Learning principles: knowing ‘why?’
Most students, and many professional musicians waste a lot of their practicing
time. What a shame.
It is possible to help your
youngster get more out of a practice session and spend less time (yippee!) in
the process if you know how humans learn, recognize the inhibitors to learning,
and realize the importance of motivation.
Essentially we can differentiate
between three kinds of memory The first, the ultra-short-term memory or sensual
memory, has a limited retaining capacity and can therefore only store little
information for a very short time. It can receive approximately 15-16
information units (Bit) per second, and keep this for ten seconds, that brings
us to 150 - 160 Bit for assimilating new information. All input taken in
through the senses, impulses perceived through the eyes, ears or skin, “circle”
first in the form of electric current (oscillation) in our brain, where they
cease after 10 - 20 seconds... Lack of interest (motivation), the absence of
reference possibilities (“I’ve seen you before!”) or additional distracting
perceptions (such as pain) stops the electric circling of the information
without it being stored permanently.
The second type of memory, the
short-term memory, is the conscious and operative memory, in which the
information gets processed. Each "information-unit" remains in the
short-term memory for app. 20 minutes, before it is taken into the long - term
memory. Unless repeated or rehearsed, the material will be deemed
unimportant and forgotten before it is assimilated into long-term memory.
The short term memory also has a
restricted capacity. In the case of information that is too dense and/or is learned
too quickly after learning something else, a part of it gets “lost”, that is,
it isn’t taken into the long-term memory: which part remains is a matter of
chance. So: don't learn too much, too quickly and take short breaks! This will
hopefully remind instructors to avoid presenting too much too quickly!
The long-term memory consists of a
change of molecule structure. The transformation of information from the short-term
memory into the long-term memory requires a certain, undisturbed time.
Therefore, pauses can be seen as an anchoring of information. Experiments also
suggest that learning is most effective if it is distributed over time.
In order to illustrate, I draw a
sketch for my pupils of a head with a funnel going into it. If too much
information is forced to be taken in, without the necessary pause, a large part
of the learned material gets lost (overflow!). You must not only believe it,
you must also trust that the brain
works for you during your breaks! To the same extent that you gain trust in
your brain, this trust will also develop in yourself and in your own abilities!
The key to making a
particular stimulus a permanent part of your long-term memory is to review it
repeatedly over a long period of time. Information from short-term memory is stored in
the long-term memory by rehearsal.
The repeated exposure to a stimulus or the rehearsal of a piece of information
transfers it into long-term memory. It doesn’t matter how briefly the information
(what we’re trying to learn) has been residing in our memory, by recalling the
information during these few seconds, we can save the new impressions from
fading.
Stimuli that are not
reviewed in this way become gradually weaker with time. Writing things down
allows you to review them over a period of time and so make them part of your
long-term, permanent memory.
Studies have shown that a
stimulus enters the long-term memory (it is "learned") after it has
been conscientiously observed 7 times. If this process is repeated over a
period of time (say, the stimulus is observed seven times a day for a period of
five days) the long-term memory gradually becomes stronger and stronger—a
"permanent" memory.
But if an
"incorrect" stimulus is first learned (you’ve learned it wrong!), it then takes an average of 35 (!) repetitions to learn the
"corrected" stimulus. Learning it right the first time is five times
easier than re-learning after learning it incorrectly.
So if, in the beginning,
you stick with sections that are small enough that you can "memorize after
seven times," you will be working with sections that are small enough to
fit comfortably in your short-term memory. These sections are the easiest for
your mind to comprehend and process, so they will be learned and memorized more
quickly and they will be retained longer.
If in your practice you
play sections of your pieces that are longer than your short-term memory
capacity, the beginning of the passage will have "slipped out" of
your short-term memory by the time you reach the end of the passage. This
overloading of the short-term memory disrupts the whole memory process.
Learning and memorizing is much more difficult under these conditions.
Psychologists who study learning say: Analyzing the meaning of something helps you remember it longer. Theoretically the long - term memory disposes over an unlimited staggering capacity.
Luckily experienced musicians are
not at "Point Zero" with their capacities! They have access to a
large number of complex skill and information blocks that need not be
constantly chunked down! For a beginner the scale of C major is loaded with
unknown parts, the teacher has to introduce these in progressing steps.
Professional musicians in comparison, only have to reduce to the nearest
complex form, in order to attach onto the newly learned material. You save time
and energy if you have these complex chunks are already "in storage".
