Perfect Practicing 2

Friday, March 31, 2023 | Uncategorized

“What are mistakes, and how do we fix them?”

How many times have you said to your teacher,  “I played that perfectly at home, but in front of you, I can hardly play at all?” - And even more so, in front of an audience.

That’s because you only practiced at the level of superficial WRITING. 

Essentially ‘in one ear, out the other’.

The brain 🧠 can record information in 3 ways:

• WRITING - weak, superficial learning (caused by fast practicing of long sections, or even entire pieces)

• SCRATCHING - moderate learning that ‘scratches beneath the surface’

• ENGRAVING - deep, penetrating, permanent learning that avoids stage fright, confusion, insecurity,

memory lapses, and even most wrong notes. 

The most powerful tool for ‘SCRATCHING beneath the surface’ is the SLOW LOOP. 

LOOPING is taking a small 2 bar phrase (one bar or even half a bar when learning difficult music), and slowly repeating it in groups of at least 8 times. The loop must be rhythmically perfect. The last beat of the looped phrase must seamlessly be followed by the first note of the new repetition. 

ALL MISTAKES ARE CAUSED BY PRACTICING TOO FAST! 

If you made a mistake, you are practicing too fast. If you reduce the speed, you will eventually stop

making any mistakes at all.

But, even this is not enough. You need to continue to reduce the speed until you can play the 2 bar phrase in a state of TOTAL RELAXATION. 

When you reach this state, practicing ceases to be unpleasant drudgery, and becomes a pleasant MEDITATION. 

It is in this REPETITIVE MEDITATIVE STATE that we begin the process of ENGRAVING. 

When one says “mistake” in music, most people assume we are talking about wrong notes. 

Wrong notes are usually accidental and random, not that important in the long run. Occasional wrong notes are the price we pay for being flesh & blood. 

The following are serious ‘mistakes:

1 BAD RHYTHM is the most common mistake. It is usually caused by:

• Initially learning a piece too fast.  

• trying to learn a whole section & 

• skipping over important rhythmic details. 

2 IMPROPER OR RANDOM FINGERING which, in turn, leads to 

3 POOR TONE: 

• bad articulation

• improper balance between

melody, bass, and inner voices

4 POOR PHRASING:

• not understanding the composers’ intent in terms of melody, chord structure, rhythm, bass line, etc. 

Music is a holistic UNITY, and if one postpones working on fingering, dynamics, rhythm, etc. and just

‘learns the notes’ first, they are currently practicing and repeating  those other parameters INCORRECTLY. Mistakes are caused by mindless UN-PRACTICING of ‘just the notes’.

We will, G-d willing, in future posts, rebuild practicing to include all of the above parameters as a simple UNITY. 

Yehuda/Jordan Kaplan teaches piano & guitar world-wide 🌍 via FaceTime & Facebook Instant Messenger. 

Contact: Yehuda Kaplan via Facebook Instant Messenger • https://www.facebook.com/yehuda.kaplan74

• (C) Yehuda/Jordan Kaplan 2023

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