Bernhard's philosophies

[perfect_playing]

I've been reading a bit about Bernhard's practising philosophy and while I can see how his 7*20 way can help learning new pieces (it works when I try it), I'd like to know more about how he thinks pianists should develop interpretations of pieces.

Like I'm at the stage with many of my pieces where I can do all the things Bernhard talks about (technique, learning notes, memorising, analysis etc.) but what's missing from his posts, at least from what I can see, is stuff regarding musicality and different musical ideas.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't find Bernhard's posts relating to developing musicality and to me, that's the most important thing.

[chopinlover01]

Perhaps he'd want you to figure out the way YOU want to interpret it.

[anamnesis]

You have to read more from his posts on Baroque repertoire to see his thoughts on that because that seems to be his particular realm of interest. 

[birba]

What briefly, is 7*20?  I don't feel up to delving through all his posts.  I know he is very highly considered here.

[anamnesis]

What briefly, is 7*20?  I don't feel up to delving through all his posts.  I know he is very highly considered here.

It was just a generalization about how many attempts (7ish) and how long (20 minuteish) one should try to learn a passage (not necessarily master it or finish working on musicality).  

If it takes you more than 7 attempts, the passage or bar or whatever is too complex too learn in one sitting; therefore, you work on a smaller portion.  

There also only so much improvement you can do in one sitting.  If you spend more than 20 minutes on a passages, you really aren't going to get anymore benefit during that day at least in terms of motor learning.  You would be better off working on another passage. 20 minutes is just a generalization, it could actually be shorter.  Overtime you should learn how long you actually need to get the maximum benefit for the day for similar passages.  

It's somewhat similar to the Pomodoro technique of time management, except it's for motor learning which acknowledges the additional caveat that there is a point of diminishing returns for improvement within a day.  

It's also simply to break the unnecessary OCD habits pianists have that don't actually help.  Again, there's a point of limiting returns within the same day.  

EDIT:

He explains the basic gist here with more depth:
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=4710.msg44538#msg44538

EDIT 2:

There was also a study that confirmed the basic gist behind the method. 

https://cml.music.utexas.edu/assets/pdf/DukeEtAl2.pdf

Researchers evaluated pianists on their ability to learn 3-measure passage from Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1, and measured differet aspects of their practice behavior and how it impacted a performance trial. 


Practicing longer didn’t lead to higher rankings.

Getting in more repetitions had no impact on their ranking either.

The number of times they played it correctly in practice also had no bearing on their ranking.


What did matter was:

How many times they played it incorrectly. The more times they played it incorrectly, the worse their ranking tended to be.
The percentage of correct practice trials did seem to matter. The greater the proportion of correct trials in their practice session, the higher their ranking tended to be.

[verqueue]

This 7*20 practice reminds me about interleaving practice.

[falala]

There was also a study that confirmed the basic gist behind the method. 

https://cml.music.utexas.edu/assets/pdf/DukeEtAl2.pdf

Researchers evaluated pianists on their ability to learn 3-measure passage from Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1, and measured differet aspects of their practice behavior and how it impacted a performance trial. 


Practicing longer didn’t lead to higher rankings.

Getting in more repetitions had no impact on their ranking either.

The number of times they played it correctly in practice also had no bearing on their ranking.


What did matter was:

How many times they played it incorrectly. The more times they played it incorrectly, the worse their ranking tended to be.
The percentage of correct practice trials did seem to matter. The greater the proportion of correct trials in their practice session, the higher their ranking tended to be.

I haven't read the study yet, but I find that EXTREMELY interesting as it confirms a conclusion about practising that I've long held. Most people vastly underestimate how damaging playing things INcorrectly actually is. I say to my students: It's a simple formula: Your ability to play the passage = the number of times you've played it correctly MINUS the number of times you've played it incorrectly. So if you're practising too fast to really control what you're doing and you play it five times wrong, followed by eventually playing it once right, then the nett result of your practice has been negative. You THINK that you've done something positive because the final time that you played it right was accompanied by the INTELLECTUAL recognition that that was the "right" one. But your muscles don't know that: they just know that they've done one thing five times and a different thing once. When they go to play the passage the next day, it will be the thing they've done five times that they remember.

If you play it wrong five times, you need to then play it right at least six times before you even START to reap any positive benefit. Or better still, don't play it wrong five times in the first place. Slow it down, and analyse what you're doing so you play it right. Then keep rehearsing that, and only that.

[anamnesis]

I haven't read the study yet, but I find that EXTREMELY interesting as it confirms a conclusion about practising that I've long held. Most people vastly underestimate how damaging playing things INcorrectly actually is. I say to my students: It's a simple formula: Your ability to play the passage = the number of times you've played it correctly MINUS the number of times you've played it incorrectly. So if you're practising too fast to really control what you're doing and you play it five times wrong, followed by eventually playing it once right, then the nett result of your practice has been negative. You THINK that you've done something positive because the final time that you played it right was accompanied by the INTELLECTUAL recognition that that was the "right" one. But your muscles don't know that: they just know that they've done one thing five times and a different thing once. When they go to play the passage the next day, it will be the thing they've done five times that they remember.

If you play it wrong five times, you need to then play it right at least six times before you even START to reap any positive benefit. Or better still, don't play it wrong five times in the first place. Slow it down, and analyse what you're doing so you play it right. Then keep rehearsing that, and only that.

The only caveat about that for me is how the student does the slow practice.  When you are doing   a slow practice that allows you to feel the flow and continuity of both the music and your physical self, it's wonderful.  But there's also a "note-by-note, neurotic" slow practice that doesn't see the forest for the trees so to speak, and to me that is just another form of incorrect practice.  
This usually occurs when the student is attempting something they don't really have the musical or reading/conceptual chops for currently.    

[perfect_playing]

Thanks for the responses. Yes, of course I figure out how I want to interpret my pieces. I'm not asking for someone to spell out how to interpret pieces etc.

All I'm saying is that after reading a lot of his posts, it struck me that he has a strong emphasis on technique and mastering the basic fundamentals of pieces, and that I couldn't find many of his posts delving into the deeper aspects of piano playing.

I'll search through his Baroque posts for more insights, I haven't read much of those.

[faulty_damper]

Bernhard doesn't elaborate much on developing musicianship/musicality.  The only thing that is suggested is to listen to superb musicians' performances.  Then, and this is just as important, listen to bad performances.  The ability to compare and contrast is what allows for the development of judgement; i.e. to be able to discriminate good and bad, right and wrong.  Without this ability and skill, you can't develop musicianship to a high level.  As a result, anything that sounds like music is considered good; e.g. all the notes were played at about the right tempo would be accepted as music.  But that's not what music is about.

Just like language is about ideas, music is also about ideas. Learning those ideas requires connecting aural stimuli to emotional response.  Emotion is inherent to music.  Listening, and performing, is not an intellectual endeavor; it is an emotional one.  The stronger the connection between emotion and sound, the greater the ability to understand music.  The greater the understanding, the more likely that understanding can be expressed.