http://musikfabrik-blog.eu/2011/06/21/air-percussive-sounds-for-the-flute/
Dear Flutists,
I just came upon this terrific new resource by Helen Bledsoe. Great explanations worth checking out.
I am writing from Blonay, Switzerland where I am taking part in a fantastic collaborative festival for performers and composers with eighth blackbird in residency. You can follow what is happening at the festival at the Music11 blog:
http://musicxfestival.blogspot.com/
Noteworthy things thus far is hearing talks and masterclasses from composer Matthias Pinscher,having the opportunity to premiere new works being coached and playing with members of eighth blackbird, and enjoying the beautiful Swiss countryside. Check out the blog to read more!
One of my mottos for awhile now has been “You are only as strong as your weakest link”. This picture exemplifies the idea perfectly. When I was in Army Basic Training, that was one of the things they told us almost constantly. We had to do everything as a team, and if one person was wrong, you were all wrong. If one person wanted to keep the Kevlar helmet on instead of taking it off, we all had to keep it on. If one person got punished…well, that didn’t happen, we all got punished.
The point was that you HAD to learn to do everything as a unit, as a team, and that each person was as important as the next. You are being taught to pay attention to detail and you realize very quickly that even if YOU excel in one area, your Battle Buddy probably doesn’t, and to work together as a team, everyone has to come together to support and encourage and work on their “weakest link” before you can excel as a team.
Your body works as a team as well and if you don’t address your weakest link, you are shortchanging yourself. As a musician, you know that if you don’t work on your weak spots, you’ll never reach your full potential because being a musician is made of several “links” – scales, intervals, tone, technique, body awareness, attitude, work ethic, etc.
As for my title…
You’ll have to pardon the hanging participle and bad grammar….but it got your attention, didn’t it?
Here’s the point if you do what you’re good at, you’ll never get any better. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Sure, but what do we do? We do the things at which we already accel. Why? Because we like doing well, we like feeling that good feeling that comes with doing well, and when you do something well, it’s, well…..easy.
Another way to say “do what you suck at” is to say “work on your weaknesses”. Now, honestly if I had put that as the title, you wouldn’t have stopped by to read, would you? Not nearly as interesting. But the truth is there in both statements. When you take a good look at the areas in which you lack and you go forth and WORK on those weaknesses what happens?
Well, it’s hard.
It’s generally not much fun.
You might fail….a lot.
But in the end, you end up succeeding and ultimately not only gaining a greater sense of achievement due to the feeling of overcoming something at which you used to not do well, but it gets easier from there for you to get better at it.
Two examples: music and fitness, of course 
Take your pick: squat, pushup or pullup.
Sure, there are other hard exercises like deadlifting and benching and rowing but in all honesty, these are tough for me and most women. Most people do a HORRIBLE job of squatting with good form. They either
It’s sad really, because what should be easy to do (we did it as 2-year olds without another thought) becomes so much more difficult as we age.
Side note:
This is why I suggest EVERYONE get some training in Alexander Technique. It’s not just for musicians and you will relearn how to use your body the way God intended and the way you used to, as aforementioned 2-year old but with better motor skills
Walk into almost any gym in the country and undoubtedly you will see a lot of the same things: the treadmills, ellipticals and bikes will be mostly full (sadly, mostly with women), lots of people using machines, and in the free weight section, the few people you see will be mostly men, mostly doing chest and bicep exercises. Occassionally you’ll see a man doing a squat….probably only going half-way down with too much weight (because it’s always better to improve your ego by using too much weight with bad form than to use no weight with good form, right?) and even more rarely, you’ll see a lady in there, doing “toning” exercises with the pink dumbbells. She’s doing it because she knows she needs to do something but isn’t sure what, so she sticks to what’s safe, what isn’t challenging, and pats herself on the back for venturing into the “guy’s” part of the gym. And year after year the ladies on the treadmills wonder why their bodies haven’t changed the way they “should”.
