Interleaved practice, part 2

ShiroKuro

I have a piece I'm trying to polish, and I think interleaved practice might be the solution, so I hope it's ok to resurrect the discussion that @Animisha started a few weeks ago...

I just read MG's article on interleaved practice, here:
https://mollygebrian.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/javs-article.pdf

Based on that, I don't think we should assume that interleaved practice means you're playing an entire piece, or switching between pieces (as some people suggested in the other thread).

Instead, I think interleaved practice can also be, or maybe is best, focused on chunks within one piece. So say you have a piece, and measures 12 thru 20 are a little rough, or you can't play that part consistently well. Well, the blocked practice method means you practice that section for 5 times in a row (or however many times). Of you'll get better with each repetition, and by the time you're on your last repetition, it will be pretty solid. But the point is, when playing the piece, you only play that part once through (in the context of playing the whole piece). You don't have five repetitions to get it right.

MG suggests starting with blocked practice until you can basically play the section. Then move to interleaved.

So interleaved practice is, you play measures 12-20 once. You have one shot to get it right. Say you're working on the coda, well, you stop, and play m12-20. Once. That's it. If it doesn't go well, make a note (write it down) but don't work on it right then. Go back to working on the coda. Later, play m12-20 again.

Over time, you will get better at playing m12-20 on the first try. (If you're skeptical or think this is a bad explanation, read the article I linked above).

Now, to my question. I have this piece, it's 66 measures long (5 pages?). And I have some "random mistakes" (quotations bc I know there's any argument that there's no such thing as a random mistake)>

I can play the entire piece all the way through, at tempo. And sometimes I play almost perfectly; other times, there are lots of mistakes.

But for any section where there I make mistakes, if I zoom in on that section and do blocked practice, very quickly, I'm playing it correctly on each repetition.

So, how can I set up an interleaved practice approach to this piece? Obviously earlier in the learning stages, there will be natural spots to zero in on. But this piece is learned, I just want to go through and tighten it across the whole piece.

Here are some ideas, does anyone have others?

On index cards, write down sections (i.e., "measures 8-16" etc). Shuffle. Pick a card, start there, play it once, move on.
On index cards, write down 1-66 (one card per measure). Shuffle. Pick a card, start there. Play that section once, move one.
(and then maybe set up a "spaced repetition" style feedback loop where, anytime it doesn't go well, that card gets returned to soon...)

What do you think of these ideas? What others I might try?

Ithaca

ShiroKuro I was thinking about your exact question last night, after I finished watching Gebrian’s blocked vs random practice video. I realized that I’ve done the equivalent of random practice for every major presentation or test that I did well on, and that 50% of my children’s instruction time over two sports is random practice (b/c the instructors are literally making up their instructions on the fly).

I think the way to hew closest to what I know works well would be your #2.

However, I am curious if a modification would make it more effective, or completely mess things up in the short- or medium-term. Essentially, if your scores are digitized, could you clip images of individual measures/groups of measures/phrases, and have them flash up on the screen in a randomly generated order?

This is essentially what I would do when I was preparing to give a presentation - b/c anyone could ask me a question at any time, I had to be able to stop the presentation, answer the question (and perhaps tie it in to something I wanted to say later on), and then get back to where I’d been interrupted with some fluidity. So I had to be able to restart and present sections in almost any order, and omit portions, too, so I wouldn’t be repeating myself. I would only start preparing this way once I had the overall flow laid out and could give the presentation as planned decently well, so maybe at the stage where you’re at in your piece. If I had started this too early, it would have messed up my ability to figure out what to say, how to say it, and the ideal order to say it in. (Piano context: ideal is the piece exactly as written.)

For my children’s sports, you might think of them as needing to know perhaps 80 different elements (maybe the equivalent of arpeggios or chords, key signatures, and techniques - staccato, legato, rubato, then pedaling, and volume) that can be combined in almost any way. The instructor will stand there, think for a moment, and then rattle off a list of elements, with directions on how to combine them, where to turn, etc. AFAIK, it rarely is planned - the instructor is more or less functioning as a random number generator at this point. Sometimes depending on where the kids are at (is someone struggling with an element or combining particular elements? Having a crappy day?) the instructors might change the mix or order of easy/hard elements, but I think that’s the only obvious consideration.

