I am just curious what types of methods people use to iron mistakes out of their pieces. Up until recently I have pretty much just used what I call the "Charles Cooke" method, where you basically try and (first of all) play through the error (i.e. as its happening), then stop, go back and repeat the part (plus a little bit) a few times until you are certain you have it nailed down.

More recently though, I have been trying a different method: for this one you again try and play through the error, but then you stop and go all the way back to the beginning of the section or piece (almost like a sort of punishment), and you basically repeat this process until you get through the whole section or piece without fail. The frustration of it all seems to induce concentration.

I am still not certain how I feel about this second method. It seems to work quite well for those types of errors which result from a lack of attention (which is usually due to me simply focusing on some other aspect of the score that is relevant at that point in time, thus forcing me to neglect the part for which the mistake occurs). The "Cooke" method, on the other hand, seems to work best for just pure technical hang-ups.

Personally, I've had the most success with marking the score in the areas that trouble me the most, and practicing that section (with overlap on the front and back end). First slowly, then at tempo, varying it up - and doing it over and over and over again.

I guess it's the Cooke method, but I practice it more than a few times.

It works great for certain parts, but those really tricky parts still rear their head when it counts (I'm looking at you, ABF recital).

For the second method you mentioned, playing through entire sections again that don't give trouble (except for a particular spot) doesn't help me overcome that particular spot.

If you can play (say) the first 8 measures of a section well, and the next 2 cause you to stumble you could:

a) Practice the 2 measures 5 times.
b) Practice the entire section (including the measures you know well) once.

Both would take the same time. At the end, in one method you might have the problem fixed, in the other you certainly won't.

You say, if I read your post correctly, that you are experimenting with using the second method if you feel that the reason you flubbed is that you lost concentration or focus on the notes, rather than having a technical difficulty at that spot. And that, as a possibility, for you - having to do it again from the beginning of a section motivates you to focus.

It may well be that you focus better when you are frustrated with yourself. But one of the results is still going to be that you have played the beginning of the section more often than the end of the section and will know it better and be more familiar with it, so that your knowledge of the whole piece is spottier than if you worked some other way.

You also say that you lose the focus on the notes possibly because you are focused on some other aspects of the piece at that point - dynamics? staccato/legato? - rather than the notes. Or perhaps you have missed those but gotten the notes right. But for me "chunking", or the Cooke method, includes the dynamics, the notes, the articulation, the formatas, all of it.

It actually took me years to discover that it needs to work that way for me but it's made a huge difference. So when I play a couple of measures I put in the accents, I experiment with the articulation, I try crescendo/descrendo. If I'm at the point where the notes just aren't there yet I try as small a piece as possible to get the actual notes. If I have the notes and it's a crescendo I play as small as a piece as possible to get the crescendo. I try to never play tentatively, no matter how small the piece, but always with intent. Of course, that was a bugaboo of mine for awhile. For me, also, the "playing with intent" banishes the "frustration" - if something doesn't work I don't get frustrated (99% of the time - I'm only human ) I get curious, and that makes the time to figure out what's going on productive for me, and the focus comes.

So, if the idea is to motivate yourself to focus on all the aspects at once so that you don't miss the notes for the dynamics or vice versa, or some other trade-off, for me the chunking of doing all the aspects at once is useful. But if the frustration of having to start at the beginning of a section works for you, then it works. But it still seems to me one of the results is still the unevenness of familiarity with different parts of the piece is a drawback of that method.

YMMV of course.

Cathy

I prefer the "Charles Cooke" method, because it's more efficient (I don't have five hours to practice everyday), and I don't like punishments.

It's funny you use the words 'iron out'. To impress upon students what the result of making even a tiny mistake is I give them a piece of paper, ask them to fold it, then, to their bewilderment, ask them get rid of the crease. Of course it can't be done and neither can a mistake be undone. Not knowing the difference between correct or incorrect the brain remembers everything.

Great pre-recital thread! I have a repetitive stress injury, so I don't think Charles Cook's is the best method for me right now. To avoid too much repetition of the same movements at a sitting, I have been writing the notes and rhythms on the staff and chord notation, both the figured bass and modern notation. It's very slow going because I just learned most of the former a couple of months ago, but it does help me remember exactly which inversions, passing chords and non-chord tones to play. Also, i try to visualize the keyboard and hear the chords in my head for those parts I need work on. Of course, I don't have much choice, but i'm wondering if anyone else out there does anything similar and finds it helpful.

