Thursday, April 6, 2023 | Uncategorized

Lesson 3

“I practice all the time, but I’m just not getting any better!”

Your brain 🧠 is very selective as to what it chooses to ENGRAVE- that is, to ‘permanently’ commit to memory. 

If you learn how to properly enter. information into your brain, your brain will ENGRAVE this information, and retain it much better than before. 

Any mistake- note, rhythm, fingering, tone, etc. will cause your brain to REJECT what you have just practiced.

TEMPO:

Since it only accepts and records perfect input, your brain rejects learning new material unless the tempo is extremely SLOW. 

It shows you that it is ‘unhappy’ by making the usual random mistakes-  notes, rhythm, fingering, tone, etc. whenever you practice too fast. 

Your brain ‘likes’ to learn in a state of total relaxation, and fast practicing stresses your brain out. 

How slow is slow enough?

Students often tell me, “I’m now practicing slowly enough to not make mistakes, but I still feel that I’m not making good progress.”

When you begin to practice slowly, you’ll see the mistakes start to fall away. You’ll begin to form the habit of playing perfectly. But ‘playing no mistakes’ is just the beginning. 

If you don’t play slowly enough, your brain will use up ALL of its PROCESSING POWER just to play the right notes, and there will be no power left for the brain to ENGRAVE, to go into ‘record mode’, and retain the new music ‘permanently’. 

That is why you can practice slowly and perfectly, and STILL make little progress. 

You have to go slowly enough to achieve complete relaxation, and then go EVEN SLOWER than it seems necessary to play the correct notes, for the brain to have enough PROCESSING POWER left over to ENGRAVE, to go into ‘record mode’. 

Once you have successfully gone into ‘record mode’, you can incrementally double and even triple your playing speed!

How will you know that you’ve gone into ‘record mode’ and ENGRAVED?

This part is amazing… 

LOOP (seamlessly repeat) your 2-bar section 8-16 times. Since you are now playing extremely slowly, you won’t be making any mistakes at all. 

All of a sudden you will lose control of your playing, blank out, and make many mistakes. DON’T STOP PLAYING!

This is called the POINT OF FATIGUE. When the brain goes into ‘record mode’, it can’t control your playing. The mistakes are the sign that this section is being ‘permanently’ ENGRAVED! If you

stop when you blank out, your brain will trash the recording, so keep the loop going until it becomes perfect again. 

This music is now ‘permanently’ encoded in your brain. 

Next post: “How do I know how fast to practice?”

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

All rights reserved.

Thursday, April 6, 2023 | Uncategorized

Lesson 4

“I find practicing boring and annoying.

Now you’re giving me extra things to worry about. Who needs this?”

You do. 

Practicing, at its highest form should be a form of meditation. You should feel calm, refreshed, and ready to take on the world at the end of your practice session.

Here are some tools and concepts to help you achieve this:

How fast should I practice?

You can practice as fast as you like, as long as you make no significant mistakes. 

There are 2 types of mistakes- insignificant and significant. 

• Insignificant mistakes are one-time random wrong notes, finger slips, etc. Ignore them and move on. 

• Significant mistakes include bad rhythm, constant wrong notes, bad fingering, bad tone & articulation, memory lapses, etc. 

As you eliminate the confusion caused by significant mistakes by looping 2-bar phrases at a SLOW tempo, the insignificant slips will become less frequent. 

ALL SIGNIFICANT MISTAKES ARE CAUSED BY PRACTICING TOO FAST!

Here’s a useful mantra: 

“I made a mistake - I must be playing too fast.”

It’s better to err on the side of practicing too slow, rather than too fast, because 

• fast practicing with mistakes, or even slow practicing with tension, will cause the brain to reject the input, and

• there is no down side to practicing too slow!

I will often ask a student to slow down,

and they will agree and play the passage slow enough to play no wrong notes. 

But, that is not enough! 

Just as the brain needs EXCESS processing  power to avoid stage fright,

the brain also needs EXCESS processing power to ‘record’ what is being practiced!

If your brain is maxed out by playing too fast, you will have an ‘in one ear, out the other’ experience.

If you practice too fast with mistakes, the brain trashes the practicing, and little is accomplished except for some low-level muscle memory.  

What people don’t realize is that one can make ‘no mistakes’ in their practicing, and STILL make little or no progress!

The brain will ONLY go into record mode when mind and body are in a state of TOTAL RELAXATION. 

If there is TENSION, wrong notes, bad rhythm, etc., only superficial muscle memory will be recorded.

Muscle memory is the lowest level of musical memory, because counting,

knowledge of notes & chords,  rhythmic accuracy, and emotionally intelligent performance can only come from brain memory, and not physical muscle memory.  

Once the brain has a perfect recording of what you are practicing, it will allow you to play as FAST as you like, subject to your physical limitations. 

I often have students initially practice at a tempo of 30 - 50. It’s not unusual for them to play from 90 - 132 or FASTER by the end of the lesson!

Next post: “The 7 ways we learn music.”

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

All rights reserved.