One of the things that is said to improve your memory is sleep. I have heard accounts of people working on a passage, and the next morning, after a good night's sleep, almost miraculously, they have improved.

I have never experienced this, and I had started to wonder if something was wrong with me, especially with my sleep. Don't I not sleep enough (I don't usually sleep more than 6.5 hours)? Don't I get enough deep sleep?

However, one of the websites that Molly Gebrian recommends is a blog from pianist Tara Gaertner (http://trainingthemusicalbrain.blogspot.com). And what do I read there?

"Older people are able to improve at a new skill over a practice session, but they show a different pattern from young people when it comes to retaining that skill. When young research volunteers learn a new motor skill, such as a finger-tapping pattern, they improve significantly over a practice period, with a decrease in the number of errors and a gradual increase in speed. When the volunteers come back the next day for a second session, their performance often has improved overnight, without any further practice. This is due to sleep-dependent consolidation, in which our motor skills both improve and become resistant to interference from other memories, while we’re sleeping. People can literally improve their motor skills, such as playing a musical instrument, just by sleeping.

As we age, things start to change. Older adults just don’t show the same between-sessions improvement in motor skills, and in fact their performance on the second day of training on a task starts out much lower than where they left off the day before..."

So nothing is wrong with my sleep! Except, I am older.

Tara Gaertner continues, a bit later:

"In order to counteract the effects of poor declarative memory on motor learning, we should choose practicing strategies that rely more on implicit, procedural memory, strategies based on repetition of the movements we want to learn rather than our cognitive appraisal of the notes and movements required to make them.

The obvious candidate for this type of learning is a technique called errorless learning. This technique suggests that if you can simplify a task somehow so that it can be practiced without making errors (or at least as few as possible), then you engage procedural memory systems, leading to more automatic performance.
[...] In music practice, errorless practice can be achieved by practicing at a slow enough tempo to avoid mistakes in pitch and rhythm."

Very interesting! Since listening to Molly Gebrian's YT series and her Q&A, I am much more focused on avoiding mistakes, and it works. And now I have decided, The first play-through of my Bach piece each morning should be significantly slower than the tempo I reached at the end of the previous day.

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... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...

    I would like top know whether Ms. Gaertner has worked one-on-one with students of different ages, over years, and in close communication with them including how they practice, their sleep patterns, their experiences and so on. I highly suspect that none of these things exist. There will only be studies and studies are limited, restrictive, and artificial.

    I turned 70 this year. An absolute reality of age is that I have just spent a week researching the best options for cataract surgery and physical vision does affect musicking. I'm going back to proprioception after having perfected sight reading. Good body use matters more with increased stiffness.

    I've been looking deeply into alternate ways of practising and learning for close to 20 years now, and have applied a lot of the things I learned. I've known of these principles of rest and sleep for 20 years, long before it started to get discussed, and they have been, and are effective. My ability to learn is far superior to what I had at a younger age because of this. I don't care to know what supposedly I'm not able to do, or do as well, because of what some or several studies state.

    I started this journey close to 25 years ago. That is, I had always done music self-taught, with some hiatuses, but for the learning path. Three years in I started to look at what was being written back then. There was this "hardened wax" theory (my word for it) - after age xx everything you have is in its final shape - my "non-hardened wax" idea is now called neuroplasticity. I'm glad I didn't know what I wasn't supposed to be able to do when I started; such beliefs have always undermined students as it goes to expectations and goals (even of those teaching them).

    There ARE other factors. Manner of learning and teaching - is teaching more intellectual - if a child were taught as some adults are, would the child have the same problems? Why do kids learning a new language in school barely progress, whereas if they are thrown into a new country, they become fluent? Is it because they are being taught in the way adults are taught, by adults?

    When I started a new instrument and with a teacher for the first time, I took the typical trajectory - fast start and sudden crash. Typical adult? Or because of how it was done? The 7 year old doing the RCM gr. 1 exam ahead of me had taken 2 years to get there, as opposed to my 6 months - and at the start of the 2nd year I crashed and didn't recover while mid grade-4 - where this child was probably doing grade 2; properly, slowly, concretely. It was that crash which got me started looking at the whole kaboodle.

    My trust of studies is limited.

