# Technique, Theory, Playing Tips and Tricks > Theory, Technique, Tips and Tricks >  Practicing what is hard in pursuit of effortlessness

## JonZ

Cognitive psychology tells us that you will make faster gains if you allow a skill to deteriorate somewhat before you practice it again. The extra effort makes for stronger learning. However, the goal is to play effortlessly. If you are always allowing your skills to deteriorate before you review them, it seems they won’t ever become effortless.

Has anyone else thought about how one should resolve this contradiction?

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J Walsh

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## Bill McCall

Since I don’t believe the first sentence has empirical validity, there’s no contradiction.  Apparently 2 a day is in invalid practice.

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dscullin

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## Ivan Kelsall

From JonZ - _"...if you allow a skill to deteriorate somewhat before you practice it again."_. Jon - personally,i think that maybe has to do with not letting a skill 'deteriorate' so much as letting our memory / muscle memory 'forget' the wrong way we played something.

   One of the first Bill Monroe instrumentals i learned how to play 'by ear' was ''Old Daingerfield'' & i played it for a couple of years until one day, i realised that i was playing the first few bars incorrectly. I tried to play it correctly,but the 'wrong way' stuck !!. So,i left it alone for 18 months or so,then went back to it & managed to get it right,
                                                                                                                Ivan :Wink:

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## MontanaMatt

If you increase you alcohol intake over time as you play, thing deteriorate as you play...q.e.d. You alway get better!
I think I'm on to something...
Kinda like the more you drink the better I look!
You look like I need another drink!
 :Laughing:

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## JonZ

> Since I dont believe the first sentence has empirical validity, theres no contradiction.  Apparently 2 a day is in invalid practice.


Look up spacing effect and desirable difficulty. They are among the most consistently validated practices in educational research.

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## Dagger Gordon

You don't want your skills to deteriorate much at all. That seems perfectly obvious to me.

However, it can certainly be a good idea to leave something which you find difficult and come back to it later, and often that little break can help. But use that time to do something else - don't 'deteriorate'.

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## yankees1

For ME, I always practice SLOW until it becomes boring and my speed gradually picks up on it's own. Only practice as fast as you can while fingering/playing correctly ! Don't learn something wrong and than have to unlearn it to start all over learning it correctly !

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## Phil Goodson

> Look up “spacing effect” and “desirable difficulty”. They are among the most consistently validated practices in educational research.


Isn't this talking about retention of  MEMORY specifically?   I don't remember reading about allowing deterioration of 'physical abilities' or 'skills'.
Certainly, re-establishment of memories which are fading causes stronger and longer lasting memory.   Other things, ....  I'm not so sure. :Confused:

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## farmerjones

Don't think "deteriorate." Think 'recovery."  Every resistance training regimen has time for the body to recover. 
Making synoptic circuits seems no different. At least personally. 

Many type of mental development. But this pursuit of effortlessness, what many find the most difficult (this is paraphrasing Kenny Werner) is getting rid of the effort. Graduate students have essentially made careers out of learning. Many can't see the forest for the trees. Remember grad. students already know how to play at a high(er) level. Then the next step is to leave the nest and fly. As in letting go of the ground. 

So I think if you're still at the level of learning the fingerboard, and getting your fingers to do your bidding, you've still got a ways to go. If you know all the aforementioned and are essentially bored and wondering what's next, what's next is to forget all that stuff and just wail. (apologies to Thelonius Monk)

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## Tom Wright

> ...forget all that stuff and just *wail*. (apologies to Thelonius Monk)


Bud Powell?

When you have been working hard on a passage or technique, you get tired and that can last a day or two, as in a baseball pitcher that needs a couple days off before pitching another game. Even waiting a few minutes can make a difference. It's not always obvious that your hands are tired. Ditto your brain, or rather, your attention. What may feel like reduced learning capacity or plateau then, and faster learning later, is simply that you are less tired. And you have not forgotten the stuff you were working on, but last time you were hard at it you were getting progressively more tired. When you come back a day later, you have the memory plus fresh muscles and attention, so it is common to feel a sharp improvement.

The things observers say about skilled artists or athletes can sound funny to the actual practitioners.

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## Tobin

I have found repeatedly over the years that I get better when I take breaks (sometimes unintended) for a while.  If I have reached a plateau and then can't get back to playing for a week or two, it may take a couple of hours to get back up to speed.  But once I do, I find that it comes more effortlessly than before.  And this is when I usually have a leap in improvement.

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## bratsche

I often spend entire practice sessions only on the hardest sections of pieces I'm working on.  I figure, if time is of the essence, why waste it on the easy parts, if I'm looking to improve overall?  Sometimes, the necessary work is nothing more than slow, mechanical repetition with gradually increasing speed, and I can do this work while occupying my mind with other things, such as reading forums or articles on the Internet.  My ears are attentive enough to what I'm practicing, and I often find the slight distraction of reading cements the physical parts of playing the passages quite handily, making them more automatic.  Then when I play the pieces in their entirety, the tough passages are noticeably improved.

I don't think I buy into the idea of letting skills actually "deteriorate", although I agree with many that a fresh approach after a short while away from the instrument is often helpful.  But then, in general I don't put too much stock in what psychologists say.

bratsche

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## T.D.Nydn

My way of learning something difficult is to not be in a hurry to get it down..I practice every single day,,in my practicing,I go over the hard thing maybe 5 min. and then move on ..5 min. a day,,eventually it happens,,it is not unusual for me to work on something like this for months,,sometimes over a year,,,

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## fatt-dad

My buddy and I played duets for an old-folks' home.  My mother in law lives there and the audience is quite forgiving.  We played complicated stuff (two Bach Inventions - guitar and mandolin), O'Carolan and arrangements of old-time/Shetland/Celtic tunes.

Not a great day for me!  Really made me feel underprepared.

Now the audience and other family members didn't notice (didn't tell me) errors.  I still felt less than glee afterwards; however.

Went about 10 days in such funk.

I had a great practice yesterday though!  I really felt great playing those same complicated tunes.  I think breaks and other such re-calibrations are good.

I know nothing about psychology; however. . .

f-d

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## bratsche

At 63 years young, I've been teaching myself to do something completely new to me as of 2017, namely fingerstyle picking on my fifths-tuned ukuleles, and my goal is (naturally) that it become effortless.  Needless to say, but I will anyhow, it's _way_ different from using a pick (or a bow)!  At this stage, I'm still not ready to perform in front of anyone who knows anything about music.  And when I skip a day of practice, I notice it.  Two days, and it gets maddening.  A week would doubtlessly put me backwards in progress.  But my overall progress has been encouraging, as I'm getting actually comfortable doing things that were unimaginable to me 6 months ago....

bratsche

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## dadsaster

The brain has two different learning states, focused and diffused.  The focused state occurs during practice (hopefully) and the diffuse state occurs when we are on auto-pilot (driving, sleeping etc.).  Our job during practice is to prime our brains so that it will continue to build better neural networks during the diffuse state.  It is actually similar to exercise.  We actually damage our muscles during exercise which signals our bodies to build the muscles and improve the neural pathways that the muscles require.

Studies have shown that shorter bursts of intense focus followed by rest or a change of focus is optimum for strengthing neural connections.  Practice can be optimized by working on new skills, songs, or whatever for no more than 20-25 minutes before changing focus.  You can still practice for hours while following this rule.  The act of loading information from short-term memory to long-term memory is what causes adaptation.  By allowing ourselves some time to "forget" the new information and then try to load it into memory again, we will strengthen that memory.  If we can tie it to some emotion it will be a stronger impulse still.

