The Musician's Way Blog

Paul Simon

“If you start with something that’s fake,
you’re always covering your tracks.”
–Paul Simon, singer-songwriter

Is there really a fast track to mastering an unfamiliar composition?

I’m convinced that there is. And its use can not only speed up the learning process but also unleash boundless possibilities for artistic growth.

Ready? The ultimate practice shortcut is: Deep learning from the start.

Paul Simon captures the identical concept. If we fake our way through a new piece, we’re saddled with retracing our steps to correct clumsy rhythms, warped intonation, awkward fingerings, and so forth.

Worse yet, if we aren’t able to rewrite our faulty programming, we could wind up facing an audience without having our music solidly prepared.

I expect that, like me, you find it unacceptable to fake any passages on stage. I assume that you and I are committed to performing securely and authentically, without having to fudge anything that we play or sing.

Imprinting and deep learning
The main issue here stems from the fact that our brains and bodies tend to imprint, especially when we repeat passages in practice.

So, if we want to absorb music efficiently, the smartest move is for us to begin the learning process with utmost artistry and accuracy. I call that sort of learning ‘deep practice.’

With deep practice, rather than skimming over the inner workings of a piece, we devote time at the outset to form vivid interpretive and technical maps.

We don’t approximate any rhythms; we nail them. We don’t ignore phrasing; we shape every gesture.

We take more time during the initial stages of practice, and then our music matures to concert level at the fastest possible rate.

The three components of practice
If we agree that deep learning produces the best results in the practice room, then the question becomes: How do we learn deeply when we approach new material?

The short answer is that we have to be proficient with the three basic components of practice: discovery, repetition, and evaluation.

• Discovery is the process of mapping out a composition’s expressive and technical features.
        I recommend that we initially consider the musical content of a piece so that our technical choices fit a composition’s syntax. For example, after getting an overview of a piece, we instrumentalists might isolate a phrase and then expressively vocalize rhythms and sing melodies. Then, we can determine fingerings, tonguings, bowings, and the like that convey our interpretive ideas.
• Repetition takes place both during discovery and as a piece matures.
        For instance, if we discover a passage with a tricky rhythm, we should vocalize the rhythm several times, perhaps with the aid of a metronome. Then, after thoroughly mapping the interpretive and technical content of the passage, we repeat it on our instrument at a slow tempo. Following that, we typically tackle an adjoining bit and then link the passages, repeating the larger chunk a time or two. Later, after large spans of a piece gel, we step up the tempo.
        How many times should we repeat a segment in practice? With deep discovery, our musical maps become so clear that we don’t have to repeat passages excessively for them to feel secure. For that reason, I advocate a 3x rule: if our mapping is thorough, a musical segment isn’t overlong, and our tempo is slow enough, it should suffice for us to repeat a chunk of music 3 times consecutively without errors. Still, challenging bits may warrant 5 or more runs.
        Most important, we need to bear in mind that repetition forms enduring mental pathways, so our repetitions should instill the habits of excellence that we require on stage. Those habits include easefulness, accuracy, expressiveness, beautiful tone, and rhythmic vitality. In other words, we’re going to make errors in practice, and our mistakes can be powerful teachers because they alert us to glitches in our mental maps. But me mustn’t repeat errors.
• Evaluation forms the backbone of creative practice. At every moment, we should gauge our sound and internal experience against the benchmarks of excellence.
        So, as we practice, we need to keep our senses on full alert, directing our music making with soulful awareness. At the same time, we must listen to ourselves and any coperformers and remain open to impromptu insights.

In truth, deep learning makes execution so easy, that our imaginations can run free, and we can spontaneously modify our interpretations, opening the door to limitless artistic expression.

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These concepts and much more are fleshed out in my book The Musician’s Way. Guidelines for both instrumentalists and singers are included.

© 2010 Gerald Klickstein