      The pianist and musicologist Charles Rosen wrote in his book Piano Notes that when learning a technically difficult piece of piano music, he would often repeat playing a relatively small section many times. He described this work as being so tedious that he would prop a light work of fiction on the music stand and read at the same time. In other words he was merely working on the physical aspect of piano playing and not devoting much in the way of mental energy to it concurrently.
      There's no way I could possibly do this myself, but I thought it was interesting.

      Animisha I want to know what counts as "older" in this study. I am 55 right now... 😅

      Regardless, I try very hard to get good sleep.

      And I too have been trying to increase my "errorless" practice... It's hard but it helps.

          I'm 66, and try as I might, I don't get enough sleep - damn arthritis!
          However, when I practice, if I make more than a very minor occasional mistake, I'm practicing it too fast, and will slow down yet again. As far as I'm concerned though, it's important not to expect 100% flawless playing -ever.

          ShiroKuro I want to know what counts as "older" in this study. I am 55 right now... 😅

          Tara writes this blog in 2017, when her oldest child is 14 years old. She writes: "While my sense of pride wants me to point out that I don't actually fall into the category of "older adult", I'm not as young as I used to be, and clearly that makes a difference in how my memory processes function."

          But I guess the answer is within you. What happens the next day when you practise again a passage that you practised yesterday? Do you see an improvement? Then your brain is still young! ☺️ Or do you start at a lower level? Then your brain is older.

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          ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...

              keystring I would like top know whether Ms. Gaertner has worked one-on-one with students of different ages, over years, and in close communication with them including how they practice, their sleep patterns, their experiences and so on.

              The only part I know is that she has worked one-on-one with students (children). I cannot answer your questions.
              I agree that studies are limited, but I think that they can give a lot of interesting information. Especially when a study confirms my own experience - I never have experienced any improvement even after a good night's sleep.

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              ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...

                  I think it's possible to overthink practice methods and worrying about whether or not "sufficient" progress is being made in a given amount of time. There are so many variables to consider: sleep; stress; physical condition; age; enthusiasm- both long-term and short-term; whether or not the particular piece of music you're working on is appropriate or particularly difficult given your technique; size and shape of your hand and length of your arms; talent and agility; fine motor coordination and eye-hand coordination...... And probably a lot more!

                    Animisha But I guess the answer is within you. What happens the next day when you practise again a passage that you practised yesterday? Do you see an improvement? Then your brain is still young!

                    This just happened a few days ago! I kept hitting the wrong notes despite it being a slow passage, as it was just not an intuitive progression. But the next day I could play it cleanly!

                    Ahhhhhh now I am scared of this aspect of ageing, aside from all the little things that I am starting to experience and am offended at my body for 😂 (I apologize for making this complaint to people much older than me!)

                        Well, I know that my memory now is not as good as it was 10 years ago, let alone when I was a teenager and could pass exams with minimal last minute revision. So I think it's true that neuroplasticity does reduce with age and for that reason mature adults are wise to accept that learning a new skill may take them longer than others who have youth on their side. However, what a mature adult lacks in neuroplasticity can sometimes be compensated for by a higher level of patience and commitment, and a willingness to stay the course. Also, there is a theory that learning new skills encourages the brain to form new connections, which may help to retain neuroplasticity. We can but hope. 🙂

                        "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

                        Animisha Especially when a study confirms my own experience - I never have experienced any improvement even after a good night's sleep.

                        Here's something that I've found quite effective, which hopefully might help. Play the piece you're working on right before you fall asleep/ listen to it and have it in your ear. If you dream about the piece, it should improve by the next day from what I've read. It's possible that the lack of consolidation due to sleep is because of all of the interference of competing information during the day.

                            Animisha Tara writes this blog in 2017, when her oldest child is 14 years old. She writes: "While my sense of pride wants me to point out that I don't actually fall into the category of "older adult", I'm not as young as I used to be, and clearly that makes a difference in how my memory processes function."

                            I find this to be a kind of hasty generalization, and here's why:

                            The study says that adults in a given age group, on average, given a certain level of commitment, tend to consolidate memory in a specific way.

                            Often, I find that in public talks/blogs, psychologists/neuroscientists start to give their own anecdotes. Like, we all feel like we've slowed down with age, haven't we? Etc.

                            But in science, one person's anecdote doesn't mean much. So I personally find this a little irresponsible on their part. Their personal experience has nothing to do with the study.