One of the most interesting phenomena of this whole process is that when we make something harder to learn, we learn it better, but we experience it as a learning it worse.  We all like to practice until something "feels natural" but the time between being able to play something for the first time and the sensation of having it down is actually wasted time.

I use spaced repetition for managing to learn new tunes or licks etc.  Basically, I write a flashcard with the name of the tune on it.  I have a box with flashcards divided into 4 sections.  A new two starts in section 1.  I practice a new tune for 20 minutes a day until I can play it at a slow tempo with a metronome.  Once I have it down it goes into section II.  Tunes in this section get practiced once or twice a week for a few months.  Section III is twice a month for a few months.  Section IV means I know the tune.  If, during this process, I find I've forgotten a section, then it moves down a level.

This probably seems insane but it takes very little time and with limited practice time, it prevents me from over or under practicing a tune.  I should mention that this whole process works much better if you aren't reading music.  Reading off the page makes the practice easier which also means less effective.  You need to force yourself to recall tunes in order to hammer them into long-term memory.

IMO effortless mastery is the result of appropriate focused practice.  I found this website very helpful for designing more effective practice routines:

https://clawhammerbanjo.net/the-immu...tive-practice/

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Phil Goodson

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## catmandu2

> My way of learning something difficult is to not be in a hurry to get it down..I practice every single day,,in my practicing,I go over the hard thing maybe 5 min. and then move on ..5 min. a day,,eventually it happens,,it is not unusual for me to work on something like this for months,,sometimes over a year,,,


This is interesting - we all process so variably.  I think I have only one approach: I fall in love with something (new piece) and obsessively pursue it til I can more faithfully reproduce that sound.  It's more like a state of mania, or frenetic agitation as I become increasingly impatient with finishing it; then i begin rehearsing it.

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## Tom Haywood

> However, the goal is to play effortlessly.


Play effortlessly?

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## T.D.Nydn

This is based on a Japanese principle called "ki-zen",,  or "perpetual improvement"....where you practice something the same, every day,,and time goes by,and before you know it,eventually you master it....

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## JonZ

> Isn't this talking about retention of  MEMORY specifically?   I don't remember reading about allowing deterioration of 'physical abilities' or 'skills'.
> Certainly, re-establishment of memories which are fading causes stronger and longer lasting memory.   Other things, ....  I'm not so sure.


There is research that indicates that skills track similarly to memory.

To make the concept clearer, assume I have a skill #27 that I want to improve. I can practice it every day, or Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, gradually increasing the time between practices, so each time there is a little bit of struggle. The theory is that if I stop after a week, the skill that I practiced daily will fade faster. The one that I practiced on increasing intervals will be stronger, because the struggle makes for a stronger memory. This is assuming that each time I practiced the skill until it was at performance level.

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Phil Goodson

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## DougC

> This is interesting - we all process so variably.  I think I have only one approach: I fall in love with something (new piece) and obsessively pursue it til I can more faithfully reproduce that sound.  It's more like a state of mania, or frenetic agitation as I become increasingly impatient with finishing it; then i begin rehearsing it.


This must be the emotional component. I do the same process. It looks like the practice method is different for different types of people. I could never be so organized as some here. 

Right now I am slowly 'getting back' after a serious injury and surgery. Last July I dislocated my shoulder and broke four bones in my right shoulder and one in my left thumb.

 I have been doing mental work on music theory and I'm arranging a tune for a chamber group. The physical side of holding a violin or mandolin is going pretty slowly. I can play only about ten minutes before it hurts. So I'll see if the break (pun intended...) will help or challenge my memory in playing old tunes.

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## JonZ

> This is interesting - we all process so variably.  I think I have only one approach: I fall in love with something (new piece) and obsessively pursue it til I can more faithfully reproduce that sound.  It's more like a state of mania, or frenetic agitation as I become increasingly impatient with finishing it; then i begin rehearsing it.


Your approach is not necessarily different from what I am talking about. Do you continually play the entire song through or work mostly on the hard parts?

According to research, you should work on a part until it is sounding good. Then leave it and do the same with a different part. You should go back and forth between several practice items in this way.

At least this is what I have gleaned from The Bulletproof Musician website.

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## UsuallyPickin

Effortless .... I doubt ever... possible yes, playing more difficult pieces will spread skills across the entire spectrum of ones playing. R/

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## catmandu2

> Your approach is not necessarily different from what I am talking about. Do you continually play the entire song through or work mostly on the hard parts?
> 
> According to research, you should work on a part until it is sounding good. Then leave it and do the same with a different part. You should go back and forth between several practice items in this way...


Yes I suppose this is about what I do, perhaps intuitively.  However I don't claim to be doing anything particularly efficiently - i was merely contrasting TD's approach: rather than having anything consciously distributed proportionately or whatever, I just dive in obsessively and impatiently until it's finished.  When i was younger i would go through periods of little sleep during particularly creative spells.  About the best analog I thought of was falling in love - it just takes me over, and I'm in a mad rush to reproduce or recapitulate the feelings evoked upon hearing it originally from the source (recording or whatever).  It's much as any addiction.  And the same for performing - I'm trying to reconstruct, in the moment, that feeling, for myself, of falling in love which, to no surprise, is the challenge.

An aside, for me this is a creative process - learning - using my instrument to render a piece to elicit an emotion.  Reflecting now, I think this is the essence for me, as Doug mentions, It's a very emotional process.

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## Bertram Henze

I haven't understood what is so unclear about this "effortless" thing. What is effort? It is a special state of mind where some part of your brain strains to achieve something out of the ordinary (cramped facial expression,  beads of sweat on your forehead, you get the picture). Playing music does not work like that. What you need is concentration, and that is a relaxed state of mind. You're not playing music, the music plays you, that's how it must feel to be successful. If you can't do it effortlessly, you can't do it at all.
The only extra challenge can be to stay relaxed under extra distraction, such as someone spitting into your beer while you solo at the jam.

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Jess L.

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## farmerjones

I'd really like to stop learning tunes entirely, but what is a difficult passage without context? 
But "the idea" is to play the instrument well enough to converse in a conversation. The pay-off seemed to be relatively fast. I found one can be fairly plain spoken and still be able and accepted into a conversation. Sure, I can recite, but prefer not. I realize this isn't every person's goal. But I'd rather be flexible to handle odd keys, time signatures, or harmonies as they come, rather than being a tune repository. I keep thinking being better at pattern recognition should compensate for not having a huge tune collection. And I don't say it out loud, but it seems there's really only a finite number of continually played melodies. What I can't do is write or compose because I've mentally diminished the value. Be careful of effortlessness. Don't they say a genius is bored with everything?

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## catmandu2

> I haven't understood what is so unclear about this "effortless" thing. What is effort? It is a special state of mind where some part of your brain strains to achieve something out of the ordinary (cramped facial expression,  beads of sweat on your forehead, you get the picture). Playing music does not work like that. What you need is concentration, and that is a relaxed state of mind. You're not playing music, the music plays you, that's how it must feel to be successful. If you can't do it effortlessly, you can't do it at all.
> The only extra challenge can be to stay relaxed under extra distraction, such as someone spitting into your beer while you solo at the jam.


