Neuroscience-based efficient practice schedule

twocats · 2024-05-15T16:46:46+00:00

I had meant to share this on PW a long time ago but never got around to it! My friend shared these videos by Dr. Molly Gebrian, a neuroscientist who is also...

Pallas

ranjit Flow state is a superpower.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who, as I imagine you already know, is known as "the Father of Flow") is one of my heroes. I've read several of his books, and I'm convinced he saved my creativity when I thought I'd lost it. I'm a believer.

ranjit

Pallas

Pallas Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who, as I imagine you already know, is known as "the Father of Flow") is one of my heroes. I've read several of his books, and I'm convinced he saved my creativity when I thought I'd lost it. I'm a believer.

Oh, I thought he just had one book (which I've read, btw). I believe the one I've read is titled Flow.

Pallas

ranjit
Reading psychology and philosophy (ok, reading in general) is one of my hobbies. I have four of his books, but in my opinion you have read the most important one. Although considering how you feel about creativity at the piano, you might also like Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. It took me a long time to absorb it, because it challenged my idea of what creativity is and who gets to decide what's "creative," but once I realized how freeing it was, I could ignore randos on the internet who kept telling me I was doing it all wrong, because they aren't the ones who get to decide!!!, and focus on my project.

I'm so glad you brought it up. Thinking about it gives me a very freeing feeling.

Stub

Immersion has its place, but I think most immersion experiences come after some initial learning. Doing something new, like a section of music, for several days in a row (with several nights of sleep) is important. Once you've gotten past that early stage you have consolidated the memory and can judiciously skip a day now and then.

Summer piano camps would be immersion experiences. I've never been to one, but a number of posters have and have found them beneficial.

Pallas

Stub My anecdote to lend support to your theory is from my language school. I did 47 weeks of Russian, where most of the instruction was in English, less and less as we gained more skill. Then a 27-week intensive where no English was spoken at all. The military does effectiveness studies on basically everything, so I would tend to agree that immersion would most effectively follow an introductory period.

kanadajin

Stub
Totally agree that initial steps are highly desirable. Plunging off the deep end through direct immersion would probably be a little more daunting. Plus, if you possess sufficient rudiments the ensuing immersion experience will be far more beneficial as you will not be starting from zero and instead focusing on more complex notions right away.

MRC

Thanks, twocats, for posting this. I just watched the first video: I already knew from experience that practicing alternating with breaks is more efficient than slogging away nonstop, but I'd never seen scientific studies that demonstrate this so clearly.

I'm pretty sure that I already work in a way similar to what Dr. Gebrian recommends, just based on my own experience and my instinct, but I'm certainly going to watch the other videos to see what I can learn from them.

ShiroKuro

In my experience as a foreign language learn and as a foreign language teacher, those immersion programs work best when (as others note above) the learner isn’t a true beginner and there’s a little break at the end of them. Then a few weeks later, suddenly the learner experiences a huge jump in proficiency and communicative ability.

This aligns with the videos linked at the top of this thread.

I wanna write more but need to do some work! 😅

lilypad

twocats Thank you for sharing this! Besides looking promising for working with sections of multiple pieces, I'd like to try it out as a method of maintaining repertoire pieces that inevitably fall into disrepair. The 3-day stints between rest days might be just the ticket for repairing fractures.

twocats

lilypad I'd like to try it out as a method of maintaining repertoire pieces that inevitably fall into disrepair.

You're very welcome! I hope this works for you and that you report back later on how it's going 🙂

ErfurtBob

I am sure the method works, but it seems like a lot of work and organization to divide all pieces in different sections and make a schedule for every section. Has anybody really done this with the schedules and everything?
I don't practice everything everyday, same as in this method, but I don't have a schedule.

twocats

ErfurtBob Has anybody really done this with the schedules and everything?

The friend who told me about it does! I'm not doing it strictly but I'm following it generally. And it supports my own experience with taking many weeks or months off practice and still somehow making progress after I return.

keff

ErfurtBob You may have seen from other posts that I am in the middle of trialling Dr.Molly Gebrain's schedule using the first movement of Mozart's sonata in A K331. In this case there was little difficulty in splitting it into sections and I used each variation as one section. On the first day of reaching variation five I thought I might have to subdivide but it didn't come to this. I have yet to start variation six and if I find that difficult it may have to be subdivided.

