Sure, practicing the song you love for the 100th time might be fun and easy, but if you're not careful those easy songs might be stifling your ability to learn. Read on to find out how Tetris helped us learn that novelty can be used to supercharge your learning.
In an experiment in the early 90’s, Dr Richard Haier had participants, who had never played Tetris, play it for a few weeks. He found that after several weeks the participants’ brains “used more energy (glucose) during those training times, and bulked up in thickness—which means more neural connections, or new learned expertise…”
But here’s the thing, and the MAIN POINT of this blog post: After that initial explosion of cognitive growth, they noticed a decline in both cortical thickness, as well as the amount of glucose (energy) used during that task. However, they remained just as good at Tetris; their skill did not decrease.
This happened because, “Once their brain figured out how to play Tetris, and got really good at it, it got lazy. It didn’t need to work as hard in order to play the game well…” Put another way, their brains got more efficient.
Cognitive scientist Andrea Kuzsewski advises, “Efficiency is not your friend when it comes to cognitive growth,” This can be likened to how weight lifters must lift heavier weights to make gains. If the goal is to lift 300lbs, they need to progressively add a little bit more weight to their maximum lift in each training session.
To learn more about the Tetris experiment, watch this video of Dr Haier’s explanation.
You have to learn something new every once in a while, or risk your brain becoming efficient and paring away neural connections. As discussed in this blog post, more neural connections means faster learning and skill acquisition. The explosion of neural connections the Tetris players experienced happens to us all when we learn something new. Take advantage of this phenomenon and supercharge your music practice sessions. Read on for suggestions on how to get out of your comfort zone so you can learn music better and faster!
Less Time On Familiar, More Time on Unfamiliar
Spending time practicing music you already know is like spending time in familiar territory; you’ve seen it, experienced it, and you have probably learned everything from it that you can. However, when you spend time in an unfamiliar place, then EVERYTHING is new. Your brain will buzz with activity taking in all the new information. Every little detail is a new thing for your brain to adapt to.
Going back to the weight lifter analogy, you will not get stronger by lifting100lbs for the rest of your life, at some point, you need to lift at least 101lbs to make gains. After learning one song, MOVE ON to another, don’t spend too much time one any one song. To supercharge this concept, I highly recommend spending some time on music that is completely unfamiliar to you. If you mainly play metal guitar, learn a country or bluegrass solo. If you mainly play pop/rock give some disco tracks a try. Expand to music from other countries. I recently came across a middle eastern disco Spotify playlist that is absolute fire! There is so much to learn from all styles of music.
Learn Easy AND Difficult Music Simultaneously
Have some easy repertoire that you can nail in a day or two, AND some harder repertoire that will stretch your abilities and challenge you. Easy songs will keep you in a constant learning state, a "learning mood" - which you can then use to enhance time spent on learning difficult repertoire. Think of easy songs as warm-ups for your learning muscles.
Here is sample of how you might combine easy and difficult songs. Say you practice everyday for a week. In that one week you should be able to learn 1-5 easy songs (depending on your level), and a small part of, or one complete difficult song. The following week you will have a completely new batch of easy songs, and a new section of the previous week's difficult song.
Apply this principle to your weekly practice regimen. I would suggest starting with a ratio of 75/25 (easy/difficult). Having too much, or not enough difficult repertoire could be overwhelming or boring, so tailor the ratio as necessary.
As a personal example, I am currently learning pop and RnB songs from the 90’s on drums. I can typically learn one or two in a session. That repertoire is easy, fun, and has lots to teach about song structure and groove. For difficult repertoire, I play along with and/or analyze: soul and funk songs, bossa nova and Brazilian music, and dabble in metal and double kick pedal.
Non-Musical skills
Non-musical hobbies are an excellent way of keeping your brain in a state of heightened neural activity - maybe even better than practicing musical skills, in my opinion. Sports, martial arts, dancing, cooking, creative writing, carpentry, yoga, literally anything! Those skills will translate to your music practice. It also gives your brain a break from music which gives you time to consolidate what you learned. I highly recommend you keep a non-musical practice. Read this post, to learn a little bit more about how non-musical skills translate to musical gains.
Conclusion
Im going to let our friend Andrea Kuzsewski summarize this for us.
“In order to keep your brain making new connections and keeping them active, you need to keep moving on to another challenging activity as soon as you reach the point of mastery in the one you are engaging in. You want to be in a constant state of slight discomfort, struggling to barely achieve whatever it is you are trying to do.”
Get out there and make yourself uncomfortable, always be learning something new!
How do you keep your practice routine fresh? Share your strategies in the comments. Post your comments and suggestions in there too, or email me directly for personalized tips on keeping your practice uncomfortable ; )
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