Well this is delving into other aspects, more pertaining to performance  (for me) rather than the topic at hand, which to my understanding is concerning learning/practicing (?).  But pursuing your comments, we're again caught in the spectrum of activity where (our) language (play, work, music, you, me, etc) again is insufficient to the task of representing/communicating precisely the experience of what we're trying to convey.  Although the many angles allow us to gain greater perspective, which provides us with a better picture.  

There's plenty of sweat, intensity, anxiety and passion involved in learning (for me anyway), i would guess, although im not aware of it as I'm being driven by powerful and irrational forces - in this respect i think i achieve that "zone."  This is part of my process, for better and worse.  (In performing and rehearsing, however, I'm inducing more relaxation, as you say.)  Whether or not this is "inefficient," I haven't considered.  It's not really a rational concern for me (probably why I'm not teaching).

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## catmandu2

> I'd really like to stop learning tunes entirely, but what is a difficult passage without context? 
> But "the idea" is to play the instrument well enough to converse in a conversation. The pay-off seemed to be relatively fast. I found one can be fairly plain spoken and still be able and accepted into a conversation. Sure, I can recite, but prefer not. I realize this isn't every person's goal. But I'd rather be flexible to handle odd keys, time signatures, or harmonies as they come, rather than being a tune repository. I keep thinking being better at pattern recognition should compensate for not having a huge tune collection. And I don't say it out loud, but it seems there's really only a finite number of continually played melodies. What I can't do is write or compose because I've mentally diminished the value. Be careful of effortlessness. Don't they say a genius is bored with everything?


I'm as you apparently.  And im often too distracted to pursue love with what i was doing yesterday.  I wind up improvising a good portion of whatever I'm performing with - simply as my mind drifts, forgets tunes, is inspired to go in various tangents, or otherwise just playing what I feel.  I have pronounced ADD and easily become bored of tunes and pieces.  This HAS been a problem, and likely has contributed greatly to my predilection/tendencies.   It doesn't always work, however, but that's what i have.  There are moments of inspired playing, and others of rote mechanics awaiting inspiration.  My challenge is in revivifying the vitality of material from which i've moved on. 

Sorry for going off topic.

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Jess L.

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## DougC

I don't think practicing and performing involves just one kind of mental / emotional function. In both it seems that there are easy parts of a tune and hard parts. And you study the tune with your own method. 
And when you perform, you either forget the easy parts and screw up on that, or you have anxiety about the hard parts, forgetting distractions about the safety of your beer, ha ha.

I like the saying, "practice until you _can't_ make a mistake". Not usually the case with me but that is my goal.

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## catmandu2

I know I'm going to make mistakes, lapses, everything, so I try have fun with it. Although performing with others or staying serious for extended periods is a different bag, skill, and is fun too.  But I make so many mistakes it's better performing alone  :Smile:

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## jshane

I wonder,

Is there any evidence that adopting/following a scientifically-developed protocol for practice and retention actually produces better _musicality_ ?.  My question is genuine. It goes to the heart of what music actually _is_ to me. If something is flawlessly learned and reproduced effortlessly... is it necessarily "good"?   I really don't know.

I DO know that I have seen lightning fast technical players produce amazing demonstrations of skill that leave me impressed with their aptitude, but musically less-than-thrilled. Conversely, I once saw a person play "O Holy Night" on a cello with such incredible feeling and emotion that it changed me inside, even though the piece is relatively simple to play.

Can cognitive psychology tell us about _art_ ?  Or is it confined to mechanics?

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## bratsche

I look at technique as the interplay between mind and body.  But musicality?  That part is the soul.

bratsche

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jshane

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## JonZ

> I wonder,
> 
> Is there any evidence that adopting/following a scientifically-developed protocol for practice and retention actually produces better _musicality_ ?.  My question is genuine. It goes to the heart of what music actually _is_ to me. If something is flawlessly learned and reproduced effortlessly... is it necessarily "good"?   I really don't know.
> 
> I DO know that I have seen lightning fast technical players produce amazing demonstrations of skill that leave me impressed with their aptitude, but musically less-than-thrilled. Conversely, I once saw a person play "O Holy Night" on a cello with such incredible feeling and emotion that it changed me inside, even though the piece is relatively simple to play.
> 
> Can cognitive psychology tell us about _art_ ?  Or is it confined to mechanics?


Well, one component of education that leads to greater retention is called “reflection”. This is, basically, _playing_ with the skills or information you have learned. This would be where you develop your musicality. The “play” and “work” reinforce each other.

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## mandocrucian

Hey, do you know what might _"efficient"?_ 

Instead of pondering and researching the micro-details of super-efficiency and then spending time discussing it, you might just sit down with your instrument and just practice!   Maybe that isn't the ultimate in efficiency, but that somewhat inefficient (?) practice has got to be better than *no* practice!

It's like you need a loaf of bread. There's a country store 1/4 mile up the road at the 4-way stop. But they charge $1 more. So instead ogetting "gouged", you drive 8 miles into town to the grocery store to save a buck, meanwhile wasting 30-40 minutes and burning up $1.50 (or more) in gas, not to mention adding mileage on the vehicle.  The *efficient* thing would be to go to the country store for the item... and waste less time and actually spend less overall!

Anyway, I also seem to get the impression that _"practice"_ is some loathsome task which must be dispatched with _ruthless efficiency_. Why are you playing?  Do you think the situation is going to be any different 3 years from now, or 5 years from now.  Maybe the barflies at the local watering hole will be impressed with what they perceive to be your _"effortless displays",_ and hoot and holler and buy you some drinks, but...*what do they know?*  Unless you start buying your own pr/publicity, *you* still know that though it may be better than what it was, but it still isn't good enough.  

Just like Jethro Burns said...*"No matter where you go, there you are!"*

NH

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Bertram Henze, 

Jess L., 

Mark Gunter

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## Bertram Henze

> Well this is delving into other aspects, more pertaining to performance  (for me) rather than the topic at hand, which to my understanding is concerning learning/practicing (?).


Niles put in other words what my approach is, generally:




> Hey, do you know what might _"efficient"?_ 
> 
> Instead of pondering and researching the micro-details of super-efficiency and then spending time discussing it, you might just sit down with your instrument and just practice!   Maybe that isn't the ultimate in efficiency, but that somewhat inefficient (?) practice has got to be better than *no* practice!


To me, practising and performing are not two different actions. Procedural memory does not care why it is playing a particular piece, it just registers that this is the nth repetition of a pattern and burns a deeper groove for it. To practise, I play the tunes that had too little repetitions, for performance I play those that had enough of them; but I always just play. It does not get any more simple. 

There is no magic intricate way around it, and if there were, I'd not trust it because intricate things can fail on you more treacherously and unforeseen than simple ones. There is no effortlessness without trust.

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Mark Gunter

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## bratsche

Who says pondering and discussing have to be at odds with practicing?  Instead of either-or, why not both-and?  I think that's what most people on this thread are about, really, as the two aspects are not mutually exclusive - far from it.  Some of us like to read how others work these things out.  Nothing wrong with that, and it may just give someone a new insight.

bratsche

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Mark Wilson

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## catmandu2

> Niles put in other words what my approach is, generally:
> 
> 
> 
> To me, practising and performing are not two different actions. Procedural memory does not care why it is playing a particular piece, it just registers that this is the nth repetition of a pattern and burns a deeper groove for it. To practise, I play the tunes that had too little repetitions, for performance I play those that had enough of them; but I always just play. It does not get any more simple. 
> 
> There is no magic intricate way around it, and if there were, I'd not trust it because intricate things can fail on you more treacherously and unforeseen than simple ones. There is no effortlessness without trust.


