But the probability of success increases as you accumulate previous successes, right?
And there’s a difference between “play 5 times perfectly” and “play 5 times perfectly consecutively.” Much more randomness (and potential regression to the mean) if you are allowed to have imperfect runs between your perfect ones.
For sure! I think people are trying to get a couple different things out of practice quantification:
Self-evaluation: evidence of their skill level
Decision-making: a criterion for deciding when marginal practice time is best spent elsewhere
Motivation: appreciating their successes, having a sense of progress, building consistency over time
It’s both tricky to know which one you’re doing, and also to do it effectively.
For self-evaluation, I think it’s most helpful to make your evaluation as similar to what you’re actually aiming for as possible. If you want to be able to perform in public without memory slips, then arrange some public performances to test whether you’re able to do this or not. A nursing home is great for this—or was before the pandemic, anyway. If you want to be able to accurately play long passages with no warm-up, then start by trying to play short passages with no warm-up. Being very clear about exactly what you’re evaluating, and having a sense of some alternatives, in order to select the most relevant test, is helpful here.
What I really think is important is to focus on “converging lines of evidence.” Playing in front of a crowd on a piano that’s not your own, being able to play accurately on your first time, being able to start in the middle of the piece, and being able to play at a variety of tempi give you a lot more information about your skill level than being able to play a particular passage accurately even 100x in a row.
For decision-making, the reason I think it’s best to move on after one success is that going too deep on one area tends to mean people don’t practice their entire piece, or get hyper-focused on one piece at a time. Also, memory research shows that small bits of practice on particular chunks of information spread out over time are more effective than overlearning the chunks all at once. So “STOP AFTER WIN” tends to spread efforts out more, which I think leads to more effective practice.
For motivation, “STOP AFTER WIN” produces a string of happy-feeling successes.
I agree with you on ALL OF THIS. Make your evaluation as similar to what you’re actually aiming for as possible, make sure you don’t neglect any sections of music and/or allow previously learned material to degrade, spread effort over time aka spaced repetition.
BTW, in our house we’re building a “piano performance ladder” (house concert, smaller venue, bigger venue, duets with other musicians, etc.). My mom used to teach this kind of thing to kids—play for parents first, then grandparents, then church or nursing home, etc. It holds up for adults too...
But the probability of success increases as you accumulate previous successes, right?
And there’s a difference between “play 5 times perfectly” and “play 5 times perfectly consecutively.” Much more randomness (and potential regression to the mean) if you are allowed to have imperfect runs between your perfect ones.
For sure! I think people are trying to get a couple different things out of practice quantification:
Self-evaluation: evidence of their skill level
Decision-making: a criterion for deciding when marginal practice time is best spent elsewhere
Motivation: appreciating their successes, having a sense of progress, building consistency over time
It’s both tricky to know which one you’re doing, and also to do it effectively.
For self-evaluation, I think it’s most helpful to make your evaluation as similar to what you’re actually aiming for as possible. If you want to be able to perform in public without memory slips, then arrange some public performances to test whether you’re able to do this or not. A nursing home is great for this—or was before the pandemic, anyway. If you want to be able to accurately play long passages with no warm-up, then start by trying to play short passages with no warm-up. Being very clear about exactly what you’re evaluating, and having a sense of some alternatives, in order to select the most relevant test, is helpful here.
What I really think is important is to focus on “converging lines of evidence.” Playing in front of a crowd on a piano that’s not your own, being able to play accurately on your first time, being able to start in the middle of the piece, and being able to play at a variety of tempi give you a lot more information about your skill level than being able to play a particular passage accurately even 100x in a row.
For decision-making, the reason I think it’s best to move on after one success is that going too deep on one area tends to mean people don’t practice their entire piece, or get hyper-focused on one piece at a time. Also, memory research shows that small bits of practice on particular chunks of information spread out over time are more effective than overlearning the chunks all at once. So “STOP AFTER WIN” tends to spread efforts out more, which I think leads to more effective practice.
For motivation, “STOP AFTER WIN” produces a string of happy-feeling successes.
I agree with you on ALL OF THIS. Make your evaluation as similar to what you’re actually aiming for as possible, make sure you don’t neglect any sections of music and/or allow previously learned material to degrade, spread effort over time aka spaced repetition.
BTW, in our house we’re building a “piano performance ladder” (house concert, smaller venue, bigger venue, duets with other musicians, etc.). My mom used to teach this kind of thing to kids—play for parents first, then grandparents, then church or nursing home, etc. It holds up for adults too...
I like the idea of a piano performance ladder! Gives some built-in social validation to the work of learning piano music.