Source
r/musictheory•
aintso

What is the current consensus and the state of research on the proper way to practice?

I have found this article: http://jrm.sagepub.com/content/56/4/310.full.pdf

Which cites a bunch more and seems like a good entry point, but before delving into it I thought I'd ask here.

The main point they make is that it is better to practice with specific goals in mind, and not just put in the hours hands-on with the instrument. This seems kind of obvious, but that may simply be hindsight. It also implies that it's worth learning how to dissect problem into subproblems and how to analyze mistakes.

Since I'm at it I'm citing the juiciest part of the paper, where the authors present their observations on traits shared by those whose practice was the most successful:

A. Playing was hands-together early in practice.

B. Practice was with inflection early on; the initial conceptualization of the music was with inflection.

C. Practice was thoughtful, as evidenced by silent pauses while looking at the music, singing/humming, making notes on the page, or expressing verbal “ah-ha”s.

D. Errors were preempted by stopping in anticipation of mistakes.

E. Errors were addressed immediately when they appeared.

F. The precise location and source of each error was identified accurately, rehearsed, and corrected.

G. Tempo of individual performance trials was varied systematically; logically understandable changes in tempo occurred between trials (slowed down enough; didn’t speed up too much).

H. Target passages were repeated until the error was corrected and the passage was stabilized, as evidenced by the error’s absence in subsequent trials.

I would like to learn to practice better, so please share any pointers to relevant research or personal anecdotes.

Posted Nov 18, 2015, 12:17 PM UTC

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HeyGuysImMichael•

Instead of "H." you should have put "A." so the list is in a minor

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DRL47•

The "H" is German for B, so the list is multi-lingual. That keeps it in A minor, with a skip at the octave.

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Brinjal•

This is very interesting.

Could you explain what the terms "hands-together" and "inflection" mean?

I think not practising errors and immediately diagnosing them when they do occur is important, but difficult and frustrating. I've never thought of preempting errors until now. It seems so obvious.

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m3g0wnzpop/rock, timbre, arranging/transcribing•

"Hands together" is probably specific to keyboard instruments, where it's common to practice the left hand alone and the right hand alone. "Inflection" just means including dynamics, expression markings, ritardandos, etc. right away, instead of playing mechanically at first and adding expression later.

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wiz0floyddouble bass performance•

This seems to be more pedagogy and learning psychology than theory. I've heard it called deep practice in other contexts (sports, art, etc).

Here are a few books that I'd recommend:
The Talent Code
The Inner Game of Tennis
The Musician's Way
Practicing for Artistic Success

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XXaudionautXX•

I know you asked a question (that I don't have the answer to), but your question ended up being a great resource. Thanks for the info. As a teacher this is very helpful. I find that students don't get better at the rate you expect by just getting them to practice more. I always thought that was the battle, just getting them to practice; but in reality, it's only part of the battle. I'm going to focus much more on teaching my students how to practice.

Just a general solid practice tip if you are interested: record yourself playing and analyze. There are certain aspects of your playing that are more obvious from an outside perspective. It also gives you the ability to watch again and again and focus on small parts of the piece to hyper analyze your mistakes or issues which could help to get to the root of them faster.

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pixiepiper•

For an overview of current music cognition research on practicing and its applications:

http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/articles/

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Willravel•

This is kinda the point in taking lessons, because any halfway decent teacher will be giving you specific practicing goals and techniques to utilize every week (or however often it is between lessons). The direction comes from the teacher, whether it's a beginning student being able to play the whole piece counting out out for proper rhythm or a more advanced student managing a proper shift in mood from movement to movement. And you essentially practice your practicing at a lesson, when you play through a piece under the guidance of your instructor. If you forget something or make a mistake, they're there to back you up and remind you of what you will need to watch for yourself when you're at home or in a practice studio/room.

While self-directed learning can work for some students, particularly after years of good lessons, for most students I think this is less on them and more on their instructors. It's been said that a teacher's job is to make you a teacher for yourself, to sort of install a little teacher in your brain that you can call upon.

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rubken•

There are two main threads to this. The first is to make each pass at a piece or exercise as real as possible (both hands together for keyboard instruments and including all the inflections) and not to ignore mistakes.

I remember an article about tennis teaching in Russia from a few years ago where they wrote about how everything is initially practiced very slowly. The coach explained that they to this as when an action is performed perfectly and positive feedback is received the body produces myelin around the nerves required to perform the action. This acts to improve the function of the nerves.

Playing through errors at best gives you no benefit and at worst grooves in the mistake. The positive reinforcement comes from what you are playing sounding musical and correct.

This is why starting slow and using consistent fingering/technique really matters. When we practice we are teaching our bodies a repeatable action. Success comes not just from doing stuff but evaluation as we practice.

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