Learn Music Faster

Introduction
Perhaps the most common complaints among music learners revolve
around the desire to learn music ​faster​.

“This should be easier.”

“Why is this so hard?!”

“Why aren’t I improving?”

We’ve all been there.

And when we think of learning music, ​practicing​ is the first thing that
comes to mind. We have a lesson and are told to go home and
practice. We take out our instrument, play our assigned song or scale
or what have you two, three or four times and then what?

Did anyone really tell you ​how​ to practice?

(and if so, was there any detail to it?)

Fortunately science has been researching how we learn for a long time
- but it’s only recently that the research findings have come to be
known and implemented in real-life music learning situations.

Musical U has interviewed many of these experts on the subject of

learning music. People like:

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

- Professor Anders Ericsson who pioneered the study of “deliberate

practice”

- Gregg Goodhart from ​Learn Like a Genius

- Dr. Jonathan Harnum, author of ​The Practice of Practice

- Jason Haaheim of the New York Met Opera orchestra who runs
bootcamps on better practicing techniques

- Josh Turknett of the ​Intelligence Unshackled​ podcast and the

Brainjo Center for Neurology and Cognitive Enhancement

- and many more!

We’ve found the results fascinating. We’ve tried them on ourselves!

And now, we’re happy to share a summary of our findings with you in
this special report.

Read on to discover six proven techniques for accelerating your

music learning.

For each one we’ll share the concepts, an example of applying it in

practice, and a simple exercise you can try today.

At the end you’ll find a list of references, podcast episodes and articles
you can check out for more detail on everything covered here.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

#1: Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice, an idea and learning model originally researched
and developed by Professor Anders Ericsson, is about really paying
attention, setting goals, and taking steps to accomplish them. In a
sense, most of the techniques included in this report can be seen as
aspects of deliberate practice.

Concept
“If I had to sum it up in a nutshell it would be: practice the hard
things. Of course by definition that’s going to require more effort from
you - but this change alone can transform the results you get from
your music practice.”
- Christopher Sutton, Founder, Musical U

Playing music is fun, pleasurable, and relaxing. But if we don’t

challenge ourselves, we can’t grow. And practicing is about getting
better, right?

Deliberate Practice has these characteristics:

1. Intentional
You must be motivated to exert effort. It probably won’t be
inherently fun, but eventually you’ll find great pleasure achieving
your milestones.

2. Improving and Appropriate

Practice sessions must have specific, challenging, appropriate
goals. Achievable tasks improve and expand existing skills.

3. Responsive
All tasks have immediate, informative feedback.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

Example
Here are two classic scenarios of ​unproductive​ practice types than can
be “cured” by deliberate practice:

● The “Good Timers” - Mindlessly play through a whole song, and

skipping past mistakes because it’s more fun to just jam.

● The “Grinders” - Play the same thing over and over and over...
hoping it will somehow get better.

The “Good Timers” will make better progress if they apply deliberate
practice by playing through the song, taking notes on the more difficult
passages, then going back to give extra, focussed practice to the hard
parts. Details on how to do this will come in the topics that follow.

The “Grinders” would do well to focus on the difficult spots. When

repeating, they will have more success if they consider ​The Learning
Coach​ Gregg Goodhart’s triangle of Deliberate Practice as a continual
loop of “Plan, Do, Reflect”:

Most Grinders are leaving out the “Reflect” step, cutting a large swathe
of available brain cells out of their learning process.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

Try This
Pick some music with some difficult parts.

Play through it once and carefully observe where you’re having

problems.

Make a list of these “unfamiliar spots” and give them extra practice
and attention.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

#2: Desirable Difficulty

Creating what’s called “desirable difficulty” is one of the best ways to
make your leverage your repetitions for much greater, faster, and
deeper learning.

Concept
“Contextual interference is basically doing something but in a new way
that is confusing.”
- Gregg Goodhart, Learn Like a Genius

Research has shown that when we’re first learning something hard,
our brains absolutely light up! But as we play something over and
over, our brains start to consolidate and save energy - in other words,
they get bored.

Creating difficulty on purpose - actually making something harder than

it is (in the right way) keeps more of the brain engaged and active in
the learning process.

As music learners we can do this by introducing different ​variations

on the thing we are practicing, a technique called ​contextual
interference.

