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Five minute experiment

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Liz Garrett proposes an experiment: practice your music for 5 minutes every day for the month of June.

That still leaves open the question about how much difference 5 minutes will make, of course. From one perspective, you’d expect it to be largely ineffective, as it is an absurdly short time. You’re hardly even starting to get warmed up vocally in 5 minutes, let alone getting into that deep musical part of the brain. But from another perspective, it would still be infinitely more than not doing it, and so could make real and lasting changes. Just connecting with that part of the brain every day should slow down the loss of progress between rehearsals.

Obviously, this is aimed at volunteer singers, not music professionals. But we get a lot of singers who read ChoralNet, and you conductors have singers you could pass this idea on to. This is part of a larger post on the topic of what my wife calls “choral decay,” the forgetting which goes on between rehearsals. 
 
Although she didn’t mention it, Liz probably also needs a control group of people who don’t spend this five minutes, in order to make the comparison. But it’s not a real scientific experiment, just a what-if scenario, so the subjective reports of participants might suffice. Anyway, one possible result is that the participants get enough personal benefit from the experiment that they commit to making it a regular practice on their own initiative (cue song). That’s something you could try with your group any old time.
 
P.S. my daughter turns 18 today, officially out of my control (making de jure what was already de facto).

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  1. I insist my singers practice between rehearsals–one of my long time sopranos remarked a few weeks ago that our chamber choir was the only choir she EVER had to practice between rehearsals for–and she’s also a choral director!  My group is considered semi-professional–most singers have degrees in music and may even make their living from teaching music or directing their own choirs–but even so, it comes down to wanting to do more difficult things and that motivates then to practice.
     
    I decided to respect people and their time and I send a weekly practice email so they are not practicing EVERYTHING but can concentrate on portions.  I expect them to practice what we will be working on the next rehearsal or ask them to work on their part to correct mistakes.  We rehearse Tuesday nights and I send my email Thursdays–I have a day to decide what needs attention for the next rehearsal.  When we are in concert cycle mode–it’s practice, practice, practice–when we’re not, it’s not. 
     
    It has worked very well for four and half years and I think I would do this with other kinds of choirs as well.  If we want folks to practice, they have to know what to practice.  Then it is not so overwhelming and more appealing for them.  I respect their time by narrowing it down for them–adults have only so much time to devote to moi  and what I want from them! BTW I KNOW when my folks don’t practice and they almost always sheepishly confess in rehearsal–and apologize to the rest of the choir–they don’t want to bring the level down!
     
    Marie
     
    P.S. Congrads, Allen, on your daughter’s milestone.  Remember Mark Twain–“When I was 14, my Father was so ignorant.  When I was 21, I was amazed at how much the old man learned in seven years!” My “baby” is a member of ChoralNet, has his own choir, other jobs, car and apartment….but not his own Steinway.  He’ll be “visiting” tomorrow for the piano, food and laundry faciltiies–I won’t be washing, that’s for DARN SURE.  Ben wants my opinion about some music for his choir as well–he’s out of my control but likes Mom’s opinion now…and my cookies!

  2. Allen:  What your wife observes is simply a special case of something that is very well-known and very extensively studied in learning theory, and I’m sure that many controlled experiments have been conducted and reported.  Yes, learning does decay.  Learning does involve changes within the brain, although no one yet understands how it really works.  Therefore repetition (variously called drill, “reps,” practice, or sometimes just “rehearsal”) is necessary.  And the frequency and timing of that repetition is, as I recall, a crucial factor.  More repetitions over shorter time periods lead to better and more nearly permanent learning, and that goes for both physical and intellectual learning, although Liz makes a good point that sometimes physical learning requires a physical warmup period to prepare the body.
     
    We see that every week in college class schedules.  MWF classes have a maximum distance of 3 days between Friday and Monday classes.  TTh classes have 5 days between Thursday and Tuesday, and there’s a noticeable dropoff in retention.  If I remember correctly, at Indiana the ensembles met for one hour, 5 days a week, rather than for 2 hours on fewer days, and that was a better learning reinforcement schedule.  Meeting only once a week is probably the path to the slowest possible learning and retention.
     
    And the process of RE-learning has also been studied extensively.  What was once learned is re-learned more quickly than it was learned the first time, and that goes for both lab rats and humans!  And it comes into play in, for example, the preparation of yet another performance of “Messiah” or any other previously-learned work.
     
    There’s a word for what psychologists call a single success.  That is, a task is finally completed accurately ONCE.  That does not necessarily mean that it will be completed accurately a second time, or repeatedly, as every choir director knows.  Or as the saying (which I’ve heard attributed variously, but first heard in a theatrical context) goes, “An amateur practices until she can do it right; a professional practices until she cannot do it wrong!”
     
    And Lee is also correct.  Practicing what you can already do correctly doesn’t accomplish much of anything–it’s basically a warmup.  Practicing what you have had trouble with, on the other hand, can have measureable results.  (And of course practicing mistakes can make them permanent!!!)
     
    Basic Ed Psych.  Check your college textbooks.
     
    All the best,
    John

  3. Don McCullough used to say that you could use 5 or 10 minutes very efficiently if you mark your problem spots during rehearsal and focus immediately on them.  It doesn’t even take 5 minutes at the keyboard to make right something that just wouldn’t come off in rehearsal.

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