                            There is considerable variability in how different people's brains age. To take an extreme case, Arthur Rubinstein, for instance, seemed to retain his near-photographic memory until the day he died in his 90s. There are many people on these forums who have said that their memory in their 50s doesn't really feel slower or any different than it did in their 20s (they can still learn a concerto within a couple of weeks and so on), and I have met people in real life who have said the same.

                            Scientific studies "clump" all of this data, and artificially make it seem like the average is a "universal" facet of how humans work. I believe this is what keystring was alluding to as well.

                            And there are certain factors not being controlled for here: How much has the person in question tried to maintain her memory? How much does she actually use memory in her day-to-day? When looking at older adults, for instance, the idea that there tends to be some decline in memory function is rather "common knowledge". But we shouldn't confuse that to mean that there MUST be decline -- those are two different things.

                                Just wanted to add to the above, I have nothing against the research presented. I would just be very careful about using research to describe things which happen to you personally, because it is very easy to limit yourself by thinking you can not do something because the "research" says so.

                                pseudonym58 I think it's possible to overthink practice methods and worrying about whether or not "sufficient" progress is being made in a given amount of time.

                                On the one hand, I agree with this (overthinking).... but on the other, I spend a lot of time practicing. If I can do something to make that time more beneficial to me, then I want to do that. For example, years ago, I learned that I get better results by breaking up the score and practicing a piece in sections. So I've been doing that for years, not because I like playing 8 measures 10 times in a row, but because it allows me to learn music more quickly. And it was an easy tweak to my practice routine.

                                Now I've been reading Dr. G's book, and I'm starting to add some of her suggestions as well.

                                I also have found that I progress more, get through more music, and have more fun when I take lessons. I've been playing for 25 years now, so there have been stretches of time when I didn't or couldn't take lessons. But I'm back in lessons again and (as you know if you saw my other thread) loving it!

                                I don't think that tweaking my practice habits or prioritizing taking lessons are examples of overthinking. They are examples of trying to maximize my pianistic success. And I keep doing them because I can see the benefits.

                                  BTW, I don't know if my "memory" has diminished from when I was in my 20s... But I don't really care. I play from the score. 😃 Only half joking here. Memorizing pieces has never been a big goal of mine.

                                  More to the point, it's clear that my brain is really good at learning (which I'm sure means it has a good memory, but this is different from "memorization").... Anyway, I am an academic, and I'm bilingual. I teach, research, and write for my job. And I plow through new music for my hobby.

                                  I'm sure there are ways my brain is changing, but I don't notice a decline (yet!)

                                  I do try to be healthy, which include not just sleep but also exercise. I'm very conscious of all the things my brain lets me do, so I want to take good care of it.

                                  One more comment... It's been a while, but I thought I read about the idea that neuroplasticity may last longer, and be able to be "restarted" than was previously understood. In other words, there's no expiration date on neuroplasticity, and being active (physically and mentally) contributes positively to an individual's neuroplasticity...

                                  So I'm not going to assume that my brain is losing plasticity just because I'm getting older.

                                  Animisha Do you see an improvement? Then your brain is still young! ☺️ Or do you start at a lower level? Then your brain is older.

                                  How about I see improvement over where I started yesterday, but not over where I ended yesterday?
                                  But then, I'm only 77 so I'm way too young to consider mental deterioration 😉

                                  I have been reading Molly's book and experimenting with some of the strategies. Especially as to not practicing the same stuff every day, taking micro breaks, etc. So far I find them useful.

                                  Make a joyful noise...
                                  Jane - expert on nothing with opinions on everything.

                                      Can't go back in age but have to keep up with regular exercise, playing music and whatever else it takes to keep the mind sharp.

                                      Unfortunately getting enough sleep is always a problem. Having relatives in other places means frequent travels out of town and in different time zones. Flying out of country a few times a year is a problem when you age.

                                      twocats Ahhhhhh now I am scared of this aspect of ageing, aside from all the little things that I am starting to experience and am offended at my body for 😂

                                      I hope you don't forget to enjoy while it lasts. I don't know if this is a comfort, but it all changes very gradually.

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                                      ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...

                                        ranjit Play the piece you're working on right before you fall asleep/ listen to it and have it in your ear.

                                        That would interfere with my sleep... I need to wind down before falling asleep.

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                                        ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...

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