Deep Practice - Peak Performance

The science of Musical Learning

Why do some practice hours transform your playing—while others feel wasted, or even make things worse?

In Deep Practice – Peak Performance: The Science of Musical Learning, Kristian Steenstrup brings together neuroscience, sports psychology, and music pedagogy to explain how musical skill is built, why it sometimes collapses under pressure, and how to make performance more reliable.
The book moves from the biology of learning—how training reshapes brain networks—to the real craft of practice: designing deliberate practice, progressing through learning stages, balancing explicit and implicit strategies, and protecting your playing when nerves hit. Along the way, it connects core musician skills—singing, audiation, and the audio–motor loop—to concrete methods such as solfège, mental imagery, attentional focus, chunking, interleaving, varied practice, and “implicit learning” tools borrowed from elite sport and adapted for the rehearsal room and the stage.
In this 2nd Revised Edition, the text has been expanded with musician- and teacher-specific key takeaways that clarify the main points and translate research into action.
Whether you’re preparing auditions, rebuilding technique, or teaching others to learn faster and perform freer, Deep Practice – Peak Performance is a science-informed guide to making practice more efficient—and performance more dependable.