But that is not yet the case with beginners. AND – that is one of our goals
when practicing!
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Contents learned over a diversity of
channels, gets fixed more securely in the memory. Speaking out loud and writing
down the musical text, for example, strengthens the learning process.
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Stop-Prepare
You insert stops at certain points
in the piece. For instance if your piece has a section with running sixteenth
notes, you could stop on the first sixteenth note of every beat. Or between
each measure. Or before every “hard part”. Then you have time to mentally prepare the notes coming up. (Hmm, this makes for lots of “new
beginnings”. Doesn’t our brain love those?!) The ensuing patterns also help our
brain to remember easier.
How to disturb the learning process - interference
Any form of excitement or a highly
emotional experience may disturb the learning process. The brain must be free
of other thoughts before practicing can be effective. The same may be true of
excitement after practicing. The hard-won material will be lost.
If you learn a relatively large segment of a
piece (A) and, without taking a break, learn a second segment (B), you will
retain less of the first segment than if you had learned nothing new in the
meantime. As a matter of fact, not only is a portion of the first section lost
but also a portion of the second segment. The term
for this interference is proactive inhibition. Retroactive inhibition
interferes with retention of things learned previously
Even more interference may take
place when passages are practiced that are very much alike. Contrasting
passages should be practiced after each other. Parallel (similar) passages
should only be practiced consecutively when a piece is well learned and an
added challenge is needed to check for possible memory slips.
It may also be unwise to memorize
something new shortly before a concert. Passages that had earlier been
absolutely certain are often difficult to remember under pressure. It is as if
the new material had pushed the old material to the side to make room for new!
In fact, it is better to play
memorized pieces with the music just before a performance rather than testing
your memory right before going on stage. This is especially true for
inexperienced performers.
It is essential to set practicing
goals with your child that are achievable within a short time. As the 100%
human concentration span for children lasts approximately 10 minutes, the
objective of your task ought to be reached within this time. If your goals are
set too high, it will be impossible to accomplish them and the resulting
failure will squelch any desire to try the next task. Either one looses the
desire to tackle new tasks, or one learns to accept incomplete work.
Know your child’s capabilities and don’t,
for instance, set the goal of memorizing and perfecting a movement from a new
concerto in an hour, unless he really has no trouble doing so.
If the first goal is reached, it is
important to take a short break of approximately 1 minute. Ideally we should
stretch the break up to 20 minutes, as precisely this time span is required for
information to be settled in the long - term memory. Of course, this length of
time is unreasonable – you won’t be able to get your kid back to “work”!! Also,
the disadvantages entail a new warm - up
time. This isn’t realistic for our fast-paced lives!
The next 10-minute practice period
should contain completely different material and be followed by a break (about
1-2 minutes). Avoid doing anything during these breaks that would occupy your
child mentally: recommendable would be to get a bit of fresh air or something
to drink!
I like exercising with aerobic or dance videos! With kids, I have them
stand up, walk to the window, stretch toward the ceiling, etc.
This practice breakdown can be
repeated several times during the day, but it is never advisable to practice if
you and/or your child are tired. At that point, more can be won by taking a
walk or nap than by mindlessly repeating a passage or doing “finger gymnastics”
for hours on end. The times of the day when performance and capability levels
are high should be set aside for practicing. Turn these times into a standing
habit!
There are certainly many practice
habits that inhibit learning. Two common mistakes are 1) always starting at the
beginning of a piece and 2) practicing passages that are already perfected. A
comprehensive "workout" of a piece by simply playing through it is
impossible: the amount of information is simply too immense to “stick” in one
run-through. It is a better idea to pick out the most difficult passages in a
new piece and perfect them before adding the easier parts. Otherwise, it’s like
putting together a puzzle with the most important parts missing.
Everyone experiences the “I’ll do it
tomorrow”-syndrome for difficult tasks. That tomorrow often never comes: and it adds to a performer’s anxiety
and uncertainty, which in turn compounds stage fright.
Write in the fingerings, bowings,
dynamics, and other important markings. Trying to remember every detail is a
senseless waste of your practice energy. The mere writing down accompanied by
verbalising, is an additional help toward anchoring!
