Tag: how to learn hard music

The Interleaving Practice Technique

Interleaving is a newer practice technique that I stumbled upon in the past week or two. It’s different than spacing, which I refer to in this post, but they can be used together. It can be hard, but it helps with retention.

What is the Interleaving Practice Technique?

Interleaving is to mix up information within a subject area and study it in different orders, but not studying it all the way through. It’s kind of like using flash cards, but mixing up the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

First Step: Make Sections

You can do this on a macro or a micro scale. If you’re learning a 5-page sonata, it would make sense to make sections that are approximately one page long (macro). If your goal is to learn one page this week, then you might want to divide that page up into phrases (micro).

Second Step: Randomize

Two out of my three sources (this and this) recommended to go through each section three times, so they picked a random order of sections and repeated that random order three times. It could look like this:

2,4,1,5,3 2,4,1,5,3 2,4,1,5,3

If you want to do spacing in addition to the interleaving, you could do other things like scales, long tones and technical exercises in-between each interleaving section, or do non-music related things.

Third Step: Get Out Your Timer!

Two versions of interleaving involved a timer. This version has you switching between subjects every 3 minutes, and this one every 5 or 10 minutes. This way you know that you’re not going to fully practice each section in the amount of time that’s allotted, which is part of the interleaving process.

I don’t know about you, but I feel more productive when I use a timer for anything. It doesn’t matter what it is, I feel like I get more done.

Applications

Obviously, you wouldn’t want to use this practicing technique every single time. You need to play through it from start to finish at least once a week, but I can see how this can really help, especially in the beginning stages of learning a piece.

Memorization

This could help a lot with memorizing your piece. The experts are always saying to divide it into sections and memorize those sections. If science says that this helps you memorize things better, give it a try. Let’s see if it works for you.

Beginning Stages

This would really help with the beginning stages of learning a piece. It forces you to work through parts of the piece rather than gloss over them. It would also help you analyze the piece easier, making choices about dynamics and the feel of the piece.

Middle Stages

You know how it is in the middle stages of learning a piece. You play it through a couple of times and think, “It’ll gradually get better.”

In this practice technique, you could pull out the tough parts and interleave just them for a practice session here and there. I do this all the time with ensemble music, but not usually with solos. Who knew that I was already interleaving?

End Stages

I’m not sure how I’d apply this to the end stages of learning a piece. Those last few weeks are usually just about adding the nuances to make it a great performance.

Conclusion

I love adding to my bag of tricks! Any time I can find a new practice technique, it makes me more efficient. I know this technique is hard, but please give it a try.

How To Practice Using Rhythmic Changes

I remember when I learned how to do this, it seemed like magic. I could take every tough section of my music and learn each one in minutes. Trevor Wye talks about how to do this in his books, and I learned it from my college band director.

How Do You Do It?

First, you take a tough section of music, like below.

Then you change the rhythms to a dotted eighth/sixteenth pattern. Do not write it out, just make the changes in your head.

Change the rhythm to a sixteenth/dotted eighth pattern.

Change the rhythm to a triplet pattern. When it ends unevenly, just make them into quarter notes at the end. In a case like this, you could start with two quarter notes and do triplets to the end, in addition to how I wrote it below.

Play as written.

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If the tough section is longer than four bars, then take it in four-bar sections, overlapping by a measure.

Why Does It Work?

If you already feel your eyes glazing over, just skip this part and say that it’s magic. 🙂

The first two steps force you to make a quick change between first one half of the notes, then the other half. The root problem is that your fingers are revolting against some of the switches between the notes, and this technique forces your fingers to behave.

The third step, with the triplets, forces you to think about the notes differently. You’re changing the natural accents of the notes, and you’re also doing the math in your head rather quickly. Because you’re paying such close attention to the notes, you learn them faster than normal.

The fourth step is important because it brings everything together. You realize that you really can play that tough section. Afterwards, when you put the tough section back into context, it helps your brain say, “I’ve got this!”

In What Situations Do You Use This?

