AN ITERATIVE PROCESS

It's no surprise that music, like life, is an iterative process. The Merriam Webster dictionary says that "Iterative" means a process "involving repetition: such as expressing repetition of a verbal action utilizing the repetition of a sequence of operations or procedures."

According to Noa Kageyama, Julliard psychologist and expert in musical performance, learning theory and technique, iteration has a much different and larger meaning that does not involve repetition alone.

Repetition while practicing one's musical instrument, without more, can and does easily lead to the disaster of baking mistakes into one's muscle memory and expectations. I know; I've been there, got the t-shirt and still make mistakes when it comes to certain pieces or parts of pieces even though by now I've practiced or played them for years.

I laughed when my AI assistant first created the image on the right as "iteration moving forward!" The image at the top resulted after about the tenth try, and was finally representative of Noa's definition. AI is not quite there image-wise, yet...

I hope someday Noa will address just how to backtrack if that cake is already baked. How does one start over? But that's a topic for another day.

Today's blog involves the conclusions of trumpeter Michal Dillon as interviewed by Noa on March 8. You can also read a related but more detailed discussion by two other researchers, here.

For musicians, iteration includes incremental improvement as one moves forward in practice and performance. One needs to repair the errors as one goes along, not just repeat them!

I remember my second piano teacher advising me of that fact and urging me not to tolerate the same mistake more than one or two times before fixing it.

Easier said than done. The key is to know what to do, and then do it!

If one wants to improve, the first step is to realize that "musical expertise is not merely a product of error reduction but also of perceptual and conceptual expansion—musicians learn to hear more, expect more, and therefore improve more."

Second, errors should be thought of not as mistakes or failure, and not even as places of weakness to be "fixed." They should be thought of as "discrepancies between intentions and outcomes. It's a matter of proper framing, as the linguist George Lakoff might say.

Perception is one critical element. Expert musicians develop the speed and accuracy of their perception of an error, or an impending error, and one typical response is said in the above research to be to slow down finger movement upon approaching a troublesome passage. Just how one does that without distorting the tempo, remains to be seen!

But all expert musicians start with a clear idea of what they intend to produce and what they hear when they do not do that. They learn to identify errors with respect to what they want to accomplish. As someone said, if you don't know where you are going (the goal), then anywhere is just fine.

I used to think that finding and then listening to my favored professional musician's YouTube performance and trying to imitate that, was the answer. I also believed that just imitating my teacher modeling the proper nuance, tone, dynamics and tempo of a piece I wanted to learn, was the answer.

Neither seems to be so. "(As) developing musicians gain experience, they develop increasing levels of auditory discrimination and clearer goals for their playing."

I know that I first learned how to produce phrasing, after hearing my teacher play the piece I was studying. It was if the morning sun had just popped over the horizon of understanding and in an instant! I heard phrasing in action for the first time, and immediately thereafter was able to replicate it, albeit somewhat awkwardly to start. It only took a week of practicing for my teacher to say I had basically got the concept and was making it happen. I was thrilled!

I'm now convinced that listening to credible others helps initially to inculcate a proper model of what to audiate and listen for during one's practice, but it is not the be all and end all.

The next key to fixing errors during practice is to immediately stop when an error occurs, not just continue on to the end of the piece. Expert musicians make one or two errors and then stop. They may slow the passage down, reduce it to only a few notes, separate the hands, or all of the above until they fix the problem. Then slowly they add incrementally to the correct phrase, letting success build upon itself.

Of course, that assumes a certain basic understanding of the agreed-upon parameters within which one can interpret a score and experiment to find ones "own interpretation." Maintain those protocols and principles of the musical craft and genre, and one will apparently be considered a credible musician.

In sum, what I took away from this information is that "goal-oriented planning, strategic adaptation, and reflection are essential components of the self-regulatory behavior associated with effective practice."

ITERATION IN THE WORLD OF PIANOS AND LIFE

(from Vol II Poetical Musings on Pianos, Music & Life)

Life is an iterative* process.

We try, we learn, we try again,

each try just one step closer

to the perfection we imagine.

This process inheres in the musical world

for practice or presentation–

none are perfect from the start

if we fall prey to distraction.

The choice is ours to make

to get back on the horse,

or nurse our wounds or sit and sulk

or blame someone, of course.

’Tis grace we know, and good fortune, too,

that contribute to how we fare,

our powder kept dry even though we cry

still needs that basic flare.

It’s effort’s required and patience, too,

with allegiance to eternal hope,

but remember iteration and then we know

with all else we can cope!

_______

*Inspired when my therapist, Cary Ann Rosko, listening to

me lament the months it took to publish my first poetry

book, commented that publishing is an “iterative” process.

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