The Spot method

[SDL]

I read this on www.PracticeSpot.com.  This seems like a good idea but Im dubious - if someone played through many times until they find their weaknesses they could end up practicing these wrong notes in.  Read below tell me what you think:

Start from the beginning of the piece. As soon as you make your very first mistake - however slight - you need to stop, and then put a small spot above the exact place in the music where the mistake occurred. Not just the exact bar, the exact beat too.

Then start playing again, but this time from where you stopped. Keep going until your next mistake. Then put another spot. Start again from there, and so on. You're not trying to fix anything - you're just recording where problems are.

Once you get to the end of the piece, go back to the beginning and do it again. For this method to work properly, you will want to cycle through the whole piece half a dozen times, stopping and putting spots every time something goes wrong.

After six times right through, look at the music.. Some of the bars will have spots above them and some won't. Some will look as though they have measles. They are the sections that you need to practice first, and practice the hardest.

Spot free sections you probably don't need to practice at all.

That's all. Simple, but very revealing

[xvimbi]

I don't see a big flaw in that method. I actually think that many people indirectly work in this way. However, they do not stop when they make mistakes, and they won't put physical spots on their scores. They make mental notes where the problems are. So, the stops are reduced to zero, and the dots are mental. If one is acute, one will have identified the trouble spots after playing through a piece a couple of times. I think, putting dots on the score is a tool for those who don't yet have that type of memory required for remembering where the problems were.

[marialice]

It looks like a nice method. Actually, I've tried something similar with Latin vocabulary. Every time I had to look up a word in the vocabulary list I put a dot behind it. Every once in a while I would go through the whole list and relearn all the dotted words.

A big difference between Latin and piano though is that I didn't ingrain mistakes. Therefore I wouldn't use this method on a new piece, but wait until it only needs some polishing (and mark not only mistakes but all little things that could use some polishing).

[Torp]

My initial thoughts are that I basically agree with the intent of the exercise but I think the exercise itself could cause some potential problems.

First, if every time you come to a part and make the same mistake and stop you are ingraining into your mind a pause/stop at that point in the music.  After playing through the piece 6 times, it's going to take a while to overcome the urge to just stop at the point.

I agree with xvimbi that most people probably do something similar to this anyway, either consciously or unconsciously.  I think the point about NOT stopping is actually an important one.

I'm not sure I personally like the idea of marking the score where I've had a problem, especially 6 times.  This marking would seem to visually reinforce to me that I can't play a particular part well and I feel it would create an unnecessary mental block in the future.

Having said all of this, I think it is critically important to identify the parts of a piece that are the most technically challenging.  The way I do this is by analyzing the score prior to going to the piano.  This analysis includes what I think will be the most advantageous fingering.  Usually during this phase I start to get a pretty good feeling for what parts of the piece will present some challenges.  I make note of those measures.  When I go to the piano to check the fingering I usually make no real attempt to "Play" the piece, I'm checking to see if the fingering I had come up with makes sense.  Often times this will either confirm that the parts I thought would be challenging are indeed challenging, or sometimes it shows that the music has a particular flow at that point that makes it less challenging then I thought.

Anyway, I guess I'm rambling now.

Jef

[pianobabe56]

Very impressive ramblings, though... ^_~

[tocca]

My initial thoughts are that I basically agree with the intent of the exercise but I think the exercise itself could cause some potential problems.

 I think the point about NOT stopping is actually an important one.

Agree 100%!

This was a big problem for me when younger. I used to always stop whenever i played something wrong when i practised. I restarted, either from that bar or from the beginning until i got that part right...
I did this for a long time, until i got a new teacher... around age 12 or so.
It didn't took long before she noticed this behaviour of mine and told me to never stop at a mistake but play on as it didn't happen... just like you would in a performance.

It took me quite some time getting rid of this habit, actually even today i sometimes feel the urge to stop!
Well, the result was that i was much more secure during performances! Doing a small mistake didn't throw me off nearly as much as it did before.

Make a mental note of a problem area, play on and then practise that spot afterwards... my 2 cents.

[will]

Agree 100%!

This was a big problem for me when younger. I used to always stop whenever i played something wrong when i practised. I restarted, either from that bar or from the beginning until i got that part right...
I did this for a long time, until i got a new teacher... around age 12 or so.
It didn't took long before she noticed this behaviour of mine and told me to never stop at a mistake but play on as it didn't happen... just like you would in a performance.

It took me quite some time getting rid of this habit, actually even today i sometimes feel the urge to stop!
Well, the result was that i was much more secure during performances! Doing a small mistake didn't throw me off nearly as much as it did before.

Make a mental note of a problem area, play on and then practise that spot afterwards... my 2 cents.

Agreed, as I too have had this experience. If you stop everytime you make a mistake you may develop a stutter. I found it quite difficult to break this habit.

[SDL]

Thanks for your replies.  My sentiments entirely!