This is interesting.  My process is as yours, I guess, since all the 'work' during practicing is in a mode more resembling 'play' (again, words may or may not help here  :Smile:  ).

But what's interesting to me (and while at this point I don't know whether it's off-topic or whatever) is where some of these differences and aspects intersect, and involves rather broad aspects to consider (if one is inclined to indulge; perhaps neither you nor Niles are not, I understand)...

(Me) so I try all kinds of different playing/performing, instruments, repertoire, approaches.  I'm ADD so I can't help it much.  I would rather be a dedicated bassist or something and have a regular job, but that's another discussion..  So, some of my playing involves taking quite a bit of risk, and some playing is not taking risks at all, depending upon what I'm doing at the time.   There are many varied cognitive elements involved in all types of (my) playing and performing.  On some level, I'm somewhat like you Bertram in that I'm doing/thinking/feeling and executing much the same during a practice session and a performance.  Yet I can observe different psychic states and emotional impetus during these events.  My response varies: sometimes I 'allow' total latitude in going with this flow, or constrain my thoughts more, diverting mind here, or there, or loosening mind, or accessing mind, sometimes it's like dream, sometimes like 'lucid dreaming,' sometimes like stone sober..  This discussion involves consideration of the mind at play (What is 'play'?  What Is music?  What/why are we doing in a given performance? ).  For some, it's all the same.  For others, why bother to discuss it, theorize or explore it?, but 'just do it.'  For me, music is an activity involving many varied feelings, thoughts, experiences, heuristics and even revelations.  So, I'm inclined to indulge conversation about it - in fact I very much enjoy it; for me, music is a creative *process* in many different ways, and in fact it's the creative process that's of most interest.  That others may not be interested is fine and expected.

Some folks like to bash out a tune.  Others like to do crazy things.  There are sessions for the former and fields like music therapy or performance for the latter.  Both involve music, so it's all cool  :Smile:

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## jshane

I was trying to think of why I dont get bored practicing... and---

I think I have just realized that I don't ever practice. I just perform.... it's just that most of the time that  I am performing, I am doing so completely for myself, and I am the only one in the room....

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Jess L., 

T.D.Nydn

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## JonZ

> [IMG]Hey, do you know what might _"efficient"?_ 
> 
> Instead of pondering and researching the micro-details of super-efficiency and then spending time discussing it, you might just sit down with your instrument and just practice!   Maybe that isn't the ultimate in efficiency, but that somewhat inefficient (?) practice has got to be better than *no* practice!
> 
> It's like you need a loaf of bread. There's a country store 1/4 mile up the road at the 4-way stop. But they charge $1 more. So instead ogetting "gouged", you drive 8 miles into town to the grocery store to save a buck, meanwhile wasting 30-40 minutes and burning up $1.50 (or more) in gas, not to mention adding mileage on the vehicle.  The *efficient* thing would be to go to the country store for the item... and waste less time and actually spend less overall!
> 
> Anyway, I also seem to get the impression that _"practice"_ is some loathsome task which must be dispatched with _ruthless efficiency_. Why are you playing?  Do you think the situation is going to be any different 3 years from now, or 5 years from now.  Maybe the barflies at the local watering hole will be impressed with what they perceive to be your _"effortless displays",_ and hoot and holler and buy you some drinks, but...*what do they know?*  Unless you start buying your own pr/publicity, *you* still know that though it may be better than what it was, but it still isn't good enough.  
> 
> Just like Jethro Burns said...*"No matter where you go, there you are!"*
> ...


How can one respond to someone writing criticisms on a forum towards people for spending time on a forum? 

How can one respond to a teacher who is not interested in pondering the most effective methods for mastering what he teaches?

To each his own, I suppose.

In regard to your question, I always enjoy practicing. Fun and efficiency are not mutually exclusive.

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## bratsche

> I was trying to think of why I dont get bored practicing... and---
> 
> I think I have just realized that I don't ever practice. I just perform.... it's just that most of the time that  I am performing, I am doing so completely for myself, and I am the only one in the room....


I don't get bored practicing either, and I definitely practice.  I'm always grasping for things just out of my reach, so that I can't "just play them"  without a lot of woodshedding going into it beforehand.  And, even though I play mostly for myself, there is satisfaction in being able to expand my musical horizons and repertoire, and even joy in the journey itself.  Practicing may at times be mechanical, even frustrating (when I think "this passage will _never_ sound effortless!"  ;-) ) - but I don't  ever find it boring.

bratsche

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Jess L.

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## catmandu2

[QUOTE=bratsche;1615874]I don't get bored practicing either, and I definitely practice.  I'm always grasping for things just out of my reach, so that I can't "just play them"  without a lot of woodshedding going into it beforehand.  And, even though I play mostly for myself, there is satisfaction in being able to expand my musical horizons and repertoire, and even joy in the journey itself.  Practicing may at times be mechanical, even frustrating (when I think "this passage will _never_ sound effortless!"  ;-) ) - but I don't  ever find it boring.

Ha.  As I've previously disclosed I have problems with 'boredom' - even with my most intense addiction (as with any addiction) the routine, spending lots of time doing much the same thing over and over, of playing/practicing for oneself presents challenges (I've assuaged need for novelty by pursuing various instruments, idioms, etc).  I've been a stay-at-home dad the past 7-8 years.  I could no longer go out and play with people in the evening, so I took up harp.  Still, to get myself out of the house I go out weekly to rehab/nursing facilities where I can share.  I play a lot of dance tunes, as it really brings energy.  But I also do a lot extemporaneous playing.  This is really a different bag than dance tunes - there's vastly more openess and space and opportunity to explore.  That'll be a different discussion, and perhaps not wanted here.  Suffice to say, wrt above, that I find this type of playing/music making very stimulating (rarely if ever boring) but it does inculcate (in terms of dynamics being discussed here) more varied aspects concerning preparation, disposition, psychology, etc.

For purposes of this discussion,  briefly, there are disparate methods, other aspects, of practice and preparation among various types of performing.  Some times, I have no idea what I'm going to play, how I'm going to start a tune, whatever - I just lay my hands on the instrument and what happens, happens.  I guess it's the same as meeting someone and not knowing what one is going to say (I'm not very good at rote methodology here either, social conventions, etc).  I like the opportunity - to converse using sound and anything else in the room - for conversation, transaction.  The preparation (practice) involved here is basically spending adequate time with an instrument, feeling compelled to use it as a medium, and some type of chops (ability to use the instrument).  It's more psychological than technical.

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## catmandu2

But also, most of my playing stinks, but it doesn't stop me from doing it and enjoying talking about it.  Mostly I try just not to embarrass myself.   :Chicken:

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## jshane

> ..........  I'm always grasping for things just out of my reach, so that I can't "just play them"  without a lot of woodshedding going into it beforehand. .....
> 
> bratsche


I think what you call "woodshedding" is what I was calling "performance for myself".... I certainly work hard to (occasionally) achieve the sound I am after-- I just rarely sit down and execute a pre-planned practice session consisting of certain exercises, or activities aimed at a certain end.

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## Mark Gunter

> or activities aimed at a certain end.


I sincerely doubt that last part  :Laughing: 

You must have something in mind when you sit down with your musical instrument. You engage in that activity for no reason whatever? Perhaps you mean that you do it simply to amuse yourself - but that is "a certain end" in itself.

