Turning Music Learning on its Head

Lessons about learning, from cognitive science

An interesting book came out some time ago that summarized ten years of studies in the cognitive sciences about learning strategies. For some music students and teachers, the book might turn music learning on its head.  

Make It Stick:  The Science of Successful Learning, by Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, and Mark McDaniel outlines many findings that run counter to popular presumptions. For example, the time-honored notion of drilling a passage of music over and over until you master it is not actually a very good way to master it. It turns out that working in a focused way on one thing yields only temporary results, just as cramming for a test might help someone get by the next day, but if tested a week later, they are likely to have forgotten 50% and sometimes up to 80% of what they studied.

A better strategy than single-task practice is to spread out practice over spaced intervals. When you work on learning something until you almost get it, and then move on to something else, you learn a great deal by coming back to the first project. It appears that the effort of retrieving what was worked on previously reinforces memories in the brain, and builds a more durable skill than just going over it a bunch more times. On the other hand, going over and over the same thing tends to tire out the brain and limit actual learning and thinking, even though aspects of the task may seem more familiar the more times you see it.

When researchers compared repetition learning with mixing up the work, they found better short-term results for single-focus repetition, but in the long run, the mixed-study learners retained more than twice as much as the single-focus learners. (Mixed study is not to be confused with multitasking; it means focusing on different types of tasks in sequence.)

Maybe music students should not expect to master one exercise or one piece of music before moving on to the next. The research suggests that they might learn and retain more by working on several musical pieces and exercises, moving to a new piece before mastering the old one, and then coming back to review and improve the old one.  I have often found, as a teacher, that drilling one skill for too long at a lesson yields diminishing returns, whereas moving on to something else for a bit and coming back can work wonders  Not only does the variety help keep the work fresh, but working on a new piece of music often provides a useful perspective for improving the previous piece.

The amount of effort put into learning has a direct bearing on the results; i.e., those who practice more play better. But mindful practice is the key. While there is a limit to how much repetition the brain can handle, it appears to have unlimited energy for what is called elaborative learning — looking at a task from different angles, playing games with it, or breaking it up into meaningful parts. It seems to be especially effective to associate the skill you're learning with telling stories.

The Make It Stick book was written by two scientists in conjunction with a professional storyteller. They decided to practice what they preach by presenting their scientific work in the context of readable stories, varying the subject as they go along, and revisiting each topic several times from different angles.

Storytelling can be fun and can liven up any kind of learning process. I once had a student who drew a blank after playing a tune and had a hard time putting tunes together into a medley. But when she created a story, like a soundtrack, out of the tunes and the tune titles, she ended up having no trouble playing an incredibly long medley of 16 tunes by thinking of it as four parts of a story, with four chapters in each part.

Some students have told me they are visual learners, or auditory learners, or that some exercise doesn’t fit with their learning style. According to the book, cognitive scientists have found that people who insist on learning according to one style simply do not put in as much effort as those who are willing to work in a variety of ways, and as a result, they make slower progress. Some studies have even found that people who claim to require one learning style or another turn out to learn about as well in one style as another. Staying within their comfort zone may seem less stressful but it limits learning capacity.

One of the book's conclusions makes a strong case for why learners need a teacher — they found that learners are very poor judges of how well they’re doing. Students may prioritize less useful goals and believe they’re not getting anywhere when in fact they may be making good progress in areas that matter. A good teacher can keep the student on track at times when the student might otherwise be tempted to take an easier but less productive route. For example, someone obsessed over playing in tune may not value the progress they are making in timing, bowing, continuity — all skills that make a big difference in whether they can play with others.

One study the researchers did with some Harvard students argues pretty strongly for the benefits of being guided by a teacher. The students were shown that drilling one subject over and over can help them at first, but results in about 50% less retention of the subject matter later — and yet these intelligent students stubbornly chose to drill their way through one subject, simply because they got immediate results. A good teacher can guide students toward better learning in spite of themselves!

As a teacher and a musician, I have actually found it reassuring to know that according to cognitive science, it’s better to almost learn something, move on to something else, and then come back and continue working on it. This tells us that patience, persistence, playing mental games, and telling stories (whether writing words to a tune or turning the music into a personal soundtrack) can not only help us learn better and retain more, but can be a lot more fun along the way!