8 cosas que los mejores profesionales hacen de manera diferente

POR NOA KAGEYAMA, PH.D.

Uns mis hijos eran (a regañadientes) la práctica de sus patrones de Taekwondo de la

otra noche, me sorprendí a mí mismo diciendo a mi hija mayor que él tenía que hacer
su patrón de cinco veces antes de volver a su juego de video.

Mi objetivo, por supuesto, no era que él repitiera los movimientos de su patrón

cinco veces como un zombi, sino que lo hiciera una vez con buena forma y
autoridad. Pero al padre que hay en mí le resulta muy tranquilizador saber que
cierto número de repeticiones o tiempo se ha convertido en algo. Más allá de la
suposición (errónea) de que esto solidificará automáticamente sus habilidades de
alguna manera, se siente como un camino hacia una mayor disciplina y una forma de
inculcar en mis hijos algún tipo de ética de trabajo que les servirá en el futuro.

Es necesario cierto grado de tiempo y repetición para desarrollar y perfeccionar

nuestras habilidades, por supuesto. Pero también sabemos en un nivel intuitivo que
para maximizar las ganancias, debemos practicar "de manera más inteligente, no más
difícil".

¿Pero qué diablos significa eso de todos modos? ¿Qué es exactamente lo hacen los
mejores practicantes hacen de manera diferente?

Pianists learning Shostakovich

A group of researchers led by Robert Duke of The University of Texas at Austin

conducted a study several years ago to see if they could tease out the specific
practice behaviors that distinguish the best players and most effective learners.

Seventeen piano and piano pedagogy majors agreed to learn a 3-measure passage
from Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1 . The passage had some tricky elements,
making it too difficult to sight read well, but not so challenging that it couldn’t
be learned in a single practice session.

The setup

The students were given two minutes to warm up, and then provided with the 3-
measure excerpt, a metronome, and a pencil.

Participants were allowed to practice as long as they wanted, and were free to
leave whenever they felt they were finished. Practice time varied quite a bit,
ranging from 8 1/2 minutes to just under 57 minutes.

To ensure that the next day’s test would be fair, they were specifically told that
they may NOT practice this passage, even from memory, in the next 24 hours.

24 hours later…

When participants returned the following day for their test, they were given 2
minutes to warm up, and then asked to perform the complete 3-measure passage in its
entirety without stopping, 15 times (with pauses between attempts, of course).

Each of the pianists’ performances were then evaluated on two levels. Getting the
right notes with the right rhythm was the primary criteria, but the researchers
also ranked each of the pianists’ performances from best to worst, based on tone,
character, and expressiveness.

That led to a few interesting findings:

Practicing longer didn’t lead to higher rankings.

Getting in more repetitions had no impact on their ranking either.

The number of times they played it correctly in practice also had no bearing on
their ranking.

What did matter was:

How many times they played it incorrectly. The more times they played it
incorrectly, the worse their ranking tended to be.

The percentage of correct practice trials did seem to matter. The greater the
proportion of correct trials in their practice session, the higher their ranking
tended to be.

The top 8 strategies

Three pianists’ performances stood out from the rest, and were described as having
“more consistently even tone, greater rhythmic precision, greater musical character
(purposeful dynamic and rhythmic inflection), and a more fluid execution.”

Upon taking a closer look at the practice session videos, the

researchers identified 8 distinct practice strategies that were common to the top
pianists, but occurred less frequently in the practice sessions of the others:

Playing was hands-together early in practice.

Practice was with inflection early on; the initial conceptualization of the music
was with inflection.

Practice was thoughtful, as evidenced by silent pauses while looking at the music,
singing/humming, making notes on the page, or expressing verbal “ah-ha”s.

Errors were preempted by stopping in anticipation of mistakes.

Errors were addressed immediately when they appeared.

The precise location and source of each error was identified accurately, rehearsed,
and corrected.

Tempo of individual performance trials was varied systematically; logically

understandable changes in tempo occurred between trials (e.g. slowed things down to
get tricky sections correct).

