h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Coming back to this Entry nine years later, I would like to sum it up in Douglas Adams's deathless phrase



The greater part of what one overhears when students practise seems to consist of panic.

Panic means playing in such a way as to demonstrate how one might fail.

There is no point in trying it out to see if it might go wrong. It might indeed, in many ways.

The antidote is much aforethought. It's hard, but it works: think it ten times, then play it once, and think it ten times again.

The brain will strenuously resist this demand. Strenuously suppress such natural resistance. All will improve, dramatically