Without Practice, Cannot Tune the Strings

CORE DEFINITION

A line from the Book of Rites holding that without first learning the basic practice of tuning the strings, one cannot settle into playing well. Its core proposition is that skills form a hierarchy in which advanced performance rests on automated fundamentals, so when high-level work falters the cause is often an unstable base rather than a defect in the advanced technique. The qualifier is that this applies to genuine skill hierarchies rather than to every difficulty.