Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner The Research Thread -- Fight Ignorance Today!

So, I haven't dedicated nearly as much of my life to piano as most of the individuals here have. In my case, however, I've dedicated the majority of my life to science; and that is indeed the field where I've had most of my education thusfar. I've focused relatively heavily on motor learning and cognition throughout my education and the research I've done to date, so I'm relatively familiar with the key papers and ideas.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a profound gap between science and the arts; some of the posts I see here are, quite frankly, shockingly contrary to the principles of motor learning that have been researched over the last few decades. I'm sure the posts are good-willed, but I felt a pang of sadness reading the thread about the book "The Talent Code".

So, I will use this thread - assuming people are interested - to regularly post important research relevant to piano playing or acquisition of motor skills in general. There's plenty of research that should be able to help you take your learning up a notch!

If anyone has anything specific they would like me to look into, just let me know.

Musicians’ Practice Strategies and Retention of Motor Skills
Duke et. Al, 2004

So, let's start with something simple and straightforward. Common sense to some, but hopefully others will find this helpful. Duke et. Al, 2004 conducted a study on effective practice habits. A group of advanced pianists were carefully observed during acquisition, and the details of their practice habits were recorded.

The factor most indicative of a high level of performance during a subsequent retention test was the number of complete, error-free performances of the material during practice. The method of practice was found to have be dependent on the the practice methods employed, not the total amount of practice time.

*A retention test is a standard method test of measuring performance, where participants go a few days without practicing the target material, at which point they are tested. (This is done because fast learners often tend to be fast forgetters – I'll cover this point some other time!)

Furthermore, Simmons et al noted specific practice habits that were correlated with faster rates of acquisition:

“1. Playing is hands-together early in practice
2. Playing is with inflection early on; the initial conceptualization of the music is
with inflection
3. Practice is thoughtful, as evidenced by silent pauses while looking at the music,
singing/humming, making notes on the page, or expressing verbal “ah-ha”s
4. Errors are preempted by stopping in anticipation of mistakes
5. Errors are addressed immediately when they appear
6. The precise location and source of each error is accurately identified, rehearsed,
and corrected
7. Tempo of individual performance trials is systematically varied; logically
understandable changes in tempo occur between trials (slow down enough; do not
speed up too much)
8. Target passages are repeated until the error is corrected and the passage is
stabilized, as evidenced by the error’s absence in subsequent trials
9. When tempo is changed, the first trial at the new tempo is accurate
10. After the initial learning phase errors are intermittent (no persistent errors)
11. At least 20% of all starts are complete, correct performances, though not
necessarily at the target tempo “
-Quoted from Simmons (2007)

As far as I know, this article cannot be found online, so I don't have a link; sorry!

If interest is shown, I'll be updating with research fairly regularly – there are so many fascinating things that have been found! Unfortunately, rarely reaches the public eye.

A correlation between a set of practice habits and a high level of performance doesn't prove, or even imply, causation.

Steven

Very interesting. I'd very much appreciate your continuing to post on this subject. However, as a scientist myself, I must say that I am uneasy accepting information from a source that I cannot verify and information that gives no reference to sample size, how the information was gathered and by whom, etc.

And Steven has made a good point.

Interesting topic.

Thanks.

This statement by Steven has to be absolutely true. A pianist with good practice habits which cause him to completely master a piece cannot possibly guarantee a high level of performance.

Love this thread though, fascinating stuff here.

Zarathustra,

Thank you for starting this thread. Please continue with this type of information.

As a request, I'm not sure if this is within your area of expertise or not, but if you could review the research that has led to the claim that experts in general seem to have a minimum of 10,000 hours of experience in their fields. The books that I have read refer to Anders Ericsson's works for this result.

Thanks
Rich

I wouldn't trust all science. Science can only go so far, but the rest is to believe in God. When people say "Science has proven", it doesn't necessarily mean its proven. After all, many of the experiments that have been used for the last few centuries might be in fact: wrong. God created a world where nobody could figure out how the universe worked. Only God knows how the Universe works.

Or, because nobody could figure out how the universe worked, man created a god. This is a slippery slope, and not a conversation you want to have here.

Steven

Oh please let's not go there. Science is not about "trust". It is not about belief or convictions. Good science never "proves" anything. It merely states "this is the weight of the repeatable evidence" and "I am open to new ideas if you show me repeatable evidence to the contrary."

Let's not go on a tangent that will ruin an excellent thread. The topic is about scientific studies and their results.

Yes, the opposite might be true. But I don't want to be an atheist.

I heard Mozart and Liszt practiced 10 hours a day to reach their goal.

Please keep this thread up Zarathustra. What have you got on Libet et al? Mirror neurons? I'm reading how the body shapes the Mind.

