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Who really said it

Amateurs Practice Until They Get It Right; Professionals Practice Until They Can't Get It Wrong

Not Julie Andrews — an anonymous proverb from music teaching Anonymous In print by 1944 · recorded, uncredited, by Sir Percy C. Buck
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The full “amateur / professional” form appears in Psychology for Musicians (Oxford University Press, 1944), where the organist and London professor Percy C. Buck sets it down as one of two ready-made “definitions” he did not claim as his own. Quote Investigator, which traced the saying through newspapers, textbooks and quotation newsletters, concludes it was circulating by 1944 with an anonymous originator. The Julie Andrews credit is a much later graft: the earliest instance QI documents is a 1996 newspaper interview in which someone else said she had said it.

Last verified 8 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Amateurs Practice Until They Get It Right; Professionals Practice Until They Can't Get It Wrong” Anonymous proverb, in print by 1944 — not Julie Andrews. Percy C. Buck recorded it in Psychology for Musicians (Oxford University Press, 1944, p. 102) as an anonymous definition: "An amateur practises until he can do a thing right, a professional until he can't do it wrong." Quote Investigator finds the originator unknown; the Julie Andrews credit is first documented in 1996. Via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Julie Andrews. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of work, growth and success. Theme: "Amateurs Practice Until They Get It Right; Professionals Practice Until They Can't Get It Wrong". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Amateurs Practice Until They Get It Right; Professionals Practice Until They Can't Get It Wrong". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the saying actually appears

Earliest full version
Psychology for Musicians
Recorded by
Sir Percy C. Buck — Oxford University Press, London, 1944, page 102
Earliest precursor
Michigan School Moderator, 20 March 1902 — George W. Loomis on teaching spelling
Julie Andrews credit
First documented 1996, second-hand, in a newspaper interview

What is the real difference between a professional and an amateur? Does not your mind immediately turn to the shallow explanation of money-payments? Two definitions have been made which may help you to think deeper than that: “An amateur can be satisfied with knowing a fact; a professional must know the reason why.” “An amateur practises until he can do a thing right, a professional until he can’t do it wrong.” Psychology for Musicians, 1944, p. 102

Buck introduces the pair as definitions that “have been made” — a passive construction that credits nobody, which is why Quote Investigator, which verified this page on paper, treats the saying as anonymous rather than as Buck’s own. The British “practises” and the slightly stiff “can do a thing right” also mark this as older and rougher than the slogan quoted today.

Scanned book
Psychology for Musicians (Oxford University Press, 1944) at the Internet Archive
Quote Investigator: the full citation trail, 1902 to 2013

How the saying travelled

  • 1902 — the precursor, and it is about spelling. Quote Investigator’s earliest evidence is a talk by the superintendent George W. Loomis in the Michigan School Moderator, arguing that class time spent letting children “guess till they get it right” should instead go to “a definite teaching process, until they can not get it wrong” (Quote Investigator ↗).
  • 1944 — the full amateur/professional form, credited to nobody. Percy C. Buck sets both halves down in Psychology for Musicians, page 102, as a received definition rather than his own coinage. The page was verified on paper by Quote Investigator ↗, which adds that it examined a 1946 impression rather than a 1944 first printing; the volume itself sits at the Internet Archive ↗, lending-only, so the page cannot be read there without borrowing it.
  • 1971 — the modern wording, from a piano competition. The Winnipeg Free Press of 6 March quotes the adjudicator Kenneth van Barthold at the Manitoba Music Competition Festival: “An amateur practices until he gets it right; a professional practices until he can’t get it wrong” (Quote Investigator ↗).
  • 1996 — Julie Andrews enters, second-hand. A Carnegie Mellon choral professor tells a Norfolk newspaper that Andrews “once said” it. That report is the oldest Andrews credit anyone has documented, and it rests on nothing further (Barry Popik’s parallel research ↗ does not mention her at all).

No rights status can honestly be asserted, because the popular wording has no identifiable author or first publication: Quote Investigator’s conclusion is that the saying was circulating by 1944 with an anonymous originator, and the 1971 newspaper phrasing closest to today’s slogan is a competition adjudicator’s spoken remark, not a claimed composition. The one fixed text here — Buck’s 1944 Psychology for Musicians — is itself a 1944 Oxford University Press volume and so remains in copyright in the United States; quoting its single sentence is fair use, but the book is not public domain.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Two names, both late, neither documented

The line has no known author, which is exactly why it keeps acquiring famous ones. Two have stuck hard enough to be traceable — and both arrive half a century after the saying was already in print.

Julie Andrews No supporting evidence

The earliest Andrews credit Quote Investigator documents is second-hand and dates to 3 October 1996, when Robert Page, Professor of Music and Director of Choral Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, told The Virginian-Pilot: “Julie Andrews once said an amateur rehearses until he gets it right… A professional rehearses until he can’t get it wrong” (Quote Investigator ↗). That is a report of a report. No interview, memoir or documented statement by Andrews herself has been produced, and Wikiquote’s Andrews page ↗ does not carry the line in any section.

Harold Craxton Credited, undocumented

In April 1994 the quotation researcher Nigel Rees printed the adage in his ‘Quote … Unquote’ newsletter as “quoted by Harold Craxton, one-time professor at the Royal Academy of Music” (Quote Investigator ↗). “Quoted by” is not “coined by,” and Barry Popik notes the Craxton claim still needs documentation ↗.

