Season 5, Episode 16: "Unlocking the Brain: Neuroscience in Music Practice" feat. Dr. Molly Gebrian - Violist, Neuroscience Researcher, & Author

Welcome back to another episode of the PianoPod, everyone. Today, I'm excited to welcome Dr. Molly Gabrion, a violist, researcher, and author whose groundbreaking work bridges the worlds of music and cognitive neuroscience. With degrees in both music and neuroscience from institutions like Oberlin, New England Conservatory, and Rice University, Molly is defining how musicians understand practice,

learning, and performance. Her newly released book, Learn Faster and Perform Better, A Musician's Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing, published by Oxford University Press, has already become essential reading for musicians and educators alike. I discovered Molly's work thanks to a recommendation from one of our listeners and reading her book was truly eye -opening. During the pandemic, I dove deep into becoming a better

teacher and musician. I studied psychology intensively and took a course on efficient piano practice that had a lasting impact on me. I even encouraged some of my students' families to join the course along with me, and we learned so much together. But until I came across Molly's book, Learn Faster, Perform Better, most of the books I read on performance and practice, especially those rooted in neuroscience,

were geared toward athletes. While insightful, they often used sports terminology that I felt distant from my experience as a musician. So Molly's book was the first time I felt a neuroscience text was truly written for us, musicians and music educators, with language and examples that resonate directly with me. In this episode, we explore the science behind how our brains learn and why understanding it can dramatically transform

the way we practice and perform. Molly unpacks science -backed strategies like interleaved learning and the power of breaks and why mental practice really works. We also talk about performance pressure, bad habits, burnout, and how to practice in a way that's not only more effective, but more joyful and sustainable. Before we begin,

a quick update. Every Friday, or every other Friday, I post a new blog entry on South Stack, where I reflect on creativity, life as a classical musician, music educator, and behind -the -scenes stories from the piano pod. You can find it at thepianopod .substack .com. I'd love for you to join me there. Now let's get into this eye -opening conversation with Dr. Molly Gabrian.

Please enjoy the show. You are listening to The Piano Pod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the future and thriving in a complex, ever -evolving world. Welcome to The Piano Pod, Molly. It's such a pleasure and honor to have you today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this. Oh, yeah, same here. I've been really looking forward to it.

So I first discovered your work. Thanks to one of our wonderful listeners who recommended your book, Learn Faster, Perform Better, A Musician's

Guide to the New Science of Practicing. Excellent book. Thank you so much. Oh, yeah. The moment I started reading, I understood why, you know, they were so enthusiastic. And your book is truly an essential guide for musicians and music educators specifically alike. And what struck me the most was how aware it is to find a neuroscience theme or topic book written specifically for musicians. Yeah, I agree. And I mean, that's why I wrote

it. Because that doesn't really exist. And I've been talking about these topics for decades at this point. Gosh, that's a long time. But people often ask, is there a book I can read about this? And I've always been like, well, not really, actually. So I was like, well, I need to write one. It's a really guideline to, or like an introductory thing for many musicians, what exactly is neuroscience

and how we can use this information. to our daily practice at performance right right yeah exactly i mean i think 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, that's, I mean, I think that's all of our goals,

right? Like practice efficiently and get better. Right, right. But you know, even then practice efficiently. I don't think a lot of musicians understand that. I agree. I agree. Because they, most of us believe in, I need to practice three hours back to back. Like lock ourselves in still that mindset. No. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. And it's just, yeah. I mean the, 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 those myths because it's it's just not how it works. Oh, yeah. Well, thank you. And then I don't think even educators, educators, we don't know specifically how to help them help students. Right. Because we are not taught that

way. Exactly. Right. And that also switching the gear means switching all the methods, which means it really takes a long time to readjust yourself. Right. Yeah, no, I agree. And I mean, I think that I think a lot of things I talk about. in my book are things that educators have intuited actually, when I do like presentations for, you

know, music education. groups, teachers, a lot of teachers come up to me afterwards and they'll be like, you know, I thought that that was the case and I'm so glad to have science to back it up now. But there are also really sort of counterintuitive things like taking breaks and things like that, that people haven't intuited. And it's, I mean, of course we haven't, it's very counterintuitive. It doesn't, you know, really make any sense. And I like what you said

about having to kind of. redo how you're teaching. I think that's true. And it can be sort of very daunting to realize, like, I've been teaching this way, or I've been telling my students this thing for all these years, for decades, you know, because that's what you were taught as a student, and you're going to pass it on to your students. And it's very daunting to realize, oh, my gosh, maybe that's not the best way, right? And like, I get that I've had to really rethink how I teach,

how I practice. And for me, it's been a gradual process. It's not like I threw everything out one day and it's like, okay, brand new way to practice. Like it's sort of been a gradual incorporating these ideas into my own practice and my own teaching. And for me, that's, I think the easiest way to do it because it doesn't feel overwhelming that way. It's just like one new thing at a time. Yeah. Wow, I'm so thrilled that we can really

dig deeper into that. But I truly enjoy the book because it was, once again, written for musicians. Because I've read, just like you, neuroscience -related books, but they're all spoken to athletes. Right. And I'm far remote from that. Same, same. So as I'm reading, it's interesting, right? And you can sort of relate to it, but in the middle, all the jargon. Yeah. I'm like, I don't understand all the terminologies that they use for sports. For example, baseball and then football. So I'm

like, oh, I just can't keep going. Right. So I have to, you know, in the middle of the book, I have to close the book and then move on to something else. Does that make sense? Right. No, I agree. I mean, there's a lot of great information about there, but out there that. is not hasn't been applied specifically to musicians, right? Like it's applied to athletes, or it's applied sort of just like, generally to people. Because I mean, this does all this stuff does apply generally

to people. And it applies to athletes. But it can be Yeah, the jargon can be really hard to get past. It's definitely a barrier to understanding. And it can be hard to see, okay, they're talking about you know, thus and such practice method in an athlete for, you know, their sports practices, it can be hard to see, okay, what does that mean, though, for me as a musician, because what we

do can feel very different. And, you know, everything I talk about in my book, in terms of specific practice strategies for musicians, are things that I really had to, you know, take the research and be like, okay, what does this mean for me as a musician? and try it out on myself first. Like every single thing I talk about in the book, I have used for years in my own practicing to make sure it works, right? And I had to do a lot of experimenting, like, okay, the research

says this. So let's try something in practice to see, you know, how it works. I tell my students that I experiment on them all the time, right? That, you know, something works for me in my own practice. And so I'll bring it into a lesson and see, like, does this work for this student? You know, and I'm very open with them in lessons. And very often I say, okay, let's do an experiment. I want you to try X, Y, Z, and we're going to

see if this works, right? And so, yeah, I mean, it's been a lot of... thinking on my end of how does this actually apply to musicians, but then also experimenting and trying it out and just seeing like what works, what doesn't work. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Wow. So with that in mind, let's talk about neuroscience. So yes, there's a lot of myth around it. And then I asked my audience if they have any questions to you. And then I received several, but Some of the questions are sort of like a line between psychology and then neuroscience. They are all confused, right? Yeah. So let's make it clear. What exactly is neuroscience? Yeah. Neuroscience is the study of the brain and the nervous system and how the brain works

and how the brain operates. Psychology is the study of like human behavior, basically, like how we are in the world and how we act. there is a lot more overlap between neuroscience and psychology than there used to be, right? And some of the things I talk about in my book are, I would say, fall into the realm of neuroscience. Like this is what your brain is doing when X, Y, Z. Other things very much fall into the category of psychology. It's not talking about brains

at all. It's talking about human behavior. And then a lot of it is an overlap. It's like, okay, we see this behavior in humans. This is what's going on in the brain, like behind that behavior, essentially driving that behavior. Um, so yeah, they've become, there's a lot of overlap in the field, um, these days, but that is the distinction, the study of the brain study of behavior. Makes

sense. Also, neurodiversity came up a lot in the question. So but can you clarify your area of expertise? Sure. Yeah. And also clarify two words, because I think a lot of people get confused between the word neurodiversity and neurodivergence. So humans are neurodiverse. That means our brains are all different from each other, just like we are hair color diverse, right? Everybody has a different color of hair. Everybody's brain is kind of different. So that's what neurodiversity

means that we there's just. diversity in how our brains work. Neurodivergence is someone that's neurodivergent, has a brain that works in a different way from the majority, let's say. Just like people who have red hair have a different hair color than the majority of the population. And actually, when I wrote the book, I didn't know very much about neurodivergence. And usually when people use that word, they mean ADHD and autism, although many things fall under the umbrella of neurodivergence.

I wrote the book in 2021. It takes a long time to get a book published, I discovered. Since that time, I have actually learned a lot more about specifically ADHD and autism. It is not my area of expertise. That being said, it is sort of... one of the next areas that I'm looking into very carefully for my own teaching, for my own understanding. I've had a lot of neurodivergent students. I've learned a lot from reading. I've

done a lot of reading since 2021. I've learned a lot from personal experience, working with students, all sorts of things. So I know much more than when I wrote the book on neurodivergence, but it is not, I definitely wouldn't say I'm an expert. Wow. It's a really fascinating field.

