• Pianist Zone

  • Discussing Molly Gebrian (Splinter Discussion of "Molly Gebrian 7 Months Later")

Stub pianoloverus The most important part in solving problems at the piano is I think figuring out what's causing the problem and what one should do about that. Playing small sections, playing some fixed number of repetitions, taking breaks during practice or for days on which a piece is not practiced, and some of the other things I've read on this thread that are in the book can all help. But I think they are often insufficient.

I have not read the book, either, but from biographical information and some of the videos, I understand her to be an advanced viola player. Her methods for practice are general and aren't limited to particular instruments. But I do get the impression that she is addressing practice by intermediate to advanced students, in which case the student should already be demonstrating some skill at problem solving. Her practice method is more about scheduling of practice sessions to match neurocognitive states than for problem solving per se. How to practice rather than how to gain skills.

Yes I agree that her book is probably mostly about what you say in your last sentence. And I think some posters give the impression that they think problem solving isn't nearly as important as all the things discussed in her book but I think problem solving is far more important.

I did see one post where the poster said something to affect they concentrated on one measure and figured out some new hand motions to improve their playing of that measure. I think that's the most important thing. Now if before reading the book they didn't realize they might have to work on a single very difficult measure by itself then the book is valuable as long as they could figure out better hand motions.
Without the ability to analyze what the problems are and figure out solutions this reminds me of the many books I saw when I was teaching math about how to "beat the SAT". All the little tricks and test taking techniques they mentioned were certainly reasonable, but without the appropriate mathematical knowledge I don't think they would improve someone's SAT score very much. They were the icing on the cake but not the most important thing.

    @pianoloverus I think your comments speak to the importance of having a teacher.... I mean, I think one of the needs that the MG book fills is that it addresses what to do with practice time. And a lot of people talk about frustration when they have a teacher who didn't teacher them how to practice. But MG can't tell you (or doesn't, she probably can if it's viola)... anyway, she doesn't tell you how to play.

    Ideally, one gets both: guidance about how to play and guidance about how to practice. But I think often the reality is that piano students don't get both kinds of guidance from the same teacher. So MG's book fills that need for "how to practice," but there still needs to be guidance on how to play.

      ShiroKuro My point is that although both are important, IMO how to play from both a musical and technical standpoint is more important and much more complicated. To use an example I mentioned before, I think practicing scales while following everything in her book but not understanding the correct technical approach will not get you very far.

          pianoloverus MG's teachings are about optimizing your practice so that you make faster progress and have to spend less time doing it.

          Of course you need to have the correct technical approach. But for example, I think she said this during the video chat we had with her: the human brain cannot absorb more after 5 hours (I think it's 5 but don't remember for sure). So she was saying that if you practice 8 hours, you literally can't make extra progress after the 5 hours and it's wasted time and effort.

          No one is arguing that the correct technical approach isn't important for playing well. If you aren't practicing your skills correctly, you're not going to play well whether or not you try her efficiency suggestions. But if you are, you can save quite a lot of practice time.

              twocats Of course you need to have the correct technical approach. But for example, I think she said this during the video chat we had with her: the human brain cannot absorb more after 5 hours (I think it's 5 but don't remember for sure). So she was saying that if you practice 8 hours, you literally can't make extra progress after the 5 hours and it's wasted time and effort.

              No one is arguing that the correct technical approach isn't important for playing well. If you aren't practicing your skills correctly, you're not going to play well whether or not you try her efficiency suggestions. But if you are, you can save quite a lot of practice time.

              I do get the impression, especially since I'm basically the only one bringing up the importance of trying to figure out what's causing some problem and what the solution is, that many of those trying her techniques do you think it's some magic cure for all their problems both technical and musical. For example, one poster in the thread where people discuss their experiences using Molly's approach, Said she was getting very frustrated because she couldn't repeat a passage correctly enough times to satisfy Molly's suggested number of correct executions in a row. But the poster never said anything about trying to figure out why she couldn't get enough correct executions in a row. Her approach seemed basically to play the passage over and over hoping at one point she could get the desired number of correct executions.

              Regarding how many hours one can practice and still make progress, this of course varies from person to person. Most amateurs are never going to practice even 5 hours and most professionals understand that one has to take breaks if one is planning a marathon 8 hour practice session In one day.

                  pianoloverus But the poster never said anything about trying to figure out why she couldn't get enough correct executions in a row.