Example
Let’s say you’ve been practicing the same lead solo over and over. You
play it 50, 100 times and it gets better. Then the next day it seems
you’re back to square one. After another 50 reps, it’s a little better.
But you come back the next day and wonder why you aren’t where
you were when you left off yesterday.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

So rather than the same old boring repetitions, you play it with “dotted
rhythms” (long-short, long-short, etc.) Then when that gets easy, you
reverse the rhythm (short-long, short-long, etc.).

Then you try the same thing, but facing a different direction, standing
up, lying down on the floor, turning up your distortion, playing with a
clean sound, playing it backwards - all these things that make it a little
harder, or provide “contextual interference”.

This keeps your brain active and busy encoding all the new learning.

Try This
Pick a passage of music that’s been giving you trouble. Make a list of
ways to make it more difficult - dotted rhythms are always a good
place to start, but be creative with all the ways you can challenge your
brain and your attention while playing this passage. The more creative
you are, the more fun this is going to be!

Pro-tip:​ when experimenting with desirable difficulty, don’t be so

fixated on practicing reps until it’s perfect - if you stop before it’s
“done”, your brain will keep working on it in the background and you
may be pleasantly surprised what happens at your next practice
session…

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

#3: Interleaved Practice

Interleaved Practice is a scientifically-proven method to produce
desirable difficulty and increase learning efficiency.

Concept
“With blocking, once you know what solution to use, or movement to
execute, the hard part is over. With interleaving, each practice attempt
is different from the last, so rote responses don’t work. Instead, your
brain must continuously focus on searching for different solutions.”
- Steven C. Pan, Scientific American

“Blocking” is when we practice a large “block” of repetitions, let’s say

practicing two tough measures 100 times in a row. In ​interleaved
practice, you might instead practice that thing once or twice, or for
one minutes, and then jump to something else for a rep or two, then
something else for two minutes, and so on - eventually coming back to
each thing here and there.

The effectiveness of interleaving tends to improve even more when the

“leaves” of your practicing are randomized.

Example
Jill has been having trouble with
1. her A♭major scale,
2. measures 63-64
3. and measure 72 in her piano recital piece,
4. and wants to memorize the chord progression from the new song
she’ll be jamming at band practice.

Rather than practicing each item for a while, then moving on to the
next, Jill makes a random mixed up list, something like 1, 3, 4, 2, 3, 1,
4, 1, 3, 2, etc. and practices each item for just one minute.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

Try This
Pick a number of short musical passages or items you want to work
on. They can be from the same piece, or mixed up between different
tasks, like Jill’s example above.

Write or print out a bunch of those numbers on paper and cut them up
and put them into a bowl or a hat. Pull them out one by one and
practice each item for 1 rep or for maybe 1 or 2 minutes - you decide
and stick to it!

Remember the Pro Tip from Desirable Difficulty? It applies here too.
Learn to be satisfied with working toward perfection but not achieving
it quite - at least not yet.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

#4: Flow
We’ve all been “in the zone” at some point in our lives - that
experience almost like you’re watching yourself do something, not
having to really think about it. Maybe it was driving home last night,
maybe it was catching that perfect pass, that first date with your
future spouse, or maybe it was while playing your favorite piece of
music.

Concept
“Throughout my career, if I have done anything, I have paid attention
to every note and every word I sing – if I respect the song. If I cannot
project this to a listener, I fail.”
- Frank Sinatra

Flow is the feeling when we’re really getting into the music and time,
distraction, and that pesky inner critic all seem to disappear. But often
our “in the zone” experiences, as highly pleasurable and desirable they
may be, seem to come out of the blue.

And we can even try practicing intentionally feeling “blissed out” while
playing music, but for some reason, it doesn’t seem to “click”.

The famous researcher Mihály Csíkszentmihályi has proven that the

flow state - which selectively turns off certain parts of the brain and
turns on other parts - is something that can be chosen and
deliberately cultivated. It really boils down to choosing where to put
your attention.

Corporate speaker/violinist Diane Allen recommends working

consciously through the musical details at a “granular level” so that
we’ve prepared and practice the kind of microscopic focus of attention
that generates “the zone.”

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

Example
Hassan is sick of just mechanically riffing on the same tired licks. He
sets the metronome super slow and asks himself ​“What if I took that
same lick I always default to and played it backwards?”

After trying that for a while, he tries playing it in triplets, then adding
a semitone to each interval, transposing it up a tri-tone, adding an
eighth rest after the third beat - continually exploring and expanding
on this one melodic idea until he’s completely transformed it with
minute and careful attention.

