Why recovery makes you a better musician: what musicians can learn being away from their instruments

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Recovery is not the opposite of practice

One of the most fascinating discoveries in neuroscience is that learning does not stop when practice ends. In many ways, finishing a practice session is not the end of learning but the beginning of another stage of it. During recovery, particularly during sleep, the brain continues organising the information it has received, strengthening new motor patterns and consolidating skills that were developed earlier in the day. We often experience this without recognising it. A passage that felt almost impossible on Monday suddenly feels more natural on Tuesday morning, even though we did not practise overnight.

Perhaps this is one of the greatest paradoxes of musical education. We devote enormous attention to how we practise but remarkably little attention to what happens afterwards. We carefully plan fingerings, bowings, tempos and technical exercises, yet rarely think about creating the conditions that allow those hours of work to become lasting learning. Recovery is not the opposite of practice. It is one of the reasons practice works.

This idea challenges one of the deepest beliefs many musicians carry throughout their careers: that progress happens only while we are holding the instrument. In reality, some of the most important work happens after we put it back in its case. 

Rest is not the same as recovery

If recovery is so important, why do so many musicians still finish every season feeling exhausted? Perhaps because we often confuse rest with simply stopping. Finishing a rehearsal and spending the next two hours scrolling through social media is not necessarily recovery. Neither is answering emails, planning the next project or replaying every mistake in our minds while driving home from a concert. Although the instrument has been packed away, our brain often continues performing long after the audience has left the hall.

Elite athletes rarely leave recovery to chance. They understand that what happens after competition is just as important as the competition itself. They rehydrate, eat, sleep, stretch and gradually allow their nervous system to return to baseline. Musicians do not need to copy every recovery strategy used in elite sport, but we can certainly learn from the mindset behind them.

Recovery is something intentional. Sometimes it means physical activity, sometimes spending time with family, sometimes reading a book, walking in nature or simply allowing ourselves to be fully present somewhere other than the practice room. What matters is not the activity itself but whether it genuinely allows our body and mind to leave performance mode.

Perhaps this is where many musicians struggle the most. We often stop practising, but we never truly stop performing. Our body may be sitting on the sofa, yet our mind is still replaying every missed shift, every imperfect phrase and every comment from the conductor. Recovery begins only when we allow ourselves to step away from that internal performance as well.

 Recovery begins only when we allow ourselves to step away from that internal performance as well

One day away from the instrument

Whenever I suggest that a musician takes one complete day away from their instrument each week, I almost always receive the same reaction. First there is silence. Then comes a cautious smile, followed by the inevitable question: ’Won’t I get worse?’ It is fascinating how frightening one day without practising can feel. Some clients laugh nervously, while others look at me with genuine disbelief, as though I had suggested something reckless rather than something healthy.

A week later, however, the conversation is usually very different. They tell me they spent Sunday with their family, went hiking, visited friends or simply allowed themselves to slow down for the first time in months. Then Monday arrives. They open their instrument case with a little uncertainty… and everything is still there. They have not forgotten how to play. In fact, many describe feeling fresher, more focused and more curious than they had for weeks. Some even tell me they played better than before. I have heard this story so many times that I no longer find the outcome surprising. What still surprises me is how difficult it is for musicians to believe it before they experience it themselves.

The exercise itself is simple. The difficult part is not taking one day off. The difficult part is giving ourselves permission to do it without guilt. That, perhaps, is what musicians are really learning.

 Deliberate practice requires recovery – Peak by Anders Ericsson

From my experience - the lesson I learnt in Gothenburg

On my very first lesson in Sweden after completing my studies in Poland, my professor gave me a single page of music and asked me to prepare it for the following week. I practised every note until I knew the page by heart and arrived expecting another assignment. Instead, after the lesson, he handed me exactly the same page and simply said, ’See you next week.’ The same thing happened again the following week. By the third week, I genuinely did not know what to do with myself.