The guys do their same routines for the same reason: they work the vanity muscles using some outdated routines they found in magazines (that really only work for newbies) because they don’t know any better, it’s safe, it’s what the other guys are doing and hey, what woman looks at a guy’s legs – they look at his GUNS right? And year after year, he does the same stuff, blindly going forward, his gains decreasing every year and wondering why.
I’ll tell you why. It’s because they don’t work on their weaknesses.
Music
Where is your weakness when it comes to music? Ignoring etudes, scales and technique exercises – only focusing on working on pieces? Not really “wood shedding” the music, but just playing it over and over again? Putting off memorizing something? Not practicing much at all?
As a musician, my biggest weakness is 1) not making the time to practice and 2) not giving myself structure during practice time….which leads to feeling like I”m just wasting my time, so I end up not practicing at all! If you are one of those musicians who has been out of school for awhile, you know how easy it is to get out of the habit of daily practice, espcially when you aren’t surrounded by other musicians pushing you, endless rehearsals and recitals. If LACK of practice is your nemesis, ask yourself why? And chunk it into manageable goals: 1) I will practice every day or every other day 2) I will work on these pieces and these exercises, etc. Just write it down and give yourself structure.
If there is something specific you suck at and you’re just avoiding it, it’s time to take the bull by the horns and go after it! If you are a person who plays by ear and has a difficult time deciphering rythms on the page…..well, you need to start reading more music with difficult rhythms. If you suck at sightreading, the only way to get better at sightreading is to sightread a LOT.
See how this works? Identify your weakness, have the courage to put your ego aside and say “ok, what do I really suck at?” and then do THAT.
Take your dreaded evil and look it square in the face and say
“Today , it’s you and me and while I may not conquer you today, maybe not tomorrow, I will not fear you, and I WILL do this”.
And from there, you start with Moyse Gamme Arpegge and work your way through
So Do What You Suck At
If you are a gym “bro” who splits his workouts into “chest days’ and “arm days”: have the courage to do a full body workout,
If you are a lady who does nothing but stay on the elliptical or do curls and crunches in the “guy’s part of the gym”, have the courage to pick up some 20 pounders or hire a personal trainer and learn how to do a real deadlift…I can tell you, there’s nothing more empowering than deadlifting your bodyweight (with excellent form) in a gym full of men who are doing superflous exercises (with bad form).
If you are a musician and you’ve been putting off attacking Berio’s “Sequenza” GO FOR IT! You just might find that it’s way more fun than you ever realized.
In the end, we all have to work on our weaknesses, because there is only so far you can go in the areas you already excel.
Ask almost any flutist that has pain brought on by playing, and odds are they will mention one of these sites as giving them trouble: wrist, upper back (between shoulder blades), shoulder area or lower back. Sometimes the problem is that the pain is in ALL of these sites.
Studies have been done, but the results are inconclusive as to the results of what causes pain. A study I read recently studied the “History of Playing-related Pain in 330 University Freshman Music Students”. The interesting point is that MOST of the students had pain brought on by playing. The frustrating point was that the study was inconclusive as to the cause of the pain.
I have my own hypothesis, however, because this study did not cover my area of expertise: strength training. This is what the study found:
It is GLARINGLY obvious to me what could possibly be the cause of so many musician’s pain, here, but this was not covered by the researchers.
Can you see the pattern here?
So getting back to the flutists’ pain points
What are the points of chief complaint? From what I have heard (though if you have another spot, please leave a comment below!) these are the most common
With the exception of the wrist, the other three points are located on what we call the “posterior chain” This is the back half of the body, responsible for a lot of pulling movements and fighting against the pushing movement of the front of the body, including keeping the body upright. If your posterior chain muscles are weak, it causes them to stretch.
Example:
You sit all day, in rehearsals, driving, typing, practicing. You probably slouch, meaning your chest comes forward, your abdomen caves in and your back rounds. You are not balanced on your sit bones. Your shoulders round forward. Your head protrudes.
What does this lead to?
Try taking that posture for awhile and I bet the answer will be:
Can you see how this posture, practiced day in and day out is compounded with holding a heavy instrument (or maybe your instrument isn’t heavy but after several hours of playing it becomes heavy to you) can wreak havoc on your body?