At the next gig, Hassan rips into his solo and discovers new music
streaming out of his saxophone. After the show, the drummer asks,
“Wow, man, what planet did you come from and what did you do with
our sax player?”​ (He meant this is a good way!)

Try This
Take a piece of music you believe you know how to play well. Record
yourself playing it.

Then spend a few practice sessions going through it with "granular"

attention, paying close attention to the musical meaning of each and
every detail.

Record yourself again and listen to the results of really getting into the
music.

Pro Tip:​ According to Josh Turknett of the Brainjo Center for

Neurology and Cognitive Enhancement, the purpose of practice is to
tell your brain what to work on when you’re sleeping. Practicing before
bed, or running through something in your mind as you’re falling
asleep is a good way to take advantage of this.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

#5: Creativity and Variety

Many aspiring musicians are under the impression that practicing - if

you take it seriously - is inherently boring. But, as all the science
shows, boring is bad for learning. With desirable difficulty,
interleaving, and flow, we’ve already seen that getting actively
engaged in creating your practice session can be hard, but certainly
more fun and productive than going nowhere with your music.

Concept
Remember Hassan from “Flow”? He asked a very powerful question:
“What if I…?”

YouTube music theory star Adam Neely describes his practice routine
as nothing but asking this question over and over:

“I was like, “Well, what if I played a major scale in one octave but just
on one string?” Okay. I’m going to play that, or how many different
ways could I play this thing on one string? Okay, I can do that. It
becomes a game. ... What about my fourth and my third finger? That’s
also strange. And it becomes this whole what-if game of just cycling
through every iteration you can possibly think of of just playing a
major scale in one octave.”
- Adam Neely, YouTuber, Composer, Bassist

According to Dr. Jonathan Harnum, author of The Practice of Practice,

there are all kinds of activities that feed our musical learning that we
may not be considering “practice” because of the emotional baggage
surrounding that term.

He has coined the term “accidental practicing” and likens it to the

Hindu concept of “Samskara” - soaking up music from your

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

environment (what concert pianist turned star conductor Robert Emery

calls a “duvet of music”).

Active listening, watching live performances, visualizing ourselves play

(air guitar, anyone?), audiating music (hearing it in our head),
dancing, even singing in the shower - these are all activities that feed
our musicality and help us to learn music faster and on a deeper level.

These maybe activities we do all the time, but what if we brought the
same awareness and deliberateness to hiding out in your headphones
and really listening to all the myriad details of the Beatles’ Penny Lane,
or consciously tried out new rhythmic and phrasing concepts for your
latest indie-folk song by dancing to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3?

Example
You always get stuck on that F# melodic minor scale, and your scale
test is coming up next week. But instead of playing it up and down,
100 times a day, you ask, “What if I started high and went down first,
then up? What if I played it in thirds (F♯ A G♯ B and so on)? What if I
improvised with the bottom four notes? How about the top four notes?
What would Twinkle Twinkle Little Star sound like in F♯ melodic
minor? What if I sang every other note instead of playing it?

What if I looked up every piece I could find in F♯ minor and listened

to it, and maybe even tried to jam along? What if I sang the trickiest
spot and made up words to it?

Suddenly practicing this scale has become what you look forward to
doing every day.

Try This
Make a list of all the musical things you do that you don’t consider
“practicing”. Then, for each item, think of three ways that you can

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

engage in those activities with more mindfulness and apply them more
to your actual music-making.

Then choose something you’ve been working on and apply the “What
if… ?” question while practicing. Where did it take you?

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

#6: Mindset
In the end, what you think about learning music is how you will choose
to learn music.

Concept
“In your mind, when you’re coming up to play, you’re like, oh, here
comes the hard part. But instead of defining it as difficult, think of it is
just unfamiliar. And that way, there isn’t that block.”
- Dr. Jonathan Harnum, author of The Practice of Practice
(paraphrasing Tuba star Rex Martin)

Mindset researcher Dr. Carol Dweck defines two basic mental models
when it comes to learning. Applied to learning music:

● Music learners with a ​“fixed” mindset​ have a core belief that

talent or, ability is innate, static. They tend to be concerned more
with how they appear to others, and to avoid challenges. They
get defensive and give up easily. They see effort as fruitless,
ignore criticism, and are threatened by others' success.