Yeah. still new. Yes. I mean, and there have been a lot of sort of misconceptions around specifically autism and ADHD, which is usually what people mean when they talk about neurodivergence because yeah, there's just been a lot of stereotypes around, okay, what, what does ADHD look like? What does autism look like? And we're, we're coming to realize that it's much broader and it's a much more, it's much more diverse than we, than we thought. It's not this narrow way

of being. It's also for a long time, especially autism, been seen as this extremely negative thing that, you know, it's a real, you know, people always talking about curing autism, for instance. And it's not negative. It's just a difference. People who are autistic, their brains operate differently. Their brains take in information from the environment differently. It's not better. It's not worse. It's just different. And we're starting to realize that now. I think as a society,

there's more. researchers looking into ADHD and autism in particular who are themselves neurodivergent. So they have like personal experience with that rather than neurotypical people coming in and sort of, you know, putting labels and putting things on neurodivergent people that doesn't line up with their actually lived experience. Well, thank you for clarifying. And then I think you, we have to have another episode talking about neurodivergent, right? Because there's

a huge topic. But today, let's focus on the practicing the musical instrument part of neuroscience. Let's do it. Great. So as musicians, our greatest

hope is to walk on stage, perform with the same confidence or consistency we experience in the practice room. And with all the hours we invest in preparing and we simply want our performance to reflect. that effort. But why is that so difficult? That's the million dollar question, right? I mean, I think there's so many things that go into preparing for performance. And something that I, I mean, 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 interleaved practice, which I talk a lot about in the book, which is a specific way of practicing just in a nutshell, rather than focusing on one thing for a long period of time, that you're constantly switching between different things. Right, right.

And on the face of it, that seems like a terrible way to practice. It just seems very chaotic. Just focus on one thing. Once you start to realize, okay, when you do interleaved practice and you're switching between different things, your brain has to practice the skill of flexibility. Your brain has to get good at, you know, you're practicing one thing and then suddenly you switch to another thing and you have to remember, wait, how do

I practice this thing? And you have to kind of switch your mindset, that kind of flexibility, switching of your mindset, remembering how to. play different things when you're constantly switching. Those are skills that we really need on stage, right? Because music just keeps going, right? It doesn't stop. And you have to constantly be switching your mindset and knowing where you are and sort of remembering how to play what

you want to play. Interleaved practice also helps you develop the skill of just being able to play it on the first try, which is harder to do, right? And that's something that often falls apart on stage. 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 interleaved practice helps that skill too of just doing it. And so for me, preparing in a different way for playing on stage was a real game changer. I had never really thought before I learned about interleaved practice, I had never really... realize that just because I can play something doesn't necessarily mean I can perform it, that I have to practice performing it. I have to practice the mental

skills that I'm going to need on stage. And that is a different thing than being able to play it. And that was a real light bulb moment for me, like, oh, wait, no wonder this isn't going well. I've been working on being able to play it. I've neglected all the mental skills that go into. actually performing something. And once I started to practice those mental skills, lo and behold, it felt better on stage. Right, right, right. Yeah, I totally understand that. So let's

dig into interleaved practice. I'm familiar with the terminology. I actually took a course by Dr. Noah Kageyama. He has this amazing bulletproof musician. Yes, I've been a super fan of his for like Ever. Yeah. Excellent. And it's so detailed. And when I first tried that, it almost felt like it's still counterintuitive as a musician. Yeah. Yeah. It's really counterintuitive. Right. Because

we're so used to. So is it wrong to do blocked practice, which means that this traditional, let's say half an hour for the same section and repeatedly. Right. I mean. I don't want to say wrong because I don't want to make people feel defensive. But the research is really clear that blocked practice, like doing one thing for half an hour, is really not effective. It's not nearly as effective as constantly switching between

things. Because when you do one thing for half an hour, and I practiced that way for decades because that's how I was taught to practice, right? And it seems to make sense. But you get a very strong, psychologists, neuroscience calls it, call it an illusion of mastery. When you do one thing for half an hour, you get this very strong illusion that you have mastered. mastered it. And you're like, oh yeah, this feels good.

This is great. This is great. And then you go to your lesson the next day, let's say for students and you totally bomb. I think everyone's had that experience, right? Of feeling great. And then going to their lesson and saying to their teacher, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Like, I don't know what's going on right now. Like I promise I practiced this. I did so much better yesterday. I think that's a universal experience. And when that happens, that means you fell into that illusion

of mastery that you get when you do. blocked practice. And so my practice has really changed over the years, even when something's new. Actually, the way I use interleave versus blocked practice is different based on whether something is new or like close to a performance. But I no longer do like half an hour of one thing, because the research is really clear that if you practice something for a bit, and then you take a break

from that, and then you come back. later. And later could even be like two, three minutes later. It doesn't have to be like lots later. When the brain gets that reminder, when you've gone away and you come back and then you remind the brain, that's really powerful. And that's really helpful. for the brain. The analogy I use for this is like when you go to a party and you meet somebody for the first time, they introduce themselves and you promptly forget their name. Everybody

does that. You're like, what is that person's name? Right. But if like, say, I don't know, 15 minutes later, you hear them introduce themselves to someone else, then you're like, okay, okay, okay. Like you got it in your head now because you've been reminded, right? And so with practicing, like even if something's brand new and it's really hard and there's a lot of stuff I need to sort out, I'll practice it for like 10, 12 ish minutes,

something like that. And then I'll take a little break and I'll practice something else for like two, three minutes, just little short something. And then I'll come back to that first thing, do more practice for like. 10, 12 minutes, and then do something else for three, four minutes. So it is, I mean, I practice in 30 minute blocks of time. In the end, most of that 30 minutes is probably that new thing that I'm starting, but I've broken it up with little snippets of

something else. And with experimenting with interleaving and switching between things, it works a lot better. Things stick with me a lot better. And I don't fall into that illusion of mastery in that. It feels good. And then when I come back to it the next day, it's still there. I don't have to redo all my work. Wow. Even the new piece. Yeah. And like, so in the book, I talk, I talk a lot in the book with interleaved practice about using it to essentially test performance readiness.

Right. And that's sort of a different way of using interleaved practice, which is really important and really powerful and works really, really well. When things are brand new, if you switch between things too often, that makes it too hard and your brain can't, everything's new. Right. And your brain like can't really hold onto it.

using the party analogy with learning people's names, if you just learned 15 new people's names and you forgot all of them, and then you heard them introduce themselves later in the party, like you wouldn't be able to keep them straight because that's too many new people. But if you just have like one or two new people, like that would be fine. You can keep one or two new people

straight. And so with new music, you have to, what I've found is You don't want to do too little amount of time on something new and interleave it with like 500 different things you're working on. And so like the example I just gave of like one thing for like 10 minutes and then a little snippet of something else and then come back to that one thing and then a little snippet of

something else. I found that that works really well, that I have like a main thing that I'm working on in my practice and I'm interleaving it with a little other things. But because it's new. sort of focusing on that one thing, but giving myself little breaks so that I can then come back and give my brain a reminder. It works really well and it helps it stick a lot better. Wow. Then in the interleaved practice sessions,

do you? still repeat things i do okay yeah i do yeah i do and it is like i talk early out of the book about the idea of like um reinforcing the right pathway right and things like that because in order to um we want to form habits in our playing right we want to form a habit for me as a string player of like playing in tune right and like you know making my string crossings clean and all that kind of stuff and like you do have to reinforce the right thing

more than the wrong thing so it Sticks with you and you can do it again. And so, yeah, early on in learning, you do want to do repetitions to to solidify things. You want to make sure that if things don't go right in your repetitions, that you're sort of analyzing why it didn't go right. So you're not just like repeating it mindlessly because that's not going to do anything. But I mean, like what I used to do before I knew about interleaved practice is I would do like

a bunch of repetitions on something. And then, you know, in one big block of like half an hour practice or something like that. And then I wouldn't see that passage again until the next day. And I would find that I couldn't play it anymore. That like, you know, OK, on day one, I did my repetitions. Great. OK, I thought I had it. And then I came back the next day and it was like I hadn't done anything. What I do now is like, OK, I'll do my repetitions. It's like, OK, this

is feeling good. Then I'll go practice some other stuff and then I'll come back and I'll do more repetitions on that and go practice other stuff and come back. And it's it's the coming back.

um several times like throughout a practice session or throughout the day to give your brain that reminder just like in the party when you hear someone introduce themselves again okay yes now i've got it um that's what really helps it stick in in the brain rather than just doing it once and like leaving it and assuming oh it's fine