The part you’ve been waiting for! You can see where the problem lies, by now, I hope. Weak posterior chain can equal pain. What to do? Strengthen it! Let’s take this on a spot by spot basis.
If your wrist hurts, there can be several causes, some of which may not have anything to do with your wrist, but may actually be a symptom of poor upper body posture, shoulder position, etc. Assuming you play an instrument that puts your wrist in somewhat of a contorted position (flute, guitar, violin, etc.) there are some stretches you can do. Hold each for a count of 10, and follow with movement. It is very important that after you do a static stretch (a stretch you hold without moving) that you follow that with a dynamic stretch (a stretch that involves movement).
These are stretches and of course there are exercises you can do to increase your wrist/grip strength. However, I’m not sure that that is necessary, as my guess is that the reason the wrists hurt has more to do with being tight and needing to be stretched due to being in an awkward position for long lengths of time, rather than being weak. However, grip strength is important when it comes to lifting weights. Diesel Crew has a lot of information on improving grip strength.
Upper Back/Shoulder
This area could take all day to address, and I have in two posts and a guest post by Dr. Perry. For detailed information see Shoulder Pain Part 1, Shoulder Pain Part 2 – What to Do About it, and Dr. Perry’s Post: Shoulder Pain Secret.
The chief culprits of pain are the rhomboids (the muscles in between your shoulder blades that work to pull them together), lower traps (pull shoulder blades back and down) and rotator cuff muscles. When you lean forward with a rounded posture, or have your arms extended in front of you for a long time, these muscles that do the pulling in your upper back get stretched the opposite way and get kinda angry about it. They are designed to pull the shoulder blades back, but if you do not strengthen these muscles, if they do not get used the way they were intended. You get pain.
I think this is the biggest problem area among musicians and the most overlooked!
Strengthen your rhomboids and upper back by doing pulling movements and see if your pain doesn’t improve, not to mention your posture!
My favorite exercises are:
Lat Pulldowns/Pull ups, any type of rows (inverted, seated, barbell or dumbbell) and exercises for the rotator cuff: soup can pours, prone lower trap raises and wall slides. You can see all three of the rotator cuff exercises in Shoulder Pain Part 2.
Before doing any of these exercises, however, it’s not a bad idea to stretch the muscles that are tight, before strengthening the muscles that are weak. That’s another post for another day.
Lat pull downs/Pull ups.
Good form
BAD FORM!!!
(Coaching cues – keep spine neutral – curve in lower back, no leaning backwards, and keep shoulder blades down)
The big thing to remember here is to that before and DURING the movement, keep your shoulder blades pulled back and down. This will prevent you from going into full shoulder extension and increase shoulder stability.
Huh?
That means that when your arms are as far away from you as they can be, if your shoulder blades are properly retracted and depressed you will still be able to let your arms go farther away. So, when you are reaching up for the bar, don’t let your shoulder blades float away – keep them back and down. If you find you can still let them go a bit farther (like in the second picture), you know they are not properly retracted. Think of keeping the bottom of your shoulder blades squeezed together throughout the movement. This may cause you to not use as much weight as you would like, but so what? If you use more weight than you can with good form, what are you really accomplishing? THAT’S where you get into more pain and injury.
Inverted Row
Coaching cues: keep body “straight”, keep shoulder blades back and down.
Coaching cues: keep shoulder blades back and down, keep neutral arch in back, do NOT round your back when reaching for weight or pulling forward
If your lower back hurts, ask yourself how much you sit. If the answer is “a lot”, you may have found your problem. When you sit, your hips “flex”, this means that the knees come towards the body by means of the hip flexors The hip flexors are pictured here and I know the Alexander Technique teachers will jump all over the psoas, as they should! That’s where I first found out about this very important muscle. You can see how it attaches to your leg AND your low back. When you sit, this muscle flexes, or shortens, which (especially if your abs are too strong – aka, don’t do situps or crunches!!!!) causes you to bend forward, this muscle pulls on your low back. The muscles on your low back (Quadratus Lumborum and spinal erectors, etc.) get stretched, just like the upper back muscles.
