Check out the jugglers of Bryant Park Juggling. Juggling is a great example of practicing in real time without stopping. Like jugglers, musicians have to loop sequences of motions until they can ‘do it.’ And: You have to do it in order to be able to do it! 🙂 However, it’s not only important to improvise and repeat patterns. It is equally important to reflect about the (finite) mathematical options involved and to try them out practically. Applied to music this means: thinking about the number of possible permutations of rhythms, melodic and harmonic structures, the possibilities and combinations etc. In other words: music theory and improvisation!

Long live trial and error: fake it ’til you make it! Long live thinking, mathematics and music theory!