Yeah. And tell me more about this illusion of mastery. I remember that word. Yeah. I mean, the illusion of mastery really shows up. I think 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. If you feel at the end of your practice session, like, okay, yes, I've got this. This feels really good. And then the next day you come back. and all your work is gone, you fell into the illusion of mastery the day before when you were like, yes, I have

this. One thing that researchers who do this research on interleaved practice, something they say is that often people learning things are not very good at telling how much progress they made because they assess it based on how they feel at the end of the practice session rather

than the next day. You can't. actually know how well you practiced until you come back to it the next day which is very weird that's very weird because it feels in the moment like okay yeah i can tell how you know this feels a lot better um i will say because i've been doing interleave practice for probably let's see over 15 years now maybe longer than that um anyways I can now feel that illusion of mastery when I'm falling into it, because I've had enough

experience with falling into the illusion of mastery. But and then the next day being like, oh, wait, shoot, that wasn't as good a practice as I thought, because all my work is undone. But also using interleaved practice and not getting that illusion of mastery and feeling in the moment like, oh, gosh, this is like. really hard and really challenging and coming back the next day and finding that all my work is still there and

I can then, you know, move forward. So I've had enough experience with that, that I can now feel when I'm falling into the illusion of mastery and be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, tomorrow, all this is going to be gone. Like don't practice like this. Um, so because most of the time in the research, when people fall into that illusion, they're doing interleaved practice for the very first time, like in that study that they're there for, and they don't have, you know, years and

years and years of experience with it. Right. Yeah. So then is this something that you would introduce to beginner students? Yeah. I mean, it's different how I talk about it with kids. So in general, with teaching kids, I make everything into a game. There's lots of research that show that people, people in general, but especially kids learn a lot better when things are embedded into games because it's fun. And then, you know, there's motivation for to win the game or whatever

that means. And with interleaved practice, there's lots of ways that you can make it into games and kids love it. I mean, it's really fun to kind of switch between things and have things be unpredictable and not, you know, know what's going on. So like a really simple example of this with an absolute beginner, one of the very first things string player students learn is how to hold the bow. And it's kind of awkward and you need a lot of practice with holding the

bow. And so one of the first things that I teach students in... when they, when they learn violin or viola is, you know, I teach them how to hold the bow and I make their bow hand for them on the bow. And I make a couple bow hands with them. And then we go do something else in the lesson. We do other stuff. And then maybe, I don't know.

five ten minutes later we come back and I'd be like do you remember how to make a bow hold and we make another bow hold together and then you know we go do other stuff in the lesson and then one more time before the end of the lesson it's like okay let's see let's let's see how well we can make a bow hold so that's a really easy way to do interleave practice with the beginner is just come back to the same concept a couple times within the lesson yeah yeah and then if

they at the end if they do a good job maybe We can reward them with a little sticker or something. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Or, you know, a lot of teachers will do things like they have like a wheel that they spin to choose like what scale their student plays or, you know, something like that. So games like that where it's sort of games of chance that determine like what are you going to play or how are you going to play it? Those are also can be examples of interleaved practice.

So, yeah, making things into games is a great way to use it with kids. Okay. Makes sense. And

then also keep them more focused rather than, you know, doing the sequence and the predictable. And then toward the end, I, some of the young ones, they start yawning and right. Yeah. That's a sign of a brain is telling them it's like enough is enough, right? Enough is enough. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Even like,

you know, I used to be a little. gym junkie you know and then but in those classes where they teach interval sessions rather than doing the same chore same movements for long long period of time and not only that exhaust physically muscles but also you know you're not using your brain because you're doing the same tasks so there is no improvement so i've done this sort of thing tabata exercise that is like 20 seconds of doing this hardcore stuff and then 10 seconds

of off yeah you mentioned similar things in the not the interleaved section of the book but um somewhere in the maybe habit formation uh you know so where you talk about those spacing yeah yeah yeah yeah can you tell me Yeah, absolutely. And this is closely related to interleave practice, because when you're practicing one thing and you go practice something else, you are taking a break from that. Right, right, right. But yeah, there's a lot of research on the importance and

the power of breaks of taking a break. And your example of exercise of 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 seconds on 10 minutes off is is perfect. And basically, the way that the brain works, and actually, I use an analogy for exercising of muscles. Let's start with that, actually, because often people have experience with like building strength and building muscles. I think anybody who has ever done any kind of strength training.

knows that you don't actually build muscle. Your muscles don't get stronger in the workout itself, right? Like you don't get stronger while you are lifting the weights. You're creating micro tears in your muscle and your body repairs those micro tears on your rest day, which is why you don't do like leg day two days in a row, right? Because your legs need a day off to rest and repair themselves. And when the muscle repairs itself, it repairs itself stronger. And that's

how you actually like build muscle. So with the brain, you don't create micro tears in your brain when you're exercising, but essentially you give input to your brain while you're practicing, just like you give input to the muscles when you're exercising. And it's during breaks that the brain actually does something with that information. It continues to process it. The brain also has to make actual physical changes to itself in order for you to learn something new or get to

a higher level of. playing or whatever you're doing. And the brain really needs you to take a break in order to make those physical changes. So another analogy I use is road construction, right? If they need to fix the potholes on the road, they can't have people driving on the road when they're trying to fix it. They have to shut it down, fix the road, and then open it back up. And so it's very similar in our brains. When we take a break, then our brain can go in with

their construction crew, right? Make the physical changes necessary. And then, you know, after the break, it will feel a lot better. So we as

musicians tend not to take. enough enough breaks um and so we're really hampering our brain's ability to do the processing and to do the actual physical changing that it needs but breaks sound really scary to many musicians yeah you know what i mean i totally do so a couple a couple more things about breaks one i think one of the easiest and least scary ways to incorporate breaks is to start with micro breaks. So breaks of 10 to 15 seconds, because that's really short, right?

There's a study that I talk about that came out in 2021, so relatively recently, where they... They had people learn like a button press sequence on a computer keyboard and they would practice it for 10 seconds and then they take a 10 second micro break and then they practice it for 10 seconds, 10 second micro break and so on. And what they found was when they when they analyzed the data, the vast majority of the improvement was due to the breaks, those little micro breaks,

not the actual practicing. They also had people hooked up to brain scanner while they were. doing all of this. And they found that during those micro breaks, even though people were just sitting there and like not doing anything, the brain was continuing to replay what they had just practiced 20 times faster. So the brain was doing a super fast forward replay of it. So the brain was continuing to process. And then after that break, they would always come back at a higher level than before

they were at the break. And so I didn't know about this before 2021 because that's when the study came out. But since then, I have been using micro breaks a lot in my practicing. So we were talking about doing repetitions. I will, rather than doing a big block of repetitions, I will do two or three repetitions on something and then take a micro break. I get a sip of water.

I always practice in front of a window. So I'll look outside and spy on my neighbor, see what's going on in the neighborhood, and then do two, three more. repetitions. And so that has made a huge difference, actually, just those 10, 10, 15 second micro breaks in between repetitions. It really, I don't know, I can feel how much faster things get solidified for me, I can feel how much better they stick with me. Over time, it's really been amazing. It can be hard to remember

to do the micro breaks. But that's to me, that's like the least scary way because they're so short. But early on in the pandemic, I mean, I'd known this research about breaks for a long time, but I was too scared to try it. Right. Because like, if I'm going to take a week, a day or heaven forbid, like a week off from something like that sound, no, I'm not going to do that. Right. And like. But early on in the pandemic, all concerts

were canceled, right? Nobody had anything. And I realized like, okay, this is the perfect opportunity to experiment with this because if it doesn't work and it backfires and I'm not prepared, it doesn't matter because I don't have any concerts anyway. So I did this huge experiment on myself. Like, I think it was like April through June or July, 2020. So very early on in the pandemic, essentially experimenting with taking days and weeks off from. Not practicing in general, but

like particular passages. I'd practice them for several days and then I'd take days or weeks off from it. And I am never, ever going back to how I used to practice, which was trying to do everything every day. The breaks just work so much better. I can learn so much faster. Things

stick with me so much better. It was kind of... I guess I shouldn't have been surprised because I had read the research and I experienced exactly what the research said, but it truly felt like this magical thing I had discovered of, wait, if I don't practice, I get better faster. But that's, that's exactly what happens. Yeah. But it's almost like, yeah, like, help me sign me up because I, I'm all about that because it's brutal. Like practice becomes such a, you know,

tour. Yeah. No wonder students don't like to practice if it's so painful. Right. If we allow ourselves to take a little break, mini break. Right. But sounds like so you mentioned about

those repeats. You do whatever the passage one, two, three and take a mini break and come back two more or three more. However, now those practice each practice segment has to be sort of perfect or. Yeah. So, I mean, what I'm repeating depends on what I'm working on. So sometimes it's not a passage. Sometimes it's just like two notes if I'm working on a shift and I'm trying to get

those two notes in tune. Right. Maybe it's if we're talking about a passage, maybe there's like a lot of little things within the passage that I have sorted out and I've done repetitions on each little detail in that passage using the micro breaks the way that we were just talking about. And now I want to see, OK, can I play this whole phrase with. everything that I've worked on. I've worked on all the little steps. I know I can do them individually. I know I can

play the first half of the phrase fine. And I know I can play the second half of the phrase fine. Now let's put the whole thing together and make sure I can do it. And then sort of doing repetitions on that. But, and also being very clear with myself, like what counts as a successful repetition, right? So, and I think, especially with kids, that's, that's really important as a teacher to be like, okay, what actually counts? What are we working on? right now, you know?

