Overlearning
Welcome back!
I have a lot of music to learn for three concerts. It ranges from solo pieces (11, though thankfully ten of those only last one minute) to duos, small chamber works and some others, the maximum line-up being ten players.
This is about three years of repertoire to learn. The first concert is in one week. The next two are three weeks later!
I think the most important thing to do in emergency learning like this (ha ha, as if this situation happens to everybody) is to maximise the number of times you "visit" each piece. This means the number of times you practise it and also the number of times you look through it, learning it without playing.
In one week, or three weeks, it's impossible to develop the level of familiarity you will need to perform music fully comfortably. For example Josef Hofmann recommended to learn a piece and then forget about it, and to do this three times, before performing it in public. Doing this embeds the notes and movements in your very long-term memory. What imprints something on the memory is how often you prompt the brain to remember what it once learned. If the thing is no use, it will be forgotten. If it is important it will be needed again, and when it is the pathways will be traced over again and checked to see if they correspond with what you did last time, as well as modified (learning, remembering, improving). However, three weeks isn't long enough to affect this kind of memory properly. Unless your memory is very good and experienced.
Still, in the short term we can get familiar with music over a few weeks. It should be enough for now (it will certainly be the maximum possible in the time available). Come back in three months and maybe everything will be forgotten. Again, it depends on experience.
So to remember something well you have to go there and go away again many times. That means that practising is important but also not practising! It needs time to settle and needs to be reinforced later. All the time you are away from your instrument your brain is sorting through what you learned. That's why when I accompanied for 35 recitals at the RAM one year I was still hearing the music six months later - even pieces I had only played twice! There hadn't been enough time to process it all so I was doing the equivalent of "waking dreaming" such as can happen with lack of sleep (lack of processing time, just as in my case). Hallucinating, maybe!!
I doubt I will be in that type of situation this month. I will try to relax and let my brain do the work. The mind at rest is more useful!
However, I will have to practise!
PS It is possible to do "emergency learning" as Sviatoslav Richter did, for example learning a work in one week before the performance. This is very concentrated work, and is something of a specialism. In such a case it is very helpful to have only one piece to learn!
Did you know, if something is learned very well then it is hard to forget it. With real practise a lot of time is saved. The main principle is never to let something go by if you a) made a mistake, b) nearly made a mistake or c) felt tense in a particular passage (sign of an uncertainty). I learnt this from Ferruccio Busoni, who wrote something similar in his ten "Study Rules for the Pianist" which I might tell you about sometime.
I have a lot of music to learn for three concerts. It ranges from solo pieces (11, though thankfully ten of those only last one minute) to duos, small chamber works and some others, the maximum line-up being ten players.
This is about three years of repertoire to learn. The first concert is in one week. The next two are three weeks later!
I think the most important thing to do in emergency learning like this (ha ha, as if this situation happens to everybody) is to maximise the number of times you "visit" each piece. This means the number of times you practise it and also the number of times you look through it, learning it without playing.
In one week, or three weeks, it's impossible to develop the level of familiarity you will need to perform music fully comfortably. For example Josef Hofmann recommended to learn a piece and then forget about it, and to do this three times, before performing it in public. Doing this embeds the notes and movements in your very long-term memory. What imprints something on the memory is how often you prompt the brain to remember what it once learned. If the thing is no use, it will be forgotten. If it is important it will be needed again, and when it is the pathways will be traced over again and checked to see if they correspond with what you did last time, as well as modified (learning, remembering, improving). However, three weeks isn't long enough to affect this kind of memory properly. Unless your memory is very good and experienced.
Still, in the short term we can get familiar with music over a few weeks. It should be enough for now (it will certainly be the maximum possible in the time available). Come back in three months and maybe everything will be forgotten. Again, it depends on experience.
So to remember something well you have to go there and go away again many times. That means that practising is important but also not practising! It needs time to settle and needs to be reinforced later. All the time you are away from your instrument your brain is sorting through what you learned. That's why when I accompanied for 35 recitals at the RAM one year I was still hearing the music six months later - even pieces I had only played twice! There hadn't been enough time to process it all so I was doing the equivalent of "waking dreaming" such as can happen with lack of sleep (lack of processing time, just as in my case). Hallucinating, maybe!!
I doubt I will be in that type of situation this month. I will try to relax and let my brain do the work. The mind at rest is more useful!
However, I will have to practise!
PS It is possible to do "emergency learning" as Sviatoslav Richter did, for example learning a work in one week before the performance. This is very concentrated work, and is something of a specialism. In such a case it is very helpful to have only one piece to learn!
Did you know, if something is learned very well then it is hard to forget it. With real practise a lot of time is saved. The main principle is never to let something go by if you a) made a mistake, b) nearly made a mistake or c) felt tense in a particular passage (sign of an uncertainty). I learnt this from Ferruccio Busoni, who wrote something similar in his ten "Study Rules for the Pianist" which I might tell you about sometime.
Labels: concerts, development, piano
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