July 9–August 6: Reading Assignment (remember that listening assignments apply to the weeks during which the listening is assigned.)

Reading Excerpts from a national music magazine this month. Write down three things you learned and want to apply to your practicing.

Practicing: Some Broad Principles 
by Scott Mcbride Smith

Have you ever thought that, from a young student's viewpoint, practicing is counterintuitive? Think about other skills you learned as a child: tying your shoes, for example. An adult shows you how to do it (I used the "Bunny Rabbit Ears" method with my nephews), you practice clumsily at first, then with increasing mastery, until finally there is no need to practice at all: you know how to tie your shoes. The need for practice has faded.

Playing the piano doesn't fit this model. There are too many variables and too many types of physicality required in even the simplest piano piece for performing to ever become automatic. A good pianist makes playing the piano look natural, but we teachers know that true spontaneity is only possible after many hours of repetitious, highly organized practice.

There has been a wealth of inquiry in the last thirty years about the "best practices" of practicing. Much of this is based on sports models, which is not surprising when you consider how much more money sports organizations have to spend on research than music teachers. The far-reaching principles, though, are applicable to any activity that requires hard work, dedication and persistence.

Why do we practice? I can answer in one word: technique. The word is often used in a narrow sense to describe the ability to play fast, loud, and fluently, but I have a broader definition: technique is the ability to express physically the ideas one conceives mentally. Practicing ensures that the proper physical motions are executed at precisely the right time, in the right place, and with the correct attack and release, all in service of musical imagination.

Good practice habits make playing the piano more fun, even easier. We perform a movement with less brainpower when we have correctly repeated it enough times. Done appropriately, practice encodes success, over and over, enabling motions that took thought in the early stages to become almost automatic.

Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham from the University of Virginia has written several books on learning. He says that the brain learns best in manageable leaps, based on simple explanations and working on one new task at a time. The key is mindfulness: planning what is to be done, aurally and physically, and carefully assessing the result.

It's important to avoid something psychologists call "random adaptations," accidentally getting a good result without understanding the reasons why. I've heard this haphazard work method called "piñata practice." It's a good analogy: a blindfolded little kid whacking wildly at a papier-mâché animal, hoping for a success without having a clue about which motion is correct. Eventually, someone at the birthday party accurately hits the piñata and everyone gets candy. But the happy ending doesn't make it a learning experience.

Continue reading on page 10 of the July/August issue of Clavier Companion

or click here to continue reading in the digital edition (subscribers only)

I really should be practicing well 

by Bruce Berr

I do apologize to Gary Graffman for filching his title as blatantly as I have, but let's face it- although the quality of one's practice may be just one factor in determining how fast and far one progresses at the piano, it's a critical one.

In the studio lessons and piano classes I teach, a large percentage of the time is devoted to how to practice effectively, mainly because the strategies and techniques for doing so are not obvious. Learning to play an instrument and grow as a musician requires complex skills that sometimes betray common sense and occasionally seem to contradict one another. Also, the lure of "eating the fruit"- the delectable music itself-distracts one from "pulling the weeds"-that which is necessary to master the required mechanics. Interestingly, the more musical the student, the less patient the student usually is in this process, at least at first.

Without guidance from a teacher, many students become frustrated during practice: How do I get my hands together in this tricky passage? How much repetition does this need? Why can't I play this today when I knew it perfectly yesterday? Why do I keep making the same mistake here? Why am I starting to play random wrong notes in a passage I've been playing perfectly for the last two weeks? Why can I play this piece well at only one tempo? How can I play this more expressively without suddenly falling apart? Why does playing this piece feel like running across a tightrope with no safety net?

Then there's the dreaded: Why does this get worse the more I practice it??

And these questions are only from the partially mindful practicers! What about those who don't even know they're passing time inefficiently at the piano- who don't know that they have to pay attention to and manage their own processes while practicing? There is indeed much ground to cover here.

In the following pages, I present some important principles that apply to practicing repertoire and more in a pianist's curriculum (but not musical literacy areas such as sightplaying and memorization). They are summaries worded in the ways that I present to my teen-aged, college, and adult students, although of course there are modifications with younger students. I sometimes call these principles "Practice Pearls" because they contain truths that have withstood the test of time in our field and are beautiful in their efficacy.

The ideas are sequenced roughly from most general to more specific, and from the most basic to less so. It's certainly not an exhaustive list, but it contains essential ideas. Please feel free to share these with your students.

• Goals of practice: Successful practice does NOT help us do something difficult-it transforms something that used to feel difficult into being easy, or close to it. Successful practice helps achieve expression, ease, and accuracy in performance. However, during the learning process these facets usually need to be approached in the reverse order: accuracy, ease, and expression. More advanced students tend to learn these three aspects at the same time.
• General practice strategies and techniques: Continually assess your practice.Self-assessment is a vital part of effective practice. Observe what needs the most practice and tenaciously follow through with it.
• Play with alert posture: Your posture should be relaxed, poised for action, and balanced in three places: the bench, the floor, and the keyboard.
• Practice as often as possible: Numerous shorter practice sessions lead to more secure learning than fewer sessions of longer duration. Also, the sleep that occurs after a practice session readies the learner for the one on the following day. Therefore, try to practice as many consecutive days as possible, taking some time off each week as well. Practice days are like strikes in bowling-they're worth more when they're next to each other!