And so for instance, if I'm working on a shift, maybe what counts is that I get the note in tune with no adjusting, but I'm not concerned at all with rhythm right now. I'm just trying to play in tune, you know? And so it doesn't matter what the speed is or whether the rhythm is right. Once I can play it in tune, okay, maybe now my next step is to do it in rhythm or to do it, you know, closer to the speed or something like that. So just being clear with yourself, like

what counts right now. Okay. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. But in order for students to understand what counts, so they definitely need a constant monitor and instructions from whether that is teacher or parents. Right. Exactly. And with students, I mean, I do this with them in the lesson and I'm always very clear with them, like, okay, I mean, we do it as a game, but you know, I always say to them, okay, it's, it only counts

if. X, Y, Z thing is in place. You know, whatever it is that I, as the teacher, think that, you know, they need to work on. And sometimes it's sort of layering of things. Like, okay, it counts this time if, you know, your bow hand is good. Now it only counts if your bow hand is good and your posture is good or something like that.

You sort of layer things on. But then with practicing at home, you know, I'll tell them, OK, I want you to play this game at home with your practice parent, whoever that is or whoever's practicing with them. And I am very clear with, OK, this is what counts when you're playing the game at home. If you do this, it counts. But if you don't do this, it doesn't count. So students have a really clear metric. And depending on the age

of the student, like. It will be a conversation between me and them, like, what do you think should count when you do this, you know, at home? Helping them develop that skill of sort of self -assessment and being able to tell if they're

playing something well or not. And usually students want to be way more strict with themselves than, you know, I would necessarily want to be at that stage because they want to challenge themselves, which is awesome, you know, to see that, that they want to sort of hold themselves to that. that higher standard. And so sometimes it's like, okay, well maybe the first step of your game is this. And then the second step of your game

is this. Cause if you do too much at once, then it's going to overload the brain and then everybody's going to be frustrated. Wow. This is a really groundbreaking of practicing from interleaved practice to taking breaks. So in terms of breaks,

you also mentioned about sleep. Yes. And interesting how this the sleep pattern, how it goes. There's like a period where we dream and then that's when we are blinking. The eyes are moving around. OK, but yes, this is back of eyes. And then but those period where you're not dreaming and that's when you are actually observing everything you learn, something like that. Am I correct? Well, the brain does a lot of stuff when we're sleeping.

And one of the things it does is it kind of consolidates and continues to process what we've learned during the day. Different types of information are kind of handled differently in the brain, like muscle memory information, how you do something sort of handled differently than what's called declarative memory information. So like memory for facts

or something. So if you learned like a bunch of facts in school and then you went to your piano lesson and you learned a new skill on piano, those are different skills in the brain and the brain kind of handles them a little bit differently and it consolidates and processes them differently during. sleep. It's not really important really what the differences are. The important thing is getting enough sleep is really important. So the brain can process everything fully and

sort of consolidate everything fully. And we know that when people learn something, say on day one, and they get enough sleep that night, they'll be at a much higher level of skill the next day. There's this huge jump in performance the next day, which is so cool. It's like magic. Like you just sleep and now you're suddenly like

way better. Whereas if people don't get enough sleep, you don't sort of get that huge jump and you're and you're learning is sort of stopped, essentially, that you that you don't continue to to move forward. You see the same thing with naps, too, that, you know, if someone learned something and then takes a nap, they'll get a boost in their performance following the nap versus just like, you know, staying awake and going about their going about their day. Wow.

So are you all for naps? I am, although I never, ever take a nap myself because most of the time it's not like, what am I going to do? Curl up on the floor of my studio at school? Like, you know, most of the time it's not really practical to take a nap. But some people love napping and they frequently take naps and, you know, they kind of feel. bad about it or like they're being lazy. And that's like the total opposite. Naps

are great. If you if anybody listening is a napper, like keep keep taking naps or if you wish you could nap, you just felt like, oh, that's lazy. I shouldn't take a nap. Like, no, go take a nap. It's it's it's a really, really, really great thing to do, especially after practicing. Really? Wow. You know, honestly, I do sometimes take naps, short ones, just because I'm a really early morning person. I mean, I wake up. Really early,

like 5, 530. Then, you know, afterwards, then by the time after lunch hit, I've been working for a long time. Yeah. I mean, 6 a .m. till 12 p .m. Six hours. I've already worked, worked for something. Right. Then I need a little booster. Definitely. I don't want to drink coffee. No. Yeah. Go take a nap. That's a great thing to do. Yeah. So what I do is not on the bed because I just want a little quick. Yeah. Booster. So maybe on the couch or not even laying down, but

just to close my eyes. And yeah, but it really helps me. It really helps. And what the research has shown is like even very short naps are really beneficial. And even if you don't fall asleep, even if you just sit with your eyes closed, that's really beneficial too. Like you've discovered, like it gives you sort of an energy boost, right? But it really helps your brain and it enhances learning. So yeah, that's a great thing to do. Wow. I'm glad I confessed. Yeah. But I don't

have to feel ashamed, right? No, don't feel ashamed. It's like the perfect thing to do. The PianoPod

is now on Substack. If you're wondering, Substack is an all -in -one platform where creators like me can connect directly with you, share exclusive content, and build a thriving community. By subscribing, you'll get behind -the -scenes updates, early access to new episodes, and special perks designed just for our audience. Your Substack subscription helps us create more of these meaningful conversations and support initiatives that uplift the classical

music community. So join us on Substack and be part of this journey. Please go to thepianopod .com. substack .com subscribe or click the link in the description to subscribe today thank you for your support and i look forward to sharing more joyous and meaningful experiences with you on the piano pod let's talk about habit let's

talk about it why is it so hard to get rid of the bad habits yes yeah exactly so Bad habits, I think we've all experienced this as musicians, right? As teachers helping students get rid of bad habits and ourselves getting rid of bad habits. And there's a couple of reasons why bad habits are so hard to get rid of. One is that when you've done something a lot, the pathway in the brain that kind of supports that. skill or that behavior

has become really well myelinated. I think a lot of people have heard about myelination, but basically the neurons that are involved in communicating for you to do that skill, they get wrapped up in something called myelin, which is just a layer of fat that allows the neurons to communicate more effectively, essentially. And when a pathway in your brain is myelinated, it feels really automatic to do that skill. So I often say like, especially for you know, anybody who is literate,

writing your name is very automatic. You don't have to think about how to write your name. You don't have to think about how to make the letters. But if you have any like small children in your lives who are just learning how to write, you know, it's really hard for them. They really have to concentrate on it. They might make the letters backwards, right? Um, because that pathway is not myelinated for them yet. So it's a really sort of effortful, conscious process that they

really have to think about. But once that pathway is myelinated, you just do it. You don't even think you just, you know, it'd be kind of ridiculous as an adult to think, wait, how do I make this letter? Right? Like you don't have to do that. And so when you have a bad habit, it's myelinated, just like the pathway that's been myelinated for writing your name. And so. I mean, can you imagine writing your name and someday somebody comes in and tells you you've been making one

of the letters backwards your entire life? And you have to learn how to not do that. Like you can feel how hard that would be to suddenly make a letter a different way, even if it was not difficult to do it the other way. You'd really have to think about it because you just automatically write your name how you'd always written your name. And so with bad habits, they just they just happen automatically, like without thinking

about it. And so when you're trying to create a new habit, it can feel very frustrating and kind of arduous because you have to think very, very consciously about the new habit. Just like if you had to suddenly make a letter totally different than you'd ever made it before, you'd really have to think about that. So you didn't do it the other way by accident. And because we're so used to our bad habit, it doesn't feel good to do the new habit. It doesn't feel good

to have to think that hard. We're probably going to be pretty clumsy with our new habit, right? A very common thing that string players have to do is change things with their bow hand. And at first you can feel very clumsy and like you can't really play very well with your new bow hand, even if you understand intellectually, like, yes, this is better. Even if you can see how your old bow hand is getting in your way.

