他星期天一整天都不練習。你知道的，這並不是一個壞主意——教導我的其中一位老師，Donald Weilerstein有一次建議我每周空出二十四小時不能碰我的樂器。
What Do Psychologists Say?
哲學家會說什麼？
When it comes to understanding expertise（[͵ɛkspɚˋtiz] ，專門知識） and expert performance, psychologist Dr. K. Anders Ericsson is perhaps the world’s leading authority. His research is the basis for the “ten-year rule” and “10,000-hour rule” which suggest that it requires at least ten years and/or 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to achieve an expert level of performance in any given domain – and in the case of musicians, often closer to 25 years in order to attain anelite（[eˋlit]，精英） international level. Note that the real key here is not the amount of practice required but the typeof practice required to attain an expert level of performance. In other words, just practicing any old way doesn’t cut it. 當提到了解專門知識和專業表演的時候，哲學家艾瑞克森博士大概是全世界頂尖的權威。他的研究是關於「十年規則」（譯者自譯）和「10000小時規則」（譯者自譯）的基礎，建議要成為在任何領域——包含音樂家——的表演等級的專家，至少需要十年和╱或一萬小時專心致志的練習，大約接近二十五年才能達到國際級菁英的等級。特別要注意的是，達到專家級表演的真正的訣竅並不是練習的量而是練習的質。換句話說，只有按照老方法練習並不能達成。
Mindless Practice
不專心的練習
Have you ever listened to someone practice? Have you ever listened to yourself practice, for that matter? Tape yourself practicing for an hour, take a walk through the practice room area at school and eavesdrop（[ˋivz͵drɑp]，竊聽） on your fellow（[ˋfɛlo]，男人） students, or ask your students to pretend they are at home and watch them practice during a lesson. What do you notice?
You’ll notice that the majority（ [məˋdʒɔrətɪ] ，多數） of folks（[fok] ，人們） practice rather mindlessly, either engaging in（忙於） mere repetition（[͵rɛpɪˋtɪʃən] ，重複） (“practice this passage 10 times” or “practice this piece for 30 minutes”) or practicing on autopilot（自動駕駛儀） (that’s when we play through the piece until we hear something we don’t like, stop, repeat the passage again until it sounds better, and resume playing through the piece until we hear the next thing we aren’t satisfied with, at which point we begin this whole process over again).
你有沒有聽過其他人練習？你是否有用過同樣的方式聽自己的練習？錄下你自己一小時的練習，或在學校的練習室走一走並偷聽你的學生練習，或讓你的學生假裝他們在家練習並且在課程中看他們的練習。你注意到了什麼？
你會注意到多數人在練習時都會有一定程度的不專心，其中一個是忙於重複（「練習這一段十次」或「練習這份譜三十分鐘」），另一種則是像自動駕駛儀一樣地練習（這就是當我們演奏
譜的期間會聽到我們並不喜歡的部分，停下，一直重複那一段直到它聽起來比較好，並且繼續演奏下去直到下一個我們並不滿意的東西出現，然後我們就會一直重複這整個過程）。
There are three major problems with the mindless method of practicing.
有三個主要的不專心練習的模式：
1. It is a waste of timeWhy? For one, very little productive learning takes place when we practice this way. This is how we can practice a piece for hours, days, or weeks, and still not feel that we’ve improved all that much. Even worse, you are actually digging yourself a hole by practicing this way, because what this model of practicing does do is strengthen undesirable habits and errors,literally（[ˋlɪtərəlɪ]，逐字地） making it more likely that you will screw up more consistently in the future. This makes it more difficult to correct these habits in the future – so you are actually adding to the amount of future practice time you will need in order to eliminate these bad habits and tendencies（[ˋtɛndənsɪ] ，傾向）. I once worked with a saxophone professor who was fond of reminding his students that “Practice doesn’t make
perfect, practice makes permanent.”
