Motor Learning (aka Practicing) Part 1

Motor learning is the process leading to a change in the capability of producing a skilled action- what we call practicing. We all know from spending hours upon hours in the practice room that not all practicing is the same.

Have you ever had the experience where you conceptually understand what needs to happen to execute that passage, and yet you still make mistakes that come out of nowhere? This is an example of having done practice for performance (as in the ability to execute once, nothing to do with a concert stage) but that true learning has not yet occurred. When a skill has been learned, a permanent change in behavior exists.

Random vs Blocked Practice

Let’s say you are learning a new piece. Instead of starting at the beginning and gradually working your way through to the end, consider the concepts of random vs blocked practice.

Random practice is practicing multiple sections in a randomized order. For example, playing measures 1-4, then 16-20, then 8-12. Blocked practice is when one thing is repeated at a time until it is learned. For example, repeating measures 1-4 for mastery before moving onto 4-8 etc.

Random practice has been found to be more difficult in the beginning, but increases long term learning. Blocked practice improves immediate performance but does not transfer long term as well. (Shumway-Cook and Woollacott 2017)

Consider Etude. No. 5 from Cyrille Rose’s “32 Etudes”

Etude 5 from Cyrille Rose “32 Etudes for Clarinet”

For the student that is a little more green, doing more blocked practice before random helps the student to find their footing, so to speak. Take the etude four measures at a time and master each group before moving on. Once a fair amount of confidence has been reached, mix up the blocks into random order to improve learning retention and concert performance.

Measure 13

We can also do this on a note-by-note level. Say there is some difficulty with the fingers in measure 13. Do blocked practice for the E-D#, B-A, and G#-A-B-A. Next mix each of these three blocks into a random order. Once this can be executed cleanly put the passage into musical context by playing the whole measure. Don’t forget to play in the written dynamic while doing blocked practice!

This was a brief introduction on random vs. blocked practice. Let me know your experience in the comments!

References

Shumway-Cook, A., & Woollacott, M. (2017). Motor Control, Translating Research into Clinical Practice (5th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.