When musical material is practiced
too long without any new motivation, a learning plateau may result. Progress at
the beginning of a new piece soon levels off and it may even happen that no
improvement is made at all despite steady practicing. Because most learning is
done when you first begin working on a piece, new stimuli must always be found
to keep the learning curve from levelling off.
There are many methods of varying
difficult parts, in order to keep them "new", to enable additional
information being channelled to the brain and keep up the necessary motivation.
A musical passage also gets established, as a whole, through many repetitions,
but only the existing quality gets established, not improved. Also all the
mistakes, weaknesses and fears present in the repetitions are anchored.
I am often asked whether playing
through is basically wrong. The brain has already assimilated the piece
together with the necessary technique into the long term memory. Sure, you need
to recall this information now and again (by simply playing through the piece),
otherwise it “slips” into the subconscious, were it is not readily accessible.
The piece doesn’t improve by doing this, though. If you want to improve the
difficult sections, you must see to it that repetitions are done with absolute
concentration. Playing through the piece won’t make anything “better”! It will
just reinforce the quality that you’ve achieved up until now.
Passages must always be practiced
correctly. Never practice mistakes. Avoid sight-reading a piece more than
twice; mistakes learned during sight-reading are difficult to change.
The external situation while
practicing is also very important. It influences the efficiency of learning to
an incredible extent, that is; positively or negatively. Choose a suitable working
space. Always practice there as a motivational trigger, if possible, at the
same time each day!
It is much more effective to
practice daily for just a few minutes than practicing for ½ hour 2 days a week.
So try to make practicing part of your everyday routine and you will be assured
of fast results, which in turn will boost confidence and encourage your child
to continue to grow.
Practice Methods
There are many methods for altering
difficult passages so they appear new. Here are a few examples:
1. Say the interval between each note
and the following note out loud.
2. Relate the first note of the passage
by interval to all the other notes. Say the intervals out loud.
3. Transpose the passage.
4. Practice the first two notes
together until they can both be played perfectly. Only then should the third
note be added and so on until the whole passage is complete. This method allows
practicing almost in tempo.
5. Don’t correct mistakes this time
through. Aim precisely and verbalize what went wrong; otherwise only correcting
is practiced instead of learning to hit the notes exactly.
6. String players should accent every
up-bow (or down-bow).
7. Put a slight accent on the notes
played by a chosen finger. Say either the name of the note or the finger
number.
8. Alter a difficult passage
rhythmically. The idea is to change the task -make it more complex, as it were-so
that the brain has a chance to work on it from many directions. When you go
back to the written version, is seems easy.
The four rhythms are
short-long, long-short, long-short-short-short, and completely even. Each short
is represented by a one-count note and each long by a three-count note. The
last step is to play the notes evenly (as written). Start slowly and build up
the tempo for each unit.
9. Move the bar line to another point
which changes the rhythmic emphasis.
10. Accent the first note of every group
of four. When that can be done at a moderately fast tempo, accent the second
note in every group of four, etc. Triplets can be practiced in groups of three
and four.
11. String players should change the
bowing of a passage.
12. Practice very slowly while being
intensely aware of each note. Increase the metronome tempo steadily until the
desired tempo is reached. Review by going back to the slow tempo and starting
again.
13. Make use of a “movable bracket”.
Practice the first four notes until they are perfected. Then practice notes
2-5, 3-6, etc.
14. Practice without the instrument.
Memorizing this way avoids rote “finger memory”.
15. String players should think of
position changes early, not just immediately before the shift. Each time you
are shifting, think of the next shift coming up. Think about which finger is
shifting, which finger is moving, and whether the new note is on a down-bow or
up-bow. This information must be learned during practice or it can’t be done
effectively in a performance. By then it’s too late. Other instrumentalists can
adapt this method to scales, runs, and difficult passages.
16. Pick out a section of your piece.
Try to play it three times in a row without a single mistake. When you can do
this, try playing five times in a row without a mistake. When you can do this,
try it ten times in a row perfectly. When you can do this, you know you've
mastered the passage.
17. The main organ you are developing
when you practice is not your fingers, hands, mouth, lungs or arms. It is your
brain. Any one method—no matter how good—will cause the brain to tune out if
used over and over for hours on end. Practicing should be a creative and interesting
time, not just a monotonous routine. By varying your practice techniques, you
can keep your mind captivated longer. That way, you will retain much more of
what you practice.