For me, I definitely play alone to 1) make music, and 2) to get better at making better music. There's no end to the learning experiences. I think that Niles and Bertram have made some really valid points in this thread. I'll never be "efficient" in the eyes of JonZ but I actually think about what I'm doing when I'm playing/practicing at home with _improvement_ and _learning_ as my goal.

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## JonZ

> I sincerely doubt that last part 
> 
> You must have something in mind when you sit down with your musical instrument. You engage in that activity for no reason whatever? Perhaps you mean that you do it simply to amuse yourself - but that is "a certain end" in itself.
> 
> For me, I definitely play alone to 1) make music, and 2) to get better at making better music. There's no end to the learning experiences. I think that Niles and Bertram have made some really valid points in this thread. I'll never be "efficient" in the eyes of JonZ but I actually think about what I'm doing when I'm playing/practicing at home with _improvement_ and _learning_ as my goal.


Practicing intuitively isnt necessarily inefficient. Everyone is trying to do what they think is most effective.

It would be easy characterize most music education as a failure. How many who try to learn an instrument quit? How many would say they have plateaued? How many who succeed were forced by their parents at some point? I look at music methods like diets: they work if you stay with them, but most people dont.

Having a system that is engaging is definitely part of the solution. If you are still playing and making progress, you are doing better than most.

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## Bill McCall

Most people want to ‘get better quicker’, whatever that means for them.  And they develop a tactic, if not a strategy, to do this.  Informed or not.  Effective to meet their goal or not.

I think the psychology of game design is informative here, in that millions of people eagerly and voluntarily play games.  And the games are designed to suck in new players with early, simple rewards while providing more complex challenges for players whose skills advance and reward them.  And keep all players interested at their level.

So, your practice today has to provide some reward today so you’re eager to practice again tomorrow.  And your skill tomorrow hopefully won’t be sufficiently diminished to question why you practice.  And maybe, at some point, your mental and physical skill will allow an ‘effortless’ connection between your inner song and the manipulation of the instrument.

But if skill deterioration led to quicker learning, leaving the instruments in their cases would seem an important component, and it clearly isn’t.

Ymmv

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## Bertram Henze

> Most people want to ‘get better quicker’

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## catmandu2

> It would be easy characterize most music education as a failure. How many who try to learn an instrument quit? How many would say they have plateaued? How many who succeed were forced by their parents at some point? I look at music methods like diets: they work if you stay with them, but most people dont.
> 
> Having a system that is engaging is definitely part of the solution. If you are still playing and making progress, you are doing better than most.


I appreciate you positing this problem - it's another big picture.  As with all issues in education, all the usual suspects are at play in sociological critique.  Unfortunately, public ed (in the US) provides little in the scope of arts education that provides basis for kids to contextualize experience.  Certainly more integration is indicated, but curricula is subject to policy, which is of course often tooled for purposes at odds with such integration of experience.

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## peterleyenaar

> For ME, I always practice SLOW until it becomes boring and my speed gradually picks up on it's own. Only practice as fast as you can while fingering/playing correctly ! Don't learn something wrong and than have to unlearn it to start all over learning it correctly !


I always practice slow until it becomes boring and now I can only play slow :Wink:

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## Mark Gunter

> I always practice slow until it becomes boring and now I can only play slow


 :Laughing: 

Well, that's a good one. I firmly believe that to play fast you'll have to practice fast. 

Since this is after all a thread about practice, I'll state one of my techniques, which is very common, and that is to play a tune slowly enough to reduce (hopefully eliminate) errors. And it's not boring at all, because while I do that I think about many things like economy of finger movement, clean fretting and picking, relaxation of muscles, amount of pressure used in fretting, dynamics of softer vs. harder pick strokes, evenness of upstrokes & downstrokes, to name a few, and I concentrate on correcting problems or experimenting with differences in all those things.

Then I play fast.

Then I go back to playing slow again.

I do this with songs I already know, and I find that songs I've known for years (over two years on mandolin) can use improvement. So the idea of overnight "arriving" at any degree of virtuosity is just so much folly in my own view. Music for me is a lifelong journey and if there is anything at all in my technique or execution that needs improvement, I prefer to work on it to improve it. I don't find that to be boring.

In addition to playing songs like that, I practice exercises sometimes. Scales, arpeggios, or exercise I make from the difficult sections of songs that I'm learning or already know. I practice exercises in the same way I practice the tunes as outlined above. I don't find exercises boring either.

Then, another of my techniques is to take a song that I may know very well from hearing it performed by someone, or a song that maybe I've performed on guitar for many years. These would be vocal tunes. I'll take that and find different chord voicings on the mandolin, and then practice the chord changes with and without the vocals until I find the "currently best" voicings; practice the smooth transitions, experiment with rhythms, then add fills, etc. Nothing at all ever boring about that, though progress can seem tediously slow.

So these are two of my practice techniques - call them "routines" if you will - but between the slowing down, the speeding up, the playing with intense concentration or at least critical concentration on numerous things, the playing mindlessly once something is well-learned for the time being, the creative aspect of finding voices and fingerings; between all these things I don't find the need to "allow a skill to deteriorate" - and I don't get "bored" - but I can easily neglect some things for a period of time, then come back to them while neglecting other things, etc.

Definitely _not boring._

Back to the quoted post, there have been studies that indicate switching between slow, deliberate playing and playing up to speed has a beneficial effect on learning and mastering the piece. Check out _The Practice of Practice_ by Jonathan Harnum, it's a great book on the subject of musical practice.

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bratsche

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## SincereCorgi

My question about the first post would be: "what qualifies as a skill in music?" It seems like this statement is a useful way of thinking about mental activities like knowing the order of the US presidents or how to multiply exponents. Performing music, though, is more physical- I don't know if being able to, for example, form a big 'chop' chord benefits from periods of forgetting. Maybe it does.

So as far as this goes, I'd say that the I have often had the experience of learning a swing tune, mostly forgetting it, and relearning it later, it being much easier later on. My best takeaway from this would be to try to learn a lot of tunes and not get hung up on obsessively practicing the same five or six. If you have a show coming up, though, you don't have a much of a choice what you practice.

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## Mark Gunter

I get more out of what Niles posted than most else in this thread - certainly more than what I got from the original premise - What's the point? Pretty much everything I'm doing is aimed toward performance. Making music to please myself and hopefully to bring an emotive response to the listener. I can't imagine sitting down with an instrument with no goal whatsoever in mind - makes no sense. You have some reason for doing it. But again thinking back to Niles' comment, _what's the point?_ Are you after virtuosity for virtuosity's sake? And then ten years down the road, you're still not happy with it when you realize that there is _still a lot left to learn?_

We each have the same number of hours in a day, and we get to decide how we spend them, or how much power we give to others over our time. We each have "all the time in the world" and yet "no time at all." So it's good to have an idea of what you want from life, and spend your time pursuing it. I'm happy with my musical journey and it ain't over yet.

