Practice every day vs 1 long session

thepianoplayer416

ShiroKuro

I will have to come back and watch this later. I notice that this video is brand new, so maybe there are new findings, but without even watching it, I will bet that the answer is still “daily practice is better.”

KevinM

A very interesting video.

ShiroKuro

Ok, I just watched it.

First, it does underscore, or confirm, the correctness of the advice that it's better to practice a little every day than a lot all in one day. But the thing that was more interesting to me was 1) the part that's missing, and 2) the part that's new.

The Part That's Missing
The studies he reports on in this video don't have a long-enough span. IIRC in the first study, the "spread out" group practice over three days, and the "post-test" was 24 hours later. Study design with a longer time-span is definitely needed. The condensed group should still be one day, but the spread out group should be spread out over a week. Then the post-test should assess performance after a week, and maybe again after a month or something like that. It would also be nice to have an even longer study, over a period of months, with a once-a-week group and an every-day group. It would be very interesting to see if the result (and the differences) compound over that longer span.

For the record, I know there's no such thing as perfect study design, researchers always work within constraints (most especially, participant/subject availability), but I hope some one will do some of these longer studies.

The Part That's New
Or at least new to me. The part that's new is the "micro break" finding. My teacher actually had me do that a couple time last year, play the target (generally several measures), than rather than doing several reps without a break, out my hands in my lap, look away from the keyboard etc., and then do the rep, and have that micro break between each rep. Sometimes when I practice at home, I will actually get up and walk away from the piano before coming back and doing the next rep. I don't know if she knew about this research, but it's basically exactly the kind of practice that the research findings would advocate for.

And although Noa didn't say it exactly this way, it also underscores the importance of building in micro breaks, not only as a general practice technique, but also in order to get the most out of a longer session. For example, if I do a long practice session on the weekend, I might see better results if I do more micro breaking across the whole session.

TulipAcid

ShiroKuro

These topics seem all the rage these days. Applying sports and vocational research to musicians.

He has a number of interesting articles in his blog. Concepts like these I prefer to read rather than spend the time on the video. [https://bulletproofmusician.com/blog/]

Though I did watch the video. (reading is faster)

I wonder how he approaches adding new repertoire. How much can one take on in terms of learning something brand new, polishing something to performance standards and repertoire maintenance.

ShiroKuro

TulipAcid Concepts like these I prefer to read rather than spend the time on the video

This is often my reaction as well! (It's probably also why I prefer sheet music to video tutorials) ... well, expect when I'm doing something (like chores) and then I enjoy being able to listen, but I'm not watching.

TulipAcid I wonder how he approaches adding new repertoire. How much can one take on in terms of learning something brand new, polishing something to performance standards and repertoire maintenance.

I think this is a super important distinction (and question)! I often use "reps" to learn new material, to drill some fingering into my fingers etc. But I don't think repetition is as effect for musicality and other polishing (or perhaps it's not effective at all?)

Noa Kageyama's website is so huge and the number of blogs and podcasts he's done so large, I would be surprised if this hasn't been addressed at all, but I'm not recalling any specific episodes where he addressed it.

And btw, I think Gebrian's book is mostly focused on learning new material... Although I never finished the book, so take that with a large grain of salt!

thepianoplayer416

There are a lot of people who can play by reading off the sheet reasonably well. I'm not 1 of them. Relying on the sheet I often find mistakes later after a break. Whether you practice with or without breaks in between, if you play a piece with mistake(s), repeating the piece would reinforce your muscle memory and the mistake(s) wouldn't be fixed.

Sheet music is an abstract representation of a piece. It's like you showing somebody how to get from point A to B by drawing a map on paper. If you show pictures of a store at the corner, a church, a restaurant and other recognizable features as reference, that person finding his way would be much easier. On sheet music you see the tempo at 80 BPM. You're supposed to translate the number into something meaningful as you play. There are dynamics symbols including f & p. If you hear a sound recording or watch a video performance at the same time, learning a piece becomes more visual & easier.