And so, yeah, it just doesn't feel very good because it's a very conscious thing because you don't have that myelinated pathway yet. I also talk in the book about something called proactive interference, which is when you learn new information that conflicts with old information that you already know, the brain tries to protect that old information and actually actively makes you

forget that sort of new information. So this is why it can be really hard to sort of change your mind on something that's very sort of, you know, well ingrained. different people have different levels of proactive interference. And so someone who really stubbornly sticks to their way of thinking, even with tons of evidence to the contrary, maybe they have really high levels of proactive interference and their brain is like protecting that old information, even if the old information

is incorrect. And so that's another aspect of creating a new habit is your brain is trying to hold on to that old habit, even though you don't want it to. That is interesting. Yeah. And so that I mean, I think that can help people, one, give themselves more compassion when they're

trying to create a new habit. Because, you know, even if you see very clearly how your old habit is holding you back, even if the old habit is causing pain in the case of like an injury or something, even if it's exceptionally clear to you. this habit. I do not want this anymore. It's still really hard to change. And I think if you understand the myelination thing and the proactive interference thing that can give yourself, you can give yourself more compassion about why

it's so hard to do that. I think it can also help teachers understand why it can be so hard for students to change. I think as teachers,

it's really easy to sort of. look at a student who has a bad habit and you as the teacher have pointed it out 500 times the student says they understand they can do the new habit and it just seems like they're stubborn or they're not practicing or they're not paying attention and it's like maybe but more more likely they are working on it and their brain is just you know doing what brains do and protecting the protecting the old information yeah but explaining that from the

neuroscientist way it just makes sense oh how human that is right how human it is exactly and i think that like i mean i had to get rid of a lot of old bad habits in my playing that were causing injury so i've been through it myself i've taken a lot of students through that process of changing habits in their playing and i i think it's i think it's important as a teacher to acknowledge that like This is frustrating. And this, this is a process that isn't quick and it isn't easy,

but you can do it. You know, I think a lot of students often think something is wrong with them when they can't change their habit, like instantly it's like, well, that's not how the brain works, you know, and understanding from a teacher's perspective, like how long does this actually take? And sort of, you know, when, you know, for instance, if I'm helping a student

with a bad habit. And I see them playing with their old habit, but then they catch themselves and they fix it, making sure to point that out and celebrate that and be like, what you just did, that was awesome. Every time you catch that old habit and you fix it and you make, you know, you do the new habit instead, you're making it easier for your brain to do that the next time. And so helping them approach it from like a celebration standpoint, rather than a why are you still doing

this old habit standpoint? Yeah, yeah. Yes, I know that language, we have to be careful, right? Right. Also, because and then the old way of teaching or probably from my generation, if you keep making the same mistakes or keeping the old habits, oh, you're just simply not talented or good enough. Right. But which is that's a soapbox issue for me, though. The word talent. I could talk all day about that. Yeah, because I mean, yeah, you're right that it's a very old

fashioned view. That, you know, if a student can't do something well, they're not talented. And what the research is very clear on is that like talent, that is natural ability. doesn't matter in terms of whether someone achieves a high level of skill. What matters is how they practice. I think it's all of us have things that come more easily to us than other people. I think everybody sort of knows that, right?

And like, just like I was talking about hair color before, like we are all different, right? And we all have things that come easily to us and don't come easily to us. And I think for a long time, it was thought that if something doesn't come easily to you, therefore you cannot learn to do it at a high level. And that's just simply not true at all. You may have to work harder at it than someone for whom it comes easily, but that's fine. You can work. You can work hard.

Right. And just because something comes easily to you, if you don't work at it, you're not going to achieve a high level of skill. Right. And so it always makes me really it makes me really angry when people say, oh, that person is so talented. Like, no, they've worked hard. Right. Maybe as a child, you know, they had, you know. it was a little bit easier for them to play the piano than some other child in their class. And so then they were encouraged by their parents

and teachers and given lessons. And, you know, then they grew up and it looks like, Oh, this person has so much natural talent, but if they hadn't been given that good instruction and encouragement, like they wouldn't be playing piano today. Somebody can't just like be born and be a concert pianist. Like that's, that's not how it works. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Now going back to the habit thing. So then for some, people, doesn't matter whether adults or young students or, you know, the experienced people, it's hard for us ourselves to see the bad habit. Right. Right. Is there like a practical solution to this? Yeah. So I talk in the book about old way, new way. And so, yeah, often when we have old bad habits, we're not consciously aware of it. We do it sort

of without even. realizing. And it's really hard to correct something if you don't realize you're doing it, right? And so there's this method of creating or not creating, sorry, correcting bad habits, not creating bad habits. There's a method of correcting bad habits called old way, new way, which essentially helps bring that old habit into conscious awareness so you can fix it. So basically the way it works is the student first has to become consciously aware of The old habit

of the bad habit. And sometimes that is simply pointing it out to the student that no one's ever pointed it out to them before. And then you point it out as a teacher and the student is like, oh, gosh, I didn't realize I was doing that. Sometimes it means like recording them video or audio and like having the student watch it so they can see, oh, I am doing that weird thing with my hand. Oh, my gosh. You know, it's so easy to video record now. And that's something

I do a lot in lessons. But anyway, bringing. Bringing awareness to the student of you are you are doing this and this is an issue. So the student can actually like understand the issue. Then the student has to be able to do the bad habit on purpose and the new habit on purpose that they can do both of them like on command. Because often with old habits, sometimes once it's pointed out, a student like can't really do it. on purpose anymore, but it will keep happening

by accident. I'm sure all of us have had like experiences like that with students, right? And so the student needs to be able to recreate the bad habit and be able to do the new habit. And so once they can do that, and often it takes a lot of help from the teacher, obviously, to help be able to do that. But once they can do the new habit on command and do the old habit on command, then the old way, new way, like protocol

proper starts. where basically you have the student play using their old habit and then describe out loud in words in as much detail as they can how the old way feels, anything that they notice about the old way. And then they play the same thing using the new habit and then describe how the new way feels in as much detail as possible. So you do this old way, describe it, new way, describe it. You do that. five times. And it feels very annoying. Actually, I've done this

with a number of students. After a student has described it like two or three times, it's like, why do I have to keep describing this? I just described this to you. But what I found with doing this with students is, well, one, the continued describing of it helps bring that old habit into conscious awareness. And if you don't do the describing every time, it doesn't really work

as well. And also what I find with students is every time they have to describe it, they add more detail to it and the old habit becomes increasingly annoying. They start to notice more and more things every time they have to describe it of, oh gosh, it feels really bad, not only in my hand, but also in my back and my knee feels really weird or something like that. And so they add new details every time and they get more and

more annoyed with the old habit every time. Once you've done this old way described, new way described, you've done that five times. Then the student just does the new way sort of by itself, like five or six times just to make sure that they can do the new way on command. And it works really well to bring the old habit into conscious awareness, to bring more awareness to what's wrong with

the old habit. And so how bad it how bad it feels in a way that just as the teacher pointing out, you're doing this bad habit doesn't that doesn't work nearly as well. Wow. OK. All the things

that we've discussed so far, it's just so, so great. Yeah. And then thank you. And then some of the things were, let's say, you know, as a teacher, I've been already putting things into practice and you gave me the sort of validation or confirmation. I felt so seen and yeah. That's good. Yeah. But also do you find, you know, I know you're a violist, but there are, you know, In classical music, it's all about learning from the masters and they're learning from this tradition,

right? Right. So I know there have been great teaching and also at the same time, bad ones too. And we've all experienced it. Also, the technique that doesn't work any longer, the famous methodology or whatnot, right? Right. Now, so let's talk about new ones. Oh, even the bad ones. Do you think that those things are sort of proved by neuroscience? Yeah, that's a really good question.

I mean, I think that, yeah, like there's sort of old ways of teaching that we realize don't really work anymore, either like technical ways of playing that we know a lot more about like ergonomics and how the body works now. And I think like, I mean, I'm sure this is true in piano playing. It's definitely true in string playing that there's like these old fashioned ways of physically playing the instrument that

people played well in spite of playing. that way rather than because they were playing that way. And I think for many generations, it was seen as the other way around. Like, okay, this famous person did this with their bow arm and they sounded amazing. Therefore, that must be how you play. And now knowing what we know better about how the body works, it's like, no, you

don't want to do that with your bow arm. That's like, you can play that way, but there's a way better way to play that's going to be a lot easier. And that's the same thing with old -fashioned teaching methods. people learned how to play in spite of those poor teaching methods, not because of them. And now that we know more about how the brain works and how people learn, you know, we can see, okay, that's, you know, those

are not good teaching methods. That being said, a lot of great teachers over the generations have intuited a lot of things that science has discovered, right? And so it's really great to have that sort of scientific validation of like, yes, this is effective. What teachers have intuited, what they've noticed with their students and with themselves is correct. And here is is, you know, evidence from scientific research that this does work. Carry on, because that's a good

thing to do. Yeah. Wow. So that's why I really

have been enjoying reading this book. And then, as you can see, I have so many. Wow, that's impressive. They're very colorful. I love it. Oh, yeah. And then, sorry, I spilled some tea on it. But I had to get the actual copy rather than, you know, downloading because I wanted to do this. I miss doing these. Right. I'm a physical book person too. E -books like don't feel real to me. I need like the actual like physical book. I know. And then folding the corner, you know, that sort

of thing. Anyway, so you also talk about memory. Now, this memory thing is a big thing. Especially for pianists. Especially for pianists, yes, because we are supposed to be memorizing everything. Right. Now, the memory, let's talk about memory slips, right? Yeah. It comes in the different shapes and sizes. So, now, there is a total blackout on concert stage. And then or some of the kids they do starting from the wrong octaves. So,

you know, this is this little kid. She's supposed to be playing this little cute song and starting two octaves lower. Some reason it's sounding so horrible, so adorable. But, you know, oh, my goodness. We're starting with somewhat sounding like the piece, but there is a disconnect happens in our brain. And then just I don't know, disconnect between oral and motor. Right. Right. And you can't move your fingers the way you want. And that sort of thing, or maybe also starting somewhat

