[Noa Kageyama]

Thanks, @Willa ! I’ve been really grateful to see how engaged and supportive of each other everyone is through these classes/minicamps – so there’s been a lot of gratitude on my end as well. 😁

[Noa Kageyama]

Ack! I’m sorry for missing this @johnsonk056hawaii-rr-com !

Yes – you’ve got it! There can be some real benefits to learning something intuitively, without thinking of each detail consciously (implicit learning). Of course, usually, at some point, we have to break it down and understand the details of it more explicitly through deliberate practice-type work.

But as it becomes more fluid and automatic, we want to be able to perform that skill without consciously thinking about each muscle movement, in order to perform it more effectively.

So it’s often a continual cycle of going through implicit and explicit as we continue to hone and refine and improve our skills.

I’m not sure how I missed this, but feel free to email me directly if you don’t get a response in these forums within a day or two if this ever happens again! 😅

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi Fernando – good question. A couple thoughts:

1. Encoding repertoire more deeply and with greater elaborative detail can help (Molly Gebrian’s podcast episode on this will be of interest if you haven’t already heard it: https://bulletproofmusician.com/molly-gebrian-on-efficient-effective-and-reliable-memorization-strategies-for-musicians/)

2. However, there’s always going to be a natural forgetting process, especially if you’re adding new pieces to your repertoire. The saying “use it or lose it” relates to this, because it’s not very efficient for your brain to retain the capacity for something if it’s not going to be used. So I think you’ll probably have to do some degree of reviewing, either regularly, or at least before you play the piece you’re bringing back, in order for it to be reliable.

3. In addition to encoding, there’s also the retrieval aspect of things. You might have the piece in your memory, but being able to get it out of memory is a separate challenge that has to be practiced as well (Molly gets at this in her episode too).

4. And trust is a tricky thing too, of course. In order to trust that you can do something, it helps to have done something similar before. The more times you have been able to play something successfully in the way you describe, the easier it’ll be to trust that you can do so again in the future. So it might be that practicing playing things without much advance preparation would be a useful challenge to engage in, so as to develop that trust in your abilities. Being sure of course to try to manufacture as many successes as possible, so starting with very little at stake, to increasing amounts of pressure, as your trust and confidence grows.

Hope that gives you some ideas!

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi @Mavi , I’m sorry for the delayed response! Good question.

Sometimes, the issue with learning plateaus, is that we keep trying variations of the same solution that isn’t working, because we aren’t able to see the problem in a different way. My advisor in grad school used to say “if you misdiagnose the problem, you’re probably going to misdiagnose the solution too.” And often, the problem isn’t what we think it is, and once we see things differently, the solution becomes more apparent.

To that end, I wonder if one shortcut would be to play for someone (or a few people) and ask them what they see/hear? Often, the person you play for doesn’t even necessarily have to be “better” or more experienced/advanced. Simply a different perspective, or someone asking you questions, might help unlock something or help you suddenly see the problem in a different way. I remember getting an email from a performer/educator who played a passage they were struggling with for their adult learner student, and the student actually asked a question or suggested something that helped them solve the issue.

[Noa Kageyama]

@regula I think it might have been @wayne-fugate who recommended the book Breath, by James Nestor in a previous office hours session, perhaps. I haven’t gotten to it yet, but Wayne, any thoughts on whether this book might speak to what Regula is describing?

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi @Inspired . Good question, and I don’t actually know. I might be a little biased as I can’t wrap my head around movable do, but I just assumed he was referring to fixed do. Do you know what’s most typical in Europe? Whether they tend to default to fixed or movable? He teaches in Denmark, so that might give us a clue. Of course, I guess we could just ask him as well. Let me know if you’d like me to check with him. =)

[Noa Kageyama]

Interesting – thanks for sharing, Stephen!

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi Will – this is probably pretty basic, but my immediate thoughts were to wonder how long your practice sessions were, how much of a break you take between sessions, when during the day you practice, how much sleep you’re getting in general, and whether you’re hydrated enough. I wonder if you might be able to share some of these details? 😄

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi @joanna-smyk . Yeah, that’s never easy. A couple thoughts.