Thinking about this made me wonder if my piano teacher (30+ years ago) was more or less doing the same with me. She would point to a measure or phrase, ask me to play it, point to another one, etc. Sometimes she would point to a section, and then ask me to play it first loud, then soft, then one hand staccato & the other legato, then switch, change the tempo, and listen to how it sounded different, try to bring out one hand vs the other, then ask me what I thought about it all. I always thought she was trying to get me to listen, and understand how I could take a piece and make it sound so different/completely change the mood by making seemingly small changes. But now I’m thinking that she was also essentially having me execute random practice during the lesson.

I’m also wondering if sight-reading at the right level is sort of the ultimate random practice.

Sorry, long answer to a short question - I haven’t stopped thinking about this since I watched the video. So fascinating.

JB_PT

Personally...just because I don't like wasting paper, I'd probably use a random number generator instead of index cards.

I'm not sure specifying individual measures is the way to go...maybe phrases would be better?

MG references 2 different plans for this style of practice, at this particular stage. Either you identify a list of trouble spots and go through them sequentially (or randomly) trying to get (for ex.) 5 perfect 'initial' run-throughs, or you break up your piece into sections and while practicing other music, you have an interval timer go off and then you stop what you are doing and play through one of those sections cold. It seems like it might be good to go through the first one and then try the second?

I'm definitely interested in hearing how this goes for you. I'm not a performer so I'm not sure I'll be doing this anytime soon, but I did just start experimenting with her 'interleaved clicking up' the last few days and I'm hoping to see some benefits from that. It's a very different way of working for me!

ShiroKuro

JB_PT I don't like wasting paper, I'd probably use a random number generator instead of index cards.

Well, one benefit of using cards is that it would allow you to more easily set aside the ones for sections/measures that didn't go well to return for later practice. (Again this is like the spaced repetition approach).

I might just do the measure number cards, then they can be used for any piece, but when the measure comes up, you either start there, or you back up a measure or two to start at the phrase... maybe....

JB_PT

JB_PT I don't like wasting paper

Sorry...that sounded a little judgy! I know not everyone likes to use 'devices' when they are practicing. The other reason I wouldn't use paper is because I'm lazy and I wouldn't want to set up that many index cards. 😄

ShiroKuro

I'm ok with judgy! 😃

Re lazy, me too, that's why I like the idea of just number cards, because you only have to make them once and then they can be used with any score.

ShiroKuro

Ithaca I’m also wondering if sight-reading at the right level is sort of the ultimate random practice.

My first thought was, oh yeah, definitely!! But then I remembered that there is a huge difference in the skill set needed for true sightreading compared to interleaved practice of a piece I know from a score I know... But sightreading could still be seen as interleaved practice, it's just a different kind of practice...

I agree, it's fascinating to think about these things.

BartK

I also started doing interleaved practice and for me it works extremely well. Here is what I do:

I split the piece into larger sections about one or two pages each but this will vary depending on the piece. I will focus on each section for a few days at a time and make a point NOT to even play through any other sections during that time. It's important to let the other sections rest.
Split each section into small manageable chunks of about one phrase or idea. I like to have 4-6 chunks per section and I have cards marked 1-6.
On day 1 shuffle the cards and pick one at random then do a 5 times perfect repetition of that section. Then pick another card, and so on until you picked all the cards. Then shuffle the cards and repeat. I call going through all the cards a "set" and I do 2 or 3 sets like these.
On day 2 shuffle the cards and lay them out in a line facing up. Then, play each section in the order written on the cards. If you played it correctly put a token on that card (I use poker chips but it can be anything) and move to the next section. If you make a mistake remove all the tokens from that card. Your goal is to get 5 tokens on all sections. This is similar to 5-times-perfect but interleaved between several sections at the same time. MG describes this technique in one of her September challenge videos. I also do 2 or 3 sets of these.
On the next day put all the chunks together. If you can play the whole section then you can practice playing the whole section at once, otherwise you practice putting chunks together in an overlapping fashion: 1+2, then 2+3, then 3+4, etc. You practice playing these in 5-times-perfect sets with a little break of 10-15 seconds between each repetition.
Repeat step 5 for 1 or 2 days until you can basically play the whole section perfect on the first attempt. Then put that section away and don't touch it at all as you work on the other sections.

This process is pretty time consuming but I like that I always have a very clear plan of what I want to achieve and objective critera for when the goal is reached.

BartK

Here are videos where some of these ideas are described: