To help bring everything together, here is an example illustration of a Superlearning-enhanced practice session. This would likely include jotting some things down, but most of what’s written below would actually be inner dialogue.
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- Plan: What am I going to practice today?
I’m going to work on:
- Improv for Summertime
- Retrieval for Chopin Nocturne
- ii-V-I chord voicings around the Circle of Fifths
- Start learning “Clean Slate” by the Mountain Goats for a YouTube cover
- Retrieval for Piano Man
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Gather my metronome, sheet music, iPad, voice(!), Circle of Fifths reference for ii-V-I, timer for interleaving.
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Reflect: I’m excited about how my new practice skills are helping me do so much more! Understanding Encoding and Retrieval, and using Interleaving really help.
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Plan: I’ll schedule out the session.
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Create interleaving schedule: A: 3 mins, B: 5 mins, C: 3 mins, then D, E, A, B
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Reflect: Looks like a good plan. I’m doing two Chopin retrievals because I’ve just started Retrieval Practice for that one. This whole schedule won’t take long, so I’ll do another cycle through it (after Reflecting).
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Plan: A: Narrow down Summertime to go deeper on the phrasing
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Play: 3 mins on Summertime first 4 bars, variations on the melody, call and response with voice and piano
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Reflect: Doing that long on just the first 4 bars really forced me to get creative!
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Plan: B. Retrieval Chopin Nocturne
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Play: Play through once, no stopping.
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Reflect: Well, that first retrieval had a lot of mistakes, but I know that’s to be expected as part of the Retrieval Practice process. It took some willpower not to repeat it!
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Plan: C. Evaluate what needs more work with ii-V-I
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Play: 5 minutes playing ii-V-I around the Circle, beginning in first inversion.
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Reflect: That only took a minute. I’m making more mistakes with the keys of B, F♯, D♭, and A♭. I think I need to focus on those.
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Plan: Keep working on this til the timer runs out, set the metronome to a slower tempo.
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Play: Go very slowly with the less familiar keys. Repeat at different slow tempos until the timer goes off.
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Reflect: They improved when I went slower. The fingerings are really the same—I just have to think a bit more about the notes until they’re more familiar.
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Plan: D: Let’s start the new song with Active Listening
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Play: 5 minutes listening to “Clean Slate” while looking at the lyrics, finding the verse and chorus, and noting anything else about the form.
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Reflect: There are repeating sections, but the section I might call the chorus has different lyrics each time. There’s an easy piano riff I can incorporate on my cover. Since there are so many lyrics and not much repetition, it’s going to take some memorisation effort.
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Plan: E: Retrieve “Piano Man”
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Play: Piano Man
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Reflect: Well that’s a little better than yesterday. Maybe this Retrieval Practice is working after all…
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Plan: B: Retrieve Chopin Nocturne
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Play: Chopin Nocturne
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Reflect: That’s also a little better. I’m going to leave it here and see how it goes tomorrow.
So far this session hasn’t taken long and I’ve accomplished quite a bit! I’m up for another round :)
- Plan: Do another round without the Retrieval segments, and make some modifications based on my initial reflections from the first round.
…
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By definition, every Superlearning-based practice session will be different to the last, but hopefully this illustration gives you a good sense of how varied and adaptable it can be, as well as how many opportunities there are to improve on the traditional “massed repetition” approach, keeping your brain fully-engaged and your learning at full throttle.
The Definition Of Insanity
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. And nowhere is that more true than music practice.
Clearly, this applies to the traditional “massed repetition” approach. Just playing through a piece again and again, hoping your mistakes will automatically disappear, is perhaps the least efficient practice method possible.
Before we wrap up though, I wanted to take a moment to emphasise that this principle also applies to your practice methodology as a whole. Meaning if you read through this chapter but then continue practicing the same way… that would be insane :)
Your practice habits may be deeply ingrained after years or even decades of learning. Don’t expect yourself to change them completely, overnight.
Another popular saying I like is:
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.
The second-best time is now.”
Take even a single one of the practice-changing concepts from this chapter, and start using it today.
We’ve packed a lot into this chapter. Don’t let that distract you from the fact that even if all you did was implement the Deliberate Practice cycle… or start using Contextual Interference whenever you hit a sticking point during practice… or start regularly using a metronome and/or audio recorder during music practice… you’ll be amazed at the difference.
Keep coming back to this chapter and adding new Superlearning tools and techniques to your practice toolkit, and you’ll be able to continually accelerate your learning speed. Soon that Big Picture Vision won’t seem so far away at all.