I recently talked with an acquaintance who had taken a few years of lessons as a child, and now as an adult was spending his spare time playing the piano again. Between juggling kids and work it was difficult to find a consistent time to practice.
He noticed that he could learn a part of a piece one day, but when he would return a few days later it was as if he had never learned it. He would then start again and go through the same process, only to have his brain seem to not retain what he was teaching himself. A nagging question began to lurk in the back of his mind, “Is there something wrong with me?”
I assured him, “There’s nothing wrong with you. This is completely normal when you’re on the upper threshold of your skills and you’re not able to practice every day. When I’m learning a difficult piece, the same thing happens to me if I don’t practice several days in a row.”
We then went on to a discussion of what does practice look like so that your brain does remember.
Here are two ideas to help your brain remember:
1. Visit the piano once a day, even if it’s only for five minutes. In those five minutes, teach yourself one new thing, no matter how tiny. The next day, review that one new thing. If you have time, teach yourself another new thing. Keep repeating this process every day until you have taught yourself the entire piece.
2. Get a good night’s sleep. Any time you learn something new, the next two nights of sleep your brain will finish processing what you learned. When you are able to practice several days in a row, every night you are processing what you learned that day and the day before.
If you or your child can identify with your brain not remembering what you previously practiced, try these two ideas and see what happens. I’d love to hear what you learn.