1. First off, it’s great that you’re wanting to deal with this and let go. Not just because it’s not fun to feel this way, but also because your ability to risk “failure” and keep putting yourself out there will be a huge asset into the future. If we are too afraid of playing poorly in front of others, it feeds the tendency to wait to play for others and delay and delay until it’s “ready.” Which, of course, means we wait until the last minute, and don’t give ourselves enough opportunities to practice performing or auditioning or playing for others. Which puts us at a disadvantage in performance, because we haven’t exposed the things that are most in need of work, or are least reliable under pressure. Sociologist Brené Brown talks about shame, and also “daring greatly” as an end in and of itself in this TED talk that you might find helpful if you haven’t seen it already: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame/c

2. Similarly to #1 above, many of the best athletes train themselves to focus more on learning and improving, rather than winning or avoiding losing. Sure, everyone wants to win, but it can lead to lots of emotional ups and downs, and much of it is out of our control (e.g. you could play your absolute best, but a teacher/music director/colleague might not like your playing anyway). Focusing relentlessly on growth, will help you become the best musician you can be, and help make it easier to avoid getting too attached to specific outcomes or results. Along those lines, was three anything in these experiences that you might be able to take away that you learned? Even if it’s a small thing, like knowing what not to eat beforehand, or how to prepare differently, or what to think about or do while waiting to play? Former Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens talks about this, and demonstrates this focus on growth in this video that I really like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIbL3N8OU-E

3. You might also enjoy this other TED talk on embracing rejection: https://www.ted.com/talks/jia_jiang_what_i_learned_from_100_days_of_rejection It’s somewhat related to the idea of doing 42 mock auditions (as Met percussionist Rob Knopper did) instead of 4 or 5 mock auditions, with the goal of exposing as many of the things that could go wrong in advance (and doing all of your subpar playing in front of friends, colleagues, teachers, etc.) so that you can play better on the day of the audition.

Hope this helps give you some ideas!

Noa

[Noa Kageyama]

Interesting question. There are a variety of factors involved, like energy/focus/fatigue as you mentioned, but my take on what I’ve read would be to suggest saving your high-energy periods during the day whenever you’re most energized and focused for the most cognitively-intensive or difficult work you have to do. And then you could reserve a little bit of time in the evening for new notes that you’d like to get into your fingers.

I might be forgetting some things, but as far as I can recall, much of the literature has looked at learning new things, rather than honing/refining already-learned things with this evening vs. morning learning effect (like this one – https://bulletproofmusician.com/simple-practice-scheduling-hack-couldnt-possibly-effective-seems/). Not that honing/refining skills isn’t likely to benefit from consolidation during sleep as well, but sometimes it can be easier/funner to just play some new things without worrying too much about the details, just to get the basics into your brain.

[Noa Kageyama]

Thought of another couple that may be of interest…

This one is a little different, but Josh Waitzkin’s “The Art of Learning” was one that a few of my students enjoyed, back when I had a reading list/paper as one of the assignments for my live in-person classes. If you remember the 90’s movie, “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” Waitzkin was the subject of that movie.

You may find David Epstein’s “The Sports Gene” to be an intriguing read too. Ericsson acknowledges that there is a genetic component to some aspects of performance (like the saying “you can’t teach height”), and Epstein’s book explores this part of the equation.

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi Stephen – yes, Talent Code has lots of great stories and illustrations of deliberate practice, and I really enjoyed it as well. This came out around the time as another book on the same subject – Talent is Overrated. But I found Talent Code to be a more optimistic take on Ericsson’s deliberate practice research, and some students (especially those who started a little later in childhood) did feel discouraged after reading Talent is Overrated.

You might also enjoy Peak, which was written more recently by Anders Ericsson himself.

Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning is another favorite, and probably one of the books I recommend most often.

And a friend of mine in the Met Opera orchestra (who was an engineer before starting his audition journey) really loved Cal Newport’s Deep Work.

Also, Molly Gebrian has a book coming out sometime soon (hopefully in 2023, but I’ll let you know when it’s out) about the research on practicing, and it’s excellent. It’s going to replace Make it Stick as my go-to recommendation for a book that explores the research on learning for musicians.

[Noa Kageyama]

@sverderbgmail-com One quick tip on recording on your iPhone/iPad. There’s a free app (also a paid version) called Twisted Wave Recorder, that is one of the very few iOS apps that enables you to turn off dynamic compression and background noise reduction and give you a more honest recording of what your playing sounds like. So instead of all of your dynamics being in the mezzo p to mezzo f range, you’ll get a more accurate sense of your dynamics. You can turn off the enhancements in the setting section (“enhancements” are turned on by default).