Target passages were repeated until the error was corrected and the passage was
stabilized, as evidenced by the error’s absence in subsequent trials.

The top 3 strategies

Of the eight strategies above, there were three that were used by all three top
pianists, but rarely utilized by the others. In fact, only two other pianists
(ranked #4 and #6) used more than one:
6. The precise location and source of each error was identified accurately,
rehearsed, and corrected.

7. Tempo of individual performance trials was varied systematically; logically

understandable changes in tempo occurred between trials (e.g. slowed things down to
get tricky sections correct; or speeded things up to test themselves, but not too
much).

8. Target passages were repeated until the error was corrected and the passage was
stabilized, as evidenced by the error’s absence in subsequent trials.

What’s the common thread that ties these together?

The researchers note that the most striking difference between the top three
pianists and the rest, was how they handled mistakes. It’s not that the top
pianists made fewer mistakes in the beginning and simply had an easier time
learning the passage.

The top pianists made mistakes too, but they managed to correct their errors in
such a way that helped them avoid making the same mistakes over and over, leading
to a higher proportion of correct trials overall.

And one to rule them all

The top performers utilized a variety of error-correction methods, such as playing

with one hand alone, or playing just part of the excerpt, but there was one
strategy that seemed to be the most impactful.

Slowing things down.

After making a mistake, the top performers would play the passage again, but slow
down or hesitate – without stopping – right before the place where they made a
mistake the previous time.

This seemed to allow them to play the challenging section more accurately, and
presumably coordinate the correct motor movements at a tempo they could handle,
rather than continuing to make mistakes and failing to identify the precise nature
of the mistake, the underlying technical problem, and what they ought to do
differently in the next trial.

And if this sounds vaguely familiar, you might recall that a basketball study found
something very similar in the practice habits of top free throw shooters…

Take action

What is your number one takeaway? How might you integrate these findings not just
in your own practicing, but in the practice habits of your students?

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About Noa Kageyama, Ph.D.

Performance psychologist and Juilliard alumnus & faculty member Noa Kageyama
teaches musicians how to beat performance anxiety and play their best under
pressure through live classes, coachings, and an online home-study course. Based in
NYC, he is married to a terrific pianist, has two hilarious kids, and is a wee bit
obsessed with technology and all things Apple.

After Countless Hours of Practice, Why Are Performances Still so Hit or Miss?

It’s not a talent issue. And that rush of adrenaline and emotional roller coaster
you experience before performances is totally normal too.

Performing at the upper ranges of your ability under pressure is a unique skill –
one that requires specific mental skills and a few tweaks in your approach to
practicing. Elite athletes have been learning these techniques for decades; if
nerves and self-doubt have been recurring obstacles in your performances, I’d like
to help you do the same.

Click below to discover the 7 skills that are characteristic of top performers.
Learn how you can develop these into strengths of your own. And begin to see
tangible improvements in your playing that transfer to the stage.

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77 COMMENTS

TRACEY BAETZEL

This article might be the best practice advice I’ve come across! As a pre-college
private studio teacher, I have a number of students whose parents haven’t studied
music formally and don’t know how to oversee their children’s practice. This piece
is succinct and accessible to a layperson, and also caused me to rethink what I
tell students at lessons. Thanks for an outstanding resource!

REPLY

RINALDO DAMIAN

Thank you for a really insightful article!

REPLY


ALDOUS WRIGHT

Thank you very much for this article Dr. Kageyama! Coming from a computing
background, this definitely confirms my hunch of the similarity of studying
computer science with music. It seems the two fields, distant as they may seem do
have a number of similarities.

REPLY

BEN

The similarities between coding and practicing anything are strikingly similar. But
then again we are essentially biological computers, and practice is like debugging
and compiling code for a search engine that uses machine learning. The more
organized and modular your algorithm and error checking are, the more efficient and
productive the practice session will be. Also, our software is so complex that it
is never fully free of bugs.

REPLY

BEN

Finally! A high quality research paper on practice that bypasses the bogus genes vs
hours stawman debate.