                  I'm pretty sure @Animisha said that eventually she ended up reducing the length of the phrase as part of her solution?

                      pianoloverus Most amateurs are never going to practice even 5 hours and most professionals understand that one has to take breaks if one is planning a marathon 8 hour practice session In one day.

                      It's not about taking breaks, it's about the physical limitation of the brain. If the human brain can only learn for 5 hours a day before it tops out, it doesn't matter if you're taking breaks or not, that extra 3 hours of practice is wasted time.

                      That was just one example of information about practice efficiency that has nothing to do with learning proper technique.

                          twocats pianoloverus But the poster never said anything about trying to figure out why she couldn't get enough correct executions in a row.

                          I'm pretty sure @Animisha said that eventually she ended up reducing the length of the phrase as part of her solution?

                          I haven't read or may not remember every post, but to the best of my knowledge she was never able to get the desired number of repetitions even after she reduced the section to something much shorter. In other words, If someone has difficulty with a passage there are many other things to try to fix it besides shortening the passage one is working on. In another post I mentioned what I thought was generally a better approach, where the poster said something to the effect they had tried at different hand position to solve whatever the difficulty was.

                            twocats pianoloverus Most amateurs are never going to practice even 5 hours and most professionals understand that one has to take breaks if one is planning a marathon 8 hour practice session In one day.

                            It's not about taking breaks, it's about the physical limitation of the brain. If the human brain can only learn for 5 hours a day before it tops out, it doesn't matter if you're taking breaks or not, that extra 3 hours of practice is wasted time.

                            That was just one example of information about practice efficiency that has nothing to do with learning proper technique.

                            I think different people have different capacities for how long their brain can work effectively. I think many conservatory and professional pianists practice more than 5 hours per day and feel they are getting benefit from the time beyond 5 hours. So I think that contradicts what Molly says. How could one possibly even show that After a given amount of time any additional practice in was of no use? A much more reasonable statement would be something like after X hours of practice a lot of people don't get much benefit from any additional practice which is, of course, just common sense. I think for most amateur pianists the amount would be far less than 5 hours per day and they probably wouldn't need Molly's book for them to realize that.

                                pianoloverus How could one possibly even show that After a given amount of time any additional practice in was of no use?

                                If you watch her video about the neuroscience of learning, there are physical processes that happen in the brain. These take time so there is literally a physical limitation.

                                Here are her three videos that I first watched. It's either the first and/or second video that's about the science of it. They're super interesting and not long, like 15 min each. I don't think she mentioned the 5 hours there though, it was during the video chat with her that someone organized so that we could ask her specific questions.

                                    twocats pianoloverus How could one possibly even show that After a given amount of time any additional practice in was of no use?

                                    If you watch her video about the neuroscience of learning, there are physical processes that happen in the brain. These take time so there is literally a physical limitation.

                                    I wonder how she could possibly explain the fact that many pros or conservatory students do practice more than five hours a day and feel those extra hours are productive this would seem to contradict what she says. People work at all kinds of demanding tasks more than five hours a day so that seems like another counter argument. And I find it hard to believe that if one practices three hours in the morning and then waits several hours or even until the evening to start practicing again, the brain would only function for two more hours before any further practice was useless. What seems far more reasonable is saying that for many or most people, practicing beyond X hours either in a row or on a given day starts having diminishing returns.

                                        Just to discuss one point Molly mentions in the first video. She says we've all had the experience of playing a piece at some level and then coming back to it a significant amount of time, like a year or more later, and thinking it's much easier than before. Then she says the improvement seems like it's more than what would happen simply because our general skills improved over that year. I don't see how anyone could measure that with any kind of scientific accuracy because there's no way of knowing how much easier the piece seemed due to the break we took from it versus our general improvement in pianistic skill.

                                        I think what Molly said later on in the video is certainly reasonable and not at all surprising. I'm talking about the part where she compared spaced practicing to doing all the practice in one day. It seems perfectly reasonable that the longer one practices, especially if one takes no breaks at all, The more difficult it is to concentrate. But this is not the same thing as saying that after a certain amount of time in a given day, especially if one takes a break of several hours, the practicing is of no benefit. A much more reasonable statement seems something like after a certain amount of hours on a given day, the practicing becomes less productive which is not the same thing as saying it has no benefit.

                                        pianoloverus I wonder how she could possibly explain the fact that many pros or conservatory students do practice more than five hours a day and feel those extra hours are productive

                                        What someone "feels" has no relation at all to reality. You know about placebos, right? People believe whatever they want to believe.