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi @lyn-johnson , I know Coursera has a couple free music theory courses (like this one https://www.coursera.org/learn/edinburgh-music-theory) which might be a place to start. I’ve also sent out an email to a friend who used to teach music theory, and will post an update here if she has any suggestions or recommendations.

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi Sarah,

Good question. I’m not sure if this exactly what you had in mind, but I wonder if this might be related?

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-music-education/article/abs/what-classical-musicians-can-learn-from-working-with-actors-conceptual-and-pedagogic-foundations-and-outcomes-of-bringing-musicians-to-integrate-in-a-drama-training-environment/C5DA27D1CF1F94D60E8EF6555F2E67D8

Noa

[Noa Kageyama]

In terms of finding articles, this is probably best done by searching academic databases, like psycinfo or sportdiscus, which you can sometimes access through databases like Ebsco, using your public library account.

You can find some things via Google Scholar too.

And I know some folks use Sci Hub to download articles, though I can’t really recommend that as it’s a copyright issue!

[Noa Kageyama]

@Jana I think you might be thinking of this study? https://bulletproofmusician.com/evidence-that-you-should-probably-be-taking-practice-micro-breaks-if-you-want-to-maximize-learning/

That’s a little more related to motor skills and less about memory per se, but there’s also this one that might be relevant: https://bulletproofmusician.com/why-too-short-practice-breaks-could-undermine-your-learning/

And this one: https://bulletproofmusician.com/memorize-more-music-by-remembering-to-press-pause/

Hope that helps!

[Noa Kageyama]

Thanks for sharing, Gonzalo – will look forward to checking this out!

[Noa Kageyama]

Sounds like an intriguing presentation! =)

Let me know how the weekly schedule goes. Sometimes that can be exactly what we need – and sometimes that can paradoxically lead to less consistency. In the sense that we feel like we’ve failed when we haven’t followed the schedule, and end up not practicing because we didn’t do it when we were supposed to and end up feeling discouraged. At times like that, it can help to be more flexible with the schedule and just fit a few things in wherever we can, and call it a win, even if it feels less organized.

[Noa Kageyama]

Sounds good, Jaime!

[Noa Kageyama]

@Jess Sounds good! Regarding your plan, if you find yourself running into speed bumps, you might also try committing to doing whatever the mini goal is first. Kind of like making kids eat their broccoli (or whatever veggie they’re trying to avoid) first, before the yummy things they like.

[Noa Kageyama]

Sounds good, Patricia! And because a month can sometimes be a long time, if you find yourself losing steam through the month, try experimenting with some small but specific practice goals, where you might be able to measure progress more easily, and give you that little motivational boost to keep going. Like doing a weekly before/after set of recordings, and seeing if your rhythm has improved in some specific way, or something along those lines.

[Noa Kageyama]

Yay! And you don’t have to worry about this until the end of the month, but when comparing the BEFORE and AFTER, it might help to set up a system to help you listen more objectively and make sure you hear the improvements you’ve made. Something as simple as listening once for note accuracy, once for rhythm, once for expressiveness, etc. I’ve come across several musicians who have their students listen this way, to make sure they don’t miss things (both positive changes as well as things in need of more work) in their listening “blind spots.”

[Noa Kageyama]

@Angelaskates Sounds good! I might suggest making a BEFORE recording asap, so you’ll have something tangible that you can compare things with at the end of the month. 😁

[Noa Kageyama]

Hey @Mavi ! How’d timeboxing work out for you?

[Noa Kageyama]

That’s great! Will look forward to hearing how this goes in the coming weeks!

[Noa Kageyama]

Yay for the storytelling experiment! Sounds like it worked out really well.

And I’ll be curious to hear how your consult with the Taubman colleague goes. My wife studied with a teacher who took the first semester or two with every new student to help them relearn how to play in a more Taubman-aligned way. I don’t play the piano, but had to do secondary piano lessons like every other non-pianist, and my secondary piano teacher taught us Taubman principles, which I really found helpful and interesting as well. I suspect you’ll get more out of a live learning of it with your colleague than from videos where you aren’t able to get as much personal feedback, but it sounds like a worthwhile path to explore given your recent wrist pain.

[Noa Kageyama]

Sounds like you’re doing really well with the fundamentals! Is it possible that you might need a longer break between practice sessions? Or perhaps the 3rd and 4th sessions are just inherently not going to be as focused or productive as the first two? Perhaps you could save more cognitively intensive tasks for your more naturally-focused periods, and save less demanding passages/issues for your less-focused times?