Years ago someone in the family learned violin and took the first which was her last conservatory level exam. At the time there was no Internet. She recorded herself for several weeks, went to the exam and passed barely. Listening to your own recordings without referencing against other performances would not be very useful. Your ears didn't catch your mistakes during your playing. There is a slight chance you might notice it in a recording.

ranjit

From what I recall, he also says that massed practice was virtually as effective as spaced practice for younger people. I wonder why that has been glossed over completely, since I think it was the most interesting thing said in the video (and I doubt it's really accurate).

ShiroKuro

ranjit he also says that massed practice was virtually as effective as spaced practice for younger people

Yes I caught that too. But it didn’t surprise me, and I’m not in that age group 😅 so I didn’t dwell on it.

I mean, what I took away was that older adults and probably especially adult beginners maybe need to be more focused on taking advantage of these kinds of practice tips (e.g., micro breaks) whereas those who are younger can get away with cramming and benefit with less “brain care-taking.”

Which is interesting to think about.

TC3

ShiroKuro I used to do a lot of last-minute cramming for my saxophone lessons as a kid, got away with it most of the time. Definitely sharpened my sight-reading skills too!

thepianoplayer416

TC3
The problem with last minute cramming is that you don't give your brain enough time to absorb the material. When you're in front of an audience, playing off the score or from memory isn't the issue. When you're not 100% sure how a piece goes and you get nervous, it's easy to make mistakes.

I don't feel confident learning a piece the day before and then play it in front of people no matter how good my sight reading is. On the other hand, some people can sight read pieces reasonably well the first time with few mistakes. I'm not there yet.

ShiroKuro

I think the trouble with the things that are commonly said about cramming, and maybe especially cramming by students before tests, is that cramming doesn’t always happen in a vacuum. And the same goes for these different studies about perfomance and practice.

When cramming does happen in a vacuum, as in, the material being studied is only studied during the one cramming session, then yes, the science has shown that the material (and/or the skill) is not retained to a significant degree.

But if the material/skill being studied is sometimes acquired during cramming sessions, and other times practiced in a more regular way, and there’s some back and forth… then I think the outcomes are probably different.

And that is one of the shortcomings of these kinds of performance studies, is that they tend not to be longitudinal, and they tend not to replicate the true student’s or musician’s behavior.

Which is to say, a student who crams before their weekly lesson, and does that every week for a year, is quite different from a student who crams before a lesson once, and then never practices again.

@TC3 ’s example is more like the former, of course.

I think that would be the really interesting study — compare two types of music students, ones who practice a very consistent daily routine (say 30-60 minutes every day) and ones who practice the same amount, but only once a week or only once a month etc. and compare those two groups over a much longer time span, at least a year.

This would be the true study that would tell us about which kinds of practice routines are more beneficial over time. (And it would be almost impossible to control all the other variables, so not feasible but it’s fun to dream!)

Oh and the other interesting research question, and as per @TC3 ’s example, is what are the benefits of a certain kind of cyclical cramming? TC3’s example points to gains in sightreading, which makes a lot of sense. Maybe those gains wouldn’t have happened with a different kind of practice routine. So the “pros and cons” question is far more complicated than it might seem from the outside.

I can really see why someone like Noa Kageyama has made this area (performance psychology) his area of focus.

TC3

thepianoplayer416

I wasn't advocating cramming! Merely mentioning that I did it a lot as a kid, and got away with it ... It's obviously not an ideal way to learn, and I'd be less likely to handle it today.

ranjit

ShiroKuro Which is to say, a student who crams before their weekly lesson, and does that every week for a year, is quite different from a student who crams before a lesson once, and then never practices again.

I think the word "cramming" is overused. I think there is "true cramming" when the material is actually new. Then, there is "expert cramming" which is really fast expert learning of familiar paradigms.

The prototypical extreme example of the latter is how Mozart could memorize a piece of music after the first listen. The word for this in the literature is long-term working memory (Ericsson and Kintsch): with enough domain expertise, you can encode new material directly into long-term memory using existing retrieval structures, effectively bypassing normal working-memory limits.

