Part I
What is really going on?
Part II
Any ideas what to do about it?
Part III
Calibration, applying deliberate practice to your deliberate practice.
Postlogue
The Practice Journey (The Learney) and long term development
…in answer to these questions from a Practiclass
- I've been playing since I was a kid, why am I not farther along?
- How much time will it take until I can play something well in front of people?
- How much practice time is needed each day?
Part I
What is really going on?
Susan's question last week really got me thinking. It really cut to the heart and raw frustration of the learning process.
I, quite unexpectedly, ended up with a four part blog series. I guess I'm starting a blog.
It turns out I'm learning a ton about what I need to teach in the ongoing Practiclasses, and I just couldn't stop writing.
So, here goes…
We're learning about these methods that work. We finally found out how to move forward. Here we go, we are really working hard and paying attention, and…
How. Long. Will. This. Take.
The short answer is…longer than we think/feel it should. Our perspective can be a little askew on this. This may be the most important part of the learning journey to understand. I know how it feels. Man do I know how that feels.
Does that feeling match up with reality? Stay with this, I've got a lot to say about it. At the end of the day there is very good news, but as with many of these concepts there is a lot to explain.
Here is little excerpt from my book on practicing. It is a phenomenon I noticed while attending and teaching college, but we can insert 'coffee house gig' or any other performance for which we think we have enough time to prepare.
How many college music students have chosen a recital date one year in the future then choose a program of top level concert pieces thinking they have plenty of time to reach that level. Assuming we actually put in as much time and effort as we had planned, and sometimes that goes by the wayside within weeks, we still usually have a less than stellar performance, don’t we? When that happens, ask ourselves:
“When, oh when, did Mother Nature promise us that the neurobiological changes that need to take place in our brain would all happen within this arbitrary amount of time?”
And the part of Susan's question that really hit me was the desperate plea almost all of us have made – when will I be good enough to play in public competently and without crippling fear?
This is such a tough, tough spot to be in. We hear about 'grit' – just stay with it, you'll get it, and that is true. At the same time, music is a particularly discouraging taskmaster, but could we be to blame for this?
We'd never take a physics class without any previous math experience and expect to perform that skill by semester's end.
We'd never take a physics class with a couple of years of basic elementary school math and expect to master the material by semesters end.
AND in both of those cases we'd put in far more time, far more struggle, far more pulling our hair out frustration than those who were there with the appropriate prerequisite skills. All they had to do was spend much less time than us completing the assignments regularly and pay attention in class. They seem sooooooo TALENTED. They get great grades too, and we, with all of that extra effort, would barely pass. Actually probably not.
Do we see the illusion when it I put it that way? Wait a minute we can't see an illusion. Maybe now we can and it is no longer an illusion.
When will I be good enough to play in public competently and without crippling fear?
Well, you already are. Don't believe me? Schedule a little concert. Go to your monthly jam session, Zoom meetup, coffe shop, Facebook live with friends and colleagues, whatever, and tell everyone you are quite the performer. You will give a stellar performance, your tone will be good, no mistakes with everything flowing.
A big pressure performance!
Then perform a one octave scale, nothing else, and practice it like you are preparing for a concert performance because you are. Or perhaps some easy song you've known for years you play for yourself, but never play out, or some exercise you do every day. Heck, how about one measure of a piece or just three notes!!
Great performance right?
We learned to read with just a few poorly pronounced words, and a lot of practice on those words.
To be clear, we won't have to practice everything this way. As we learn words we get better at them, and use them to understand and learn even more words. It is exponential and seamless.
We won't get mired down in 'always playing really easy music'. It will quickly get bigger, better and more interesting. Are we now mired down in 'I'll never be able to perform well', and will we stay there if we are unwilling to spend a little time genuinely preparing performances of stuff we can handle in performance?
Do it on the side. Think of it as a technical exercise. Put aside 5 minutes a practice to use the problem solving techniques you are learning more and more about in the Practiclasses. Solve a problem or three a day. Do spaced retrieval with it – a few seconds a day.