1. 浪費時間
為甚麼？對一個人來說，我們用這種方法練習的效率很差。這就是為什麼我們可以練習一份譜好幾個小時、天，或周，並仍舊沒有感到任何的進步。更糟的是，你事實上在用這種練習方法給自己挖洞，因為這種方法所真正做的只有增加討厭的習慣和錯誤，也就是說讓未來的你更常搞砸。這會讓未來要更正這些錯誤更困難——所以你事實上要加上你在未來要消滅這些不好的習慣和傾向的練習時間。我有一次和一位薩克斯風的專家工作，他發現並提醒他的學生說：「練習並不會造就完美，練習會造就永恆。」
2. It makes you less confidentIn addition, practicing this way actually hurts your confidence, as there is a part of you that realizes you don’t really know how to consistently produce the results you are looking for. Even if you establish a fairly high success rate in the most difficult passages via mindless practice, and find that you can nail it 3 or 4 out of every 5 attempts, your confidence won’t grow much from this. Real on-stage（上台） confidence comes from
(a) being able to nail it 10 out of 10 tries,
(b) knowing that this isn’t a coincidence but that you can do it the correct way on demand, because most importantly
(c) you know precisely why you nail it or miss it – i.e.（id est 【拉】即, 換言之） you know exactly what you need to do from a technique standpoint（[ˋstænd͵pɔɪnt]，立場） in order to play the passage perfectly every time.
此外，這樣練習會破壞你的自信，因為有一部分的你會明白自己並不是真的知道如何去持續創造你所追求的成果。即使你經由不專心的練習在最難的段落中取得高成功率，並且發現你自己可以在五次嘗試中成功演奏三到四次，你的自信並不會因此成長很多。真正的上台經驗是從下列三點中成長的。
(a)可以在十次嘗試中成功演奏十次，
(b)知道自己能成功演奏並非巧合，而是能在要求之下正確地做到。這是最重要的。
(c)你知道為什麼你成功或失敗——換言之你確切知道為了要在每次都能完美地彈奏這段，你需要在技巧面做出怎樣的努力。
You may not be able to play it perfectly every time at first, but this is what repetition is for – to reinforce the correct habits until they are stronger than the bad habits. It’s a little like trying to grow a nice looking lawn. Instead of fighting a never-ending battle against the weeds, your time is better spent trying to cultivate the grass so that over time the grass crowds out the weeds.
And here’s the biggie. We tend to practice unconsciously, and then end up trying to perform consciously – not a great formula for success. Recall from this article that you have a tendency to shift over into hyper-analytical（hyper， 過度興奮的；analytical，分析的） left brain mode when you walk out on stage. Well, if you have done most of your practicing unconsciously, you really don’t know how to play your piece perfectly on demand. When your brain suddenly goes into full-conscious mode, you end up freaking out（嚇壞）, because you don’t know what instructions to give your brain. 你或許沒辦法每次第一次演奏就很完美，但這就是為什麼要重覆練習——為了強化正確的習慣直到它們比壞習慣來要強。這有點像是試著要種出一片好看的草坪，與其和雜草進行一場永無止境的戰鬥，不如將你的時間花在種植草地，不久後草地就會趕走雜草。還有一點更重要的，我們習慣於神智不清地練習，並且最後試著清醒地表演——這並非一個成功的好公式。想想這篇文章，當你上台時，你會有轉換至高度分析性的左腦模式的傾向。如果你在大部分練習的時候都是神智不清的，那麼你會不知道如何在要求下完美演奏你的譜。當你的腦子突然完全進入到清醒模式的時候，你最後會嚇壞，因為你不知道你的腦子該下什麼指令。
3. It is tedious（ [ˋtidɪəs] ，冗長乏味的） and boringPracticing mindlessly is a chore（例行工作）. Music may be one of the only skill-based activities where practice goals are measured in units of time. We’ve all had teachers who tell us to go home and practice a certain passage x number of times, or to practice x number of hours, right? What we really need are more specific（特殊的） outcome（結果） goals – such as, practice this passage until it sounds like _____, or practice this passage until you can figure out how to make it sound like _____.
After all, it doesn’t really matter how much time we spend practicing something – only that we know how to produce the results we want, and can do so consistently, on demand.
不專心地練習是一件例行工作。音樂或許是其中一項單純奠基在技巧的活動，需要衡量單位時間的練習目標。我們已經有老師們來告訴我們回家練習特定一段Ｘ分鐘，或練習Ｘ小時，對吧？我們所真正需要的是更特殊的目標結果——像是，練習這一段直到聽起來＿＿＿，或練習這一段直到你能找出如何讓它聽起來像＿＿＿。
畢竟，真正重要的並不是我們花時間練習某樣東西——只有我們清楚如何製造我們所要的結果，並且能清醒地演奏，和達到要求。
下篇待續……翻譯這篇文章真是累煞我也，但我覺得好有成就感喔！！
創作內容
【翻譯】How Many Hours a Day Should You Practice?（上）
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