AI summary that I found fascinating: The theory predicts the Miserere feat should be easy for him and impossible for a musically untrained person with identical raw hearing. The piece is built on a repeating falsobordone formula alternating five-voice and four-voice sections over chant. Given Mozart's command of that idiom, most of the notes were recoverable from the schema. What actually had to be encoded was the small residue of departures from the expected pattern, plus the ornamentation. Absolute pitch gave him stable labels for the residue.

Someone consistently able to learn music the night before a lesson is in the latter camp. It means the teachers are slacking and not pushing them hard enough. 😉

ShiroKuro

ranjit there is "expert cramming" which is really fast expert learning of familiar paradigms.

Ooh, I like that! Yes, domain knowledge, pre-existing expertise is clearly a key.

ranjit It means the teachers are slacking and not pushing them hard enough. 😉

😃

pianoloverus

Although I'm certainly no expert, to put it mildly, in these kinds of studies, I do see some possible flaws in the one discussed in the video:

Learning juggling is probably a brand-new skill for most of the participants. By using the learning of that skill in the study, it seems like any conclusions would only apply to pianists at the very beginning or even the absolute beginning of their piano studies.
The time for the juggling practice is a half an hour total. But many pianists practice for a lot longer than half an hour so would any of the conclusions from the study apply to pianists who practice for longer periods of time?

HeartKeys

I see this video hitting on numerous sub-topics. Overall, I focused on the key takeaways and conclusions from the video, and agree in principle with their main points (the breaks, spreading out practice etc) that seem generally applicable across other things like studying (recall vs. pulling all-nighters). As well as for me, in the past studying for things like graduate exams, GRE, as well as in corporate settings (onboarding, learning the culture, preparing presentations etc).

ShiroKuro

pianoloverus these are good points and somewhat similar to what I posted about above, that these studies don’t closely simulate actual piano practice activities by real learners.

I don’t think it means the studies are useless, but it makes you wonder to what extent they should be used to guide practice approaches. I also wonder if someone like Noa Kageyama or Molly Gebrian has addressed that.

On a separate note, if I recall correctly, the study described in the video in the OP talked about having a 40 second break between repetitions. So yesterday while I was practicing an isolated section, I opened the stopwatch on my phone and decided to try taking a 40 second break between each repetition. I did cylces of play the section, 40 second microbreak, play the section again.

My main reaction was “holy cow, 40 seconds is along time!” 😃 also it felt very inefficient. I was planning to do seven reps like that, but it was so slow and painfully annoying that I only did four reps. 😅

I’m not doing much systematically to compare this kind of break with other practice approaches, so it’s not very meaningful. But I will see how that section feels today. Still, even if it’s much improved, there’s no way to know whether that’s because of the 40 second microbreak cycles. And to be honest, I don’t ever want to practice that way again, so I’ll never know if that type of microbreak/repetition combo is any better or worse than some other combo. 😃

TulipAcid

It's taken decades, and our conductor has gradually moved from beating a dead horse (over-rehearsing a piece to thrash out issues ... I now abhor Anitra's Dance for that reason) to setting a list before rehearsal and a certain amount of time for each work.

For that reason, the notion of breaks, of prioritizing, of utilizing time wisely with aspects like muscle-memory, memory-memory and how to optimize gains and limit decreasing returns makes sense.

As far as studies go on musicians ... probably underfunded. Perhaps not as much in the far east or parts of Europe.

The US academic/industrial complex is way more focused on money-makers like sports-ball. How to ensure your team goes to marquee regional bowl games to siphon in those $$$$$$ back into sports programs that, in my mind, have besmirched the entire world of academic endeavors.

Oops, I digress.

ShiroKuro

TulipAcid As far as studies go on musicians ... probably underfunded. Perhaps not as much in the far east or parts of Europe. The US academic/industrial complex is way more focused on money-makers like sports-ball.

This is probably a huge factor. Sadly.