Official Trailer ✅: Season 5, Episode 16 “Unlocking the Brain: Neuroscience in Music Practice,” featuring Dr. Molly Gebrian – Violist, Neuroscience Researcher, and Author - podcast episode cover

Official Trailer ✅: Season 5, Episode 16 “Unlocking the Brain: Neuroscience in Music Practice,” featuring Dr. Molly Gebrian – Violist, Neuroscience Researcher, and Author

Apr 21, 20253 min
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Episode description

🎬Here is the trailer for our upcoming episode: Season 5, Episode 16 “Unlocking the Brain: Neuroscience in Music Practice,” featuring Dr. Molly Gebrian – Violist, Neuroscience Researcher, and Author

“How many hours did you practice today?”

If that question still defines your worth as a musician, this episode might change your life.

In this eye-opening conversation, Dr. Molly Gebrian—violist, neuroscience researcher, educator, and author of Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician’s Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing—joins The Piano Pod to challenge everything we thought we knew about practice.

Together, we explore why the illusion of mastery fools us, how interleaved practice transforms learning, and why breaks and sleep are not just helpful but essential to progress. Molly breaks down the science behind habit formation, memory systems, mental practice, and performance consistency, offering musicians practical tools backed by decades of cognitive research.

Whether you’re a student struggling with frustration, a teacher eager to support diverse learners, or a professional performer looking to sharpen your edge, this episode is for you.

Get ready to rethink the way you practice, teach, and perform.

📅 Premieres Tuesday, April 22 at 8:00 PM ET

😎For our VIP Substack members, the full audio episode will be accessible tonight, Monday, April 22, at 8:00pm ET!

📝 Read more on our Substack blog

🔔 Don’t forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell so you never miss a new episode!

#ThePianoPod #MollyGebrian #LearnFasterPerformBetter #NeuroscienceAndMusic #MusicEducation #PracticeSmarter #InterleavedPractice #PerformancePsychology #Neurodiversity #MentalPractice #MusicPodcast

Transcript

As a teacher, I think it's really important that we understand how our brains learn because that's what you're doing as a teacher, right? And as a musician, we spend so much time on our own in the practice room trying to improve. And if you understand how your brain works, then you can do that much more efficiently. And yeah, I mean, I think that's all of our goals, right? Like practice efficiently and get better. The mindset, especially in classical music of...

You need to practice as many hours as you can possibly cram in the day. And you need to practice for as long as you can possibly. tolerate it like three hours, four hours at a time, right? And that's just like so not how the brain works. That's so not what the research shows. And so I'm very happy to help dispel those myths because

it's just not how it works. Join the premiere of this incredible and educational episode, Unlocking the Brain, Neuroscience and Music Practice, featuring Dr. Molly Gabrian, violist, neuroscience researcher, and author of Learn Faster and Perform Better. This episode is packed with practical wisdom and deep insight from a professional musician who has dedicated her research to helping us understand how our brains truly work when we

practice. She shares tools that can reshape how we learn, teach, and perform, grounded in science, but tailored for real musicians. All of us as musicians have had this experience too, of feeling like you practiced really well, and then you go the next day to practice the same music. again. And you feel like you have to redo all of your work that nothing really stuck with you from

the previous day. Or like, you know, if you made 10 steps forward yesterday, you have to go eight steps back today, you like basically have to go back to the beginning and like do it all over again. And like, that's really frustrating. And it feels like it just feels like a real waste of time. How many times have all of us gotten on stage, not played well, and been like, if I could just do that again, that would be so much better if I was given a second chance, right?

Because it's much easier to do it a second time when you've just done it. It's really hard to just do it on the first try. And I mean, I think there's so many things that go into preparing for performance. And the biggest game changer for me with bridging that gap of, okay, I sound fine in the practice room and I feel confident. And then I go out on stage and like, it's a disaster. It's like, what's happening? The biggest change for me and the thing that I've seen be a really

huge change for my students too is... Want to find out what neuroscience is all about and how it gave Dr. Molly Gabriel the tools to transform her own practice and teaching? Tune in Tuesday, April 22nd at 8 p .m. Eastern Time on our YouTube channel or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Are you a VIP Substack member? The full audio episode is yours one day early on Monday, April 21st at 8 p .m. Eastern Time. For the rest of our TPP community, see you Tuesday.

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