Discussing Molly Gebrian (Splinter Discussion of "Molly Gebrian 7 Months Later")
Nightowl when someone says "please don't call us names, I don't find it funny" the response is not to double down and insist that it is funny and it's just a different sense of humor, but to say "sorry, I didn't mean to offend you" and then don't do it again.
I was not offended by the names but I don't think the responses to the people who were upset by it were appropriate.
Multiple posts in this thread have now been flagged and the thread has devolved to the point where it needs to locked.
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Hello fellow Piano Players,
First of all, thanks for your patience as we sorted through all the flagged comments. When we get flooded with flags, we can't always respond to every user individually, Also, when the issue is big, it takes the mod team time to discuss it. So we appreciate your understanding.
I have created this splinter thread for off-topic comments in "Molly Gebrian - seven months later". The original purpose of that post was to gather the opinions of people who have used Molly Gebrian's methods for the last 7 months. All other Molly-related discussion belongs here. But before you continue your conversation, please remember that there is only one official rule at PianoTell, and it is:
rsl12 Be nice to each other. Don't routinely make other people's experiences worse. Comments that contain personal attacks, hate speech, trolling, unnecessarily derogatory or inflammatory remarks are not welcome and will be removed.
Many of you participants in this discussion will probably agree that other people's comments have made your experience worse. But also consider the possibility that one of your own comments has worsened another's experience. I hope you will all agree that:
Making people feel like they can't participate because they don't agree is not welcoming behavior. As long as the original poster hasn't explicitly said otherwise, it's entirely okay to state a disagreeing opinion, and to criticize someone else's approach to doing something. But...
Criticism should be done with a lot of consideration of others' feelings. The harsher the criticism, the more careful you should be.
If people are offended by a joke or criticism, It's not nice to shrug off their feelings, or to restate the joke/criticism in a more emphatic way. Please use manners and show some consideration.
To those of you who find yourself often in the middle of a controversy, consider that you may be part of the reason for escalating tempers. If you have a moment, this article may be helpful: "The Art of Disagreeing Agreeably".
Based on what I've seen of your past behavior, I feel confident that this conversation can carry on in a more civil manner. Please be nice.
Thanks @rsl12 for the reminder of our rule here at PT and for getting us all back on track! And thanks for unlocking and separating these threads!
Now, PT friends, please carry on! There are lots of ideas about pros and cons of MG's approach (I have some of my, pros as well as cons), so let's get on with that discussion!
I don't follow MG. I watched some of her videos last year and that's all. Frankly, planning & tracking every little detail of practice is too much for me. Sounds like too much overhead and potential cause for disappointment. My goal is simply sit on the bench and do something piano, every single day. Still failing at this some days 
.
However, I still find MG discussions useful. Like; importance of sleep, breaks, splitting the piece into manageble bits, correct repetitions etc. Some of these might be traditional ideas but it doesn't really matter. It was useful to me.
hebele Sounds like too much overhead and potential cause for disappointment.
This is one of my main concerns with the MG approach, that's it's not sustainable for many adult learners, and that as a result, it might end up making people feel discouraged, as if, by not following the method just so, they're wasting their time or something.... I feel like it would be helpful to have a "toned down" version of her approach, that is maybe a little more accessible and do-able, but that still gets some of the core components.
Kind of like trying to diet or eat healthy, where there ought to be a method that helps you do your best even if it's not adhering to the diet all the time....
ShiroKuro I haven't read the book, I've only watched the video series about spaced practice that I shared here. And then I'm picking up nuggets here.
It seems that she doesn't have a specific method, but a lot of strategies that can be taken piecemeal? For example, 10 second microbreaks. I was annoyed and wondered if I could browse my phone during the breaks but it turns out that 10 seconds is very short. Or random practice. I have flagged my trouble pages to do focused practice on those and am trying to get away from my habit of starting at the beginning and then stopping to practice when I hit a trouble spot.
I don't do her rule of repeat until clean 3x3 (I think?) because that is overwhelming. But I am taking it to heart that the more I play it cleanly, that's what's getting written into my neural pathways and I shouldn't let myself get away with repeated mistakes in the same spot.
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rsl12 Thanks for creating this splinter thread - it's a great idea and I appreciate the way that you carefully included all the posts which were slightly off topic in the other discussion.
I also appreciate the additional points you made and I would like to add something in relation to point 3. Here in the UK, our humour is often rather barbed in comparison to American humour. It is common for friends to tease each other fairly brutally and have ongoing running jokes against each other. Despite our stereotypical "stiff upper lip" reputation, we Brits are actually pretty good at laughing at ourselves, it's a very British trait. However, this episode has reminded me that people from other cultures may not share this type of humour, so I will dial it down in future.
Thank you for your moderate moderation, I appreciate your way of handling things.
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)
I like what she writes, and even though much might not be original with her, she gets credit for organizing it into a coherent whole and putting it out to the public.
What is holding me back is how to follow her rules bullet points advice in the context of weekly lessons. I would like to bring to the lesson each piece I'm working on (because I value my teacher's input and I pay to take lessons), but what if a piece is in the no-practice break of the schedule? What if I need to revise my practice schedule based on my teacher's input? I can sort of see ways to work around these problems, but what I'm left with is only a small fraction of MB's practice points. Which is fine by me. Take what works for you, leave the rest.
I really appreciate the moderation here. I'm very glad nothing got deleted, because I really hate it when random posts disappear and it's no longer clear who replied to what and why. I'm very glad the two topics were split so they can continue, and I'm very glad everything was handled in a level headed way.
Concerning the Molly book I have said everything I wanted to say and I stand by my previous opinions. I have no additional pros or cons to add for now.
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I haven't read the book and I've read only some of the posts on this thread. From what I can understand the book is about ways to practice pieces. I can certainly see value in that especially for some of the basic ideas like practicing small sections. On the other hand I think this kind of approach can omit what I would call the most important idea.
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.
For example, to take a purely technical exercise, one can practice scales endlessly And use all of the Gebrian suggestions but with improper technique they will usually not improve or reach some limit or improve much more slowly than if one made technical corrections. If one has problems with some passage or piece, practicing something over and over may not be very helpful unless one figures out why there is a technical difficulty and figures out some solution.
For me, fingering turns out to be very important. So if a passage is causing difficulty for me I quite often end up trying a different fingering. Just an example.
hebele Frankly, planning & tracking every little detail of practice is too much for me. Sounds like too much overhead and potential cause for disappointment. My goal is simply sit on the bench and do something piano, every single day.
My personality is totally this one. If I can, I avoid goal setting and sub-goals and evaluating and adjusting and re-evaluating.
But my reality at the piano is that there is a very slow progress and a lot of struggle with mistakes. I have a long time ago accepted that slow progress, but the struggle is real.
*
... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...
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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.
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.