But you still have to try. Complete error free learning, most of the time, is not practicable.

I use the Charles Cooke method, but I'm also conscience of his advice that if a piece has too any fracture points it's probably outside your present ability.

It seems like most people here are advocating solely using what I called the "Cooke" method. It is a good sensible method, to be sure, but one of the problems I have with it is that that it only really focuses on dealing with mistakes at a more microscopic level. Playing something correctly when it only a few bars long is a very different thing from playing something correctly in the context of the entire piece.

Maybe nobody else has this problem, but there are times when I feel I have really got a passage nailed down, and yet when I play the entire work from beginning to end, I will still make a mistake. And it may be a mistake on that specific passage I have nailed down or it may be a mistake in some other spot. The point is, however, it is a mistake which, when taken out of the context of the whole piece, is perfectly playable without error. In other words, the "Cooke" method kind of becomes irrelevant at this point since I know that if I take that passage and play it by itself (plus a extra bar or two) I will play it perfectly. What do you guys do in this sort of scenario? Or does this sort of scenario even arise for you guys?

Hm. Slightly different question than I answered, I think. For me the part I "chunked" works well, and I recognize when it's coming and feel confident.

Except - when it's difficult for me for a physical reason like my hands are small and reaching octaves, particularly fast runs in octaves, just plain makes it physically difficult. Then, yeah, there'll be missed bottom or top notes or a note in between. Although I've been noticing hand position so that my thumb doesn't slip off the bottom. But those bits will still give me trouble even after a lot of chunking.

Whoops, got a client - I'll think about this

There is a lot to say about this issue, which is a constant factor in learning to play well. Covering all of it would take a book.

But here are two things I have found helpful:

First, if you "chunk learn" a problem section, plus enough of a phrase to sensibly move into it, and out of it, and then when you play the piece the problem still occurs, you very likely have not completely learned/fixed the thing in the first place.

Also, I find that in addition to actually fixing the section, I have to learn to be confident and not in fear or uncertainty regarding that section. Or, put another way, I have to unlearn the emotional baggage of fear or whatever connected with the problem playing, and replace it with strong confidence and clear vision that I am playing it well.

I have found that this is just as important regarding successfully playing the piece as actually fixing the problem itself.

Sports psychology has a lot to say about this.

@ Rockett and Jotur, I changed my previous post a bit because I realized I didn't quite explain myself correctly, so you may want to re-read it.

I do have the same problem PPP. But right now I'm in a piano meltdown emergency.. so I'll post about it later when I'm not bleeding and pulling out my hair....

Practiceopedia has some very useful tips on this kind of thing. Now I understand your problem better ... and it's my most common issue. I call it my "leaky boat" problem. You think you've fixed all the leaks but you set sail and find another; you patch that one and a new one appears.

I guess the most common technique to overcome these are to use bigger and bigger sections. But yeah, I still can't get through all but the simplest of pieces without an error somewhere.

George Gershwin is said to have been able to sit down and play the piano they bought for his brother on its arrival when he was ten just by listening to other musicians play, and Michael Anderson at Piano Magic says he figured out the core of his method and was playing using it the same day his family keyboard arrived, sitting at that or any piano for the first time when he was 15. Unless you want to make an argument for reincarnation and their learning in another life, you'd be hard pressed to explain how they did it by simply applying repetitive motion practice. I play much more fluently since I learned to identify sound with progressions and cadences. Learning the internal structure of music might give you the context you need to keep the momentum going when Cooke's method fails to.

A leaky boat is perhaps the perfect analogy!