REPLY

MICHAEL MOSS

Wow, I’ve been using these techniques for years with ensembles & individuals. A
caution, targeted practice, like any good thing, has to be used in moderation.

REPLY

CLAIRE

One of my favourite articles

REPLY

JULIE

Thanks so much for this. It is very helpful and a good one. My teacher and I
regularly discuss your posts. Thanks for all!

REPLY


CHARLES RENEAU

Someone told me “Fast is slow. Slow is fast.” That’s one thing I tell every single
one of my students multiple times.

REPLY

KO

Great artilce . These towo bits fascinate me.

From the intersting findings list:

-The number of times they played it correctly in practice also had no bearing on
their ranking.

From the what did matter list:

-How many times they played it incorrectly. The more times they played it
incorrectly, the worse their ranking tended to be.

These seem to contradict each other .The number of times played correctly in
practice had no bearing on the ranking, but the number of times they played it
incorrectly did ? If they constantly played it correctly they are not playing it
incorrectly. By not playing it incorrectly they are then not reducing their ranking
(i.e their ranking holds at leats at a specific rank). Although the correct playing
may not be increasing their ranking is it not still keeping their ranking from
falling though ? Which in turn is effecting their ranking ?

REPLY

DR. NOA KAGEYAMA

Hi Ko,

Good question. There’s a nice chart on p.316 of the study that breaks down how the
pianists each fared. Overall, there was just no consistent trend between the raw
number of times a pianist played the excerpt correctly and their ranking. For
instance, one of the lowest-ranked pianists played the passage correctly 63 times –
more than any of the top 3 pianists. I think that’s why the relative prevalence of
correct trials seemed to matter. The greater the ratio of correct trials to
incorrect trials, the better the ranking tended to be.

Regarding the number of times the pianists played the passage incorrectly, there
were some individual differences of course, but overall, the top eight ranked
pianists had much fewer incorrect trials (mean=3) than the bottom nine
(mean=13.56).

REPLY

KO

thanks for your reply. I’ll have aread of the study . thanks again
REPLY

ALEX

Great information, but I didn’t quite understand the first two strategies.
Specifically, can you explain what you mean by “hands-together early” in the first
tip, and what you mean by inflection in the second tip?

REPLY

NOA KAGEYAMA, PH.D.

Hi Alex,

Sure – hands-together, meaning instead of learning the left hand and right hand
parts separately, and then putting them together, the participants started playing
with both hands together sooner in the process.

And by inflection, this would be things like phrasing, dynamics, articulation,

color – all the musical details that were part of the music beyond the notes and
rhythms.

JOE MCMAHON

ko: The more times you play it wrong in practice, the more you are teaching
yourself to play it wrong.

Part of the learning in practice is the proper set of motions that have to occur
when you are playing the passage correctly. Every reiteration of the wrong motions
is linking the optical sensation of reading the passage to a now-incorrect motion
of the fingers. When playing at full tempo, there’s no time to individually
instruct every finger as to where to go when. Slowing down enough to not miss the
motion – even so slow as to make it possible to deliberately move each finger
correctly from one point to another – lets your fingers feel that proper motion
from point A to point B. After that it’s a matter of speeding it up to tempo, now
that you’ve taught your kinesthetic sense what playing it right feels like.

REPLY

KO

thanks for the reply Joe. I alaways enjoy hearing others input in to the subject of
learning. As a subject Learning is a fascinating one.

REPLY

ERICO SCHMITT

This may be the best post I’ve read in this blog!

REPLY

SAMANTHA

There’s a pretty widely held belief that practising hands separately is a very
useful and important strategy for pianists, but is there any neurological evidence
for this? The best pianists in the study played hands together early on does this
mean playing hands separately is not useful because something quite different goes
on your brain when you play hands together? Or does it simply mean that if you have
to play a piece hands separately it may be too hard for you?

REPLY

DR. NOA KAGEYAMA

Interesting question.