normal and ended up like an atonal. And it was supposed to be Mozart, right? Right, right. So. Tell me what sort of memory types. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, there's many different types of memory in the brain and they all work together so seamlessly that we experience it as one like unitary thing. Like people will say, like, I have a bad memory. I have a good memory. But they are actually separate memory types. And

we know that they're separate because. They can be damaged separately, like people that have a stroke or something that have some sort of brain damage. They can have one type of memory totally damaged and not there at all and other types of memory completely intact. So that's how we know that they are actually separate things. And when we play music from memory, we're relying

on a bunch of different memory types. And like your examples that you gave, like one very important memory type that we use when we perform is muscle memory, right? What is it? What does it feel like? And so somebody that's like, you know, suddenly like blacks out or blanks totally or, you know, becomes atonal, like maybe their muscle memory isn't very strong and they don't remember like how to play it, what it should feel like to play. Another type is our aural memory. What

does it sound like to play, right? And so if somebody like forgets how it goes, that's really hard. It's really hard to play it if you don't know how it goes. And then another important type of memory when we're playing is what's known as declarative memory. So you're in the case of music, your memory for like the actual notes

and rhythms that are, that are on the page. So declarative memory broadly is like memory that you can like tell to someone like facts or like events that sort of happened to you, that kind of thing. And so like with music, you could tell someone what the notes and rhythms are supposed to be sort of on the page. And all of us have. One of these that's stronger for us, many people it's muscle memory, many people it's aural memory. For me, it's definitely muscle memory, no question.

And especially as kids, we tend to rely on the one that is our strong suit. We don't even realize there's these different types of memory, right? Whichever one is strongest for us, that's what we rely on in a performance. But if that one breaks down, You don't have anything because the other types of memory haven't been kind of

shored up and practiced. And so like if muscle memory breaks down and you forget how it feels to play and you don't know how it goes, you don't know what the notes and rhythms are like, what are you going to do? Like you don't know. And so that's when you kind of stop and you have this just you're just totally blank. But if all three types of memory are equally strong and you've sort of worked on all three really well,

then. You know, if one of them say my muscle memory goes blank, but I know how it goes, then, you know, that can help me get back on. Or if my muscle memory goes blank and my aural memory goes blank, but I know, OK, this piece is in C major and I'm almost at the end. Therefore, I have to end on a C major chord that I can find my way to a C major chord. Right. And I can do it kind of logically like that, even if I can't

remember how it's supposed to go. And so the different kinds of memory kind of support each other in that way. And usually if all three are strong, if one breaks down, the other one will kind of swoop in and help the one that broke down remember, like, oh yeah, right, that's how it goes now. And so when we're preparing to play from memory, it's really important that we make sure all three are equally strong so that we have these sort of backup systems to rely on.

Yeah, so there are different ways to work on the memory. And then, you know, aural can be, okay, as a pianist, solfege, that may help. Right, exactly. Yeah. So testing your aural memory, can you sing it from memory on solfege, on la la la, if someone doesn't know solfege, on finger numbers, on note names, like whatever you want. That's a great way to test your aural memory of do you actually know how it goes? Yeah. And how about motor? Yeah, to test motor memory.

So for pianists, it would be just don't press down the keys or if you're using an electronic keyboard, just don't turn it on. So there is no sound. So because often people who have a strong aural memory, but a weak muscle memory, they're relying on the feedback from the instrument to tell them whether they're playing it correctly. Right. And if that feedback from the instrument is gone and there's no sound. They have no idea what they're playing, but that means the muscle

memory is really weak. You should be able to play no problem with no sound and know that you're playing it correctly or not. So for pianists, yeah, just don't press the keys down or if it's electronic keyboard, just like don't turn it on. So there's no sound involved. For me as a string player, my favorite way to test it is because I... I mean, I can play with no sound, but it's not as easy as piano is to take my cleaning cloth and to slip it between the strings and

the fingerboard that mutes it. And you just get a bunch of squeaks. And so you get sound, but it doesn't sound anything like the piece. It's just a whole bunch of squeaks going on. And that really tests like, you know, do I know this? Do I know what it feels like to play this piece? And the other one you mentioned. Declarative

memory. Basically, that's like. analytical or analytical yeah like knowing like what's actually sort of on the page um and so for that like a great way to test that is to um get out a blank piece of staff paper and write it out from from memory to see if you could do that's really hard right but the actual notes the actual notes the actual rhythms like key signature time signature dynamics like everything you can remember like write it out from memory that's often quite challenging

for people but it can really show you where you have blank spots in your memory, right? I had a student doing this once and the piece was in three, four, and it was just like, it was a piece of by Bach and it was just like straight eighth notes. It was a current by Bach. It was just straight eighth notes. And this student got to one measure and there were only four eighth notes in the bar. And they were like, well, clearly something is missing because there needs to be

six here, you know? And they didn't realize that there was this sort of black hole is what I call it in, in that measure where they didn't know what it was. And so that it can really show you where you. you don't really know for students that maybe don't read music or, you know, have learned it by ear and they can't write it out on staff paper, writing out like the names of the notes or the finger numbers or something like that, but like writing it down in some way,

not necessarily using musical notation. That's another way to do it. Okay. Now it's challenging. That is challenging, but also, yeah, I think I would have my students say with words, For example, okay, what does the section A, how does that start? Yeah, that's great. And what key ended up ending the section? Yep, that's great. And after this section, what's the next section? Tell me in words. Perfect. Yeah, that's a great way to test it too. Yeah. Wow. Now let's talk

about real world, right? So with all these, then we have to carry into the real world, which is the concert stage or audition, right? Now, retaining quality of work is another challenge that we face. And then for instance, one of my students who do well, and she does a lot of competitions and so on. So she has to retain this piece of music for over a period of a month, which is especially for young ones, that's hard. Hard, yeah. Gets bored, right? Yeah. The same thing

over and over. Right. But there's like a sweet spot where you just learned and then polished and then memory is perfect. And at the same time, there's an edge. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because it's still new. But then it's the first

performance. she does really well like you know but after a number of mock recitals and everything we do right then but the second and third performance she had to do with other events yeah it just loses or even the details are gone yeah and the even the focus in certain sections is gone how do we sustain this edginess yeah that's a great question i think that's something we've all experienced that it just becomes kind of boring right and so there's things that you can do in practice

and then there's things that you can do in performance so let's talk about the practice first okay um so the things that i do they fall under the category of variable practice um so I think it's easy to think, okay, once you can play it really well, you just have to maintain that. You just have to keep repeating that because that's how you want to play it. But actually, you're going to maintain it better and it's going to be more interesting if you start playing it in lots of

different ways. So for instance... you know with this student like once they can play it really really well they've given that first performance when they're practicing in between the next performances maybe they're going to try to impersonate different pianists and play it sort of in a really different way trying to sound like different pianists Or another one of my favorite ones to do is to, I usually won't do a whole piece this way. I'll just do like a phrase or something like that,

but play it in lots of different emotions. So as a very simple example, if it's supposed to be happy, maybe I'm going to play it and make it sound angry, which it's not supposed to sound like, but that's a really good challenge, right? And, or trying to, yeah, impersonate different musicians, play it like different, like animals is something that kids love to do. Like, you know, how would an elephant play this? How would a tiger play this? How would a mouse play this?

You know, but playing it in sort of lots of different, lots of different ways to make it interesting and sort of fresh. You can introduce physical challenges. So for piano. Find things to sit on that are the total wrong height, right? And can you play it well when you're like way too low or way too high or you're sitting on a chair that's kind of like, you know, sideways or something

like that. But if you can play it well when there's like physical things going on like that, it's fun to try to do that, but it makes it, you know, easier when you then sort of play it as written.

I also like to limit myself to one. expressive parameter and see if i can do all of my musical ideas using that expressive parameter only so for instance for piano maybe articulation you have to show all of your musical ideas just with articulation and nothing else um or just with the pedaling and nothing else it's really really challenging um but it sort of gives you new musical ideas and shows you sort of which um Which technical aspects, because those are technical aspects,

right, of realizing musical ideas, like which technical aspects you're neglecting, which technical aspects you could think about with more creativity. And then it makes the piece more interesting and it makes it harder to play, which is a good challenge once it feels good because it keeps it on that edge. In terms of things to do in performance, once something feels good. I did this for the very first time in high school by

accident. I was playing an audition. I was playing my Bach and I realized in the middle of the audition, I was like, gosh, this is really boring. Like I, I'm like doing nothing with my dynamics. I need way more dynamic contrast. And so I started literally improvising dynamics in the audition. I don't know what possessed me to do this. You're so brave. And I just realized like, wow, this is really boring. Like I need to do something. And so I literally, I remember improvising dynamics

and it was a, it was a college audition. And I remember after the audition was over the, one of the people listening came out and they were like, that was fantastic. I'd love to have you in my studio. And I was like, really? Oh, okay, cool. But I've since discovered that that works really well in performance for something that is starting to feel stale, that like, I know I can play it. Like, why do I have to play this

