The benefits of spaced vs. massed practice

[DesertTwang]

Just came across a really interesting article that confirms what I have observed myself: That I am regularly surprised at how much better I am able to perform a piece of music after neglecting it. I find it very difficult, if not impossible, to work through a curriculum, be it a book or online lessons, in the exact sequence they're presented. I rather keep working on different lessons and different musical skills at the same time.

I highly recommend the read, and it encourages me to continue my habit of "scattered" as opposed to highly focused, repetitive practice.

https://www.salon.com/2014/04/20/dit...e_falls_short/

[Axelorox]

Does this mean I should make a point of regularly rotating between guitars?

[Gordon Currie]

I have noticed this and used it quite intentionally for many decades. I used to call it the marination process.

However, I suspect that (and this was my experience) there are certain foundational skills that don't rely on consolidation but more on muscle memory - these seemed to require focused practice and a LOT of it to become truly internalized. (So possibly the focused style of practice is better in the very first phase, and then we should begin to move to an alternate approach for the more complex skills.)

Thankfully for me, those days are long past (playing for over 50 years) so I can flit around between exercises without being concerned that it will harm my development.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

I have noticed this and used it quite intentionally for many decades. I used to call it the marination process.

Actually, it's the "myelin-ization" process. Myelin is the proteins forming a sheath around nerve fibers, and serves to help electrical impulses propagate better--or in very simplified terms, helps your brain work better. Studies have shown that myelin is key in learning new skills, but takes some time to form/help create pathways. Much like building muscle happens after you work out while you are actually resting and recovering, myelin building continues to happen after the actual learning session. So you actually *do* improve during that time you are not playing!

[Deliberate1]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

Actually, it's the "myelin-ization" process. Myelin is the proteins forming a sheath around nerve fibers, and serves to help electrical impulses propagate better--or in very simplified terms, helps your brain work better. Studies have shown that myelin is key in learning new skills, but takes some time to form/help create pathways. Much like building muscle happens after you work out while you are actually resting and recovering, myelin building continues to happen after the actual learning session. So you actually *do* improve during that time you are not playing!

That is fascinating. Or in the words of the inimitable Fats Waller, "one never knows, do one." Seems appropriate given the topic.

[fazool]

I am a staunch believer in this strategy and have been promoting it for years.

There was a touted learning philosophy called "neuroplasticity". One critical aspect of this theory was that your brain needed time to establish neural pathways and to make them firm. The theory is that the down time of sleep and dreaming is when this happens most efficiently. The idea is that you practice something and fire some neural pathways. Then when you sleep your brain repeats the learning process and cements the newly learned pathway. "myelin-ization" is probably what happens during that phase.


So your brain specifically needs "down time" to solidify these newly learned neural pathways.

Just as importantly, you don't want to overwhelm the process. Neuoplasticity (as I understand it) advocates about 20 minutes of true learning as the most efficient. If you go beyond that, you end up with too much info all "log jammed" in your brain trying to establish permanent pathways.

So, the theory is to learn new things in bite size chunks (20 minutes about as an average).

Then, literally, sleep on it.

I've applied this strategy to my guitar playing and accomplished things I never dreamed I would be able to play.

[raysachs]

It helps to play only for fun and not have any really firm goals, but I find when I'm working on something new and challenging, I have to work pretty hard at it over a number of days and then take a couple days totally away from it and just PLAY stuff I already know how to play. And then when I come back to the challenging thing a couple days later, I often find I've made tremendous strides.

The thing I'm finally working on in the past few months after never having the patience in the 40+ years since I first took up playing guitar is fingerpicking. I have a decent fretting hand and my picking hand works pretty well with a pick in it, but I'd never learned to use my fingers or, more specifically, to use my fingers and thumb for different parts of the whole.

I started really trying to learn it last November and I started off working on steady bass stuff, because I figured (rightly I think) that it was hard enough just separating your thumb from fingers without giving both your thumb and fingers difficult tasks. So by staying on one bass string per chord rather than alternating, I was able to make some pretty impressive (to me) progress pretty quickly. But even so, it wasn't at all easy, it felt like I was learning a foreign language, and my brain often got twisted up during the process.

But I got good enough at that and it started feeling automatic enough that I figured I should take on the alternating thumb thing and I'm just a month or so into that. And making slow but steady progress and a couple days ago, I burned out on it and just played my typical old strumming and singing stuff and playing electric a lot with my looper and just playing relaxing stuff that was just fun and not challenging.

Then yesterday I started back to the alternating thumb stuff and it started really flowing, for the first time really. It was an awesome feeling. I'm still in really early stages and I know I'll have setbacks and advances along the way, but I'm never afraid to step away from it for a couple of days and just enjoy myself with no real discipline involved.

[SprintBob]

I believe it is beneficial to have several songs you are working on at the same time and then schedule spaced times to work on them rather than every play/practice session you work on the same thing. This is more applicable once you have most of the mechanics worked out on a song, have the song memorized, and you are refining the details of how you want to play it.

Another thing I find beneficial can be working in an entirely different discipline. I primarily focus on fingerstyle but I need to do 2-3 nights of flatpicking for something different and to expand my skill sets.

All great fun on this journey.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by SprintBob

I believe it is beneficial to have several songs you are working on at the same time and then schedule spaced times to work on them rather than every play/practice session you work on the same thing. This is more applicable once you have most of the mechanics worked out on a song, have the song memorized, and you are refining the details of how you want to play it.

Another thing I find beneficial can be working in an entirely different discipline. I primarily focus on fingerstyle but I need to do 2-3 nights of flatpicking for something different and to expand my skill sets.

All great fun on this journey.

Hi SB

Yeah…I kind of 'herd' a group of songs back into performance shape all at once. I prefer variety to laser focus, and it keeps the music fun, and we always seem to arrive at performances together.