Well, as to the changed post -

I don't expect to play without errors I sometimes do, but I don't expect it. I don't expect sloppiness, but perfection in every note isn't my goal. My expectation is that I will know the piece as a whole, and its flow, well enough that I can recover - play thru and play music. I can't predict a whole experience when I'm performing - I don't know when a dancer will knock over an amp, or someone will try to talk to me, or the lights will flicker, or I'll simply space, or whatever the circumstances might be. So what I'm looking for is an organic wholeness that leaves the piece robust enough to weather storms

That may be very different from your hopes or expectations. So I can't speak to how deal with haphazard errors in such a way that they will no longer happen, because for me that's not the most important thing. They happen. Oh well. I practice so that as few happen as I have some control over, but for me the piece, when I perform it, is bigger than the haphazard errors. That's a personal philosophy, so I probably can't speak much to what you want to know.

Cathy

+1

Cathy

This is true, which is why after the small errors are ironed out, the second method must be used. The process is similar to writing a paper; one tends to work on refining paragraphs or sections, though they must be sewn together in the final stage, viewed and proofed as a whole.

This is an interesting thread…

Interesting, because I can’t seem to play anything, on any of my instruments, without messing up some way, shape, form or fashion.

I think it is because of “the fear factor” like Rockett88 mentioned. I’m a slave to it… I get so nervous internally trying to play my song or arrangement perfectly that I can never play it perfectly.

On the other hand, messing up can be beneficial on occasion… had a dear elderly lady at my church to complement me on what a wonderful job I did playing the special music for the service that day. I said, “Mrs. Walker, I messed up… I forgot the words to the song”. She said, “Ricky, it did us all a world of good to see and hear you mess up”.

So, you never know what good “messing up” might do for someone…

You are right, Cathy… it’s not a sin to mess up.

Rick

Okay. I'm waiting for help with the piano right now. I actually use both methods.

When I'm first learning a piece I will go over the whole piece, ht, about half a dozen times or more to learn the notes. I will then chunk it out to fix probelm areas, then go back to the whole piece again. Often I rinse and repeat sometimes with hs for the chunk parts if I'm having lots of issues.

I'm finding that the "new" mistakes come from me trying to learn a dynamic or something similar and then I start messing up. So I just repeat my process again.

I've discovered that I learn by first learning notes, then rhythm, then all dynamics, then everything together. This requires me to use my learning method each and every time for each new thing I'm learning. Then I have to put it all together and learn it all over again.

I know this doesn't sound very effecient but it's how it works for me to get it perfect. My boat leaks often.

Becca: Was the meltdown adverted?

Rickster,
I love hearing you play! Lots of fun! I enjoyed reading your Piano Adventures--love that upright Kawai, and the upright Schiller was so interesting. It's fun to hear an old saloon type piano. Thanks for posting the videos!
Kathy

I make errors when I play a piece through, too, no matter how much I practice it.

I think what helps me, though, is to try to really notice everything by practicing very slowly (my fingering, phrasing, dynamics, voicing) and to try to know the music better, which means lots of slow practice of small sections to begin with. I think practicing slowly at first helps me have less errors to iron out.

I think slowing down a little when I play it through also helps because I tend to play it as fast as I can play some sections, but when I can't play the harder sections at that speed, I make more mistakes.

But, yes, when I iron out errors, I work on very small sections to get it smooth. Then I overlap that small section (which might be one measure or two) with another small section before or after it. I add a little more each time until I am basically working on that one page a lot so the part with the errors will blend in with the whole page more smoothly as I practice it.

I think I get more accomplished when I work on small sections and then one page instead of playing through the whole piece as often.

Good luck!
Kathy

I cannot recommend this book highly enough:
"The Musician's Way" by Gerald Klickstein.

The four chapters on practicing deeply are especially helpful.

The Charles Cooke book is OK, but it's kindergarten compared to the Klickstein book, which is intended as a textbook for college music students.

And there's a website that goes with it: Musician's Way

Sam

Yes! It is a great book full of helpful information.

I bookmarked the website on your recommendation, and check in frequently. Some day I'll get the book, when I'm rich again But there's enough articles on the website to keep me busy for awhile, too. I appreciated the tip.

Cathy

uh no. but I wont get into that here. Thank you for asking...

I've been reading The Accidental Mind by David J Linden. He delineates different types of memory especially declarative (facts/events) from nondeclarative (skills/habits). Each uses different areas in the brain. For instance hippocampal amnesiacs can only remember a few minutes back or the years prior to their accident whereas their memory for motor control is intact. Maybe that indicates we need a variety stategies in our tool box.