Ten times in a row!

Animisha · 2024-08-22T07:33:15+00:00

Molly Gebrian says that if you want to fix a mistake in a passage, and you practise it playing both correctly and incorrectly, you reinforce both the good an...

Sophia

I haven't finished the book yet ^_^ But I watched a Jazer Lee video where he recommended 7 times in a row. It really works... but I too only take one bar at the time because more than that becomes impossible to do right so many times 😃

@Josephine I have had that experience too, where a passage just seems so illogical to my puny brain that no matter what I try, the "correct" pathway just doesn't seem to want to be formed! What worked for me (in the end) was not to play the next note until I was able to get correctly... what I mean is I'd pause until I was SURE which note would come next and then play it. Not before... even if it would take a full minute to prepare my brain. And suddenly after a few days it would speed up after all. With the correct note for a change 😃

I really should proceed with reading the book 🙂 I'm about one third in now...

BartK

Sophia I have had that experience too, where a passage just seems so illogical to my puny brain that no matter what I try, the "correct" pathway just doesn't seem to want to be formed! What worked for me (in the end) was not to play the next note until I was able to get correctly... what I mean is I'd pause until I was SURE which note would come next and then play it. Not before... even if it would take a full minute to prepare my brain. And suddenly after a few days it would speed up after all. With the correct note for a change 😃

This is exactly what my teacher told me to do when I was just begining. It does work! 🙂

Animisha

BartK For example, let's say you make 10 incorrect reps in a row and then 10 correct ones in a row. The total comes out to zero.

True! However, instead of blindly following this system, you could be more intelligent about it.

BartK If you keep making mistakes and reseting to zero

... then you should either play the passage more slowly, or reduce the number of notes involved. Play it safe! Make sure that you have a good chance of playing correctly ten times in a row. Once you have done that, take a break, do something else, and then either play just a bit faster, or add one note.

ranjit

I sometimes feel like repetitions aren't the best benchmark. There's a certain feeling you have when you "get it", when it clicks in your mind, and sometimes doing too many repetitions in a row feels like it influences your concentration and gets you out of that zone.

It's like how desperately writing something down ten times in a row won't necessarily mean it'll be remembered for a test and might even be counterproductive. Sometimes it's better to just really focus, understand it once and move on.

But I can't think of a formula for this.

thepianoplayer416

Playing something correctly is both a technical exercise as well as listening exercise.

Repeating a passage means reinforcing muscle memory to do it correctly over & over. And being an active listener you'd know what the correct version sounds like and be able to tell if you did something wrong right away like when you missed a note or the notes are too far off the beat sort of thing.

Gombessa

I think generally it's a very good idea! Like others, I think "10 times in a row" is more shorthand than rule. You want to get to the point where you are not making the mistake, and start reinforcing the correct tone/feel/timing/muscle memory so that you don't immediately revert back to the habit of the mistake.

I think after that, my own tactic is to stop for 30 seconds (I usually check email on my phone), and then go back to it and try another 5-10 times. Then, I move on. At the end of the practice session, I'll go back to that passage and get it down another 3 times. If I don't get it right all 3 times, I don't stress about it. It just a signal that I have to do the same thing next practice session. After 2-3 days, the passage does come together, and it's harder to play it wrong than to play it right.

But the core idea remains: practice it slower, break it up so you are going note by note or half-measure at a time, until you aren't making the mistake, and drill that correct playing until it can become a habit.

iternabe

So, does it follow that during practice, once you hit a wrong note, you should stop and correct it immediately because continue on without correction would be forming muscle memory?

Maybe only after you can play a passage without wrong note but occasionally hit one wrong should you continue without correction, provided that you are aware of the mistake and is capable to right it in the next repeat?

And, if you hit the same note wrong consecutively in 2 repeats, it's time to stop and figure out why and how to correct before it becomes a habit?

Gombessa

iternabe So, does it follow that during practice, once you hit a wrong note, you should stop and correct it immediately because continue on without correction would be forming muscle memory?

My personal take is that there are many ways to practice, and what's right for one person isn't always right for everyone. And sometimes you practice to focus on things other than just hitting the right note, so I wouldn't grind everything to a halt to focus exclusively on that.

