Scott Donald is Administrative Director and Senior Faculty at the New School for Music Study in Princeton, NJ, and serves on the faculty of the College of New Jersey. A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Dr. Donald received his Bachelor of Music degree from Furman University. He was awarded degrees of Master of Music in applied piano, and Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education/Piano Pedagogy from The University of Texas at Austin, where he worked under the guidance of Dr. Robert Duke and piano pedagogy with Amanda Vick Lethco and Martha Hilley.
Scott Donald
Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy
PO Box 651
Kingston, NJ 08528
609.921.2900
scottmus@aol.com
When you consider the multifaceted nature of musical performance it is truly awesome what we do. The development and refinement of musical skills is a long and involved process that requires much guidance. All musicians would agree that good training and practice is vital to our success. How we practice has a direct correlation to the success of a performance. The domain of practice is where musicians spend a great deal of time and energy. Musicians are not alone in this endeavor. Athletes face the same challenges as musicians. In fact, there are many aspects of sports training that are directly related to musical training. When you think about the similarities between the two it makes sense. We develop skills in the same way as our favorite sports personalities.
The ability to play a musical instrument is a collection of motor skills that we have acquired and developed over time. Making a connection between sports and music helps young students, especially those involved in sports, understand the physical nature of musical performance. Analogies that draw from their particular sport and relate to something we are doing at the instrument make that connection possible. The main difference between what we do in music and what happens in sports is that we don't sweat as much or get quite as dirty. The fact that musical performance is a collection of motor skills places musical training right along side of sports training. What happens on the playing field is very much the same as what happens on the performance stage.
What is involved in motor performance? Let's first consider the physiology and science of motor skill development. The hand has about 30 muscles to control 5 fingers with 3 phalanges for each finger.3 These hand muscles act in coordination with several layers of muscles in the forearm, upper arm, and shoulder. Combined, these muscles contribute to the action of each finger and its three joints during motor performance. Considering the number of motor neurons, muscle fibers, and the timing requirements dictated by the music notation, you see there is a large amount of regulation in musical performance to be monitored and accomplished. How do we organize all of this physiology into coordinated movement?
One of the key elements of coordinated motor skills is timing.6,7,8 Skilled performance of motor skills is developed with practice and, as skill is developed, motor programming becomes more extensive and complex. This process is controlled, especially in music, by an internal clock. This implies that there must be considerable precision in the timekeeper generating a time scale in the coding of these motor programs. Timing, or tempo, becomes a crucial element in the coordination of motor skills.
Another theory proposed to explain how the many variables involved in complex motor skills are controlled and organized is that of coordinative structures.4 Coordinative structures are defined as muscle groups that act as a unit to reduce the number of possible variations. They maintain their coherency through three elements: spatial, temporal, and scaling. Spatial coherence indicates that the same set of muscles is activated as a unit. Temporal coherence requires that movements within each unit act synchronously in a fixed time relationship and are maintained regardless of other movement parameters. Scaling means that the relationships between the spatial-temporal elements remain proportional regardless of the size of the movement.
To summarize, when we learn new skills there is a certain amount of information that goes into the coding of the skill; speed, magnitude or size of the movement, and duration or length of the movement. These parameters may change and most certainly will over time as the skill becomes more developed and practiced but the overall organization remains basically the same. When we compare novice and expert performers in the arts or sports we can see the difference between the overall ease and flow of their performance. How do we shape those performers into a more efficient and polished performer? How do we train them for that gold medal performance?
THE PROCESS OF LEARNING MOTOR SKILLS
Training for a gold medal performance begins with a process of gathering information, sorting that information and creating a physical plan to perform the desired task. This is called Information Processing.3 Take a look at a diagram to follow this process.
INPUT
Processes involved in obtaining information
DECISION MAKING
Analysis or interpretation of what the input means and what to do (perception, response selection, response organization)
OUTPUT
Executing response chosen
FEEDBACK
Evaluating performance
How efficient
Desired result
In order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of motor performance, the player must decide what factors lead to successful performance and then practice in ways that will enhance improvement of these factors.
