Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonprins | Hacker News Reader

Another problem with stopping and restarting with every mistake, is you learn to stop and restart when you make a mistake.

This makes it really, really awful if you're playing a recital and slip up just a tiny bit (obviously, you should practice it so you don't slip up /at all/, but let's be realistic here. Even people studying to be performance majors make mistakes in their recitals) - your first instinct would be to start the passage over, which is the /last/ thing you want to be doing.

It also makes it nearly impossible to play with a group.

View on HN

Yeah. My experience with playing (long long ago), as well as while practicing wrestling moves is that you need to do a mix of isolated, and complete practice. The mix depends on your proficiency, length involved, complexity, and some other contextual stuff. I could tell when I practiced just isolated elements too much because then my transitions would be obvious. In fact, having that mix will increase your engagement (which was his original point anyways).

But in my experience, the 4th criteria is by far the most important. Not only is it more effective, it's a hell lot more enjoyable.

> Another problem with stopping and restarting with every mistake, is you learn to stop and restart when you make a mistake.

The key is not making mistakes in the first place! Do slow practice on short passages. If you make a mistake then decrease the tempo (or play a shorter passage) until you can play it correctly. Repeat it until you can't do it wrong. Then increase the tempo.

http://www.public.asu.edu/~schuring/Oboe/practice.html

That's a good point, since the author was also making the point that practice should mirror the skill as closely as possible. In a real orchestra, if you make a mistake, you do NOT hesitate. You keep playing and hope not to make another. If all your practice has depended on being perfect, you have neglected a needed skill.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com