You use this when there’s a small, fast section of a piece of music that’s really hard to play. You’ve run through it a few times and your fingers just get tangled on themselves and don’t know what to do. This is my go-to technique for small, fast sections because it’s fast and it (usually) works.

How I Learned a Piece of Music on a Time Crunch

I normally would have taken 2-3 months to learn a piece like this. It took me a week.

I texted a friend of mine who directs a local church choir. When he texted me back, he asked if I could accompany for a joint ascension service for three congregations. I took a look at it (here is a link for it) and said to him, “I can learn that in a week.”

I failed to look a the metronome marking.

I could play it easily at 60. 104? I wasn’t sure if I could make it in a week, but I didn’t want to back out. My friend was counting on me. Here’s what I did to get it done.

Tactic #1: Mini-Practices

The first practice of the day I did my normal stuff – scales, technical studies, and etudes – before I started working on the music. Then I practiced the piece one or two times using plans below. Then I took a short nap to get the myelin building up on my new neurons.

After the nap, I did something active for the same reason. I put in my garden, went for a run, cleaned the house, you get the idea. Then I practiced again, just going through the song two or three times.

I did this process 3-5 times per day. It was great because using this process, I was able to practice at least twice as long as normal per day without pain, injury, or tension.

Tactic #2: Metronome

I didn’t play without the metronome. Every time I started feeling comfortable with the piece, I would pop the metronome up a notch, usually once per mini-session, sometimes once every-other session.

There are a couple of reasons for this:
1. Since I was playing with a choir, I didn’t want my natural rubato to start creeping in.
2. The metronome helps you find the parts that you’re messing up on so you can fix them.
3. The metronome makes me a little nervous. I needed that because I was going to be playing this in front of 300-400 people, and I have stage fright. (Aack!)

Tactic #3: Twinkling

If I was having a hard time with transitioning from one chord to another, I would play the two chords over and over, starting slowly and building up speed until it fell apart. Then I’d back up a measure or two and if I hit that chord easily, I would continue through the piece.

Tactic #4: Drilling Measures

Sometimes there would be a whole measure that I couldn’t get. In that case, I would play the measure over and over again, starting slow and working it up to speed and a little past that. To make sure I had it in my fingers, I would back up to the beginning of the phrase and keep on playing if I was able to play it in context.

Tactic #5: Play Tough Chords in Octaves

Sometimes I would have to jump over an octave and hit a block chord. Sometimes this would happen in both hands. If I was having a hard time making that jump, I would play the chord as written, then play it an octave down. I would play another octave down. I would continue to 8vb the chord until I ran out of room on the piano.

Then I went up an octave from the bottom octave of the piano. Then up another octave. I continued to 8va the chord until I reached the top octave of the piano.

Then I went down an octave from the top octave of the piano. I continued to 8vb the chord until I came to the original position of the chord. As usual, I backed up to the beginning of the phrase to make sure I had learned the chord and if I had, I continued on.

Tactic #6: Practicing Backwards

I started out playing the last page. Then the last two pages. Then the last three. So on and so forth until I hit the first page. Sometimes I did this by phrase, which ended up being more like half-pages.

I did this tactic when I was having a hard time adjusting to a new metronome setting. It really worked and I was usually able to bump the metronome up a notch after practicing like this. I only used this tactic once per day and it took up an entire mini-session of practicing.

Tactic #7: Dropping Notes.

THIS TACTIC IS FOR ACCOMPANIMENT ONLY! I had to simplify certain parts in order to play them up to speed. If there was a measure that I just couldn’t get or a chord that I just couldn’t jump to, I would analyze my part against the choir part and cut what I could, keeping the main part of the chord intact.

Here were my judicial cuts
1. I switched to the melody and the lowest bass note for a section that had too many jumps. The choir was singing unison at that point, so as long as I had the melody, it sounded fine.
2. I had to make over-octave leaps in my Left hand in one section, with 4-5 note chords in both hands. It was the same chord all measure in the Left hand (inversions), so I only played the first one in each measure.
3. I had a 16th-note run that was 4ths with the occasional 2nd. Since it wasn’t a normal arpeggio, I couldn’t play it and then play the block chord at the end. I had to choose one or the other. I left the run out and played the initial chord and the chord at the end.
4. There was a section where I was playing something very similar to what the choir was singing, but I had an extra 1-2 notes in each hand. I switched to what the choir was singing, and switched back to my part at a time when my part diverged from the choir part.