Solution?
Stretch the tight muscles, strengthen the weak muscles. In this case, stretch the hip flexors, strengthen the low back muscles and muscles of the core. The CORE is actually made up of your entire torso and if you want an EXCELLENT book on strengthening the core in the non-traditional way (there is not a single “ab” exercise in this book!) I HIGHLY recommend getting New Rules of Lifting for Abs.
I’m just finishing up this book myself and not only has it improved my posture, it has improved my balance, core strength and overall body strength. I can lift heavier weights than I have in a long time and I have better posterior chain activation as well!
There are WAY too many exercises to list here for strengthening the core and lower back, and in fact, if you want more information on that, I cannot recommend anything here safely, which is why I recommend hiring a personal trainer to help you do these exercises, because done incorrectly you can cause more pain or even injury to yourself.
As for stretching the hip flexors, I have some great ones.
You can do this standing as well. Make sure when you do this stretch, you lean backwards with your torso until you feel a stretch in the front of your hip and SQUEEZE your put on the stretched side. When you stretch the hip flexor, you want to activate the opposing posterior chain muscle, in this case, the glutes.
This exercise is one you can do during rehearsals, while typing, or while lying down. It will stretch your piriformis muscle (the angry little muscle in your butt that gets stretched out when you sit for too long). I recommend doing this lying down: take the chair out of the picture and put the person on his back. Grab the vertical leg and pull it towards the chest. The horizontal leg (the one that is bent across the other) will feel a stretch in that glute and hip.
A good stretch for the psoas is this stretch:
Lie on the edge of a bed, bench or table and pull one leg towards your chest. The other leg should dangle off the edge of the table. DO NOT do this exercise if your doctor has told you not to or you have major back pain. Check with your doctor first if you have concerns. When doing this stretch, you should feel a deep pulling feeling in your abdomen, that is difficult to identify. This is your psoas. Hold for a count of 10-30, depending, and switch sides.
You can also do this on the floor to test for hip tightness. Lie flat on the floor just like in this picture. If your lower back comes off the floor and rounds, it can be a sign of hip flexor tightness.
As you can see in this post, training the posterior chain is of utmost importance. Therefore, training the frontal chain, is not as important. If you have muscular imbalances, you do not want to add any more strength to those muscles. The opposite of the muscles covered in this post would be: chest, quads, biceps.
Exercises I do not recommend if you are in pain:
Chest presses, bench presses, cable flyes (basically any chest pushing exercise), crunches, situps, any kind of oblique twisting ab exercise, leg extension machine.
Other GOOD exercises to include would be exercises that train the entire body:
Pushups
Deadlifts
Squats
Make sure you perform these exercises with permission from your doctor and under the supervision of a properly certified personal trainer. If you have any kind of health condition, check with your doctor first.
Part One:
Part Two:
Bonus Footage:
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It’s that time of year to start making plans for upcoming competitions. Myrna Brown will post their rep in July/August, Chicago Flute Club’s is already posted with a deadline for October. Start planning and reaching for your goals!
The following have competitions that are not as restrictive to age:
These are for younger flutists:
The BSO’s El Sistema-inspired youth initiative, OrchKids, has grown significantly since it first started in Fall 2008. In keeping with El Sistema’s vision, OrchKids uses music as a vehicle for social change, transforming the lives of young people most in need. Under the leadership of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and BSO Music Director Marin Alsop, OrchKids has become a model for orchestras in community and education programs throughout the country. In order to insure that staff, faculty and teaching artists are knowledgeable of, committed to and actively incorporating the principles of El Sistema, which include “consistency,” “intensity,” “community,” “audiation before visualization,” and ”passion over precision,” the BSO will present “Community Engagement through Music Education (CEME),” a three-day workshop from Wednesday to Friday, July 13-15, 2011 at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Lockerman Bundy and Mary Anne Winterling Elementary Schools in Baltimore, Maryland.
