HOW VARIATIONS WITH REPETITIONS HELP YOU LEARN FASTER

 Each year brings us new and more advanced studies that seem to teach us how our brains grow and change. In the past, some common perceptions were changed because the results of many tests showed us a new and different result than what we expected and contrary to what we previously believed. One of these concepts is built into our approach to practice from the start which says - keep practicing. Keep playing the song or the scale or the chord as many times as you need until you finally get it. We believe that the only way to finally get something is to just drill it until it finally gels. Well, that is only partially true, the truth is that repeated action produces results, but we can achieve better results if we do variations with repetitions instead of repeating the same thing every time. In fact, when we master this skill, we can learn almost twice as fast in exactly the same time period, and it is really exciting.

Music teachers online suggest that if you practice a slightly modified version of a task you want to master, you actually learn more and faster than if you practice the same thing multiple times in a row. For example, you decide to learn the G major scale. You learn the key signature - F# and C#. Place your fingers on the correct notes and start playing the scale one note at a time. Now try to play with both hands together up and down the scale. You will observe as you reach 3rd octave, you miss that cross that comes back down. So now what? You play it, you slow it down and you can play better, but then you speed it up again and now your fingers missed again. How can that happen when you have played it ten times? Because to reinforce information and keep your brain alert and engaged with what, you have to repeat it over and over but in a different way.

Now try to play it with different tempos or added scrabbles or different note values and note anything you can think of to change the scale or section you are working with will work. The point is to do it differently. Choose a new way to say it and repeat it say five times. Then choose another way to play it and repeat it again the same way 5 times. Now see how you just played it 10 times but only repeated the same thing 5 times. Your brain remained active and much more engaged with repeated variations.

Research has shown that the results are better when the variations are subtle and easy to play rather than playing something so different that you barely recognize its sound. Even more interesting for those who still question this notion, best online piano lessons NYC also found that those who repeated the same actions without variations performed worse on the repeated actions than on the first ones which mean there was some fatigue or some sort of pause when the repetitive motion became comfortable. This method can be applied to any new scale, exercise or song you want to learn on the piano. It is surely a unique way to keep your brain engaged.