PRACTICE TIPS #35: Makes You Think . . .

[Brent Hugh <bhugh@griffon.mwsc.edu>]

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PRACTICE TIPS is an occasional email newsletter with practical

piano practice tips and ideas, by Brent Hugh



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PRACTICE TIPS #35: Makes You Think . . .

-----------------------------------------



I came across an interesting article today in my email archives.  The 

article has to do with learning--why do we remember some things better than 

others?



This rang a bell with me--what better way to describe a "practice session" 

at the piano than as a "learning session"?  What we are learning when we 

practice a piece of music at the piano is a complex interrelated sequence 

of movements, sounds, and (musical) symbols.  It is a quite different kind 

of learning from the kind we mean when we say "I'm going to study for my 

history test tonight".  But still--practicing *is* learning, and it is well 

to keep this simple fact in mind.



Here is the main conclusion of the article (a much longer excerpt from the 

article is quoted at the end of the message):



    What makes your brain more likely to [remember] one item over

    another?  . . .



    The studies provided some hints. . . . [M]ore complex cognition

    increases the chances of memory.



This gives some very concrete ideas that can be used in practicing to help 

you learn you music faster and better:



*   Look for chords, patterns, motives, repeated rhythms, phrase groupings, 

repeated sections, variations of previous motives or phrases in your 

music.  Try to understand the overall plan or "form" of your piece.  Try to 

pick apart and understand everything about it you are able, from the simple 

to the complex.



*   You must find patterns that are meaningful *to you*.  It might make 

perfect sense to me to think of a certain chord as "German Augmented 

6th".  But this might be gibberish to you (gibberish, last I checked, 

doesn't fall under the categoary of "complex cognition").  It might make 

more sense for you to think of the chord as "black key-black key-white 

key-white key", a pattern that makes good sense to you.



    Relate everything "new" to things that are "old" in as many different 

ways as possible.  Consciously try to think of comparisons such as

        The motions I use in this section are like piece X I learned before

        This has the same mood as X

        This has the same tempo as X

        This has a similar rhythmic pattern to X

        This has the same form as X



    Do NOT Learn your music in just one way, which you then repeat in 

practice session after practice session.  This seems so easy, because the 

brain can become more and more comatose with each succeeding practice 

session.  On the contrary, consciously plan to learn your music in dozens 

of different ways--from dozens of different "angles".  Learn it in small 

sections, medium sections, and large sections; left hand alone and right 

hand alone; play it with different rhythms; at different tempos; with 

different groupings (finger groupings vs. rhythmic groupings, for 

instance); be able to play underlying chord progressions; be able to play 

your sections in different orders (reverse order or random order); learn to 

start easily, by memory, at many different places in the music; and so on.





Happy Practicing!



--Brent







------------Longer article excerpts--------------------------------



  Scientists discover brain's remembering mechanism



  Copyright © 1998 Nando.net

  Copyright © 1998 The Associated Press



  *Mechanics of memory studies



WASHINGTON (August 20, 1998 4:30 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -- Why 

is it you can't remember where you put your car keys but you can't forget 

the theme song to the "Brady Bunch"? Scientists have taken a big step 

toward solving the mystery, literally peering inside the human brain at the 

split second it creates a memory.



In a unique pair of studies, scientists at Harvard and Stanford 

universities used sophisticated imaging techniques to watch people's neural 

activity and, for the first time, show which parts of the brain determine 

whether a specific experience will be remembered for forgotten.



The findings "mark a significant step forward," said memory expert Michael 

D. Rugg of Britain's University of St. Andrews, who critiqued the studies 

in Friday's edition of the journal Science.



. . .



Scientists have long suspected that how well people remember depends on 

differences in how their experiences are "encoded" into the brain at the 

time they occur. Studies of people with brain damage have suggested various 

brain regions were involved, but it wasn't clear if damage to those regions 

meant people couldn't make new memories, retrieve old ones or store 

memories over time.



New, high-powered "magnetic resonance imaging," or MRI, machines work fast 

enough that scientists can measure split-second neural activity as a 

person's brain processes an experience.



At Harvard, neuroscientist Anthony Wagner put healthy volunteers into these 

"functional MRI" machines and rapidly flashed one word every two seconds 

onto a screen inside. At first, the volunteers merely noted whether words 

were in upper- or lower-case letters. With additional words, they were told 

to decide if each was concrete, like "chair" or "book," or abstract, like 

"love" or "democracy."



That's because psychologists already knew that analyzing the meaning of a 

word helps people remember it.



In Stanford's study, Brewer showed volunteers color photographs of indoor 

and outdoor scenes rather than words.



Neither set of volunteers had been told this was a memory test. But after 

the MRI scans, they were asked which words or pictures they remembered 

well, remembered vaguely or didn't remember. The scientists compared those 

memories to the brain scans.



The longer that two brain regions -- the prefrontal lobes and the 

parahippocampal cortex -- both lit up on the MRI scans, the better people 

remembered the items. Words or pictures that caused weak activity in the 

two regions were forgotten.



What makes your brain more likely to react to one item over another? 

"That's the million-dollar question," Wagner said.



The studies provided some hints. Wagner's volunteers showed more neural 

activity and better memory during the "concrete-abstract" word test than 

for other words, providing biological evidence that more complex cognition 

increases the chances of memory.



And personal experiences probably play a role. Perhaps Brewer flashes a 

photo of Zion National Park: Someone who just visited there may react more 

than someone who says, 'Oh, a desert scene.'



Most people think of memory problems as "failing to retrieve an event," 

Brewer explained.



Instead, think of "what went on when you put those car keys down that 

distracted your attention from where you're putting them," he said. "But 

you're thinking of that stupid piece of trivia, you're attending to it" -- 

so the trivia of, say, a TV show becomes a memory.



By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer



------------End article excerpts---------------------------------------





=======================================================================

PRACTICE TIPS is by pianist, teacher, composer, and internet nerd

Brent Hugh.  Brent knows about practicing mostly because he *does*

it, and in fact is toddling off to do some of it just about now . . .



Please remember that this tip is but a small spot near the tip of the

elephant's tail--it's not even close to the whole elephant that is

"how everyone in the whole world should practice the piano".



Practice Tips Archives (updated about once a month):



           http://www.mwsc.edu/~bhugh/practicetips/



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++++++++++++ Brent Hugh / bhugh@griffon.mwsc.edu ++++++++++++++

+  Missouri Western St College Dept of Music, St. Joseph, MO  +

+         Piano Home Page: http://www.mwsc.edu/~bhugh         +

+  Internet Piano Concert: http://www.mwsc.edu/~bhugh/recit   +

++++ Classical Piano MP3s: http://www.mp3.com/brent_d_hugh ++++







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