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## peterleyenaar

> It's like you need a loaf of bread. There's a country store 1/4 mile up the road at the 4-way stop. But they charge $1 more. So instead ogetting "gouged", you drive 8 miles into town to the grocery store to save a buck, meanwhile wasting 30-40 minutes and burning up $1.50 (or more) in gas, not to mention adding mileage on the vehicle.  The *efficient* thing would be to go to the country store for the item... and waste less time and actually spend less overall!
> 
> Anyway, I also seem to get the impression that _"practice"_ is some loathsome task which must be dispatched with _ruthless efficiency_. Why are you playing?  Do you think the situation is going to be any different 3 years from now, or 5 years from now.  Maybe the barflies at the local watering hole will be impressed with what they perceive to be your _"effortless displays",_ and hoot and holler and buy you some drinks, but...*what do they know?*  Unless you start buying your own pr/publicity, *you* still know that though it may be better than what it was, but it still isn't good enough.  
> 
> 
> 
> NH


living in the country, with a country store 3 miles up the road, if you want a FRESH loaf of bread, you drive in to town:-)

On practice: I actually enjoy practicing a lot and most of my playing is practicing , working out different chord soudings and alternate ways of playing and in different keys for trying  different sounds for the same tune, you don't get to do that in a jamm,
I play in a jamm maybe once a month, I practice every day.

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## Mark Wilson

> I have found repeatedly over the years that I get better when I take breaks (sometimes unintended) for a while.  If I have reached a plateau and then can't get back to playing for a week or two, it may take a couple of hours to get back up to speed.  But once I do, I find that it comes more effortlessly than before.  And this is when I usually have a leap in improvement.


odd but true for me as well

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## bratsche

> I get more out of what Niles posted than most else in this thread - certainly more than what I got from the original premise - What's the point? Pretty much everything I'm doing is aimed toward performance. Making music to please myself and hopefully to bring an emotive response to the listener. I can't imagine sitting down with an instrument with no goal whatsoever in mind - makes no sense. You have some reason for doing it. But again thinking back to Niles' comment, _what's the point?_ Are you after virtuosity for virtuosity's sake? And then ten years down the road, you're still not happy with it when you realize that there is _still a lot left to learn?_



I like what you wrote in your previous post about how you practice; I could have said many of the same things, so you saved me having to type them out.  The main differences between us seem to be with respect to our goals. On plucked instruments, performance is not one of mine.  I pretty much don't  even think about that.  I don't care if there are any listeners beyond God and my cats. There will always be people who can create and execute more virtuosic chord melody arrangements than I, or perform Bach gigues, fugues and the Chaconne better than I, but all the same, I get pleasure out of learning to do these things and play them for myself, and play them regularly and on a variety  of different instruments.  

The pursuit of learning on plucked instruments has always been primarily a solitary recreation for me, as I've said before, a hobby, in contrast to my professional life of playing viola in ensembles and orchestras.  It's been something to unwind with, as it were, from the stresses of life.  Some musicians take up gardening, or handcrafts, or golf as hobbies...  but everything non-musical that I've ever tried wound up on a shelf after a year or so.  I have to have hobbies that are musical, too.  It's in my DNA, I guess... and no idea where in the family that came from, either!

But the side benefits, though not part of any goals I've set, have proven to be many and valuable.  Playing different instruments gives me many fresh perspectives which help my efforts at my primary one.   Aspiring to, and achieving, the difficult stuff helps solidify and improve the not-so-difficult (and how could it not?)  Experimenting with harmonies on a plucked instrument I always have beside my desk also helps me in writing arrangements for my church trio, even though I play viola in it.  And I hope that along with all of this, I am generating loads of nice new neural pathways that keep my mind young and stave off dementia in the future.   :Wink: 

Finally, knowing that there will always be a lot left to learn is simply a given.  It's always true, for every one of us, no matter our level, and therefore should never be any kind of surprise or epiphany to anyone.

bratsche

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billykatzz, 

FredK, 

Jairo Ramos Parra, 

Mark Gunter

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## Mark Gunter

> And I hope that along with all of this, I am generating loads of nice new neural pathways that keep my mind young and stave off dementia in the future.


Hear, hear!  :Smile:

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## Jim Garber

> Look up spacing effect and desirable difficulty. They are among the most consistently validated practices in educational research.


As far as spacing effect: "The spacing effect is the phenomenon whereby learning is greater when studying is spread out over time, as opposed to studying the same amount of content in a single session... Practically, this effect suggests that "cramming" (intense, last-minute studying) the night before an exam is not likely to be as effective as studying at intervals in a longer time frame."

I also am not sure what deterioration has to do with it but I have never studied this and am reading the definition for the first time.

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## Jim Bevan

I've had a few spots in my life/career where I didn't touch the piano for a month, but could still sit down and whip through the Minute Waltz effortlessly. All that that proves is that my pianos skills are high enough that I can deteriorate to a level that's still above effortlessness. (I gotta admit  :Smile:  it's a comforting place to be.)

My mandolin skills are _nowhere_ near that. 

I do tend to think that, in this discussion, we might be overestimating the length of time off. On the mandolin, stopping practising for lunch makes me unsettlingly aware of the deterioration. I'm also aware, however, that the deterioration rate is kinda reverse logarithmic  stopping for two hours isn't twice as bad as stopping for an hour. I suppose that it's a mirror of the law of diminishing returns (practising for six hours doesn't double the improvement that practising for three hours will etc).

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## Bertram Henze

Stopping for lunch? What about sleep?
Training biological neurons is a slow process that is stabilized in phases of reorganization. Maybe that is what happens during this mystery "deterioration", but a good night's sleep will normally suffice for it.

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## Jim Bevan

While we're discussing deterioration and recovery, here's something interesting to ponder:

This year, for four months (April~July), I didn't touch the piano  no injuries, just no access to one. When a digital piano was finally delivered to my new apartment, I sat down and practised for, I don't remember exactly, probably an hour or more. Everything worked fine, no unrecoverable loss, muscles that should be relaxed behaving nicely etc. I took a break, sat down at my laptop and found that _I couldn't type!_ Well, I could, but was super-uncoordinated. Something in my brain had become quite mixed up. The phenomenon did not reoccur.

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## Eric Platt

Seems to me this works best when one has a firm grasp of the instrument one is playing. That is, knowing where things are without constantly looking at your hands or going "well, the F#m chord is shaped like this".  Am not at that point on the mandolin. So when I take a break of a day or 2 from playing, it's quite obvious.  Still at the point where if I'm not playing certain songs on a semi-regular basis, they can get lost in the mists of my mind and I need to remind myself of how things go. (If I'm concentrating on Finnish music for a my band, the Swedish and Danish stuff can get awfully awful sounding.)

Luckily, I'm at a point where I can now pick up the guitar and still back up other musicians without having to go through that. Flatpicking something? Well, that's a different story.

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## Bertram Henze

> When a digital piano was finally delivered to my new apartment, I sat down and practised for, I don't remember exactly, probably an hour or more. Everything worked fine, no unrecoverable loss, muscles that should be relaxed behaving nicely etc. I took a break, sat down at my laptop and found that _I couldn't type!_


Don't pick and drive...

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Mark Gunter

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## JonZ

> I get more out of what Niles posted than most else in this thread - certainly more than what I got from the original premise - What's the point? Pretty much everything I'm doing is aimed toward performance. Making music to please myself and hopefully to bring an emotive response to the listener. I can't imagine sitting down with an instrument with no goal whatsoever in mind - makes no sense. You have some reason for doing it. But again thinking back to Niles' comment, _what's the point?_ Are you after virtuosity for virtuosity's sake? And then ten years down the road, you're still not happy with it when you realize that there is _still a lot left to learn?_
> 
> We each have the same number of hours in a day, and we get to decide how we spend them, or how much power we give to others over our time. We each have "all the time in the world" and yet "no time at all." So it's good to have an idea of what you want from life, and spend your time pursuing it. I'm happy with my musical journey and it ain't over yet.