again? You know, you're kind of getting bored with it on stage, like not necessarily like if it's supposed to be forte, now you're going to play piano, but like sort of improvising within the bounds that you're given by the composer of like. you know, slightly different dynamics or slightly different direction and that it's, yeah, it becomes an improvisation and it's, it's just a lot more interesting that way. And it keeps you, it keeps you engaged and keeps it

more fresh. Wow. Thank you. Yeah. I, I, I'm going to tell my student that, but also maybe, is it okay that we take a little bit of a break from the piece and not practicing all the time? Yes. I mean, that is, if you have time for that, that is fantastic too. I mean, sometimes students will have, you know, like they play a competition on Monday, a competition on Wednesday and recital

on Thursday and right. And there isn't really time to take time off, but if there's time to take time off, that is the best thing to do. You know, that if they have, you know, they play it in a recital in March and then they're playing it for competition at like the end of April, let's say taking, you know, two, three, even maybe four weeks off from it would be a really great thing to do. Now let's talk about mental

prep. Yes. So this is still a very abstract concept for many of us, you know, because once again, we feel like at the very last minute, we still have to be in touch with the key or instruments and then just practice like a mad person. Yes. Yeah. That's still the case. So mental prep is something that is a very, very bottom of the list or even non -existence. Right. And it shouldn't

be, but I totally understand that. I mean, I used to have this fear that if I wasn't physically playing my instrument until the moment I walked on stage, I would somehow forget to play the viola between being backstage and walking on stage. Like in those, that one minute I would forget how to play, which is obviously not the case, you know, but like I. I definitely understand that fear because I used to. Yeah, I definitely understand it. So with mental practice, first,

there's so many things I could talk about. First of all, the thing that convinced me actually that mental practicing was worth doing because I'd heard about it for years before I started doing it. And I thought it was an utter waste of time. Like you said, it was like so far down the list. It wasn't on the list. But I read a study that I talk about in my book where they had non -musicians learn to play a very simple

scale up and down on the piano. um and half the people like actually practice it on the piano half the people mentally practiced it just like imagined themselves playing it and in addition to testing how well they could play this thing at the end of the study they were also looking at their brains because there was research that had come out prior to the mental practice study that found in string players that the part of the brain that controls the left hand fingers

which is the hand we use on the instrument that part of the brain gets bigger as a result of the training that string players go under we now know that any body part, essentially, that you use intensively, the way string players use our left hand fingers, the part of the brain that controls that body part gets gets bigger. So in pianists, it's both sides of the brain

that control the hands that are bigger. So anyway, in the mental practice study, they hypothesize that the part of the brain that controlled the fingers and the people that were actually practicing physically on the piano would get bigger over the course of the study. And the question was, would anything happen in the mental practicers?

And what they found was, yes, the part of the brain controlling the fingers in the physical practice group got bigger, like they thought, but part of the brain controlling the fingers in the mental practice group got bigger to almost the exact same extent as the physical practicers, which just blew my mind when I read it because like they changed the actual physical structure of their brain just by thinking about it. Right. That is just like, that's just wild to think

about. Right. And I read that and I was like, okay, maybe there is something to this mental practice thing. If you can actually change the physical structure of your brain, like maybe

it is actually doing something. So then I started reading more about the research on mental practice and what has been found over and over, especially in musicians and athletes, is that when people only do physical practice, it's not nearly as effective as doing both physical and mental practice, that you just make a lot more progress when you do mental practice, which is, I think, the opposite of what a lot of people would think certainly was the opposite of what I thought when I started

reading the literature. Um, so yes, it's very important, but also I think people don't know, like, what is, what is it? Like, what is mental practice? Like, how do you do this? So when you mental practice, you want to be able to imagine as vividly as you can in your mind, all of the aspects of playing, all the sound -based things. So like, what does it sound like in terms of pitch, quality of sound, dynamics, phrasing, like all the sound -based things? Can you imagine

that? And then all of the physical things. So can you imagine, you know, for you guys as pianists, like what your two hands are doing? what keys you're playing, where your hands are on the keyboard, what you're doing with the pedaling posture, like all of the physical aspects that go into playing. Like, can you imagine that? And you can actually solve problems in your mind and they will be solved on the piano. So if you are. Let me give a piano specific example. I'm not

a pianist at all, but that's fine. Like maybe you have something in your left hand where there's a large leap. That's something that happens all the time, right? In the left hand. And you are constantly missing it. Can you, in your mind, feel where your hand needs to go for chord number one and then chord number two? Can you imagine that? Can you see the keyboard in your mind? Because the visual aspect, right, is really... important. Can you see the keyboard in your mind

and know where you're going? Can you feel your hand go from here to here? If it's a chord change, can you feel, okay, this is the shape of this chord. This is the shape of this chord over here. Can you feel, okay, my fingers are on these notes on the first chord. Now I'm jumping here. I can feel I'm in the right part of the keyboard and I can feel my fingers are on the right keys. And you can do repetitions in your mind, just like that. Just like we talked about earlier,

like you do in real life. Can you feel it? Can you see it? Can you hear it? That, okay, maybe it's a C major chord and you're going to a G7 chord. Let's say, you know, can you hear that? And at first the answer might be no. The answer is probably going to be no because mental practice takes practice. It might be like, wow, that's really fuzzy. Or sometimes people will be like, okay, I can hear it, but I cannot feel it. Or I can see the keyboard, but I can't really feel

my hand moving very well. And that's fine. That's normal. The more you try to imagine it, the more you sort of really like focus on trying to feel that thing or hear that thing. It will start to clarify in your mind. I also find that it helps people to go back and forth between the instrument and imagining. So maybe like play. chord number one, play chord number two, then try to imagine what you just did, then play it again, then try to imagine what you just did.

So going back and forth in that way can help clarify it. And then in terms of how I actually use mental practice, I have just sat down and done like a block of mental practice. I've mental practice for so many hours on airplanes over the years. Traveling. Yeah, traveling. Exactly. When you can't actually play. But most of the time, the way I use it is within my normal practice

session. So whatever I'm working on, I will try to imagine it first and imagine it correctly, that I can hear it and it sounds the way I want, that I can feel that I'm doing it correctly. If I can't and I can tell I'm making mistakes in my mind, I try to fix it in my mind, like we were just talking about. Once I feel like, okay, yes, I can do this. It sounds right, feels right. Then I do it on my instrument. And sometimes it feels great on my instrument. Okay, let's

go practice something else. Other times I learn something from my instrument. I'm like, oh my gosh, I forgot to pay attention to this detail. of it in my mind and it kind of surprised me on the instrument. So then I'll put it into my brain again, imagine it again with that detail that I had left out. Once that's in there, then I sort of put it back on my instrument. And what I found is that once things are clear in my mind,

they're clear on the instrument. If I can't imagine it, I can't really play it very well either.

That's a great, great way to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to first imagine how it's supposed to sound and what all the details and then do it. Yeah, execute it. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean, there's so much. I mean, we are running out of time, so we have to keep going. But it's all these wonderful things. But what made you really decide to pursue neuroscience? Yeah, I mean, it was sort of an accident. So as an undergrad, I went to Oberlin College and

Conservatory. And I only for undergrad, I only applied places really where I could do a double degree in viola and something because I'd always really liked school. I'd always really liked academics. I've always had a lot of interests. I didn't know what I wanted to major in. So many things are interesting to me. So I just wanted to go somewhere where I had that option. And so I went to Oberlin knowing I was going to be

viola performance major and something. And then my freshman year, my first semester there, I took this neuroscience class that looked interesting in the course catalog, right? I was just like, oh, this looks like a great class. Okay, I'll sign up. And instantly I was hooked. After like two weeks of class, I was like, this is the most interesting thing I've ever learned about in my entire life. This is what I want to major in. So I didn't have any plans to combine it

with music. I just wanted to learn about it, right? I was at Oberlin. Because I wanted to be double degree in something, I found what I wanted to learn about. I just wanted to learn about it. And then when I got, I went to NEC, New England Conservatory for my master's, not intending obviously to do anything with neuroscience because I was in a conservatory. And I got to NEC and I pretty quickly in my first semester realized that I really missed the neuroscience.

And I looked into NEC has partnerships with other like universities in Boston. But as a master's student and having to travel across the city to get to another school and just like the orchestra rehearsal schedule, like it just wasn't going to work on a practical level. So I talked to one of my professors and I was like. am I allowed to do an independent study? Because there were things having to do with music and the brain that I had started seeing those connections when

I was a student at Oberlin. I wasn't like actively connecting them, but I had started seeing sort of connections between what I was learning in my neuroscience classes and what I was learning from my teacher, my viola teacher about practicing. And so at NEC, I asked like, can I do an independent study looking into this, you know, just for myself? And the answer was yes, which was great. And

so basically that semester, I just like. read everything i could get my hands on in terms of like research studies on on learning and memory um everything that i could i could find to sort of answer these questions that i had for myself about well how does this work and is there a better way to practice and it was just for myself it was just for my my own interest and then when i got to rice which is where i did my dma in in viola I was back at a research institution.