                                        There are studies that she referenced where it was either surgeons or med students were tested on their skills, thereby quantifying the results. Anyway, you believe what you believe and are probably just going to keep arguing against whatever I say, so this is the last I'm saying about it.

                                          twocats Here are her three videos that I first watched.

                                          First and recurring impression: Molly begins with "the ("usual") way we practise" and this is a particular model: long hours daily, going through your pieces etudes and whatnot; multiple repetitions. She came up with a different way of practising. We have to start with some assumptions: that "usual way". I suspect that she had that usual way since the start, and in recent years she has found an alternate to that "usual way".

                                          This usual way - the things she is countering - isn't done or taught by everyone, but I suspect it is common, and esp. for those on a given path, and maybe the ones who end up in music studies at university. The ideas she presents are ones I've seen taught, when I sought it out myself, and applied by many musicians. That is, they don't do endless repetitions and all that. For anyone who did get stuck in this "usual way", what she is presenting may be a way out into something new and better.

                                          On this point, when I joined PW in 2008, in the teacher forum one often saw "how many repetitions do we tell students to do?", "How many minutes/day do we tell different ages to practise?" and "Can we let them have one day off in a week?" So this "usual way we practise" seems sadly widespread. I'd push against it.

                                          The context of "usual way" seems very important. She is countering this "usual way". This to me seems the invisible (elephant?) central thing. If you've not been in those boxes, you may see all this differently.

                                          For me, what is presented with the schedules and such, seem very regimented. If they are created by someone who was taught via regimens and routines, it makes sense that the alternatives will also be regimented because that is what is known. The (university) students who have had regimens will be looking for alternate regimens to the existing regimens. I'm not comfortable with such schedules, and it's not just because of my character; it's also because of what I've found to work. I suspect that the discomfort of people such as Pianoloverus may be along the same lines.

                                          The ideas themselves, I'm familiar with all of them (and a few more) and they are good ideas. They can be applied more flexibly or more creatively. It may also be that an individual student or growing pianist needs to have something scheduled, to have routines set out, and this can be a "starter". If it gets you places when before you were constantly on the hamster wheel going nowhere, then it's the right thing for you. It is possible and even likely that over time you'll start tweaking and changing things; you'll start discovering things on your own which brings you beyond these things, but maybe born out of these things.

                                          I've also seen in some discussions where someone tried the system and got stuck inside one of the schedules. This part over here doesn't work; or this timing isn't compatible with having a piece ready for the next lesson. In that case I think you'd want to tweak the schedule. The ideas and concepts would come before set timing.

                                              When I was a young teacher I was given advice I never forgot, "Don't give generalizations. Give concrete examples." So here are some actual experiences.

                                              • As a violin student, I got stuck at the same measure for a month and had to abandon the piece. It was "very hard". I fell apart on the instrument and it was a bad experience. A decade later I discovered that I'd been taught to push the strings down way too hard - good for gut but not modern strings. I spent a week playing random notes, practising the sensation of pressing just hard enough to get a clean sound, with a relaxed hand. Then on impulse I pulled out he dreaded piece, heart pounding, daring to try playing it. I sailed right past the hard part, effortlessly!

                                              This massive improvement was not due to 10 years having gone by. It is because I built good physical habits and reflexes, and they kicked in.

                                              In that experiment, I applied the principles that MG has discovered, and others have told me about years ago. To retrain my hand, I had short sessions, sometimes half a minute or less, frequently. Any longer and your old reflexes will override, plus you won't be focusing anymore. I "slept on it". I pulled the old piece out after a week, because at least a week was needed for this to occur.

                                              • I have some weak areas. Sense of pulse is one. Physical movement, because originally I learned piano self-taught as a child among other things. I've worked with more than one teacher, though mostly with a main one. In a recording of a beta stage, I may be asked, "Timing is off - is this physical or counting?" The answer will determine what the next practising will look like. It is not just "If this is wrong, try to get more rights than wrongs before moving on / try to get 10 rights in a row."

                                              This can lead to tangents, and I'm told that even professional musicians may go on tangents. If some passage is hard, "skill X needs tweaking or a different approach" - then the focus might be skill X, and the piece might not be practised at all.

                                              The thing with this is (afterthought), that while practising and observing, I want the flexibility of shaping that practice session and future ones according to what is going on. A predetermined schedule doesn't work for me. When I discovered poor physical habits in pedaling due to my old DP, I replanned practising so as to address this. Work on the physical act of pedal; put the piece aside or work on other aspects minus pedal; then add pedal; less measures so as to not lose the new skills.