When you can play all of it slowly, go through it as a performance one or two times a day. Spaced performance practice.
You'll be able to do this because the technical demands of the piece will be below your already developed ability. That is where the technical demand of all performer's music is, or should be. The pros have done tens of thousands of hours developing their formidable technique. What they play is below that. It is just a matter of degrees.
We started with very elementary math right as a child, right? We practiced addition over and over with larger and larger numbers, same for subtraction , multiplication and division.
OHH! see what happened there. We took that time to learn the nitty gritty basics well and guess what – we can stop working on them and use them for the higher level skills of multiplication and division. Then percentages, decimal points, negative numbers, algebra, calculus, supercalimathamaticarific formulae (OK, maybe I took that last class in my imagination. That would be more than I've taken of all the others!)
See, it is just a little bit of time experiencing the easy stuff so that we never have to experience that again.
So what do we do?
Go on to part II…more to come…
That’s very thought provoking and so true. I’m going to plan a mini concert and put it on your Facebook page. There you are I’ve said it and I now have to do it because I don’t break my word! The date? One month today, Tuesday 28th May 2024!
Um……I’m the Susan that Gregg refers to in this blog post — the one with the questions from the last Practiclass, which Gregg interpreted correctly as a “desperate plea.” This post hit home. I’ve studied physics and chemistry and even supercalimathematicarific formulae (when I was much younger). Music has always been so much harder for me than these left-brained subjects, and I’m now recognizing that returning to and spending time on the fundamental building blocks could finally be the way to deal with my never-ending frustration in music. I can’t wait for Part II of this series!
Julie, you’re a brave soul, and I’ll be looking for your mini concert next month!
Thank you for asking the question Susan. It was a great one, I’m not good at raising questions on the spur of the moment but this is one I’ve been asking myself ever since returning to the piano. My teacher says the same, well almost. He says adults always pick far too difficult music to play in front of others. It’s taken me a while but I do now choose easier music for a monthly piano club but I should probably go easier still, after not playing one piece too well at the last one. The second piece I played was much easier and I played it with a backing track, it went down a storm. I got compliments on my expression and technique. That was a first, it made me feel great and I immediately came home and chose another two really easy pieces for next time.
There’s another way through this. I think I am fortunate because I have access to a community orchestra which has a “training Orchestra“ in which the complexity of pieces is reduced and for each part (violin 1, Violin 2, cello, etc) there is a choice of arrangements with different difficulty levels. We are encouraged to choose an appropriate level but also to stretch ourselves. If playing one of the higher level pieces we are told it’s ok to just to play the first note of, say, a run of fast 16th notes. Or to skip a difficult passage and join in again when ready. The beauty of this is that in a no-risk environment one experiences performance (and there is a concert at end of term) and that the music continues if you miss bits (assuming the other V1 players turn up). It also allows one to see that others also miss bits either consciously or through error. And one can increase the intensity at any point by choosing a harder arrangement or to play all the notes.
Of course you don’t need the orchestra to do this – one can do this as Gregg suggests by simplifying one’s own part…..
Those are good suggestions, Nick. Thanks!
This is great, Nick. You’ve got a really thoughtful teacher as a director.
The only thing missing related to the ‘when will I be able to perform confidently question’ is that there is no letting V1 take the difficult parts in solo or small combo performance.
Developing confident performance is a mystery to so many teachers and learners, myself included for many years. I hope these conversations get us closer to demystifying it.
Thanks.
This is so helpful for me as a student later in life. The “time pressure” I put on myself thinking, “I don’t have many years to develop the competency to play more difficult pieces,” tempts me to skip over the basics to get to where I’m hoping to arrive. This blog reminds me that it is those basics that need my attention now so I that I can actually reach the difficulty level that I am aiming for.
And it won’t take nearly as long as you think! It may happen in ways that surprise you. Keep us posted.