{"id":599,"date":"2015-05-09T11:47:02","date_gmt":"2015-05-09T09:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soniasvikt.org\/?p=599"},"modified":"2015-05-10T13:47:21","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T11:47:21","slug":"embrace-the-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.soniasvikt.org\/?p=599","title":{"rendered":"Embrace the Struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I did my research project about learning and practicing music, I learned that practicing\u00a0encourages the growth of layers of myelin around neural circuits. The myelination response is targeted to the neurons involved in the activity that you practice,\u00a0activated by repetition and by struggle. After the project I continued to read about\u00a0this topic, and really enjoyed the book, “Make It Stick” by Peter C. Brown<\/a>. He explains that learning is deeper and more durable when it is effortful. When learning is harder and slower it doesn’t feel as good, but when you work hard to recall a memory, you actually strengthen it. High school and university students like\u00a0highlighting and rereading textbooks, which is easy and feels good and gives them\u00a0the illusion of knowing something. But testing yourself, practicing retrieval, while it feels much slower and more difficult, is demonstrably more effective at strengthening the memory. The act of retrieving a memory changes the memory and makes it easier to recall it again.<\/p>\n

This is also applicable to the use of interleaved practice versus massed or blocked practice, which I\u00a0first learned about on The Bulletproof Musician blog site<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0discussed in my project<\/a>\u00a0writeup.\u00a0There is ample research in\u00a0various kinds\u00a0of learning that shows that the increased effort needed to remember after forgetting actually strengthens the memory. You don’t want so much forgetting that you have to relearn the material, just enough to increase the effort and struggle. But the forgetting is actually essential for the learning.<\/p>\n

I have found that tunes that I learn easily and quickly during class are quickly forgotten. Tunes that require more effort are easier to retain. Sometimes the technically difficult part that I had to practice more is the part that I remember best. Also, if I learn something from sheet music, my brain knows it is there on the sheet and doesn’t work\u00a0to keep the memory. Music I have learned by ear is much more likely to stick. I work to repeat new tunes every day or so until I\u00a0convert\u00a0them to long-term memory. First I\u00a0play the recording and play along. After\u00a0the tune memory gets stronger\u00a0I\u00a0play a few notes\u00a0of the recording and then play the tune on my own. Finally I am able to think of the whole\u00a0tune on my own from the name. I find that I can do this easily with some tunes, but that others take more work to recall. I practice recalling tunes from the list of names,\u00a0because now I know that this activity strengthens the memory and facilitates the retrieval of the memory.<\/p>\n

Key points are that:<\/p>\n