The beginning stages of learning new musical repertoire follows this diagram quite accurately. We begin by studying the score for its notational information. The next step would be processing that information and applying it to the instrument. We determine any technical difficulties that must be further practiced and evaluate the efficiency of our performance based on the comparison of the desired outcome and the actual performance. Mastery is attained after the performer has polished the overall technical demands of the music and developed a musical performance of the repertoire.
PRACTICE
The statement “practice makes perfect” is not quite true but rather “Perfect practice makes perfect”. Practice encompasses the areas of Input, Decision Making and Output in our motor learning diagram. How should practice be organized so that the greatest improvement will occur? The type of practice may depend upon several factors:
The idea of breaking down a larger skill into a series of subskills is not unique to piano or sports. We use this technic in both contexts. In sports training, it may be used in an activity like basketball where multiple tasks are going on concurrently such as running dribbling the ball, negotiating opposing players, and shooting the ball. In piano performance it may involve multiple independent parts between the hands. When considering the use of Whole/Part practice these factors should be considered:
While parts may be practiced individually we must consider what difficulties exist when the parts are performed simultaneously. We should consider the interrelationship among the parts of the skill. Tasks which have high complexity and low organization can benefit from part practice. As organization increases and as skill parts become more interrelated, whole practice is preferable. For more skilled performers, whole practice is the method of choice with part practice used as needed. As learners become more skilled and expand their repertoire of motor skills, the need for part practice tends to diminish. Frequently, expert performers will isolate elements for focused and concentrated practice but rarely use the extended practice of parts that can be beneficial to less skilled or novice performers.
Take for instance, the difficulties of first putting hands together. How long should students have practiced hands separately until it establishes the consistency and before it impedes the coordination of the parts together? In basketball, a series of combinations may be implemented to prepare the player to go from one spot on the court to another while doing all those tasks associated with playing a game. Combining hands together in piano performance has to be introduced in a similarly methodical manner such as brief segments and building up to the entire length.
Observing a coaching session between the expert and the novice athlete one can see how these skills are divided into subskills and then implemented into the learning process. For instance, an ice skating coach may work on a particular element such as a jump. The coach would systematically lead the athlete through a series of warm up subskills that would contribute to the overall understanding of the complete process from preparation to landing. If the student is experiencing difficulty in the landing, the coach may break down the landing and make sure that the athlete understands physically what happens in the landing such as the ending position of the body, the placement of the arms and head, and speed on the ice. The coach would make the student aware of the placement through statements such as, “Notice the tilt of your head and that you are looking over the right arm past the fingers. Notice the position of the arms in relation to the body with the fingers extended.” All of these statements guides the student in “feeling” the correct body placement and makes them self-aware of what is a good land of the jump.
We can take the same approach when working on repertoire for piano. For instance, when rapid position shifts are required in piano performance our ability to consistently play accurately is definitely tested. As teachers, we need to be able to break down the skill and guide students in their physical approach to this technique. In a piece such as “Musette” from the Anna Magdalena Notebook we encounter this technique with both hands shifting away from each other in the A section. Students should be made aware of the physical requirements for performance. The teacher could lead them through a series of subskills that would include some hands separate work to negotiate the moves away from the body. This is important to establish the distance required in each hand then the coordination of the hands should be immediately addressed. One subskill would simply be the ending position before and after the jump occurs. Isolating this in practice can prove to be very beneficial in establishing the motor performance required by the musical score. Repetition of this isolation will lead to consistency and accuracy during performance.
Enough can not be said about the use of repetition in practice. This is where sports training really excels. Just watch a batting practice session and you will see how important repetition is. It is remarkable how many opportunities the batter has to refine hitting in a consistent manner. There is no, “I'll try it until I get one right” attitude. Athletes must be able to consistently perform with incredible accuracy. Gymnastics is one of those sports that requires incredible accuracy in an event such as the balance beam. Correct repetition is one of the keys to success for an apparatus skill such as this. Why not expect the same kind of practice for musical performance. The ability to consistently perform a given passage in music during a recital is just as important as in a gymnastics meet. The use of correct repetition is a fundamental element in the refining and development of any motor skill.
How can we incorporate this strategy into practice and expect our students to do it on their own?
