How Top Pianists Fix Mistakes

Duke, Simmons, and Cash watched 17 college piano majors learn the same three measures of a Shostakovich concerto. The pianists chose how to practice and how long to spend. The next day, each played the excerpt 15 times. In this study, neither total practice time nor the number of practice attempts was significantly related to next-day performance quality.

Only the three top-ranked pianists used all three of these strategies:

1. Pinpoint the error. Identify where it happens and what causes it, then rehearse the correction.
2. Adjust the tempo systematically. Slow down enough to play accurately, then increase the tempo in manageable steps.
3. Check that the correction holds. Repeat the passage and see whether the error returns on subsequent attempts.

The top three made mistakes early in practice, too. What stood out was how they handled those mistakes. For singing teachers, that raises a question. How often do students get to watch us work through a problem and check whether our correction holds?

Chapters

00:00 What makes practice effective?
00:36 Assigning a task or assigning minutes
01:07 The Shostakovich excerpt and next-day test
01:46 How the performances were ranked
02:39 Three strategies the top pianists used
03:12 What happened after early mistakes
03:28 Practice time and number of attempts
03:41 Teaching students to correct mistakes

Study

Duke, R. A., Simmons, A. L., & Cash, C. D. (2009). It’s Not How Much; It’s How: Characteristics of Practice Behavior and Retention of Performance Skills. Journal of Research in Music Education, 56(4), 310–321.

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