I don't think anyone is suggesting not having goals.

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## jshane

> I get more out of what Niles posted than most else in this thread - certainly more than what I got from the original premise - What's the point? ........ _what's the point?_ .


I, too, love reading what Niles posts.  And I think that answering the question "What's the point?"  -- HONESTLY-- and for me, not for anyone else, has been an incredibly important part of the journey. I expect this is why there are so many different approaches with such a wide range of reported efficacies. What may work for me, cant possibly work for you if we dont share the same answers to "what's the point".

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## catmandu2

That's putting it well, jshane - your last sentence.

But I don't begrudge Jon putting forth his take.  It happens that my own process possiibly differs dramatically, yet I can appreciate a willingness to engage, offer anecdote, communicate.  It happens that I'm interested in process - went to grad school in aesthetics, theory and critique.  So I find interesting details, contrasts, points of view.   Jon's process is his; Mark espouses his, and I've read lots from Niles on process in the past, and I mine.  Possibly Jon's "point" may be just this (OP) and perhaps his interests are pedagogical aspects as much as playing - some folks like to play, others theorize, etc.  There's a competitive feel to lots of posts.  Why not just a dialectic?  I probably disagree with 90% of things, but I appreciate someone's willingness to engage *(without being dismissive, etc).

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## dadsaster

> As far as spacing effect: "The spacing effect is the phenomenon whereby learning is greater when studying is spread out over time, as opposed to studying the same amount of content in a single session... Practically, this effect suggests that "cramming" (intense, last-minute studying) the night before an exam is not likely to be as effective as studying at intervals in a longer time frame."
> 
> I also am not sure what deterioration has to do with it but I have never studied this and am reading the definition for the first time.


The gist is that trying to load something from short-term into long-term memory is the trigger that causes this information to be stored.  If you work on a new tune for an hour, you will progress some.  If you work on the same tune for 3 x 20 minutes with something inbetween (deterioration), you will progress more.

I hope this helps.

As for why I create elaborate practice schemes, mostly it's to prevent learning tunes but not having them stick long-term.  I wish I could practice 3 hours a day but given about 1 hour a day to practice, I'll stay motivated if notice my own improvement.  I'm more likely to notice my improvement when I structure my practice.

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## JonZ

In regard to "What's the point?"...

There are two points.
What do I want while I do this?
What do I want in the future as the result of doing this?

People will balance these differently.

There are certain practices that will allow you to achieve future goals faster, but you don't have to do them, if you find them disagreeable.

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## jshane

> ........but I appreciate someone's willingness to engage *(without being dismissive, etc).


Oh Yeah. Even more than that.  I am fascinated by everyone's take on how we take consciousness and turn it into music.  I am still astounded at the range of approaches.

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## Mark Gunter

> But I don't begrudge Jon putting forth his take.  It happens that my own process possiibly differs dramatically, yet I can appreciate a willingness to engage, offer anecdote, communicate.  It happens that I'm interested in process - went to grad school in aesthetics, theory and critique.  So I find interesting details, contrasts, points of view.   Jon's process is his; Mark espouses his, and I've read lots from Niles on process in the past, and I mine.  Possibly Jon's "point" may be just this (OP) and perhaps his interests are pedagogical aspects as much as playing - some folks like to play, others theorize, etc.  There's a competitive feel to lots of posts.  Why not just a dialectic?  I probably disagree with 90% of things, but I appreciate someone's willingness to engage *(without being dismissive, etc).


A lot of good points there. I don't mean to disparage Jon or anyone else contributing here. I believe that I take a pretty analytical approach to what I'm doing with an instrument and how to practice in order to improve skills. Jon seems always to have interesting topics and ideas about how best to accomplish goals; just rarely the type of solutions that I can implement. C'est la vie, and variety is the spice, etc.

Niles had a telling point in that too much micro-analysis of a thing can be counter-productive in accomplishing the thing. I may have misread him, but the takeaway for me is like the Nike slogan, "Just do it." I'd have a difficult time trying to orchestrate a system of allowing certain skills to atrophy for a period and then revive them at the appropriate interval to get the most efficacious learning benefit.

There have been studies to indicate that many types of musical practice and learning are immensely helped by napping or sleeping directly afterward. Something like that seems intuitively valuable to me, I could always use a little more sleep  :Smile:

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## Jim Bevan

Someone should do a study on the average number of posts in a thread required for the discussion to turn into a discussion about the discussion. :-P




> If you work on a new tune for an hour, you will progress some. If you work on the same tune for 3 x 20 minutes with something inbetween (deterioration), you will progress more.


Ya, but...

I'm a touring musician, and I regularly find myself with days off, absolutely nothing to do but practise today, no show, no family obligations, nothing. Given one of those days, how should I best structure my practising? I can (a) practise for an hour, take an hour off to allow for some deterioration, practise for an hour etc, or I can (b) try to practise as much as possible. If I choose (a), I'll total maybe six hours; with (b) I'll total maybe twelve. Which will produce the best result? My experience certainly suggests (b), and the obvious-to-me reason is that an hour of practice outweighs an hour of deterioration.

Two phys ed-type analogies spring to mind: (1) "Walking burns the same number of calories as running." If I run for 40 minutes or walk the same distance for an hour, it may be true that I'll burn the same number of calories, but that's not taking into consideration the 20 minutes of calorie-burning that simply sitting in a chair watching television post-run would burn. (2) "Holding a stretching position for more than 20 seconds will result in a permanent change." I'll likely hit my peak musical skill with six hours of efficient practising, but at the end of the day, experience has taught me that I'm more likely to have crossed that line onto a new level of skill, one that will result in permanent improvement, if I can do twelve hours of not-as-efficient practising.

 I agree 100% with the above quote, but there is an impractical side to it's implementation  it's all about time available vs time utilized.

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## Jim Bevan

Also depends on what I'm trying to accomplish: If I'm trying to memorize something difficult, then four hours broken up throughout the day is best. If I'm just trying to up my chops, then four hours in a row (as much as possible) is best  momentum seems to have a lot to do with it.

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## JonZ

> I can (a) practise for an hour, take an hour off to allow for some deterioration, practise for an hour etc, or I can (b) try to practise as much as possible. If I choose (a), I'll total maybe six hours; with (b) I'll total maybe twelve. Which will produce the best result? My experience certainly suggests (b), and the obvious-to-me reason is that an hour of practice outweighs an hour of deterioration.
> 
> Two phys ed-type analogies spring to mind: (1) "Walking burns the same number of calories as running." If I run for 40 minutes or walk the same distance for an hour, it may be true that I'll burn the same number of calories, but that's not taking into consideration the 20 minutes of calorie-burning that simply sitting in a chair watching television post-run would burn. (2) "Holding a stretching position for more than 20 seconds will result in a permanent change." I'll likely hit my peak musical skill with six hours of efficient practising, but at the end of the day, experience has taught me that I'm more likely to have crossed that line onto a new level of skill, one that will result in permanent improvement, if I can do twelve hours of not-as-efficient practising..


You don’t have to stop practicing to allow for some decay to occur. You just have to move around among several learning goals. The fancy schmancy word for this is “interleaving”. If you practice something 100 times in a row, you are always working from short term memory, which isn’t very effective. Forcing yourself to recall a skill from long term memory is more effective.

It is counterintuitive, because when you play something 100 times in a row it feels like you _really_ learned it. But whenever researchers test it, they find the people who jumped from item to item, and struggled with recalling, retained the memory better.