18. Start with the end of the piece
rather than the beginning. More often than not, the beginning of a song your child plays sounds
impressive, but the more he gets into the piece, the more work it needs. This
is because kids always start at the beginning and continue to the end. Encourage
your child to start at the end when he practices. After working on this, have
him go back and start in the middle (or some other spot). Your youngster will
surely play the piece more confidently this way!
19. It is a great idea to practice
difficult passage work in varied rhythms or points of concentration. For
instance, your child is going to watch intonation (or fingering, rhythm,
articulation, or the like) and ONLY intonation. Change your point of focus
after practicing ONE aspect for about 5 repetitions. Then change your focus
again. Five repetitions per aspect will accomplish lots more and the process is
a whole lot more fun and interesting. The passage is the same yet seems
different – almost “new” – which increases motivation and learning intensity!
20. Help your child divide her piece
into small sections and have her practice each section at practice tempo until
it is very good. (A practice tempo is the tempo at which you can control the
weakest section. It is a comfortable speed.) Practicing only short segments allows your
youngster to practice the same segment dozens of times in a matter of minutes Then combine two small sections to make larger
sections. Practice this larger section until it is good. Continue combining
sections until you play the whole piece. At the start, the sections should be
quite small--small enough that your child can almost play it perfectly from the
start. Your darling will have the feeling of success and – success motivates!
The list could be extended as far as
an individual’s creativity allows. Boredom is very often a product of a set
routine, and practice without thinking and planning is a waste of time.
Practice sessions can be more interesting through constant modification of the
music you want to learn. Progress can only be achieved through careful analysis
and intelligent repetition, but that repetition needs to occur under
ever-changing conditions.
A careful analysis of the quality
and quantity of a person’s practice time often yields surprising information.
The methods for more efficient use of time and brain power when practicing will
bring results only if they are used regularly. By using good practice methods,
you can learn twice as much in half the time, and your pieces will sound better,
too. The opportunity is there for anyone who wants to spend less time
practicing and still achieve better results.
Find out what kind of learner your child is
Ask yourself, does your child learn
something better when she sees it written down? Does she need to hear something
a few times before she really knows it? Does she like to learn pieces by heart?
Are there other strategies that work well for her? If you recognize your child’s
learning strengths, you can use them to practice more effectively. The same
goes for your child. Help her find out her “best ways” to learn.
When my son was in middle school, I told him about learning strategies
and mentioned that he was an “auditive” learner (learn best through hearing and
speaking). It wasn’t long before he began recording his school material on
cassette and enjoyed listening to it in the warm tub!
Work at your child’s own pace
Make the best of the time you have
available to practice. As a general rule, don’t try and do too much at once.
You will often find you can learn more effectively if you learn at regular
intervals, rather than try to do a whole practice plan in one sitting.
With the best will in the world,
there will be times when you and/or your child just don’t feel like practicing.
Try not to skip your session, though, and organize your work according to your
mood. If your bambino is tired, choose less demanding tasks such as repeating
pieces he plays well; if he lacks concentration, have him sight-read an easy
piece.
Why not learn with someone else?
It helps if your child can learn
with someone else. If someone sits encouragingly with him, it will give him
extra impetus to keep working. I know groups of older students who meet to
practice together. Several ears and brains are often better than one and the
concentration stays high. Agree on times to meet and set goals for the practice
session. Perform for your “assistant” (or any willing listener!) regularly. If
your child is in group lessons, have the group get together occasionally.
There's
nothing a musician knows better than the cheerless fact that every instrument
requires lots of practice, and that practicing is an endeavour that usually
involves large quantities of repetition. We are constantly confronted with passages,
whether from compositions being prepared or from specialized pieces known as
"studies", etudes or "exercises“, which demand endless intelligent
repeats intended to render them manageable and dependable under stress. Many
passages--scales, for instance--become part of a daily routine, while others
may require a unique approach developed for the occasion. But there are right
and wrong ways of practicing.
It is
how we practice that
makes all the difference in learning to play.
Practice is intended to encourage
positive transformation in both the brain and nervous system, and in order for
that to happen each repetition must be
different from the previous one. Every repetition has to be analyzed so
that it can be improved each time instead of simply repeated.
This is one of the most important
parts of a teacher's task. The instructor's primary job is to impart the skills
needed, help diagnose problems, and then to find and apply the proper
strategies needed to solve them--and these are things the student must
ultimately learn to do on his own in the practice room. You, as his parent, are
the teacher at home.
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