TRAINING FOR GOLD MEDAL PRACTICE
One of the big differences between sports training and musical training is the amount of time spent with a “coach”. Unfortunately, qualified expert “coaches” are not available every time a student practices a musical instrument. Therefore, as musical “coaches” we must provide a model for student success at home. We have to provide those models while they are in our presence and educate our parents about what should happen during their time at home. Most importantly, the student has to show the teacher by “practicing” in the teachers presence the correct model for success. We can learn a lot about training for practice from watching interaction between coach and player. The use of feedback to shape a desired performance is crucial to the development of motor skills. Sports coaches use a variety of methods to correct and shape the necessary skills for performance. These sessions provide the player many opportunities to “practice” while in the presence of their coach. The feedback from a coach provides a model for success when the player is working independently.
There are two basic forms of feedback that we can focus on that involves the actual motor performance:
Students must be able to compare the actual outcome to the desired goal and also the actual movement with the intended movement to reach the desired goal. It is of great help to have someone else available to provide input into the analysis of the movement to reach the desired goal but is possible to make students aware of what to look for or feel as they execute the necessary motor skill.
Another training technic is the use of specific lists to help facilitate feedback. The use of checklists can help guide the student and focus attention to the necessary elements of a task. This can be used for self-evaluation when the teacher is not available.
Here is an example from tennis:
Know What to Look For
Identify Things That Could Cause Error
Let's take an example from piano performance: Ascending scale passage in RH with LH alberti bass.
What to Listen For
Things That Could Cause Error
Once the task is performed, the student should decide, based on the desired outcome and the actual outcome, how to alter the subsequent performance to reduce any error, then implement the plan with the adjustment and evaluate again. This process continues throughout the learning process and beyond. Providing a series of checklists or practice steps that can be used at home during practice gives the student a model to follow when they are working independently. These practice steps will help guide a student using general tasks that can be adapted for the specific needs of the music. Here is an example of basic practice steps that can be used at the elementary level Training students for practice success can also be related to the way we as teachers provide feedback through either concurrent feedback (while the performance is in progress) or terminal feedback (after the performance). One of the most effective ways of training the student for practice is to delay terminal feedback briefly until the performer independently analyses the performance. The student can be cued to analyze specific events through checklists, rating scales, or comparison to the desired goal.
Modeling can provide important information to the student regarding performance of a desired skill. Models can also be used to create a checklist or structure feedback for the learner. As an example Elvina Pearce recommends recording practice hints which give the student an automatic checklist and model for home practice. In sports, coaches may demonstrate a desired skill outcome while in musical training teachers may provide an aural or visual model for our students to emulate. Comparisons from student to teacher performance can provide structure to the feedback while delaying the terminal feedback from the teacher. The student is actively participating in the shaping of the skill and is more apt to remember the changes by taking ownership of the learning process.
As you can see, there are many things we can learn from sports training in terms of organization of practice and in the training of our students' practice at home. Through out the process we should keep in mind the overall process of Input, Decision making, Output, and Feedback in determining how errors occur and how to practice to eliminate those errors. Students must be guided through the process of performance and evaluation in order to provide models for them as they practice and grow as independent learners.
Notes
1. Donald, L. S. (2002, March). Motor Skill Acquisition in High School Aged
Pianists. Poster session presentation at the annual meeting of the Music Teachers
National Association, Cincinnati, OH.
2. Donald, L. S. (1997). The Organization of Rehearsal Tempos and Efficiency of Motor Skill Acquisition in Piano Performance. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.
3. Granit, R. (1977). The purposive brain. Cambridge: MIT.
4. Kugler, P. N., and Turvey, M. T. (1986). Information, natural law and the self-assembly of rhythmic movement. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
5. Rothstein, A. and Wughalter, E. (1987). Motor Learning. Reston, VA: The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.
6. Shaffer, L. H. (1981). Performance of Chopin, Bach, and Bartok: Studies in Motor Programming. Cognitive Psychology, 13, 326-376.
7. Shaffer, L. H. (1982). Rhythm and timing in skill. Psychological Review, 89, 109- 122.
8. Shaffer, L. H. (1984). Timing in solo and duet piano performances, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 36, 577-595.
| TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|---|