● Music learners with a ​“growth” mindset​ have a core belief that

musical ability can be developed. They have a desire to learn and
embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, and see
effort as a path to mastery. They are inspired by others' success,
and typically achieve higher levels than the fixed mindset folks.

Of course, many of us carry elements of both belief systems. Who

among us hasn’t felt intimidated by a stunning musical performance by
an 8-year-old child of a piece we’ve been struggling with for years?

Yet understanding these trends in our thinking, we can more

consciously choose the way we think about learning music, and make
positive corrections to our attitudes.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

Example
Aida loved to sing, and was asked to sing at her cousin’s wedding.
She’s never felt quite right about that high note in the chorus. What
will happen if she doesn’t hit it? What will everyone think of her? What
if she ruins the ceremony for her cousin?

Every time she practices, things seem to get worse, so she practices
less and less. She can’t stop thinking about thinly-veiled looks of
disappointment on the faces of her loved ones in the audience.

Then on top of it all, she starts getting a sore throat five days before
the event!

Aida is beside herself at her voice lesson. Her wise teacher, a friend of
the family, says she will talk to the mother of the bride and cancel the
performance.

With a great sense of relief, Aida dives into her lesson with relish.
Suddenly her sore throat is miraculously healed, and she’s singing
better than ever. Then her teacher says, “Just for kicks, sing that
wedding song” and Aida surprises herself and sings it better than ever.

They discuss that high note in the chorus, and experiment with
different strategies to approach it. Aida tries three different ways and
finds the one that sounds best. By the end of the lesson, she says to
her teacher, “You know, I’ve been freaking out for no reason. With
some more practice over the next few days, I think it’s going to go
even better!”

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

Try This
Set yourself a musical challenge. Something hard (or maybe we should
say “unfamiliar”!) enough, but that you may reasonably expect
progress on in one practice session.

Observe your thoughts and feelings during the session. Are they
aligned with a Growth Mindset or a Fixed Mindset?

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

Summary
Learning music really can as fast, as fun, as interesting, and as
creative as we thought it would be back when we enjoyed our first
exciting experience of music-making.

With the right mindset and the scientifically proven methods laid out in
this report, you now have the tools to move your practice of practicing
to a better, more efficient, more effective, and more enjoyable place.

For more details on everything covered check out the links in the
“Resources” section below - and be sure to ​subscribe​ for the latest
episodes of ​Musicality Now

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

Resouces

#1: Deliberate Practice

- Interview with Professor Anders Ericsson who pioneered the study of
“deliberate practice”
http://musicalitynow.com/62

- Interview with Jason Haaheim of the New York Met Opera orchestra
who runs bootcamps on better practicing techniques
http://musicalitynow.com/118

- About Deliberate Practice In Music

http://musicalitynow.com/63

#2: Desirable Difficulty

- Interview with Gregg Goodhart from Learn Like a Genius
http://musicalitynow.com/213

- “Practical Ways to Play Better Now, Right Now, C’mon, Go Do It!” PDF
by Gregg Goodhart
Find link in shownotes of interview, above.

#3: Interleaved Practice

- Musical U Tutorial on Interleaved Practice
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/why-youre-not-making-progress-ins
trument-fix-it/

- Steven C. Pan article in Scientific American

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-interleaving-effect-mix
ing-it-up-boosts-learning/

#4: Flow
- Interview with Josh Turknett of the Intelligence Unshackled podcast
and the Brainjo Center for Neurology and Cognitive Enhancement

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!

 Learn Music Faster

http://musicalitynow.com/195

- Interview with Diane Allen, concertmaster violinist and flow specialist

http://musicalitynow.com/222

#5 Creativity and Variety

- Musicality Unleashed: Creativity Is The Vehicle, Not The Destination
http://musicalitynow.com/145

- Interview with Adam Neely, YouTuber, Composer, Bassist

http://musicalitynow.com/154

#6 Mindset
- Interview with Dr. Jonathan Harnum, author of ​The Practice of Practice
http://musicalitynow.com/215

- Interview with Lisa McCormick of Note2Self method of managing your

“inner talk” while practicing
http://musicalitynow.com/24

- Interview with Michael Compitello, percussionist and composer

http://musicalitynow.com/188

Finally, a quick request…

If you enjoy diving into the episodes above please take a minute to
rate and review the show!

You’ll find easy step by step instructions ​here​.

© Copyright 2020 Musical U. Visit musical-u.com for more music-learning resources!