Currently I am using Apple Calendar to track the schedule. I made a few errors scheduling some of the variations onto their given days but eventually sorted it out. Twocats has recommended Google Calendar but I haven't got around to this yet, without any calendar I would be lost in knowing what to practise.

I am pleased with the progress made using the schedule.

Stub

After a week I'm already straying. Keeping a detailed calendar and sticking to it for the long run is where I fall short. However, the concept of practicing brand new material for several days straight and then giving it a day off here and there is what I was already doing. What I didn't do is make a strict schedule and stick to it. Keeping these things up for the long run (months or longer) is where I think detailed plans run into trouble. But--I think the concepts help inform our practice, whether we follow "the plan" strictly or not.

Animisha

Stub After a week I'm already straying. Keeping a detailed calendar and sticking to it for the long run is where I fall short.

I have also tried to work with a schedule - even though it is too much for me to keep a detailed calender. But all four pieces I work with presently are not new pieces any more, so I have tried to give pieces a break for one day or two days.
On my level, early intermediate, this is not easy. The first days were fine, but then there was this day in which I didn't have enough pieces to work with. So I started with a fifth piece. But the next day, I had to work with my older pieces again, also because they need to be ready for my lesson, and I could not work with this fifth piece as intensively as I like to do with new pieces.

I am not sure yet if the one or two days breaks give me better results. However, I do notice that I am a somewhat more focused when working with a piece. I have the feeling that this is my chance to learn this now, because tomorrow I cannot work with this piece! So I better do the best I can today!

thepianoplayer416

When it comes to learning a language, the first few months are the most important. People need to get beyond the basics meaning a lot of time and effort. The most efficient is space repetition. You'd practice up to an hour at a time and allow time for your brain to rest. There are ideal intervals for repeating something so that it would be stored in the long term memory.
Music practice is the same. You'd practice with breaks in between. Doesn't mean you can't practice for 3 hours a day as long as you give sufficient breaks in between.

Pallas

I got back from vacation yesterday evening. It's 9 days since I've touched my piano, and I have most of the unpacking done and all the stuff you have to do after being away for two weeks.

I just sat down and tried to play the one piece I memorized before I left, Alfred's All-In-One Level 1 arrangement of Greensleeves. It was rough, but I expected that because I had stopped practicing it for probably a week before I left. It feels like I can get it back in a day or two.

But the piece I had been practicing every day for the whole week before I left, an arrangement of Scarborough Fair, was (magically?) much better than it was when I left. I have all of the places marked where I kept making errors, and all but one note was completely smooth!!! There were three particularly tricky measures with brand new-to-me patterns of finger independence, and they were completely smooth, as though I'd never had problems there.

This was WEIRD. So this week I'm going to write a plan to study three pieces. My pieces are short, so I'm just going to treat each piece like a block in the schedule. I'm looking forward to seeing if this staggered-breaks method really does shorten the length of time it takes me to learn a new piece.

Fun so far!

twocats

Pallas I'm looking forward to seeing if this staggered-breaks method really does shorten the length of time it takes me to learn a new piece.

My friend swears by it!!

Pallas

twocats I just got Greensleeves back in 20 minutes, memorized. Feels REALLY weird. I have to tear myself away from the piano and write my schedule!

JB_PT

twocats I just got around to watching these videos last night. Thank you so much - I am absolutely fascinated!

Currently trying to figure out what the takeaways might be for me...I already have an unusual practice schedule with a lot of breaks built in. This may be why I apparently learn pieces quickly (according to my teacher...still feels slow to me 😐). I might pick something new this week and experiment with deliberate spacing to see what happens. I think the hardest part would be to put it away for a full week, especially if it's something I'm enjoying.

I perused the other videos by Dr. Molly and found many to add to my watch later list - I love this kind of stuff!

twocats

JB_PT I also have natural breaks built in but am trying to be more deliberate about spacing. That 2 week break at the end is scary, though! It's so interesting that she knew it would work in theory but wasn't brave enough to try it out until the pandemic, when she wasn't performing!

Luckily (??) what I'm working on is so long that I just can't practice all four movements in one day, even if I practice for hours. So it's easier to just redirect the focus to other parts of the piece while I'm on break.

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