ORCHkids
planting seeds for a bright future
For more info: http://www.bsomusic.org/main.taf?p=9,5,8
More on El Sistema
Jennifer Borkowski
The following post is an article I wrote a few years back. Today I just read a blog entry on deliberate practice where the author suggests practicing a passage five times correctly. When there is a mistake, the player goes back to zero and tries again. While in some contexts this can help focus practice sessions, in others it can be detrimental. For me, I draw a distinction between exercises and repertoire. I feel like the flute repertoire is so relatively small that we need to protect it (even from ourselves). We need to respect our repertoire as our personal expressive medium and leave the score keeping and testing for exercises. How sad it would be if Mozart became the place where we test whether or not we can play ascending thirds cleanly. And in the spirit of participating in a broader dialogue in the field, here is the article:
Looking for solutions to the health problems of musicians can lead one through many corridors of information. A new wing of interdisciplinary research has been opened which offers more possibilities to solving medical problems without traditional medicines or therapies. The following is a report on the Art in Motion Symposium held at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz in May 2008. This paper seeks to assimilate the physiological and medical research of Horst Hildebrandt, Victor Candia and Jane Ginsborg with the research in motor learning of Richard Schmidt and Gabrielle Wulf to advocate for healthier and more productive practice for musicians. Where the medical research was done by and musicians, the research in psychology and motor learning was done by sports scientists. This collaboration of information made this symposium unique in its output. The assimilation of this information is new and ongoing, providing musicians new food for thought as to how they incorporate healthier practice.
Early Years:
Hildebrandt presented information about preventative work with children in his presentation, “Teaching Music Physiology and Motor Learning Processes at a University: Experience and Evaluation”. Focusing first on the epidemiology of musician’s diseases and then moving to music physiology, he defined music physiology as “research and teaching in relation to the functionality of playing music.”
During the course of symposium, the following facts were discussed regarding the childhood roots of musician’s health.
1. Musicians’ problems are often archeological in nature. Many students assume that directions about how to play are meant for forever. For example, as children were told to hold their instrument in a certain way and they never changed this position to accommodate their growing bodies. In addition to this, students often suffer from having contradictory instructions about technique from various teachers over the years. (Hildebrandt)
2. Musicians coming from musical families, presumably also having begun at a young age, have more health problems than those who did not. The assumption here is that expectations are higher in such circumstances. (Hildebrandt)
3. Students who began early have better representations in the brain of instrument specific skills. (Candia) Candia then countered this with the statement that because those representations are in the brain does not mean that they are better musicians.
Gains in Research:
In a pilot project at the Lahr school of music in Germany between 1993 and 2001, Hildebrandt established models for students to practice in supervised settings along with their teachers and parents. The work in this setting is preventative in nature. Students practiced 2 hours a week at the school both individually and in groups. They were taught various training elements such as Feldenkreis[1] and Kinesiology.[2] The goal of the program was to help students help themselves to learn to practice with minimal health problems. Hildebrandt used dispokinesis[3] which includes:
a) teaching a natural position for each instrument,
b) individually adapting ergonomic aids and
c) fosters independence so that students are not dependent on teachers or equipment.
Hildebrandt’s work with dispokinesis builds a physiological foundation for practice. He offered some teaching suggestions about educating a more relaxed musician. He suggests that the teacher:
Professional Musicians:
Moving to health problems in professional musicians, the research presented was considerably longer. In a study of 2212 orchestral musicians, the following figures were quoted as to the prevalence of medical problems on the job.
14% reported I medical problem
14% reported 2 medical problems
12% reported 3 medical problems and
36% reported 4 medical problems (Fishbein 1988)
These problems were orthopedic, neurologic, psychological and psychosomatic in nature.