I think there’s a time and a place for simplifying things, whether it’s hands
separate, or slowing things down, or playing without vibrato, etc. But if we start
with hands apart, we might be creating more work for ourselves down the road –
because once we put the two hands together, we may discover that our hands have to
do slightly different things than what we had been practicing with hands separate,
necessitating more work to incorporate the new adjustments.

REPLY

MIGUEL

Very interesting about the hand together/separate comments. Would be nice to see a
blog devoted to that since it is always in debate. I recently read a book by famous
pedagogue Ruth Slenczynska and she said to start separate but quickly put together
as soon as one can.

I think how fast one goes hands together could also be depending on the score. I’ll
be working soon on a Beethoven Sonata and I will try hands together at a snails
pace but I still think Bach with 3 or more voices should start out separate until
all voices are under the fingers .

REPLY

ANNETTE BROWER

Fast Practice = Slow Progress

Slow Practice = Fast Progress
No Practice = No Progress

In addition, I have found the following to be valuable:

Mental Practice: If you are going to make a mistake, do it before you play it.
Learn the rhythm (air bow, study, counting)

Learn the notes (silent fingering, notice finger patterns or half steps, shifting)

Learn the bow directions (air bowing)

Put it all together in your mind or with your “air violin.”

By the time you actually make a sound, it will be correct (as humanly possible).
Mistakes that are made before they are audible do not “stick.”

REPLY

SUSAN CARLOCK

I agree about “air” piano. I had a student traveling to Europe for two weeks just
as he was beginning a concerto. I insisted he take his music and air practice on
the plane, working 2-4-8 measures at a time and memorize. He rolled his eyes. Upon
returning he barreled into the Studio grinning ear to ear, ” air piano works!” He
had his concerto down and knew his way around the score because he had internalized
it without hearing mistakes. I was very proud of this 17yr old! I love my job!?

REPLY

ANNA

Thank you for this post! I just Googled “air practice piano” and found a good
article that shed some insight on me. I’m looking forward to applying some of the
concepts to my practice. I believe air practice helps ties in with deliberate
practice, as implied in the article I found.

REPLY

TOBIN

Should this be done before sight reading a piece?

REPLY

ANNETTE BROWER

Yes. I believe this is an effective way to approach sight reading. Obviously, the
more experienced you are, the faster you can go through the process.

REPLY

ANN SATTERFIELD

I am very happy to see the value of pausing just before tricky passage to check ‘in
balance’.
“Hesitate without stopping”

Reading this article reminds me to add for student coaching is the value of timed
pauses in working larger sections — ie, in a passage of steady 16th, play one
group, one beat rest, play next.

REPLY

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SAMANTHA

Actually, the more I think about it, the more flawed I think this study is.
There was no control for the ability of the pianists. A more proficient pianist
would naturally put both hands together quickly, may even sight read the piece. And
they would play with intonation, while a less able pianist, struggling with just
the notes, would play hands separately without dynamics. I think the study just
shows what good pianists, rather than what good practisers do. Or at best, shows
nothing conclusive about what good practisers do.

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ELYSE

This is very thought provoking article on what makes for effective practice. The
tips to slow down, stop before repeating errors, and respond thoughtfully to errors
are all part of the Alexander Technique approach to learning. Rote practice and
extended practice time don’t necessarily lead to improvement, and conversely may
lead to practicing errors. That said, the sample size in this study is too small to
draw any conclusions – so although the findings seem intuitively true, they may not
be.

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MATT

Great article!

I wonder though about what controls were used in the study concerning ability
level. For instance, the reason better pianists often play a passage hands together
at first is simply a higher level of playing. Ditto for needing less repetitions.
If this cause and effect relationship was misunderstood, wouldn’t it easily make it
seem as though the number of repetitions doesn’t matter?

REPLY

DR. NOA KAGEYAMA

@Matt and Samantha,

Very keen observation, and a good point. I imagine determining ability level would
be quite a thorny task to undertake. For what it’s worth, time spent practicing and
number of repetitions weren’t related to ranking, so it doesn’t seem that the top
ranked pianists learned the passages any more quickly or easily than the others.

