When I was in graduate school, a friend of mine (I’ll call her “M”) asked me to come into her practice room to listen to her play through a piece she was working on. As I was following along in her music, I noticed that she had dates written neatly throughout the score, every few lines. When M finished her [quite impeccable] play-through, I asked her what the dates meant. She said, “Oh, those dates? That’s how I learn a piece. I decide ahead of time how much I plan to memorize in a specific day and then I just follow that plan.”
At the time I was totally blown away, because I just couldn’t imagine being that orderly in my own practice. When I practiced I was always so aware of the volume of music I wanted to or needed to learn, and, while not totally chaotic, I operated in a mode that reflected urgency rather than forethought and planning. I always felt behind, and when I tried to set daily goals like M had, it felt contrived and unrealistic, and besides, I was always aware of the pile of other music waiting for me to practice it.
Meanwhile, years later, this is exactly how I work. I think M was way ahead of me on that, and I thank her for planting that seed. Here’s how I set practice goals and apply the method I learned from my friend back then to my own practice today.
Practicing is project management
Learning to practice well is basically project management. The process of bringing any piece from sightreading it to performance level is one big, multi-step, long-term project that requires planning.
I used to have much less clarity and focus in the practice room. It was easy for time to fly by and I didn’t always have much to show for all that time. I made progress, sure, but often there were feelings of anxiety or exhaustion that seemed to be the inevitable byproduct of that progress.
Over the years my practicing has become more and more focused, and I think one factor has to do with improving my project management skills, which inevitably leads to a discussion of goal-setting.
Goal-Setting 101: Process vs. Outcome goals
It is worth making the distinction between PROCESS goals and OUTCOME goals. An outcome goal is a goal that focuses on a specified result, such as losing X pounds in a certain amount of time. A process goal is a goal that focuses on a certain habit or behavior that, done consistently, will inevitably trend toward a desired outcome, such as exercising 30 minutes a day.
A process goal is a behavior-based goal that you can track and have control over. For example, you can’t predict that you will absolutely lose a certain amount of weight, no matter what actions you take. In fact, an attempt to achieve a specific number on the scale could actually lead to counter-productive habits, such as over-exercising or extreme dieting. On the other hand, cultivating the habit of daily exercise may or may not lead to losing a certain number of pounds, but it will lead to overall improved health.
However, with practicing, it’s not always productive to only focus on a process goal. For example, if my “process goal” is to practice X amount of time per day, that doesn’t guarantee that I will actually IMPROVE. I might sit at the piano for that amount of time but not use it effectively.
So, in my own goal-setting around practicing, I set outcome goals in combination with process goals, and I revisit them on a weekly basis.
My PROCESS goal is to show up at the instrument and practice daily, regardless of how busy, tired, or not-in-the-mood I am. My OUTCOME goals are specific benchmarks I want to achieve on each piece in the amount of time I have.
Combining process goals with outcome goals really helps me use my practice time well, because it gives me a crystal-clear understanding of what I am planning to get out of each practice session.
The 18-Week “Year”
In my last post, I described how I break the semester down into an 18-week “year” with four distinct segments. (I reached the 18-week figure because, in addition to the 14 weeks of instruction, there are two weeks of prep prior to the beginning of the semester, and two weeks of exams and concluding activities at the end.) By dividing the 18-weeks into two 9-week segments, and then further into 4 weeks + 5 weeks, I come up with four distinct periods (I call them “sprints”) in each semester, which greatly helps for planning purposes.
Ironically, even though I am a university PIANO professor, I have to be extremely targeted in my practice goals; this job keeps me busy teaching, answering emails, taking part in meetings, organizing projects, etc. I have found that if I wait until I have time, I won’t actually “find” the time to practice!
How I Set Practice Goals: A 5-Step Method
Here is my 5-step process for scheduling my own practice goals.
Step #1: Constrain and decide.
Pick 1-3 learning goals that you want to accomplish by the end of the time period.
The trick to effective goal-setting is to constrain your options. If you have a big stack of music to learn, it’s tempting to try to focus on all of it at once. Even when I have a long list of music to learn and am feeling time pressure, I find it most effective to have one “front-burner” piece at a time. This is also what I advise my students.
So, look at your music and decide what 1-3 outcomes you intend to accomplish by the end of this sprint.