So again, I asked, can I take graduate level neuroscience classes here? And they were like, why do you want to do that? And I was just like, is the answer yes or no? And they were like, I guess so. So I did, which was great. But there was a professor there, Tony Brandt. He's a composition professor who he has a lot of interest in this. connection between neuroscience and music. And he learned about my interests. And so we put together two interdisciplinary symposia on music

and the brain. And as part of the first one, I believe the school asked me to teach this lunchtime series. They called it pizza and brains, the school supplied free pizza. And I would teach like a little class over lunch about anything I wanted actually having to do with music and the brain. And that's when I really started like sharing this information with other people. And I realized like, One, wow, this is really fun

to like share this information. And two, people found it interesting, which maybe shouldn't be surprising, but it was kind of surprising to me that like other people found this as interesting as I did. And so that's when I really started like intentionally combining them with the sort of purpose of sharing it with other people and

helping musicians. practice better um so it was kind of yeah my own personal interest that sort of by accident became this thing but combining the two what a genius idea and also it really makes sense and right yeah it does right and how much of a brain work it takes to play an instrument musical instrument yeah exactly yeah and i mean to me now it's like obvious like In order to learn something, you should know how

the brain works. But I don't think that's, I mean, it certainly wasn't obvious to me before I realized it. I don't think it's obvious to most people. But yeah, learning is using your brain, changing your brain. You should know how that works to do it in a way that's effective. Wow. So we should, on some level, have this knowledge of neuroscience. I think so. I mean, I don't think I don't think you need to have like an in -depth knowledge of neuroscience. But but

I do think that I mean. We are all the like owners of our own brain. Like you should know how your brain works. You should know how your body works. It's yours. You live your whole life with it. And brains are really complicated. Brains are

really amazing. And having sort of a basic understanding of how the brain works, what the brain needs, how the brain learns, I think is really empowering to people because then they can understand, oh, this is hard for me because X, Y, Z, or just because it's hard doesn't mean I can't do it.

It just means, you know. things are hard for people but you can the brain is incredibly flexible you can learn anything which is just amazing yeah yeah brain plasticity is that what exactly yeah plasticity is the word because i read a peak by uh andres yeah that's a great book yeah yeah yeah oh great great book wow i wish we had more time but we i just have one more philosophical thing here yes so are there do you think that

there yeah opportunities for musicians who want to pursue in neuroscience? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think like more and more these days, there is interest in interdisciplinary collaborative research, right? And more and more these days, research is being done on learning

and memory, specifically with music. musicians and neuroscientists a lot of the older research i always felt reading it like they needed to talk to like one musician because there's some weird things in this paper that like don't make any sense from a musician's perspective but that seems to be happening more and more that there's these collaborations sort of going on the other thing that keeps happening is technology continues to advance um and so we have ways of measuring

what the brain is doing that we didn't have And so we can ask much more interesting questions. We can get much more interesting answers because the technology allows us to sort of understand what's going on in a much more precise way than we could earlier when we didn't have the capability to sort of, you know, measure what's going on

inside someone's head. So, yeah, I think the questions that are being asked now in the sciences around learning and memory in general and looking at musicians, I think we're asking better questions because we have the technology to answer them. And because more musicians are getting involved in this research and, you know, asking questions that are really of interest to us in terms of our day to day lives and practicing. Wonderful.

Yeah. So for those who are listening and watching, please check out her book. Molly's book, Learn Faster, Perform Better, A Musician's Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing, filled with valuable insights. And what I love about it is there are so many anecdotes that you include stories that stick with me. So you talk about your student, Evan, or the monkey story. It sticks with me. And then they're often associated with a certain aspect of the brain thing. So it's great. Wonderful.

And then it's informational, but at the same time, quite entertaining too, because of those. Thank you. Yeah. It's fun. I really got, I mean, I really wanted it to be accessible. I didn't want it to be like dry and jargony because nobody's going to read that, right? Like I wanted it to be something that people could read easily and was at least somewhat enjoyable to read. So I'm, I'm really glad to hear that. And relatable, but then here's a challenge though. How can we

practice this? So then I checked out your website, mollygabrianne .com and you offer courses. So tell us a little bit. I do. I try to make as many resources available to people as possible in many sort of different ways. I do have so I have a self -paced course that people can just go through themselves. It's basically it's a bunch of videos to watch and then sort of worksheets that help. walk people through like implementing different practice strategies. There's also like

mini courses. If you're only interested in certain topics in the big self -paced course, you can just get that. And then I also teach live online classes where we, yeah, we talk about this stuff. And my favorite part of doing the live online

classes. is um doing they're on zoom and so everybody's in their own zoom room on mute and we can actually do guided practice with everybody practicing at once but everybody's on mute so you know it isn't cacophony and we can try out these different practice methods in real time and then people can see how they work and then we can talk about it you know ask questions um about it so the live i started doing them a year ago i think um And it's been really, really fun to teach

those. So, yeah. Wonderful. So all the things that you can find from your website at mollygibrian .com. And also check out her amazing albums. One is Trailblazers. And also another one is Trios for Two Piano, both with Danny Holt, wonderful pianist and percussionist. Yes. Wonderful. So before we go, is there anything else you would like to? I don't think so. You asked such great

questions. It was really fun. Oh, it was so fun. So, but before we go, we have to do this rapid fire questions. Yes. I'm ready. Alrighty, let's go. What is your comfort food? Oh my God. Chicken soup. That's a good one. How do you like your coffee? I don't drink coffee. Oh, do you, are you a tea drinker? I drink water. I'm very boring. That's okay. I do drink tea on occasion, and I like chamomile tea. Oh, that's a nice one. Yes. Yeah. Cats or dogs? Cats. Sunrise or sunset?

Oh, man. Both? Am I allowed to say both? No, you, of course. Summer or winter? Winter, 100%. I love winter. Oh, me too. Yay. What skill have you always wanted to learn but haven't had a chance to? I would love to be fully fluent in another language. I've learned a number of languages, but I'm not fully fluent in anything, and I would love that. What is your word or words to live by? I mean, something I say more than anything else when it comes to practicing is experiment

on yourself. Nice. Yeah, I would say, I mean, my words to live by in terms of my life is that like nobody is going to protect your well -being and your health if you don't do it yourself. So protect your well -being and your health. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. What is the most important quality you look for in other people? Oh, man. I would say, let's see. I would say integrity and curiosity. Now, next one may be the most difficult one. Name three people who

inspire you, living or dead. Oh, geez. I can only name three? I know. Oh, man. Okay. Let's see. I have to pick only three. It can be a group of people, too. Okay. Okay. Okay. So group of people, all of my viola teachers. All of the viola teachers I've had since I was a kid, actually, every single one of them, their voices are in my head in a good way, not in a beating me down way, in a good way, in terms of helping me, you know, work my way through whatever I'm playing.

So all of my viola teachers, for sure, sort of in my head. I would also say one of my... neuroscience professors at Oberlin. His name's Mike Luce. He, I really enjoyed his classes, but he was also my advisor. And whenever I would go in for advising, I didn't really need advising. I knew what classes I was going to take and what I wanted to do, but he would always ask me really great questions about, well, why do you want to take this class? And what do you think you're going

to get out of it? And just like that kind of, you know, he just was really curious and made me think more about it. So that I've always kind of held that sort of with me. And then, um, A third person, I would say Larry Radcliffe, conductor at Rice for many, many years. He was the conductor when I was there. And I just learned so much about music and life and treating people well. And yeah, just I learned a lot from Larry. Name one piece in your current playlist. Oh, man,

just one. Let's see. I've been listening to a lot of Bach. recently, actually, which is, you know, very, very standard and something that I've been obsessed with the Bach Chaconne for forever. That's such kind of a standard answer, but it's such an amazing piece. And for violists, we sometimes play it. It's not as standard for us as violinists, but that's sort of been my sort of. pet project recently is learning the Bach Chaconne. It's been a bucket list piece

for me. Do you have to transpose to another key? Yeah, we play it in G minor rather than D minor. And some of the chords are too big for my hand, so I've had to re -voice some of them. I don't know that I'll ever play it publicly, but that doesn't matter to me. So yeah, I've had to make some modifications so that I can physically play it. I would love to hear it on viola. It's really

great. It's really great on viola. love it on on viola wow so last question fill in the blank music is blank music is blank these are hard um music is, let's see, I would say music is a celebration of life. How's that? Yes, sounds wonderful. Thank you. Wow. This concludes the

episode of The Pianophon. A heartfelt thanks to you, Molly, for joining us today and sharing your incredible stories, insights, expertise with such authenticity and joy and making this unknown territory sound so fun and engaging. So to our wonderful listeners, you can learn more about her and her work by visiting her website at mollygabrian .com. We'll list all the links in the show notes. And of course, thank you to

our faithful listeners for tuning in today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to The Pianopod on YouTube. Don't forget to share and review this episode on your social media and tag The Pianopod. For the latest piano news updates, be sure to follow The Pianopod on Substack, TikTok, and LinkedIn. I will see you for the next episode of The Pianopod. Bye, everyone. And thank you, Molly, once again. Thank you for having me. Thanks for watching!