For the first time in years, I had free time – and I had absolutely no idea how to use it. 

By the third week, I felt completely lost.

For the first time in my life, I had time that wasn’t already planned around practising. The conservatoire was full of beautiful practice rooms, available from morning until evening. Back in Poland, I had often arrived before sunrise just to secure a room before everyone else. Now I could walk into the academy almost at any time and find an empty studio waiting for me.

Instead of enjoying that freedom, I panicked.

I started looking for more repertoire, extra projects and additional technical exercises. I convinced myself that I should be doing more. Sleeping eight hours suddenly felt excessive. Taking a longer lunch felt irresponsible. Even reading a book made me feel guilty because every minute away from the cello seemed like a minute lost.

Looking back now, I realise that nothing around me was creating that pressure. It was entirely inside my own head. I had spent so many years believing that productivity meant practising that I no longer knew how to recognise growth when it happened in any other way.

Eventually, I admitted all of this to my professor.

He listened quietly. Then he smiled. My professor looked at me and said something I have never forgotten.

’Technically, you can already play everything,’ he said. ’Now we need to learn what you’re going to say when you play.’ 

For a moment, I genuinely didn’t know how to respond.

For more than 20 years, my life had revolved around the cello. That had always been my choice. Yet suddenly I realised that while I had spent years learning how to produce beautiful sounds, I had given myself very little time to collect the experiences those sounds were supposed to express.

Music had become my whole life. Perhaps that was exactly the problem.

Living became part of my practice

After that conversation, I stopped seeing rest as something that interrupted my development and began seeing it as something that supported it. I started spending more time with friends, travelling without feeling guilty, reading books unrelated to music and allowing myself to enjoy ordinary moments without constantly thinking about the next rehearsal. Slowly, I realised that everything I experienced outside the practice room somehow found its way back into my playing.

The greatest surprise was that I didn’t become a worse musician. If anything, I became a more complete one.

My technique hadn’t disappeared. My discipline hadn’t vanished. What changed was something much harder to teach. I became more curious, more emotionally available and more connected to the music I was performing. For the first time, I understood that practising develops our technique, but living gives that technique something worth communicating.

Looking back today, I no longer believe that practising more automatically makes us better musicians. I believe becoming a better musician also means becoming a fuller human being. 

The holiday paradox

Every summer I notice the same pattern. Concert seasons come to an end, families finally plan a holiday together, and musicians quietly pack one extra thing alongside their suitcase: their instrument.

The intention is completely understandable. We tell ourselves we only need to practise a little. An important audition is coming. A new programme needs preparing. There is a recital shortly after we return. Before long, what was supposed to be a holiday starts looking remarkably similar to everyday life, only in a different location.

Sometimes I ask musicians to imagine another profession. Picture someone sitting beside a swimming pool, answering work emails for two hours every morning while the rest of the family enjoys their holiday. Most people would probably smile and say, ’They really need to switch off.’ We call it workaholism. Yet when a musician spends the same holiday practising every day, we often call it dedication.

Of course, there are periods when practising during a holiday is unavoidable. Professional life is not always flexible. But perhaps the better question is not whether we practise on holiday. Perhaps it is whether we ever truly allow ourselves to recover. If we never do, we should not be surprised when one season begins to feel exactly like the previous one. 

The ability to work is not enough. One must also know how to rest – Pablo Casals

 Why we feel guilty when we rest

The greatest obstacle to recovery is rarely time. It is guilt.

Many musicians have spent decades linking their self-worth to productivity. A day without practising feels like a day without progress. If yesterday’s concert did not go well, the guilt becomes even stronger. Instead of allowing ourselves to recover, we instinctively reach for the instrument, convinced that another few hours will somehow repair what happened on stage.

Psychology offers a simple explanation for this. When a behaviour has been rewarded for many years, it gradually becomes part of our identity. Practising is no longer just something we do, it becomes evidence that we are hardworking, disciplined and committed.

