hypothetically- practicing one bar at a time

[Tash]

there very well could be a thread on this but i can't be bothered finding it (yes i plead guilty to laziness- it's the holidays!), i was randomly thinking, if you practiced each bar of a piece separately, one at a time, until it was perfect, and then when you had done this for every bar and mashed it all together, would it be more effective than practicing in a phrase? i personally don't have the patience to do this, however my teacher would be ridiculously impressed if i did- i chunk in fat chunks and she keeps telling me to chunk smaller- which i am trying to do now and it's half-working- i need to discipline myself! Anyway, someone humour me with an answer, or abuse my laziness and refer to a suitable thread...

[alwaystheangel]

wouldn't there be troubles if there bar's "flow" went on to the next bar and you did not practice the transition.

Other than that I can't see anything wrong with doing that. 

[Bob]

It might be interesting just to do it.  It depends how much material is in a measure too I suppose.

It would give you a mental image that is broken in pieces too.  If you weren't careful, you're fingerings might be good for the individual measure, but not for the phrase.

It would probably focus more attention on everything.  I know I pay more attention to some things over others, so that would probably even it out a bit.

I would stick with phrases and tough spots.

I did try doing one or two measures on a piece a long time ago.  The piece was too difficult though.  I never finished it, so it was probably pointless.  My teacher wasn't too happy when I came to the lesson and said I worked on the next two measures that week.

If it's a tricky piece, I wouldn't see the harm in it as an exercise.  Probably not the most efficient though.

[imapnotchr]

actually, I often practise this way - but starting from the end!  This, of course depends on the music - works best with Bach.  I'll learn the last measure, then the last two measures, last three, ect.  Sometimes, however, it has to be by phrases.  The last phrase of the piece, then the last two, ect.

[cellodude]

actually, I often practise this way - but starting from the end!
...

Strange that you say that. I've never heard of that up until about 3 weeks ago.

It was after the Trinity exams here and my son's teacher had asked the examiner if he would comment on some of the students' playing (violin). So he got a few of them to play some short pieces after which the examiner would make comments.

After my son played his piece, the examiner pointed to a phrase that he had problems with and proceeded to explain how to practice it and he said exactly the same thing you said.

He even went on to say that it is possible to practice 2 notes by 2 notes from the end (of the phrase, bar, etc) and work towards the front each time adding 2 more notes to play to the end of the phrase.

Puzzled by this I asked for the reasoning behind this (I was invited to attend) and he said that it was because there is a target to aim for (i.e. you keep aiming for the end of the problem phrase).

Logically that makes sense but something inside of me is still not satisfied. I did not pursue it with the examiner but since you brought this up, maybe you can help me. Or maybe Bernhard has an explanation.

Thanks and regards,

dennis lee

[timothy42b]

Hands separate I can sometimes practise longer than one bar.

Hands together, often not;  and sometimes just two notes or chords, not even a whole bar. 

But I don't learn each completely separately.  More like 1, then 2, then 1+2; 3, then 4, then 3+4; then 1+2+3+4. 

How do you do it?  Just keep running through the piece?  Doesn't seem to work for me. 

[imapnotchr]

cellodude -

I learned this method (of starting from the end) from a professor while in college some 30 years ago.  Part of the idea is that we always start learning our music from the beginning and by the time we get to the end, we are dragging.  So, we ~start with the end in mind~ as Stephen Covey says.  (and he thought he invented that idea?!  not!) 

It also helps in that it teaches us to be able to start anywhere in the piece.  How many of us start over, or go back to letter whatever, because we can't just pick up anywhere?! 

Lastly - and not to sound trivial, but it is an alternate way of countering boredom () in practicing.  Not that any serious musician should find their music boreing - but it is more interesting to practice this way than to just play a phrase over 15 times.  I think I become more intimate with every note this way and see things I might have otherwise glossed over.

[cellodude]

Thanks imapnotchr,

Guess I gotta try it to see the benefits. It is certainly not intuitive. Maybe that's why it works. Will try on Chopin's 25 #9 which I am working on now.

BTW, I've read 'The 7 Habits' by Covey so I know what you mean.

DL

[depp]

According to Chuan C. Chang, https://members.aol.com/chang8828/contents.htm

"Start learning the piece by practicing the most difficult sections first. The reason is obvious; it will take the longest time to learn these, so they should be given the most practice time. If you practice the difficult sections last and then try to perform the piece, you will find that the difficult part is the weakest and it will always give you trouble. Since the ending of most pieces is generally the most exciting, interesting, and difficult, you will probably learn most pieces starting from the end. For compositions with several movements, you will most frequently start with the end of the final movement."

//Depp

[lostinidlewonder]

.....if you practiced each bar of a piece separately, one at a time, until it was perfect, and then when you had done this for every bar and mashed it all together, would it be more effective than practicing in a phrase?

This is not more effective at all, in fact it is a slow way to learn your music, it would be like learning one note at a time and putting a piece together like that (only not as bad but along the same lines of inefficiency). Practicing music in phrases is most logical because you are looking at a group of notes in a musical context, not just unmusical sections. It would be like trying to memorise a sentence and simply spending minutes looking at each word individually, you need to read the whole sentence to get the full meaning even if you might forget smoe words here and there, the same applies to music. You are supposed to forget but you explain to yourself what it is you are forgetting and then fill in that gap, the procedure is different for all but some people are so afraid about forgetting that they try to avoid it at all costs by going super careful through their music and super slow. Find a rate which you can learn say just a little more than your brain can handle, so that you start forgetting a little bit what you need to do, that is the limits you must push and what I do with all my students when I teach them new passages. I will push them until their brain starts forgetting information, then you stop and patch things up.

The most effective way to learn a peice of music is to play through the entire piece, sight reading it, and listening to it. Once the first part of sound memory is in your head (you know this when you can replay the piece just in your head (with or without sheet music) and hear all the notes), then you can go about using that to develop your conscious memorisation and hence reach some muscular mastery over the notes.

To tackle music and look at it in patterns is important, to break the music up into its sections and to highlight this on your sheet music. If your sheet music has no brackets sectioning up the music and highlighting pattern, fingering etc, then you will take longer to learn your music.

[cellodude]

According to Chuan C. Chang, https://members.aol.com/chang8828/contents.htm

"Start learning the piece by practicing the most difficult sections first. The reason is obvious; it will take the longest time to learn these, so they should be given the most practice time. If you practice the difficult sections last and then try to perform the piece, you will find that the difficult part is the weakest and it will always give you trouble. Since the ending of most pieces is generally the most exciting, interesting, and difficult, you will probably learn most pieces starting from the end. For compositions with several movements, you will most frequently start with the end of the final movement."

//Depp

Hi Depp,

I think what Chang is referring to is slightly different from 'aiming for the end' that imapnotchr and the examiner are talking about. In Chang's case once the difficult part is identified whether it is in the middle or the end of the piece it is still practised from the start till the end.

But in the other case once the difficult phrase is identified you practise the last 2 notes until you are satisfied, then the last four notes, then the last 6 notes etc until you arrive at the beginning of the difficult phrase.

See? (It is a bit like recursion in computer programming).

DL

PS I will try it out tonight and see what it feels like.

[imapnotchr]

And, of course, it depends on the music in question.  I don't back up note by note on every piece I work on.  Sometimes it is phrase by phrase or a few measures at a time.  And often it is just in the difficult parts.