This tactic was a last-ditch effort. If I had 2-3 months to work on it, I never would have dropped notes.

Results

In the end, I got the piece up to 104, but it wasn’t a comfortable 104. I told the director that I could play it at 96 and he was fine with that.

The rehearsal was rough because I had all these new sounds coming at me, what with the trumpet and the choir. After the rehearsal, I made my kids sing the melody line while I played the accompaniment a couple times per day. I should have done that for the initial practices, but I didn’t think about it.

The performance went great. My youngest daughter told me she didn’t hear any mistakes. Given her familiarity with the piece and her musical training (4 years on the piano and 6 months on the flute), I would call that a success!

Practicing Music Backwards

This is my favorite practice technique. It works like magic, and it’s perfect for your first practice session of learning a new piece.

Practicing Backwards - A practicing technique that will take you from overwhelmed to fabulous, fast.

When I was a Freshman in High School, my band director handed out Mars by Holst, arranged for concert band. This was the hardest piece my young eyes had ever seen. Even the Seniors were flinching.

My band director, Linda Moeller, said, “I am so excited to learn this piece. It’s a little hard for us, but I know we can do it. What do we do when we’re learning something really hard? We practice backwards!”

I was confused, but I was taught to never talk back to a band director. I kept my mouth shut while I listened to her directions.

We played the last chord. She said, “Check your fingers and toes. Are they still there? Great!” Then we played from the last rehearsal mark to the end. We played from the second-to-last rehearsal mark to the end. We kept going like this until we started at the top of the third page. The whole song was getting easier.

What was this magic? Even the new parts were getting easier. We began to start at every other rehearsal mark, then every third. When we got to the beginning of the music, we played the whole thing with only a few mistakes here and there.

I use this technique all the time for myself and for my students. I use it a couple of different ways.

Learning a Whole Piece of Music

Start at the end. If it’s a long piece, I have a goal of playing the last page or two. If your eyes are going crazy just looking at the thing, just play the last chord. Then the last line to the end. Then the last two lines to the end. Keep working forward like this until you get to the beginning of your goal.

Each day, keep going forward, page-by-page, till you get to the beginning of the piece. Each page will get easier and easier as you get used to playing the same theme in different ways.

Learning a Small Section of Music

This is for tough licks in the music that you just can’t seem to get. Play the last 3-4 notes, as slow as you need to play it correctly. Add 3-4 more notes. Keep adding notes until you get to the beginning of the section.

If 3-4 notes is too big of a chunk for you, just add one or two notes at a time.

Each time you add a section, you will naturally go a little faster than last time. When you reach the beginning, you won’t have it up to speed, but you’ll have the notes under your fingers. You’ll be able to speed it up easily from there.

Why Does This Work?

Okay, I’m going to get technical, here. If your brain doesn’t work that way, just call it magic, and don’t read on. I’m very careful who I tell why this works.

Whole Song Technique

Music is written so that it introduces a theme at the beginning, then the composer shows how many different ways the theme can be played throughout the piece. Each time the theme is played, it gets more and more complicated until the end.

Since you’re starting at the end, you’re playing the most complicated part of the music first. It feels easier the farther forward you get in the piece because it is getting easier. This forces you to play the hard part more than anything else.

Small Section Technique

This works for two reasons. First, it puts your brain into puzzle mode, using the math center of your brain. This is the part of your brain that solves problems. When you normally play through something, you’re using too much of the language center of the brain to solve the problem.

The second reason it works is pretty obvious. It forces you to practice the same lick a million times. It becomes cemented into your fingers through muscle memory.

I hope you give this practice technique a try. It really helps. What is your favorite practice technique?