Here are my learning goals for this current 4-week sprint, which started for me last Monday, on August 16th:
- My #1 repertoire goal at the moment is to learn the Bach E Minor Partita. I have started it, but I still have several movements to learn.
- In addition, I have a solo performance on September 10, the last day of this 4-week sprint, and I need to re-learn the music for that. I am planning to play two works by Debussy: Pagodes from Estampes, and L’Isle joyeuse.
- And I have three pieces I need to learn for a chamber music performance later in September. I have received the music for one of them, and am waiting for the other two scores.
Step #2: Divide by week.
Break each goal down by week.
It’s exceeding helpful to know how long it takes YOU to learn certain kinds of material, and what you CAN do in a practice session. The way to figure it out is by logging your practice time in a practice journal. Over time, you will be able to start accurately estimating how long a certain project will take.
I have kept a practice journal since I was in college, so by now I have developed a good sense of how much music it is realistic to expect to memorize in one day, or approximately how many total hours it will take me to learn a brand new piece.
If you aren’t sure, just take your best guess, and at the end of the week you can adjust your plan for the next week based on what you learned.
Here is my weekly breakdown for each of my goals in this 4-week sprint:
- Week 1: Bach: Memorize Corrente, review Air, Gavotte and Gigue. Debussy: memorize half of Pagodes.
- Week 2: Bach: Memorize Allemande, review Air, Gavotte, Gigue and Corrente. Debussy: finish memorizing Pagodes, memorize L’Isle joyeuse.
- Week 3: Bach: Memorize Toccata, review Air, Gavotte, Gigue, Corrente and Allemande. Debussy: Performance preparation
- Week 4: Bach: Learn Sarabande, Debussy: Polish and do play-throughs in preparation for performance at the end of that week. Start the music for the collaborative recital in September.
Step #3: Perform.
Add weekly performance goals.
Performance goals are really important, and accelerate the learning process.
I am committing to posting a video of something on Facebook at the end of each week.
- Week 1: Bach: Air and Gavotte (done!)
- Week 2: Debussy: Pagodes
- Week 3: Bach: Gigue
- Week 4: Recital in Goshen, IN: Debussy Pagodes and L’isle joyeuse
Step #4: Divide by day.
For the first week of your sprint, divide each piece out by day, so you know exactly what you will need to practice and accomplish that day.
Here are my goals for the first week, which ended yesterday:
- Memorize the Corrente from the Bach E Minor Partita.
- For this, I divided the piece into 6 sections and worked on memorizing one section per day.
- Review/consolidate the Air, Gavotte and Gigue from the Bach E Minor Partita.
- Memorize the last 4 pages of Pagodes
- Pagodes has 8 pages, so I planned to memorize the 2nd half last week.
- Play the rest of the partita and the other Debussy every day
- This is important in order to prime and prepare the other material to memorize
- Weekly performance goal: Record a play-through of the Air and Gavotte from the E Minor Partita on my phone and post on Facebook.
Step #5: Reassess and adjust.
At the end of each week, reassess and adjust. Divide the next week’s goals out by day based on this adjustment.
This is the second week of this current 4-week sprint, so yesterday I reflected on the goals I listed above. My goals for the upcoming week are as follows:
- Finish memorizing the Corrente, and Memorize the 2nd half of the Allemande from the Bach E Minor Partita
- Last week I didn’t quite make it back to the beginning of the Corrente (I usually memorize my music from the end), so I need to finish that up first. Then I’ll start on the Allemande. This will involve dividing into sections and memorizing one per day from the end, just as I did for the Corrente this week.
- Review/consolidate the Gigue and Corrente.
- I recently memorized both of these movements, but they need daily practice to solidify the memory work I have done thus far.
- Memorize the rest of Pagodes
- Memorize L’isle joyeuse
- I have performed both of these Debussy pieces before, so it takes much less time to re-learn them than if I were starting them from scratch.
- Play the other movements from the partita every day
- Even though I don’t spend a lot of time on them, I play them in order to prepare the ones I haven’t yet memorized and maintain the movements that are already memorized.
- Weekly performance goal: Record Pagodes on my phone at the end of the week and post on Facebook.
In conclusion…
Although it takes some time up front and you might be itching to just jump in and start practicing, setting specific goals for your practicing can really help you make steady, incremental, yet measurable progress on your pieces. Try taking this method and applying it to your own practice. Let me know how it goes!
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