Rest, on the other hand, feels uncomfortable because it seems to challenge that identity. We begin to confuse resting with becoming lazy, even though the two have nothing in common.

Perhaps that is why changing this habit is so difficult. We are not simply changing our schedule. We are changing a belief we have carried since childhood: that a good musician is the one who practises the most. The truth is rather different. A good musician is someone who knows how to keep growing for an entire lifetime.

 Many musicians have spent decades linking their self-worth to productivity

Recovery is also mental training

When people hear the words mental training, they often think about stage fright or performance anxiety. Those skills are certainly important, but they represent only a small part of what mental training can offer. 

Many of the musicians I work with come to me because they want to perform better. We talk about balance, perfectionism and the constant feeling that whatever they do is never quite enough. We talk about learning to trust themselves instead of constantly chasing one more hour of practice. Ironically, this often leads not only to better wellbeing but also to better performances.

Mental training is not about helping musicians survive concerts. It is about helping them build careers they can still enjoy 20, 30 or even 40 years from now. 

Rethinking what it means to practise

Many professionals still approach the instrument exactly as they did when they were 14 years old. They begin every session with the same long warm-up, repeat technical exercises they have played for decades and often separate ’technique’ from ’music’ as though they were two different worlds.

Experience teaches us something different.

A professional musician does not need to prove every morning that they can play scales or études. Technique does not disappear overnight. Instead, technical work can become part of the repertoire itself. Difficult passages become today’s études. Sound production becomes part of shaping a phrase. Intonation is refined while creating music rather than before music begins. As musicians mature, practice should become more intelligent rather than simply longer.

Perhaps growing as an artist also means allowing our practice to grow up with us. 

It is not stress itself that harms performance, but the absence of adequate recovery – The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal

The most important thing we practise isn’t technique

Many musicians come to me convinced that they need better concentration, stronger confidence or another strategy to reduce performance anxiety. Sometimes that is true. But very often, after listening to them play, I realise that the problem is not their technique at all.

Some of my clients send me recordings made at home before an important competition. They play beautifully. Their sound is expressive, their intonation secure and their musical ideas are clear. Then they walk onto the stage of a major international competition and suddenly something changes. It is not because they have forgotten how to play. Their technique has not disappeared overnight.

What changes is their willingness to trust what they already know.

After years of working with musicians, I have become convinced that one of the most important things we practise is not another shift, another bow stroke or another fingering. We practise the ability to perform at our real level when it matters most. We practise trusting ourselves under pressure. That kind of practice cannot be measured in hours alone.

Learning when not to practise

Looking back now, I often return to the conversation that inspired this article: ’I haven’t had a proper week off in ten years.’

At the time, I thought my friend was describing an unusually demanding career. Now I realise she was describing something much more common. She was describing a culture that many musicians have inherited: a culture that celebrates hard work but rarely teaches recovery, that rewards discipline but rarely talks about sustainability.

Hard work will always be part of becoming a musician. It should be. Discipline, persistence and commitment are qualities worth protecting. But perhaps professionalism is not measured only by how hard we can work. Perhaps it is also measured by how wisely we recover, how well we look after ourselves and whether we build careers that we can still enjoy decades from now.

Looking back, I no longer believe that becoming a better musician is only about learning how to practise. I believe it is also about learning when not to.

Today, I still work hard. I still love practising.

But I also love walking with my family, travelling, reading books and allowing myself to experience life away from my instrument.

Years ago, I thought those things were taking time away from my music. Now I know they have become part of it. 

Perhaps becoming a better musician is not only about learning how to practise. Perhaps it is also about creating a life that gives you something worth saying when you play.

Joanna Latała is a Polish-born cellist and researcher specialising in mental training for musicians. Based in Scandinavia, she has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall and Berliner Philharmonie. In 2023, she founded the platform Achieve Performance Mindset, where she shares insights on performance psychology to help musicians build mental resilience.