[Noa Kageyama]

This might be related? https://bulletproofmusician.com/are-you-an-early-bird-or-a-night-owl-why-this-could-affect-how-well-you-play-in-your-next-audition/

[Noa Kageyama]

Sounds like a good goal with a contingency plan in place. Aside from travel, are there other things that could be potential obstacles?

[Noa Kageyama]

@ellenjohansen Great plans, Ellen. I suspect these should probably be standard operating procedure for all of us, whether it’s practicing or anything else we do! 😁

[Noa Kageyama]

Sounds like a great month, Grace! Glad to hear things went well – and also that you were able to catch yourself and avoid mentally dismissing the positive feedback. Sounds like a great plan for the weeks ahead as well!

[Noa Kageyama]

No worries, those outcomes sound great!

[Noa Kageyama]

Oops; sorry about that Harold. Was still logged in as Mickey…

[Noa Kageyama]

@michelle-rudder The fake citations are especially frustrating, because it does a good job of combining researchers and topics and article titles and journals that sound completely plausible given those researchers’ previous work, and sound exactly like the sort of articles I’d love to read, but then don’t exist. ????

[Noa Kageyama]

@Philippa Let me know how this goes! Sometimes it can be helpful to create a “not-to-do” list as well, if you find yourself doing certain tasks that are tempting, but take time away from the more important things on your todo list.

[Noa Kageyama]

@MaggieM Sounds like a great exercise. I assume you’ve also tried playing with a recording, and perhaps even singing with the recording?

[Noa Kageyama]

@kristen-gale Will be curious to hear how your first WOOP went! Have you ever done a not-to-do list, by the way? Sometimes it can be helpful to identify the things that are tempting to spend time on, but we really should NOT be spending our time on.

[Noa Kageyama]

I use a free app called Focus Keeper, for what it’s worth. There are lots of other free ones though, I think. And some for the computer too.

[Noa Kageyama]

@tricia-snell I imagine you’ve already tried this, but while a pomodoro timer app seems really simple, it can change how your work periods feel, and increase the likelihood of your taking breaks instead of getting stuck in front of the computer for long periods of time.

[Noa Kageyama]

@Seth Yay for working those small practice blocks into your day. Yes – I think the practice until you can’t anymore approach is probably pretty standard, but I suspect this leads to a tiny bit of procrastination, because we know that we’re in for a commitment that’s pretty draining. Whereas if we know we’re only going to be working on something for a short while, it might be easier to get started because we know the commitment isn’t too great.

I don’t have much data on this, just some extrapolations of somewhat related studies, but I’ll be curious to hear what your experience of this might be.

[Noa Kageyama]

Terrific observation about your bow, @amaudpowellfan ! ????

[Noa Kageyama]

@Kim_Harris In terms of feeling discouraged, and a lack of progress, I wonder if it might help to verbalize a few specific goals here? Sometimes goal specificity can help with facilitating and feeling more progress, and I wonder if we might be able to help with that process.

[Noa Kageyama]

@Ming I’ve noticed the site being sluggish the last week or two as well. I think I might have narrowed the issue down to a booking plugin, and I think updating it has speeded things up a bit, but I’ll keep tweaking things to see if I can speed things up.

[Noa Kageyama]

Will look forward to hearing how interleaved practice continues to go in the weeks ahead!

[Noa Kageyama]

????

[Noa Kageyama]

Yay! Glad it worked out with Ann and Paul.

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi Angela, quick thing about recording on your phone – if you have an iPhone, there’s an app called TwistedWave Recorder (the free version works just fine) which allows you to turn off dynamic compression and other iOS “enhancements” that optimize recording for speaking, but are suboptimal for recording music. If you haven’t tried it already, you might find that this gives you a more accurate representation of your dynamic range, etc.

[Noa Kageyama]

Yay for 5 out of 7!

One thing you might experiment with is cutting your practice sessions short, or stopping while you still feel like you could easily go longer. Sometimes, when we end a practice session (or workout) feeling like things were tough at the end, it can be harder to start the next time. Whereas if things feel easy at the end, it can be easier to get started again the next time.

[Noa Kageyama]

@jontoobie-yahoo-com Sounds like a great project. I assume the memory course includes Roger Chaffin’s research on performance cues? Either way, it sounds like the memory project and learning new rep could be integrated in a fun way, as performance cues can be identified and integrated into your practice from Day 1.