i am not a singer but have social anxiety. ive been micromanaging my voice for the longest time which has led to much pain. this concept of external focus may have saved my life. only found out about it yesterday but its a promising start
This is brilliant. It validates the intuitive wisdom of my voice teacher, who taught me to focus on the sound I produced and notice when the sound was what I wanted.
Thank you so much! Yes, so much of what science has found validates what so many music teachers have figured out intuitively! It's nice to have data to back up what we often already know. :)
your videos are so interesting! I've been adjusting my practice routine based on what I've learned from them and after only like a week I'm noticing faster improvement, and making progress on some things I'd hit a wall with. Thanks for posting this awesome info! I'm recommending your channel to all my musician friends.
My thought through a lot of this kept going back to the strategy in wind pedagogy where we say to focus on the air (not your breathing). Even for technical passages, telling a student (or myself if I'm practicing) to focus on the air and on the sound usually gets great results. Focusing on the fingers of a technical passage results in clumsy fingers and weak tone, whereas focusing on the air and the tone usually means the fingers are going to do what they're supposed to, provided you have also done other technical practice to prepare for that level of technical requirements up to that point (over previous years, not just on that particular passage). I suspect this is why my daughter's violin teacher usually has her focus on the bow: keep the bow straight, "angle your bow" and far less on what specific fingers are doing. (of course, she also says "huggers!" and "inside corners!" and such other violin specific things). I have a practice strategy with my students that does have them focus on the fingers though, and I might try modifying that strategy to a more external one if I can figure out how. I guess changing the focus from the finger to the key might be enough, given the first couple studies you mentioned.
Yes, this is exactly the same thing in string teaching. Very often, left hand issues can be solved by focusing on what the bow is doing instead. But I agree, we need to rethink certain aspects of our teaching. I'll be interested to hear if having your students focus on the keys instead of their fingers for your practice strategy works better for them!
@@DrMollyGebrian Love your work, Molly! I listened to your interview on Bulletproof Musician. 👏 I guess that’s why I like thinking of difficult shifts as “shifting with the *bow*” (instead of hyper-focusing on the left hand and sabotaging its performance in the process. And lately, I’ve been feeling better envisioning the bow as a constant flow of air, like a wind player or singer. It has a great effect of enabling my *left* hand to perform with better ease compared to when I’m “trying” to control my left hand accuracy. No more micro-managing. External focus it is! 👌 Thanks for this video, Molly!
@@violynnkuo Yes, I find that if I think about my bow while I'm shifting, it works much better! I love the idea of thinking of the bow as a constant flow of air! :)
Great video. I have taught conducting class off and on. As we work through the course, the pieces that the students conduct get more and more complex. The more complex the music, the more beautiful their patterns become. I assume this is because their focus is on conveying the music and not worrying what their body is doing.
Yeah, it can be a fine line between giving enough specific feedback/instruction so students understand in a precise way what to do, and making it harder by giving too much specific instruction about what their different body parts should be doing when.
The trumpeter Kristian Steenstrup recently published a really interesting study about many of these things. Also, I wonder: with studies like this (in any discipline) where one group dramatically outperforms another, do the underperforming group get to find out why the other group did so much better? Or are they expected to read the final paper?
Yes, that study is great and very interesting! As far as the subjects in the study getting to find out: when you are a subject in a study, sometimes the experimenter provides a way for you to say whether you want to be informed of the results of the study. In that case, you'll usually get an email with a summary of the results as well as a link to the published paper. But you don't always find out...
Molly do you talk anywhere about staying within a key signature? after over 20 years of playing I still can’t stay consistently within a key signature even though of course I practice scales on my life, sad but true
I left this comment on your other question about key signatures, but I'll put it here as well in case other people want to see my answer. :) First step: make yourself flashcards. :) Put the name of the key on one side and either draw the key signature or write the number and names of sharps or flats on the other side. Study them both ways until they're automatic and easy. Then to make this into automatic physical knowledge, learn a simple song (Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), ideally by ear, and then figure it out in all 12 keys. Do a new song every day or every week (or whatever feels like the right pace to you). Just playing scales won't really ingrain them the way you want because you don't have to think that much or figure them out yourself. Playing songs in different keys will force you to apply your key knowledge in a way that will embed them more strongly in your brain. In string playing, we have various technique books (I'm thinking of Sevcik for the string players reading this!) where it prints the exercise in C major, but you're supposed to do it in all the keys. I'm sure there are things like that for piano as well, so something like that would be great, too.
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i am not a singer but have social anxiety. ive been micromanaging my voice for the longest time which has led to much pain. this concept of external focus may have saved my life. only found out about it yesterday but its a promising start
I'm so glad you found my video! Yes, trying to micromanage things can cause a lot of physical tension and pain. I hope this has been useful to you!
Another great series. Thank u so much.
