Practice only on the days you sleep!
Dr. Suzuki is known to have recommended to his students "Practice only on the days that you eat!" Of course, he is saying that he wants his students to practice every day except on a day when they are sick and they cannot eat something. As a pianist, the saying that works for me is "Practice only on the days that you sleep!" This is because memory and learning both happen during the period of sleep when the brain is filtering essential and non-essential information.
In very simple terms, there are two types of memory: short term and long term. While I am not a neuro-scientist, as an educator I am very interested in how learning takes place and how, as a pianist and a piano teacher, I can remember pieces by heart and help my students also learn music by heart. Young students retain much more easily than older students or adults, so I have been very interested in understanding the process of memorizing to help them learn.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/memory.html
As explained in this article, the process of information retreival is dependent upon the brain encoding the information in such a way that it can store and then retrieve it again. This process occurs during sleep. While a piano major at New England Conservatory, I would practice in the early morning, go to take classes, take a nap in the afternoon, and then practice again quite late into the evening. With the session of sleep in the afternoon, not only did that allow me more stamina to stay up late, but it also made it possible for my brain to process information from the first part of the day so that my evening practice would be even more productive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_and_memory
Sleep is very important to us. It is important for well-being and learning. During these times that our society is faced with many challenges, I have noticed the high stress level around me. Due to our very busy schedules and the very busy schedules of our children, people are not getting enough sleep. This is not productive in the long run, because not only is the work quality going to go down, it will also take longer. It will not be as efficient because the memory process is being hindered by lack of sleep. Similar to my laptop that slows down when the memory is full, we human beings slow down when we are tired.
During these days when sunlight is lessened and days are shortening, it is the best time to think about getting more sleep. We need to take advantage of breaks and rather than plan more activities, think about our own well being and that of our children by getting more sleep.
As this month is our "Listening Challenge" month, I recommend that students listen to the piece(s) they are learning right as they fall asleep. By listening in this calm state and right before sleep, perhaps the brain will "remember" all the notes and nuances of the piece with little effort by the student. I hope that everyone can try this experiment! Thus, getting into bed just a few minutes earlier and doing our listening every day may be an added bonus of getting more sleep!
- Sachiko