While degree program is not a very reliable indicator of ability, that information
is listed in a chart in the paper. It might be interesting to note that there were
two BM students in the top 9, and five graduate students in the bottom 8; the two
lowest ranked pianists were a DMA and MM student.

REPLY

REGINA

What a great article! I have sent this to all my students and it is now circulating
among our teaching faculty at my music school. Thank you! If possible to share on
pinterest I have a page dedicated to practice tips for students and parents and
would love to include this article.

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A.E.M. BAUMANN

Two interesting aspects for me, two related to each other. First, there is a
fallacy in the presentation as regards the first part (the did/did not matter). As
presented, the findings did not account for whether the players might already have
had in their repertoire pieces with elements similar to the elements found in the
Shostakovich. That would account greatly for the “What did matter”:

“1 How many times they played it incorrectly. The more times they played it
incorrectly, the worse their ranking tended to be.
2 The percentage of correct practice trials did seem to matter. The greater the
proportion of correct trials in their practice session, the higher their ranking
tended to be.”

In the second part, of the 6/7/8, it seems to me only #7 is relevant, because if

you have #7 you naturally have ## 6 and 8, and if not #7, then most likely not ## 6
and 8

If I may switch mediums for demonstration: The best dancers are body aware of the
totality of the motions of the dance: they are not just “pointing their arm out”,
they are putting their arm in a specific position, engaging the whole of the
musculature of their arm in their performance of that position. To wit, they are
“sticking” it, which takes conscious attention to every element of the motion. It
is the same thing as with the best of any art form, as with the music: it is
attention to the _whole_ of the medium, breaking it down, understanding not just
the music but how the notes and elements integrate and how the _hands_ integrate
with the music.

As I would say it with writing, it is a depth awareness of the medium, not just
attention to the surface effect of intended results (of “intended” meaning, as it
were).

Of course, it circles around: those people who work through #7 are more likely to
recognize common element between pieces and more likely to be able to extend the
learned memory of a known element into the learning of a new one.

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BRIDGID

This is a really interesting article. The study reinforces the Montessori approach
to general academic learning. Montessori teachers encourage a precise study and
mastery of each concept before building complexity, a focus on mastery, individual
pacing, opportunity for repetition until mastered, and quality over quantity. You
could easily replace the piano passage learned in this study for any Montessori
lesson.

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MELODY ZIMMERMAN

Thanks so much for sharing. I’ve been learning so much about how to practice
deliberately, but it’s so easy to fall back into old patterns. I found this at the
perfect time. I’ve been struggling with motivation to practice recently because I’m
spending hours and hours and just getting frustrated with my progress. I was
starting to worry about whether I’d be ready for my recital. This was a helpful
reminder to approach my practicing differently. Thanks!

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A.D. OGDEN

This is absolutely the best article on practicing that I have ever read. Thanks for
the post! The interesting question is why some students seem to intuitively
understand this and why some do not. Or is it not a question of “understanding” but
rather behavior? Whatever the case, this accounts for the real difference in
outcomes and not the common myth that “talent” has anything to do with it. I guess
the encouraging thing is that anyone can learn how to practice in this way. I’ve
recently had success with an adult student who had largely plateaued for several
years. This all relates to the idea of “Deep Practice” as put forth by K. Anders
Ericsson and the reality of myelin production that Daniel Coyle discusses in his
book The Talent Code. I look forward to learning more from your blog!

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JOSH

Sometimes we all need the reassuring which specifically nods and points us on in
the direction that we are already headed and this article does exactly that in an
extremely fulfilling way. Thank you for this awesome blog and everything in it!

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AUSTIN PIANO TEACHER

These are great observations and recommendations. Another way of looking at this is
“Don’t keep practicing mistakes!” The sooner we deal with poor technique, rhythm or
other other errors, the easier it is to correct. To borrow from a former football
coach, “Practice does NOT make perfect; only perfect practice makes perfect.”