Thank you again for the insight. Really appreciate that you upload all parts at the same time. Allows me to binge watch.
This is brilliant. It validates the intuitive wisdom of my voice teacher, who taught me to focus on the sound I produced and notice when the sound was what I wanted.
Thank you so much! Yes, so much of what science has found validates what so many music teachers have figured out intuitively! It's nice to have data to back up what we often already know. :)
your videos are so interesting! I've been adjusting my practice routine based on what I've learned from them and after only like a week I'm noticing faster improvement, and making progress on some things I'd hit a wall with. Thanks for posting this awesome info! I'm recommending your channel to all my musician friends.
This is so wonderful! Thank you for sharing this about progress! I'm so glad my videos have been so helpful you! :)
Fascinating video, and well presented!
My thought through a lot of this kept going back to the strategy in wind pedagogy where we say to focus on the air (not your breathing). Even for technical passages, telling a student (or myself if I'm practicing) to focus on the air and on the sound usually gets great results. Focusing on the fingers of a technical passage results in clumsy fingers and weak tone, whereas focusing on the air and the tone usually means the fingers are going to do what they're supposed to, provided you have also done other technical practice to prepare for that level of technical requirements up to that point (over previous years, not just on that particular passage). I suspect this is why my daughter's violin teacher usually has her focus on the bow: keep the bow straight, "angle your bow" and far less on what specific fingers are doing. (of course, she also says "huggers!" and "inside corners!" and such other violin specific things).
I have a practice strategy with my students that does have them focus on the fingers though, and I might try modifying that strategy to a more external one if I can figure out how. I guess changing the focus from the finger to the key might be enough, given the first couple studies you mentioned.
Yes, this is exactly the same thing in string teaching. Very often, left hand issues can be solved by focusing on what the bow is doing instead. But I agree, we need to rethink certain aspects of our teaching. I'll be interested to hear if having your students focus on the keys instead of their fingers for your practice strategy works better for them!
@@DrMollyGebrian Love your work, Molly! I listened to your interview on Bulletproof Musician. 👏
I guess that’s why I like thinking of difficult shifts as “shifting with the *bow*” (instead of hyper-focusing on the left hand and sabotaging its performance in the process.
And lately, I’ve been feeling better envisioning the bow as a constant flow of air, like a wind player or singer. It has a great effect of enabling my *left* hand to perform with better ease compared to when I’m “trying” to control my left hand accuracy.
No more micro-managing. External focus it is! 👌
Thanks for this video, Molly!
@@violynnkuo Yes, I find that if I think about my bow while I'm shifting, it works much better! I love the idea of thinking of the bow as a constant flow of air! :)
@@DrMollyGebrian Oh good, I’m glad you and I think the same way about shifting! 👏 😃
Great video. I have taught conducting class off and on. As we work through the course, the pieces that the students conduct get more and more complex. The more complex the music, the more beautiful their patterns become. I assume this is because their focus is on conveying the music and not worrying what their body is doing.
So insteresting! Was always wondering why sometimes it's better to tell our student to just 'feel it'.
Yeah, it can be a fine line between giving enough specific feedback/instruction so students understand in a precise way what to do, and making it harder by giving too much specific instruction about what their different body parts should be doing when.
Wonderful information! Can you say, do you know what the runners and/or the high jumpers were focused on externally?
The trumpeter Kristian Steenstrup recently published a really interesting study about many of these things. Also, I wonder: with studies like this (in any discipline) where one group dramatically outperforms another, do the underperforming group get to find out why the other group did so much better? Or are they expected to read the final paper?
Yes, that study is great and very interesting! As far as the subjects in the study getting to find out: when you are a subject in a study, sometimes the experimenter provides a way for you to say whether you want to be informed of the results of the study. In that case, you'll usually get an email with a summary of the results as well as a link to the published paper. But you don't always find out...
Molly do you talk anywhere about staying within a key signature? after over 20 years of playing I still can’t stay consistently within a key signature even though of course I practice scales on my life, sad but true
I left this comment on your other question about key signatures, but I'll put it here as well in case other people want to see my answer. :) First step: make yourself flashcards. :) Put the name of the key on one side and either draw the key signature or write the number and names of sharps or flats on the other side. Study them both ways until they're automatic and easy. Then to make this into automatic physical knowledge, learn a simple song (Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), ideally by ear, and then figure it out in all 12 keys. Do a new song every day or every week (or whatever feels like the right pace to you). Just playing scales won't really ingrain them the way you want because you don't have to think that much or figure them out yourself. Playing songs in different keys will force you to apply your key knowledge in a way that will embed them more strongly in your brain. In string playing, we have various technique books (I'm thinking of Sevcik for the string players reading this!) where it prints the exercise in C major, but you're supposed to do it in all the keys. I'm sure there are things like that for piano as well, so something like that would be great, too.