If you are interested, https://bulletproofmusician.com has articles that explain these topics better than I do. There is also a book, https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Sc...ssful+learning, that summarizes the most thoroughly validated concepts in layman’s terms.

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## Jim Bevan

Again, yes and no.  :Smile: 

I have a difficult passage to master for work, and I practise it maybe not 100 times in a row, but, wait, let me check my Ableton play-along routine...62 times in a row (at various speeds). The repetition allows me to nail it at a certain tempo before moving up. I'm not sure that playing it 62 times over the course of a day wouldn't yield the same result, but it wouldn't be as easy to control/monitor my progress. Anyways, it's not about _learning_ it  I already know it  it's about improving the muscle ability. And hey, I do it everyday  the 23 hour-plus period in between each day's routine allows for deterioration/absorption.

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## catmandu2

> Someone should do a study on the average number of posts in a thread required for the discussion to turn into a discussion about the discussion. :-P


Yes that's on me.  But if it served to help extend the discussion I'm glad.  Thank you.

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## Jim Bevan

I mean, it's like doing push-ups: Do as many as you possibly can in a row, and the last one or two will be the ones that trigger your body to build up the necessary musculature to do more in the future. Doing the same amount, one at a time throughout the day, won't yield the same results.

I suppose that we're talking about two different things here: learning something in your head, and improving physical skill. Both are part of making progress on the mandolin, but the necessary routines for progress are quite different.

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## catmandu2

> But whenever researchers test it, they find the people who jumped from item to item, and struggled with recalling, retained the memory ...


That's great to hear  :Smile:

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## JonZ

Jim,

Here is the article on the topic of blocked v. random schedules.
https://bulletproofmusician.com/why-...ear-overnight/

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Mark Gunter

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## JonZ

> I mean, it's like doing push-ups: Do as many as you possibly can in a row, and the last one or two will be the ones that trigger your body to build up the necessary musculature to do more in the future. Doing the same amount, one at a time throughout the day, won't yield the same results.
> 
> I suppose that we're talking about two different things here: learning something in your head, and improving physical skill. Both are part of making progress on the mandolin, but the necessary routines for progress are quite different.


It is the opposite of doing push-ups. With pushups, it is optimal to stop when you fail. With a skill, it is optimal to stop when you succeed (and then come back).

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## Mark Gunter

> Here is the article on the topic of blocked v. random schedules.
> https://bulletproofmusician.com/why-...ear-overnight/


Good article. Her conclusion ~



> The permutations are endless and the exact division of time is not  important. What is crucial is that you are keeping your brain engaged by  varying the material. More engagement means you will be less bored,  more goal-oriented (you have to be if you only have 3 minutes to  accomplish something), and substantially more productive. Most  importantly, when you return to the practice room the next day, you can  start from where you left off. This type of practice _sticks_.


I wonder if it would be safe to simply say, "boring practice is not the best practice; could be wasted time."

She talks about FMRI's there, but that aspect baffles me, I don't know much about those kinds of things. Increased brain activity on switching tasks, etc. over doing repetitions of a task is no big surprise, but I'm not sure how that works to "cement" skills? I think maybe it works by eliminating boredom. If your practice routine is boring to you I'd think you'd be less likely to continue doing it, and less likely to approach it with a positive, pliable mind.

I know nothing about the field of brain studies, or how to interpret FMRI's, etc. but I've read that repetition of a particular task results in myelination of neural pathways: http://danielcoyle.com/myelin/ 

Not sure if the brain tissue activity of myelination would show up on a FMRI? What I'm thinking of here is the aspect mentioned in OP, "effortlessness." Like doing a thing on autopilot; performing a task flawlessly without placing a lot of focus on it. I wonder if that type of activity would result in a lower FMRI reading.

All this stuff is way over my head, but I think the significance of the data Ms. Carter is writing about is that your brain needs to be engaged in a positive, pliable way - and your practice should be challenging. She's knocking boring repetition. The key seems to me to be "boring vs. interesting/engaging" - and I bet it would apply to everything about the way we practice, not just to "repetition".

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FredK

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## JonZ

There is a colorful history of musicians making claims based on “neurology”. I think it is more useful to look at tests of various methodologies to see the results they actually produce.

You want to be continually challenged, but not frustrated.

Anecdotally, it seems to me that curious people make the fastest progress, rather than people who can crank out perfect repetitions. Folks who say, “I did that. What else can I do?” But I am more familiar with improvisers, who need to be nimble within any context.

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## Jim Bevan

I read the article (interesting), I'm not finished reading the comments yet (more interesting), but what occurs to me is that there's no mention of allowing a skill to deteriorate. (If I missed it, please point it out to me – I read it rather quickly 'cuz hey, I'm trying to get some practising done here!)

I do disagree with her _application_ of the truism "We are hardwired to pay attention to change, not repetition." When I practise a difficult passage over and over, it is precisely the change in my ability that I'm paying attention to. The notes, the phrases are being repeated, but not how well I'm playing them. There's a lot of change going on, and it's holding my attention.

I also tend to disagree with the baseball analogy: the ability of a batter to _respond_ to random pitches is half the challenge – I don't see the correlation with music-making (unless one is practising improvisation, in which case, playing with others is better than practising alone, which I think most of us here already know.)

Edit: Ah, you mentioned improvisation! I was writing...

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## Tom Wright

The paradox is that we have to pay exquisite attention to things we hope to eventually be able to ignore. This is how we get there. 

We are not installing data, or an application, we are training the body (muscles and brain). This requires always going back to the hard stuff to keep it in shape, because it will slip. Katerina Lichtenberg says her tremolo will suffer with disuse. Some boredom is inescapable. (It's not that interesting for an elite athlete to do their drills, either.) But some unconscious part of your brain has to pay attention, or you can't play those notes, so your apparent boredom might not actually be such.

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bratsche

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## Bertram Henze

> The paradox is that we have to pay exquisite attention to things we hope to eventually be able to ignore.
> 
> ...boredom...


 :Cool: 

The next day he restlessly paced the empty corridors of the ship, pretending not to look for her, though he knew she wasn't there.
(Douglas Adams, _Life the Universe and Everything_)

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## Bill McCall

> The paradox is that we have to pay exquisite attention to things we hope to eventually be able to ignore. This is how we get there.


I learned to use a fork at an early age.  maybe others have as well. :Whistling:

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## JonZ

> I do disagree with her _application_ of the truism "We are hardwired to pay attention to change, not repetition." When I practise a difficult passage over and over, it is precisely the change in my ability that I'm paying attention to. The notes, the phrases are being repeated, but not how well I'm playing them. There's a lot of change going on, and it's holding my attention.


If there is a lot of change going on, it is not really repetition. The article is titled "Why the Progress You Make in the Practice Room Seems to Disappear Overnight". She is talking about the process of making a skill permanent. I think you are talking about developing the skill in the first place. So, I think she would say that once you get the passage to sound how you like, put it aside and then come back to it. This will make the gains you have achieved more permanent.

Developing a skill in the first place is the tip of the iceberg. Maintaining a skill and making it permanent is the bulk of your work.

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## Jim Bevan

I can hear my last teacher's criticism and advice, and I can imagine how these notes would just seem to fall out of Rubinstein's fingertips  maybe I'll get close by New Year's, at which point the show takes a week off, my family arrives (to stay), and my practising routine itself deteriorates.  :Smile:  

If I remember to, I'll get back to you on how it turns out.

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