PPP095: Repetition - Remapping Your Brain

04Jun 2018 by Shelly Davis

Disclaimer: I am not a neurologist or a brain expert. (My family can testify!) These are simply my observations about what I’ve read concerning the way our brain makes neural connections and how that applies to piano lessons for our children.

Repetition is a very valuable part of learning. This is true for anything you learn and it is especially true for our piano kids learning to play the piano and learning new music.

Is once enough?

Many students think they are successful if they can make it through to the end of their piece….ONCE!

When I was learning to play piano and working on a new piece, I would start at the beginning of the piece and play until I made a mistake. I wouldn’t study the mistake or try to figure out the problem, I would just start over, as if getting a running start would help me get over the hurdle the next time I came to it.

By starting over every time I made a mistake, I was repeating the opening measures of the piece and learned to play them very well. If I ever made it to the end of the piece without any mistakes, do you think I went back and practiced it again? No way!!

This resulted in my knowing the beginning of the piece very well and barely being able to play the end of the piece.

Repetition is a good thing as long as you’re getting enough repetitions on all parts of the music, not just the beginning.

Learn more about how to approach a new piece of music here.

Remember those old fashioned paper maps?

Other than frustrating the person trying to fold the map back into it’s original compact shape, old-fashioned paper maps were a great tool to use to get from one place to another before the modern convenience of GPS.

My dad would pull out our old maps and plot out all the cities we were going to visit on our upcoming summer vacation. My husband goes the same thing except he uses Google maps and spreadsheets to track our destinations.

The different sizes of roads: massive interstates, major state highways, and small residential streets reminds me of the connections that are formed in our brain.

There are different sizes of connections in the brain. There are very thick, solid connections, thinner pathways, and dead-end pathways reaching out for a new connection.

Dead-Ends

These are things you’ve done once or twice but not very often. Think of someone you met at a business meeting or a book that was required reading but you didn’t find very interesting.

For piano students, this might be playing a tune from their method book. It’s not all that interesting to play, the title doesn’t engage them, there is no real connection.

Fragile Connections

These pathways are new connections that are slightly more established than the dead ends but they are still being made. They are like meeting someone who you would like to see again and get to know better or a book that really appeals to you and you’d be interested in reading it again.

For piano kids, this is like blazing a new trail in their brain. They are interested in the piece or the concept they are learning but they haven’t studied it enough yet to feel confident playing it. The movements and notation feels awkward and uncertain but they are willing to keep working at it.

They have to go slower and be more intentional about their movements just like when we are driving in a residential area with all its intersections and crossroads.

The more intentional you are with your practicing, the more solid the pathway will become in your brain.

Interstates in Your Brain

These are things you’ve done so often and for such a long time that they have become automatic. Like walking or brushing your teeth or driving to work.

Your piano kid will only get to this stage through lots of repetitions, lots of intentional, slow practice, and lots of mistakes.Every time they make a “mistake” that is just a signal that their brain isn’t sure where to go next; which pathway to follow yet.

Summer Book Club

I’m excited to read this book by Dr. Richard Restak, “Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot”. I hope you will read it with me.

I mentioned the AltaVista search engine on the podcast. This is an interesting read if you have the time.

Get the book here (I’m not an affiliate so I don’t get paid if you buy the book here or get it from your local library. Just get it!)

Dr. Restak uses laymen’s terms and short essays to describe how our brain works and how we can make the most use of its potential.

I hope you will read it with me and share your thoughts. I plan to do a followup episode about what I learn from this book later this summer.

The story about the ceramics teacher

I haven’t read the book Art & Fear (it’s on my Overdrive wait list) but I have heard this story circulated around quite a bit. You may have heard it too but I think it applies perfectly to our topic today.

The short version of the story is this: A ceramics teacher divided his students into two groups. One group would be graded on the quantity of their work. The other group would be graded on the quality of their work. Ultimately, the group that produced the larger amount of ceramics actually produced the higher quality product. They became more skilled with each attempt. The group that worried about perfection didn’t put in the time or repetitions that would result in a better finished product.

You can read James Clear’s observations about this story here.

I’d love to connect with you on the Piano Parent Podcast Facebook page or on Instagram. Tell me what you think about these two books.