Quote-aggregator sites Garbled in transit

The version that circulates under her name is not even stable. AZQuotes ↗ prints it as “Professionals practice until it can’t go wrong” and credits Julie Andrews with no source of any kind — a reminder that the popular text is a smoothed-over slogan, not a transcription of anything anyone is recorded as saying.

The complete amateur/professional saying was already in a London textbook in 1944, presented there as an anonymous definition, and Quote Investigator’s verdict after tracing it back to 1902 is that its originator was anonymous ↗.

Context

Why it landed on her

The saying lives where it was born: in practice rooms and rehearsal halls. Almost every citation Quote Investigator turns up before 1988 comes from teaching or performance coaching — a school superintendent on spelling drills in 1902, a swimming manual in 1922, a music professor’s textbook in 1944, an orchestra conductor in 1963, a piano-competition adjudicator in March 1971, a theatre reviewer that November. QI’s own summary is that the line has been “particularly popular in the music domain”. It is shop-floor wisdom, the kind of line that circulates for decades without anyone bothering to ask who said it first.

Julie Andrews is what happens next. A saying with no owner drifts toward the most famous person it plausibly fits, and few people fit “practise until you can’t get it wrong” better than a soprano celebrated for immaculate technique. The 1996 newspaper instance shows exactly how the graft happens: a professor of choral studies reaches for the adage, hangs a name on it to give it weight, and the name sticks. Harold Craxton had been given the same treatment two years earlier.

An amateur practises until he can do a thing right, a professional until he can’t do it wrong.

The paper trail, 1902 to 1996

1902. The earliest evidence Quote Investigator locates is a precursor, and it is about spelling, not music: the superintendent George W. Loomis, in the Michigan School Moderator of 20 March 1902, complains that classroom time is spent hearing children “guess till they get it right” when it should go to “a definite teaching process, until they can not get it wrong.”

1922. The distinctive second half surfaces in a swimming manual, advising the reader to drill the breast-stroke coordination on land “until you cannot get it wrong.”

1944. Buck prints the complete amateur/professional pairing in Psychology for Musicians, page 102, as an anonymous definition. Note the British inflection — “practises,” “can do a thing right” — against the smoother modern slogan; the version quoted today is a later polish, not a transcription.

1971, twice. The wording most people now recognise appears in the Winnipeg Free Press of 6 March, spoken by the adjudicator Kenneth van Barthold at the Manitoba Music Competition Festival: “An amateur practices until he gets it right; a professional practices until he can’t get it wrong.” Eight months later the same paper carries the theatre version, in Peter Crossley’s review of a University of Winnipeg production on 11 November: “an amateur rehearses until he gets it right but a professional rehearses until he can’t get it wrong.” That is where the verb rehearses enters the record — unowned, and twenty-five years before the Andrews credit uses the same word.

1994 and 1996. Two names arrive late and from outside. Nigel Rees’s newsletter attaches Harold Craxton to it; two years later a Carnegie Mellon professor attaches Julie Andrews.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Work Growth Success

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: the full citation trailquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Traces the saying from an 1902 spelling-lesson precursor through Buck 1944 to the 1996 Julie Andrews credit, and concludes the originator is anonymous.
Psychology for Musicians (1944), Percy C. Buckarchive.org

Internet Archive catalogue record for the Oxford University Press volume in which the earliest full version of the saying appears, at page 102.
Barry Popik on ‘practice until you can’t get it wrong’barrypopik.com

The lexicographer whose citations QI credits. Records the 1963 Iowa newspaper instance and notes that the Harold Craxton credit still needs documentation.
Percy Bucken.wikipedia.org

Biography of the man who first printed the saying: 1871–1947, Harrow, Trinity College Dublin, University of London, and Psychology for Musicians among his books.
Julie Andrews (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

The quotation reference site’s Andrews page — useful chiefly for what is absent: the practice adage appears nowhere on it, sourced or otherwise.
Julie Andrewsen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the performer the line is popularly pinned on: born Julia Elizabeth Wells, 1 October 1935, Walton-on-Thames.

Earliest full version in print

The professor who wrote it down — and never claimed it

Sir Percy C. Buck

1871–1947 · English organist, teacher and Professor of Music, University of London

Sir Percy Carter Buck (25 March 1871 – 3 October 1947) was an English organist and teacher who ran the music at Harrow School for more than a quarter-century, held chairs at Trinity College Dublin and the University of London, and was knighted in 1937. His late book Psychology for Musicians (1944) is the earliest place Quote Investigator finds the saying in its familiar amateur-versus-professional shape. Buck does not claim it, and the page shows why: he introduces it as one of “two definitions [that] have been made” — a passive that credits nobody, a piece of received teaching-room wisdom he is passing on rather than coining. Quote Investigator puts it no more strongly either: “Buck did not take credit for the saying which was presented as an anonymous definition.”

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest full version

Percy C. Buck, Psychology for Musicians (London: Oxford University Press, 1944), 102 — where the saying is given as an unattributed definition. Attribution history traced in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Amateurs Practice Until They Get It Right; Professionals Practice Until They Can’t Get It Wrong,” 29 August 2013.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Amateurs Practice Until They Get It Right; Professionals Practice Until They Can't Get It Wrong’?” Last verified 8 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/amateurs-practice-until-they-get-it-right-professionals/

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