Tiny Habits™ for Practicing Musicians (and their Kids)

by Ari • 4 May 2020 — 3 minute read

Getting Yourself (or Your Kids!) to Practice Without Nagging or Guilt-tripping

Practicing – or even just playing – your instrument ideally is a joyful activity you look forward to. And often when you have gigs on the books, tours coming up, recording dates, auditions on the horizon – motivation will be super high and long days of practicing will fly by.

Maybe your musical diary is not quite filled with the above items (yet!) or maybe that’s not even your goal. Or maybe you had a full calendar and are now under shelter-in-place orders (never thought I’d say those words!) and the days are just blending one into the next. You can’t even see your teacher for lessons.

So, how do you keep your practicing routines strong when motivation fails?

Tiny Habits™ method to the rescue! Don’t wait for inspiration to hit. Don’t wait for motivation to magically appear. Instead, follow a powerful, scientifically proven, three-step formula, and make it a habit.

As Dr. BJ Fogg, the creator of the method and behavior scientist who runs the Stanford Behavior Design Lab, teaches us: contrary to popular views, habits do not form through repetition, but rather through good feelings. In fact, BJ shares Emotions create habits. (If you have ever given a smartphone to a teenager, you witnessed a habit form instantly – no waiting on the famed “21 days” for the habit to form – that teen and that phone were instantly inseparable!)

I am excited to show you how to use this simple method to create powerful practice habits. As a Tiny Habits™ Certified Coach I am hosting two Tiny Habits Expert Sessions on Saturday, May 9th. I will be talking about creating music practicing habits for kids (say goodbye to nagging!) as well as adults (say goodbye to guilt-tripping!).

Watch now:

Tiny Habits for Tiny Musicians:

How to get little Mozart (or mini Jimi) practicing without nagging, agonizing, or guilt-tripping. Talent is overrated: explore powerful practice habits!

Tiny Habits for Practicing Musicians:

Celebrating the good notes: Bring the joy back to learning music and make practicing your instrument a favorite part of your day!

Other resources:

tinyhabits.com

Tiny Habits – the Book

BJ Fogg interviews Ariane Cap

May I Have Two Minutes of Your Time?

Why Just Keep Playing is not Working

Other Tiny Habits Expert Sessions you may be interested in

Blog Post: How to get kids to practice

I will leave you with this great quote (thanks Shirl!) by Octavia Butler

Subscribe to Newsletter

October 23, 2026

Master the 1235 Bass Line

October 16, 2026

“I Never Practiced. I Just Played.”
(Why That’s Not the Whole Story)

October 9, 2026

Practicing Technique Is Always on the Menu…
Let’s Make It Fun and Musical

September 17, 2026

Do you always have to copy the kick drum as a bassist?

Shop on Amazon

Master the 1235 Bass Line

Master the 1235 bass line 1235 is on my mind today. It came up in a lesson with a student.

Theory and Improv

Ariane Cap
October 16, 2026

“I Never Practiced. I Just Played.”
(Why That’s Not the Whole Story)

“I never practiced. I just played.” Pros and our heroes say this a lot. And they mean it. But it’s

Practicing Hacks

Ariane Cap
October 9, 2026

Practicing Technique Is Always on the Menu…
Let’s Make It Fun and Musical

Bass Technique Practice Made Fun & Musical Practicing bass technique is always on the menu. But it doesn’t have to

Technique

Bassist, author, educator.

Groove enthusiast and learning nerd.

Joined by 15,000+ Bassists

Your Instructor

Hi. I'm Ari.

As a bassist, I have toured/played/recorded with a variety of rock, Jazz, and funk bands, I have worked with some incredible producers (Keith Olsen) and musicians (Paul Hanson, Muriel Anderson) and I toured Brazil with Stu Hamm as a duo.

As a bass teacher, I have taught at London Bass Day, Gerald Veasley’s Bass Boot Camp, SBL, Truefire, notreble… I even ran my own music school for a few years before gigs took me back on the road.

One thing to know about me is that I teach because I am absolutely fascinated with the learning process. And I am obsessed with helping others realize their musical potential.

When I started playing bass, I excelled very quickly because I had an amazing teacher who taught me using a powerful method. This method transformed my playing so quickly that I passed a bunch of high-level university auditions and even tested out of entire classes at university even though I had been playing for only a very short time.

That’s what, many years later turned into one of my books, co-written with Wolf Wein, called “The Pattern System for the Bass Player”. I created entire systems of learning based on some of these ideas and wrote books and created courses together with Wolf. Our bass books have sold over 30,000 copies and garnered rave reviews.

I started teaching online in 2009 and have embraced technology as a powerful learning tool since then, never losing sight of the importance of providing feedback and personalized guidance to learners.

Read more…