Why Practicing While Being Distracted Is Good For Your Music

I have always suspected myself of having ADHD due to my lack of focus. Yes, I get distracted easily. When my friend asked me to find music venue for hire, I said yes already but then I got distracted by another task, so I forgot about it until the next day. Fortunately, it was not near the date of my friend’s event when I remembered, so it was handled eventually, and nothing went wrong. However, looking back, being distracted is not that bad. In fact, it teaches you and it trains you to be better. If you are a musician finding your way in the music journey, practicing is the most important part of your music experience. However, what if you are somebody who is easily distracted by many things during your practice? Should you get rid of any distraction? Or should you practice with it? My answer is simple; practicing while being distracted can be a good thing. Why? Keep reading to find out!

Researchers at Brown University were trying to find out whether the assumption that being distracted during learning, would result in poorer performance is proven to be true or not. For that reason, they devised a test to see what would happen when individuals were allowed to learn a motor task while totally focused on the task at hand vs. when they had to learn the task while distracted. They divided those individuals into two groups. One group was given a task without any distraction, while the other group was given a task while being tested with distractions. Long story short, the group which never had to deal with distractions and the group which always had to deal with distractions actually performed about the same.

So, what can we learn from this?

When we think about it in a simple way, practicing while being distracted can be a good thing as long as you are doing it strategically. Why? It is meant to boost and improve your focus and train your brain to manage your performance in all situations. Afterall, it is about strategically practicing with and without distractions. For example, we don’t want to get used to practicing in complete quiet and solitude, that we get thrown by noises in the audience when we walk on stage.

On the other hand, we don’t want to be so accustomed to practicing in a practice room surrounded by the comforting (or annoying) din of others’ music-making, that the deathly silence of a screened audition becomes overly distracting. In short, balance is all you need. Why balance? Let me give you a simple explanation that will make it easier for you to understand.

If you get used to practicing in a very quiet place without any distraction, you will be surprised by how noisy a crowd of people can be and you will be forced to struggle during your performance because you are not used to being in a noisy place while performing music. Let me tell you this, the people who are going to watch your performance are so excited to be there and of course, it will be very noisy and distracting. If you are so used to performing in a quiet place without distraction, you will have a hard time keeping up with your performance on stage. On the other hand, if you are so used to performing while being distracted, you will have a hard time performing in a quiet place. Therefore, you need balance. In other words, you need both solitude and distraction to train your mind to focus and be accustomed to every situation during your music performance.

Now you get it, right? We need balance. That’s why practicing while being distracted can be a good thing to boost your practice, but you also need solitude for your practice from time to time. If you keep it balanced, you will always feel ready to perform in any situation.