TPTV - Kristian Steenstrup (Deep Practice)

Danish trumpeter, professor, researcher, and author, Kristian Steenstrup was motivated to write Deep Practice Peak Performance stemming from a grant given by the Danish government to research practice strategies, especially regarding mental practice. Through that process, he realized there is much more research now than when Mr. Jacobs was living, which tends to support Jacobs’s pedagogy. Discussion of “choking” in performance. Self-focus theories…paralysis by analysis. Theory of re-investment (mental resources). Thinking about how to do (physical process) rather than how to sound is at the heart of the self-focus theories. Arousal theories (adrenalin based). Don Greene. Noa Kageyama. Finding the ideal adrenalin level while playing. Deep practice, deliberate practice. Anders Ericsson, 10,000 hours. The brain works on percentages. Repetition. Repeat excellence. Prefrontal cortex. Basal ganglia. What the brain is working on during sleep. Sleep science is fairly new…20 years or so…yet Jacobs possessed some information that he shared in his teaching. “Motor messaging”. Audio-motor loop. Motor-nerve activity is what enables muscle activity. The muscles are the last link in the chain that results in physical action, but the beginning is in the brain. Muscle memory misnomer. A better term is motor memory. “Song and Wind”. Performance science has been studying this. Internal and external focus of attention. Focus of how the lips (as an example) would be a typical internal focus of attention. External would be what we want to sound like. The auditory imagery. Gabriela Wolf. Research shows that external focus is the most effective and efficient: How to sound, not how to do. Minimal motors, maximal results. Micro-phrasing. Marcel Tabuteau. David McGill. Focus in, narrow down on a few notes, to give focus to singing the note you are on. Arsis and thesis. This aligns with psychology…chunking. “Audiences hear phrases, musicians create phrases, one note at a time.” Tension-release. Simple thoughts. Jacobs’s notion that simple thoughts control complex activities is supported by brain research. Mental practice. Imagining what you are doing. Motor imagery. Imagine movements, but no physical movement. Or with physical movement but not with the instrument. Auditory imagery, imagining how we want to sound. Five practice strategies: physical practice; mental practice; sing the music; combination of those three; control group where there was nothing. The most effective was a combined use of those strategies. Some singing, some imagining, and some playing is the best combination, the research/study data suggests. Left hand practice. Roger Fedderer’s “recipe” for tournament preparation: 75% mental, 25% physical. A pinky finger abduction study showed just thinking of the pinky moving produced increased physical force of the pinky. Myelination. Neurons that fire together wire together. Hebbian learning. Broca’s Area of the Brain. Attaching a word to the pitch magnifies the pitch in the brain making it a stronger signal to send down the motor nerves. Randomized practicing/interleaved practicing. Human performance studies show there is significant benefit to randomized/interleaved practicing. High contextual interference is thought to be the reason. Imitation as a teaching and learning tool. Mirror neurons. Observational learning, which is an implicit practice strategy. This reduces the working memory involvement. The brain is more active when imagining versus doing. Alcohol consumption and practicing. Sleep is very important to learning. Alcohol has a big negative influence on sleep due to the bypassing or interruption of the various sleep stage processes. Exercise and practicing. With exercise there is a release of protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factors which helps brain cell growth. Focal dystonia. Pain-free condition. There may be some genetic involvement/factor. Tends to be more related to overuse. Psychological negativity is often involved in the process of focal dystonia developing. There is a lot of internal focus in the practicing. Emotionally harsh moment that facilitates the early development of a phobia or fear/stage fright, which can lead to focal dystonia. University of Hannover, Prof./Dr. Echart Altenmuller. Institute of Music Physiology and Musician’s Medicine. Embouchure focal dystonia is more difficult to “heal” than finger dystonia. Fatigue can play a big role in the development of focal dystonia. Mental practice is very helpful. Self 2. Herseth Tchaikovsky 6 post-injury story. The “Think Method.” (Prof. Harold Hill from the Music Man.) Internal/external focus. The more you think about the music and less about yourself the better off you function. #ArnoldJacobs #JakePed

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Deliberate practice is the cruxial concept according to Ericsson. Gladwell who made the 10 thousand hour concept famous (Outliers) does not talk about "deliberate practice".
Great conversation!