Most professional musicians are quite dedicated and spend a big part of their lives honing their craft. Many students I know spend an amazing amount of time practicing to correct mistakes. Personally, I used to spend a lot of practice time working on music that never reached the performance level I desired. The problem was, I was really just practicing the mistakes over and over.
    I am suggesting that we spend our time doing things right, from the beginning. It is a constant plea from me to my students to, "Slow it down and play it right." It is important to recognize the power of repetition. Repetition in your music is like compound interest in your finances. It either works for you or against you. Neurological response, muscle memory, is powerful stuff.
    I once was preparing a difficult piece of music for a recital and after months of serious practice I still could not play the piece without numerous mistakes and memory slips. My teacher, Ed Barker, forced me to play the piece one note at a time and repeat each note many times before adding the next note. Then we would play the first two notes as a phrase over and over before adding the third note, and so on. This building process was extremely slow and painstaking but it worked like magic. I began to recognize that up to this point I had spent many years practicing mistakes.    If we are willing to spend time correcting ourselves, let us simply invest our time and get it right from the beginning.