Correlation is, ultimately, the only method of attempting to demonstrate causation. If I were to push a ball, it would be expected to roll, as my action is the causal agent to the ball's motion. However, the only rationalization we have for labeling my hand as the causal agent is the correlation between my actions and the creation of motion (the ball, in this case) as demonstrated in all past occurrences where my actions caused motion; no intrinsic causal relation exists. Thus, correlation is our only tool; it's just a matter of how strong the correlation is.

I wish there was a training-intervention study on these issues, but, this is precisely the problem with research into the fine arts. There is not one piece of research (I have searched thoroughly) that addresses acquisition of piano using modern paradigms of skill acquisition, so the moderate correlation I presented is the best I have; and, I think, considerably better than having no information at all.

Usually, a correlation observation is what prompts further consolidation of an issue so I hope we can look forward to some more interesting research in the future.

Also, just as a note, the correlations are similar to what is obtained in other research, I just thought this was the most comprehensive one.


Aha- I left that information out under the assumption that the majority of individuals would be more interested in the general point rather than the scientific details. I'm glad to have another science enthusiast here! I have in my notes (from a research project I did a while back) there were 17 participants. From memory, it was 2 weeks(don't quote me on this), practice was completely unregulated. I guess I should have chosen an article that I actually have a copy of, I suppose; next time I shall do so. There are a host of other studies on general practice habits (honestly though, most of them pretty much common sense), I actually have a thorough review of them lying around if you would like me to dig it up for you.


I've read about it, definitely! Did you know that, the average number of hours it takes youth to reach Grade 8 ABRSM is (postulated to be) 3300 hours of 'deliberate practice'? Surprisingly, there wasn't much individual variation between the group of “highly talented” pianists and the group of average pianists. This implies that implies “innate talent” might not be all it's hyped to be, so get practicing! I might have some more to say about this later.


Libet! I always bring him up when I'm having a debate about free will. I saw Kreisler mention mirror neurons in another thread, so it seems like a hit; I might put up some info about them. I can't think of anything specifically related to piano though; if nothing comes up after some searching either, I might just present some general principles. As for the book, it actually looks pretty interesting. I need to get my head of the journals on day and read some real books.

Zarathustra: Great stuff! Now would you kindly give us the complete references for Duke et al (2004) and Simmons (2007) so we can look them up in the library? Thanks!

RA Duke, CM Davis, AL Simmons - 2004 - Texas Music Educators Conference, San Antonio, Texas
--Unfortunately, I don't know how easy it will be to find.
At least people are interested (or skeptical) enough to want more; I chose this article without the expectation that people would want to read the full paper.

Simmons (2007) can be found here; a brief summary of Duke et al (2004) including the quote I provided can be found on page 20.
https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2007/simmonsa70222/simmonsa70222.pdf

As others have said, this is probably not something you want to bring up since we have a wide range of beliefs here.

I would assert, however, that there is no contradiction as you implied. The two are, in fact, in harmony: One must presuppose a priori the axiomatic foundations that enable human inquiry - not themselves subject to the methods of scientific positivism - before any such inquiry.

Where scientific positivism falls short is in its rather naive (and often rather smug) application of its methods to areas better addressed under the rubric of philosophy. Can science alone ("measurable, observable, repeatable") explain the good, the true, the beautiful?

Interesting thread, BTW.

Only as a working hypothesis though, let's not get carried away!

Re: Libet et al, I think his flaw was to not factor in the time to process visual stimuli i.e. the big clock. If subjects had timed themselves with aural cues I can't help thinking the 350ms would have disappeared. I learnt from experience that aural cues are processed far quicker, it's an interesting observation which has relevance for music cognition.

As for mirror neurons, I think it validates the old 'He cannot move others who is not moved himself' theory.

But, on the other hand, it may just as well imply that Grade 8 ABRSM might not be all it is hyped to be.

This thread is interesting, and I do like learning about the research that is going on, so I hope it goes for a while.

Nevertheless, I still find that what gets measured and studied is what is convenient to get measured and studied. Said differently, I find that the very idea of talent is getting redefined in this area so that it refers to skills, and not to artistry. Art is apparently extremely inconvenient to measure, relative to skill. But in music, in the end, what I actually care about is the art, not the skill, even if having huge skill is pretty much a prerequisite (although not always).

Not that I can't get off on skill for its own sake, but that's a completely different issue.

I'm happy to see Bob Duke's work get some attention here on the forums. He's one of the top researchers in music ed today and his work is widely read and and subjected to rigorous scrutiny by the editorial boards for the journals in which he publishes.

Trust me, Duke knows his statistics, and his studies always include the relevant data on sample size, correlation patterns, and experimental design.

He is often published in JRME, a journal many here would do well to read, and you can learn more about him here:

http://www.music.utexas.edu/directory/details.aspx?id=36