Jane Ginsborg presented a study, “Comparison of Healthy Lifestyles, Health Problems and Psychological Variables of Music and Non-Music Students“, done between music students and nursing students. Overall, music students scored less in the areas of health responsibility, physical activity and spiritual growth. Among musculoskeletal problems, she reported the following facts:
Lower Right Arm /Hand Head Neck Upper Left Shoulder Lower Left Arm/Hand
Musicians: 31.8% 24.7% 9.6% 10.1% 9.6%
Non-Musicians: 30.8% 15.4% 7.7% 3.1% 1.6%
In addition to these two studies reporting the prevalence of musician’s health problems; Victor Candia presented information in “Playing Beyond the Limits of Health: Loss and Regain of Hand Control in Professional Musicians Suffering from Musician’s Cramp“ about a crippling disorder known as focal hand dystonia. Although the disorder is not highly prevalent among musicians, Candia, along with frightening images of deformed looking fingers and hands, lead discussions about solutions to these problems.
Solutions:
Candia, a neuropsychologist, began by advocating for changes in behavior, calling behavior itself “the most prominent neuromodulator ever known.” The answer lies in brain plasticity and it’s (re)-organization of its neural networks. Candia lists the characteristic of this disorder as being the “amount of time in physical practice.” While this discussion will not focus on the details of treating focal hand dystonia, changing behavior is critical to changing harmful practice patterns prevalent among musicians. The behavior changes need to begin psychologically so that a) learning is maximized and that b) physical behavior changes will naturally follow. Candia said that he finds it astounding that everywhere in the world, musicians all say that they should practice 8 hours a day for 10 years.[4] Most in the symposium agreed that this is the set standard in required practice. We know that practicing in such an amount produces high level musicians. What we don’t know, is that if practicing less can produce higher level musicians with fewer instrument related health issues. As the following studies will show, changing behavior not only benefits health, but fosters more productive learning.
To discuss the various solutions offered, the following concepts will be discussed:
1. “Over” Syndromes: Over-practice and Over-use
2. Focus and Effort
1. Over-Practice and Over-Use:
The idea that one can practice too much is gaining attention because of work-related or instrument related injuries. Candia listed the only clear cause of focal hand dystonia as being related to a heavy work load. Other research shows that over-use is the cause of tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.[5]
Beyond solving physical problems however, the work of Richard Schmidt shows that over-practice, or repetitive practice, slows learning as well. This point should be stressed since many musicians who do not have health problems may not feel that this rule is applicable to them.
His studies show a marked difference in blocked practice versus random practice.
Schmidt tested various motor skills by altering the way that they were practiced. For example, the participants in the blocked practice group were taught 3 skills, and practiced them in a row, a, a, a, then b, b, b, etc. The random practice group never knew which element would come next. They were given the same 3 tasks, but practiced a,c,b, b,c,a, etc. While one did not see great variations in their performance during theacquisition or practice phase, the random practice group scored much better during theretention or test phase. This is important because the goal of a musician is ultimately to perform under test-like conditions. Conditions in performance are never what they are in practice, so the results in practice are less important that the results in performance. During the test phase, the brain is involved in obtaining items from memory. When there has not been enough random or retrieval practice, this ability is diminished. Those who had more random practice had also made better connections between the similarities of the different skills. The blocked practice group had not made any such connections. Schmidt’s studies have been the catalyst for many others testing his (1975)schema theory hypothesis.[6] Ironically, random practice involves a higher degree of error during practice itself. However, varying practice is not only good for under test conditions, it fosters higher learning overall.
One can guess at why musicians historically practice such long repetitions of things. After being told that the most successful musicians practice 8 hours a day leaves a big gap of time to fill. Repetition also fosters a sense of security. Where musicians often expect themselves to play flawlessly, increasing repetition seems to put the odds in their favor. As a student, I was taught the following:
W=Wrong
R=Right
When on practices such patterns, W R R W R R R W R R R = W or ?
On the other hand, practicing W W R R R R R R R R = R
The teacher meant to illustrate that one must be careful not to learn mistakes, or encode mistakes into the memory. What this doesn’t show is that this type of model is unrealistic to achieve. It can easily send a student spiraling into a pattern of unhealthy practice, trying to get more “Rights” than “Wrongs”. When one has such a picture in mind, the effect can cause anxiety about the likelihood of a poor result in performance. This can increase muscle tension can hinder objective thinking. There is some validity in this teacher’s theory however. For example, one can have falsely encoded motor movements that are difficult to re-learn. However, the approach to this shouldn’t scare the student into doing more repetitions, but to reduce the tempo so that the patterns are correctly learned with minimal strain. Then, one can concentrate on increasing the tempo without this type of detrimental score-keeping.
