Does anything beat distributed practicing?

[Bob]

Distributed vs. mass.

There are some times when you want to cram in mass exposure, and you can make progress that way.  (Not 'not studying' and then cramming for something like a test, but just solely focusing on one thing.)  In that case, I think you can get more depth that way.

And distributing practicing can emphasize the positive and negative, negative being potential injury.

Are there other cases (or concerns) when "less, more often" (distributed) doesn't win out over massed?

[dcstudio]

right before I would go in and accompany in a performance situation I would run through my music for or five times...usually I had time between students to do it for everyone,   sometimes that would be the only time I practiced--when I compared recordings of music I had prepared and stuff I ran through 4-5 times directly before performing--the stuff I hadn't prepared sounded better--I realize there could be many reasons for that...but   it seemed to work better, for me--because I blew off a lot of distributed practice opportunities in favor of the future cram sessions

To much time practicing for accomp gigs...just cuts into the money you make so most figure out how to get by with minimal preparation.. not a great attitude--but business is business

[josh93248]

I kind of think you should do both kinds. Distributed to build up pieces and Massed to fix serious problems and delve deeply into choices and the musicality of the composition.

[Bob]

Massed... for varying things and for a push.