I don't usually follow my own advice above, either. Oftentimes I'll just try to make a mental note where I notice I'm frequently hitting a wrong note, and see if it's something I can correct organically over the week. If that doesn't work, I might then take 15 minutes of a specific session just to address that passage. It depends. For me, being note-perfect isn't really my top goal (since I'm rarely good enough to do it anyways!).

But if your focus for a session is on correcting a nagging mistake, then yes, I think it's very good idea to stop, break the habit, and just drill the right note.

ranjit

iternabe So, does it follow that during practice, once you hit a wrong note, you should stop and correct it immediately because continue on without correction would be forming muscle memory?

Make sure not to make a habit of abruptly stopping at that point, though. That can cause hesitations during the performance.

Animisha

iternabe So, does it follow that during practice, once you hit a wrong note, you should stop and correct it immediately because continue on without correction would be forming muscle memory?

My take on this is that one random mistake is just random, and when you have played this correctly many times, and you play it correctly immediately afterwards, it is not necessary to make a big deal out of it.

iternabe And, if you hit the same note wrong consecutively in 2 repeats, it's time to stop and figure out why and how to correct before it becomes a habit?

Yes!

danno858

This sounds a lot like the theory presented in Scales Bootcamp - a great book for learning scales and keys

BKN1964

Josephine Regarding taking a break between repetitions: I've read studies that show this is a very important part of the process. Even if just taking a few seconds to reset and refocus between repetitions. Not just banging out repetitions back-to-back.

Josephine

BKN1964 Regarding taking a break between repetitions: I've read studies that show this is a very important part of the process. Even if just taking a few seconds to reset and refocus between repetitions. Not just banging out repetitions back-to-back.

It's true, I always do this and it works to memorize faster.

TC3

ranjit Strongly agree with this. I make myself continue for at least another measure or two and stop intentionally. Otherwise I'm developing the "crash & burn" habit of performing ...

Stub

Pallas, I haven't viewed the videos yet, but interesting hypothesis on the difference between home and lesson playing, and the reason why slow practice is useful. For me, at least, nerves at the lesson are likely to always be a nagging presence, but I've long thought that not knowing the piece deeply, i.e., beyond muscle memory, is a big part of the problem.

It always takes me a few minutes to adjust to the piano in my teacher's studio, but at least it's an acoustic. The bench is usually not adjustable, either, which a a pain.

ranjit

Pallas Can you practice on different pianos somehow?

ranjit

Pallas If you have any friends who have pianos, or public pianos, those could be useful too. You just need to play your piece once or twice on a different piano to see how you can adjust.

TC3

Pallas But now I have a new hypothesis: I have learned my pieces ONLY with muscle memory, and my muscle memory is deeply encoded to my own piano.

This really rings true for me as well. It's not just the piano, either. It's the environment. Even the light in one room rather than another can make a piano feel very different. That's a problem that I suspect a lot of hobbyists such as myself suffer from: playing on the same piano in the same space 99% of the time. If that's right, then it makes sense that playing on lots of different pianos in lots of different places is the cure.

thepianoplayer416

When it comes to mistakes, we don't always notice them unless we hear a sound recording of the piece we're playing or someone else like a teacher or a person who played the same piece before points out the mistakes to us.

Being consistent in your playing can mean you're consistently right or wrong.

Animisha

For me, the big take-away of ten times in a row, is that when I make a mistake, I practise much, much smaller sections.

Previously, I thought it would be good to fix the mistake in its context of a whole phrase, or at least two-three measures, both with notes preceding the mistake-note, and notes following it. What happened was that sometimes I played the whole phrase correctly, sometimes I still made the same mistake, and sometimes I made another mistake! 😝

No wonder why this was working so badly for me, and I was struggling, struggling with mistakes!

Now I play just a few notes before the mistake, and stop at the mistake. If I find that this is still difficult, I turn my metronome down so I have a very good shot at playing ten times in a row correctly, and then slowly increase the tempo.

lilypad

Animisha Yes! I used to do what you did previously. 10 times in a row was too tedious for that, so I'd settle for 3 more good attempts than failed attempts. I'm still intimidated by 10 times, but now I've increased to 5 times, (using BartK's counter system, and on just the area close to the mistake. On the last repetition or perhaps right after the last one, I'll play with the rest of the section to make sure it's still fixed in context.