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...

Nightowl

Pallas Those timers are very colourful and make worthy additions to your gadget collection. 🙂 You'll be needing to install a cabinet soon, to accommodate them all! 😁

Nightowl

Pallas Well, luddite or not they will do the job and look pretty at the same time. 🙂 Thinking about it, perhaps gadget was not quite the right term, but they are still part of your growing collection of pianophernalia (new word coined especially for you).

Nightowl

Pallas Ha ha ha! 🤣 So many temptations! 😄

twocats

Ithaca This got me wondering - who makes super-precision, high quality sand timers? Dunno, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to be scouring the internet too late tonight b/c of you. 🤣

Please share if you find any, because I also like nice things (see: piano) 😉

Animisha

keystring That's the reason for the break from (the task) as opposed to a break for (the brain). That isn't to say that our brains don't also need breaks (aka rest - sleep - restoring) but they are two different concepts which may have some overlap.

Keystring, I am sure that you are right. I've had burnout twice and never fully recovered from the second one. That's why my brain needs breaks—not just from the task at hand, but complete breaks, even if it is just ten seconds.

iternabe

Ithaca This got me wondering - who makes super-precision, high quality sand timers?

Some designer has been working on one 😉

Nightowl

Pallas Ha ha ha, well you did ask! How many have you ordered Pallas?!? 😁🙃

Animisha

Josephine

For micro breaks (ten seconds) I love to just look out of the window and space out a bit.

lilypad

Animisha For micro breaks (ten seconds) I love to just look out of the window and space out a bit.

Yes! My flower garden is just outside my window. If I'm lucky I might even see a hummingbird out there. When I'm finishing up practice at night, I glance up at paintings on the wall above my piano.

Nightowl

Animisha Same here, Animisha.

Only 56 Pallas? Why stop there?!? 😁🙃 @keystring has a nice batch too... you could form a society and call it the Timer Appreciation Society (TAS). 🙂

keystring

I got this batch last year before I knew of MG but similar purposes, and just to get better control of time use (doesn't always work 🙂 ). Added the digital timer which does countdowns or just counts up from zero, for the times I need something that beeps. With the discussion here I got curious so I set the digital timer to 10 minutes, flipped the 10 minute sand clock. 10 minutes were indeed 10 minutes to the second. 🙂

keystring

The set I got seems to be precise, at least for the 10 minute one that I tested. My digital timer reached "0" when the last drop of sand fell in. I like being able to plan 5 minutes (etc.) with the hour glass, but also like being able to see how much time has elapsed via the digital timer's feature of counting up. Psychologically I found digital countdowns stressful: the sand clocks are relaxing which help with focus at the piano.

BartK

I just found this YouTube channel thanks to a post by @navindra in another thread and I think it's very relevant and relates to all the other stuff MG talked about:

The four practice strategies are:

Retrieval
Spaced Practice
Interleaving
Active Interrogation

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