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EUGEN TARNOW

I am trying to make piano practice more efficient and created “Hanon in 60

seconds”. If anyone doing research in practice wants to try it – please write me
at piano@avabiz.com. I am working in the field in general and have other ideas as
well.

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EUGEN TARNOW

And if you are interested you can buy “Hanon in 60 seconds”

at https://www.amazon.com/Become-Virtuoso-Pianist-Quickly-Repetition-
ebook/dp/B015ZNFG5U

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I didn’t have time to read all of the comments, so if someone has already
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REPLY

SCOTT JOYCE

#4 in the top 8 practice strategies says to stop before making an error while
practicing led to better results. I tried this for two days and immediately stopped
this trying this method. It scared the heck out of me. I was practicing stopping
before I played an error. It was getting into my head that this was the right thing
to do. What if I did this while performing? I don’t generally have any performance
anxiety but I think this is a sure way to develop this problem. When learning a new
passage my method is to play the notes out of time so I can find them. Then I put
them to a metronome at a slow tempo and work up from there. If I play it wrong I
don’t stop in the middle of the passage. I just plow through and make a note of it
and get it right the next time. Great article though and a lot of good information.
That particular method is just not right for me. And maybe others.

REPLY

NOA KAGEYAMA, PH.D.

Hi Scott,

That’s an interesting reaction to that particular strategy – but it makes a lot of

sense and I’m sure you’re not the only one to experience this. I think this is part
of what makes practicing both an art and science (and endlessly interesting); that
we are all individuals and can have many different responses to the same thing.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!

REPLY

MARLA

You have confirmeD what I tell {nag} my students about – the need to slow down at a
tricky spot until it is in your head. Then try speeding it up a little until it is
correct and at speed.

REPLY

SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE – LEEDS HARMONICA

[…] case you think this is just me going off on one, try reading this great
article: 8 Things Top Practicers Do Differently. It’s an examination of an
experiment in effective practicing. There’s a lot of solid […]

REPLY

PRACTICE TIPS @ CARROUSEL PIANO STUDIO

[…] 8 Things Top Practicers Do Differently […]

REPLY

PAUL

Hi Noa

If you are still answering questions on this (great) post….do you have a link to
the Free Throw study please? (Although I teach bass guitar and am very big on
deliberate practice my kids are mad keen basketball and I’ve been trying to
implement deliberate practice into THEIR practicing!).

Cheers (from the UK)

Paul
REPLY

NOA KAGEYAMA, PH.D.

Indeed, for others who might be curious as well, here’s the official reference to
the basketball free throw study alluded to above:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/104132001753149883

REPLY

DANGER OF PRACTICING BADLY: "I KEEP MESSING UP AT THE SAME PLACE" – TURNING
YOURSELF INSIDE OUT COACHING

[…] Despite having practiced all week to be ready to “show off” to my teacher, I
still stumbled at the same point I’d been struggling with all […]

REPLY

7 THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR PIANO PRACTICE FOREVER

[…] a fascinating study here, a group of researchers led by Robert Duke of The
University of Texas at Austin learned just […]

REPLY

STOP! DON'T PRACTICE A MISTAKE… | ARI'S BASS BLOG

[…] great blog post by Performance Psychologist and violinist Noa Kageyama, PhD.:
he tells us about a scientific research that details the 8 things top practicers do
differently. There is hard evidence for the above! […]

REPLY

JUDE

I wonder how many of these students had been taught how to practice the efficient
methods used in the test by a teacher? The book Fundamentals of Piano Practice
based on the teaching of a student of Satie emphasizes specific techniques for
dealing with problems as they arise in practice and claims they produce excellent
results. (The book was written by an impressed parent, not the pianist.) While some
of the test subjects here may have been familiar with the work previously, it seems
unlikely that the three who stood out from the rest of the group would all have
studied it and none of the others, but it would have made sense for the testers to
have checked. (If it was in the article, I missed it and apologize.)

Instrument-learning apps now available provide a useful service here in identifying

mistakes immediately, something a beginning student may not be capable of. This was
pointed out in the flowkey ad that led me to this article a short while ago.

REPLY

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