                                              Last one from the 2nd video, "Skill Transfer". The surgery students who practised a skill using objects, and then on a living creature. Then, students doing an etude and then applying the etude skills to actual pieces. Wait! What? This is a new? What is behind this being a new idea?

                                              Again this must have been preceded by poor teaching protocol. You "do your scales and chords". Then you "do your etudes". Then you "do your pieces". Then you "do your theory worksheet". Routines without rhyme or reason, and of you "do" the "doings" then magically you become a pianist or a violist. Is that the background?

                                              Etudes (well done ones) teach gestures, patterns, in a repetitive way so as to acquire them, so that they can be used in repertoire. That's the point. If a teacher isn't teaching that way, what are they doing? Why is this a discovery? Is there an underlying common problem?

                                              In my teacher training you had the curriculum guidelines for each subject for a grade level, which will also prepare for the next grade level. You broke it down into sub-skills, how to bring these to the students, what activities they need to do to acquire those skills, and how they might apply them practically. In poor teaching, you just "do the pages".

                                              The concept of "integration" may be separate, or not. I had a postgrad course with a brilliant professor for 2nd language teaching. Language learning, if it involves oral and not just reading and writing, has some relationship to music. There is the physical pronunciation, ability to hear and not filter sounds according to your native language, and being able to react in real time. Your vocab, grammar and syntax are useless if you cannot apply them in real time in a conversation. The skills and knowledge must be "integrated". This may, in fact fit.

                                              and maybe imaginatively

                                              • Way back, a friend who immigrated to Canada from Europe, and had learned "international French" as a 3rd language, had to attend lectures given by a French Canadian. She couldn't follow. I gave her a tape of Gilles Vigneault, along with the written lyrics. Read along as he sings. Pick up the rhythm and cadence. At the next lecture, don't try to catch any of the words. Align yourself with the rhythm and cadence. It worked.

                                              The point is, if you're teaching or teaching yourself, what are you trying to reach, and how do you reach it? It should not be "this set of things", then "that set of things" as tasks. They relate. All kinds of things relate. Stirring a pot of soup may give you the motions you need for playing a circular pattern of music.

                                              I agree with with MG says. I am just astonished if this is a new idea.

                                              keystring In that case I think you'd want to tweak the schedule.

                                              Just want to say, she says it's the schedule that works well for her, and she shares it to use as a baseline but she doesn't expect that everyone is going to adhere strictly to it.

                                              What I most got out of seeing it is that there's a benefit to practicing a section several days in a row and then taking a break. And in the schedule, that break gets longer as you progress. I have tried the schedule and end up falling off it pretty quickly but it's personally helpful for me to remember that I should probably repeat a section for several days in a row before I move to something else and give that initial section a "break".

                                                  twocats Just want to say, she says it's the schedule that works well for her, and she shares it to use as a baseline but she doesn't expect that everyone is going to adhere strictly to it.

                                                  That makes sense. It is a schedule that works for her, a fully trained violist who needs to learn repertoire for whatever ongoing performance tasks she has.

                                                  I'd say she shouldn't expect anyone to adhere to it. But she might say "These are the principles I discovered. Here is how I am applying them to my own circumstances. Use this idea freely for creating a schedule that works for yours. (You may want to consult with your private teacher if you're still a student.)" Maybe that is even the intent.

                                                  twocats have tried the schedule and end up falling off it pretty quickly but it's personally helpful for me to remember that I should probably repeat a section for several days in a row before I move to something else and give that initial section a "break".

                                                  I see the benefit you're describing. You are changing something you've been doing, sort of getting out of that box. I can see you graduating to a schedule that works for you, and over time that would also evolve.

                                                        keystring I'd say she shouldn't expect anyone to adhere to it. But she might say "These are the principles I discovered. Here is how I am applying them to my own circumstances. Use this idea freely for creating a schedule that works for yours.

                                                        That's the idea, it's not like she's militant about any of this at all. But some people like having an exact template to follow and she provides that.

                                                            twocats That's the idea, it's not like she's militant about any of this at all. But some people like having an exact template to follow and she provides that.

                                                            I think I may have mentioned that need. For anyone doing that, though, I'd provide a caveat. Those templates are designed for a particular person with a given background and given goals. They are not loose enough from what I've seen. Be free to alter and tailor for your needs.