In addition to this, research in over-learning of motor skills shows a “point of diminishing returns for (the) amount of practice”[7] time and that learning deficits can occur, “due to a decrease in the amount of cognitive effort applied.”[8] Again, to differentiate between this theory and how musicians practice, all repetition is not bad. Many musicians find a repetitive morning routine of technical work to be relaxing. Like a mantra, it brings feelings of security while waking up the body and mind to another practice day. The point is to draw clear line between repetitiveness that increases tension and that which relaxes.
Overall, musicians would benefit from the idea of restructuring their practice time. Focusing only on health, the evidence shows that over-practice is detrimental. Focusing on learning, one can not help but be convinced that musicians need to re-think the way they approach learning new works.
How practiced is structures is one area that warrants further thought and research.
What one actually thinks about during practice is discussed below.
2. Focus and Effort:
Moving back to the suggestions of Hildebrandt, he said that pianists who think of floating their fingertips over the keys are thinking something unrealistic. Technically, they move from the metacarpal. However, when they think of moving from the metacarpal, they suffer cramps.
Wulf conducted research to prove why this phenomenon is true. Wulf’s presentation, “The Role of Attentional focus in Motor Skill Learning” began by saying that experts who focus on the details of their movements suffer. Novices need to pay attention to step by step instructions, but after this phase of learning is complete, switching from an internal to an external focus economizes learning.
Wulf differentiated between internal and external focus by defining them as follows:
In an experiment with subjects on a slalom ski trainer, three groups were formed. The first group was asked to focus on their outer foot (internal focus), the second was asked to focus on the outer wheels (external focus) and the third group (control) wasn’t given any focus instructions at all.
During the test phase, the groups performed in the following order.
This means that having no instructions was actually more beneficial than having someone focus on their own body. In addition to this, other groups performed better the further away their focus was from their body. For example, those who focused close to their feet did not achieve the same amplitude as those who focused on the edge of the apparatus.
In another study, subjects performing bicep curls were measured. By measuring EMG activity[9], the study showed that those who focused on their biceps actually used more muscle than those who focused on the bar, although they were lifting the same amount of weight. This explains why the pianists that Hildebrandt described felt a cramp in their arm when focusing on it as opposed to when they focused on their fingertips.
In the symposium, a discussion followed about the relative ease of doing this when there is an apparatus involved. Some thought that with music there were certain situations where this is not possible. The point was clarified in that musicians performing without an external source will employ metaphors focusing on a desired effect. Musicians can use focus words to bring their attention to the desired sound, rather than the desired movement.
In another study by Wulf, subjects were asked to pedal on wooden blocks, some with external focus, and another with internal. In the test trial, the instructions were taken away, and both groups were to pedal as fast as they could and count backwards by 3’s. Even with the focus instructions gone, the external group was faster at both tasks. With the pedaling task occurring automatically, the minds of the participants were less distracted to perform the counting task.
The summary of Wulf’s findings show that external focus promotes automaticity as well as faster reaction times by reducing “noise” in the motor system
Summary:
The research presented in motor learning can benefit musicians in structuring new practice schedules that reduce the amount of necessary practice hours and promote better learning. Reducing practice times is the first step in reducing over-use injuries. Using external focus can lessen muscular tension and require less physical practice overall. By implementing the recommendations gained from these studies, students and teachers are empowered to advocate for what they know to be healthy.
Questions for further research:
When would it help to randomize various aspect of practice and when not? How random, or far from each other, do we make the various elements of practice? Where do we lose continuity, and where do we gain heightened awareness?
What instrument specific elements could be studied regarding restructuring a practice program? What instrument specific elements could be studied regarding the use of external focus?
Where does one draw a line to cross over from giving step by step instructions to using metaphor?
How does one foster the development of this when the ability of the student to form an implement metaphor is lacking?
Additional References:
Expert Performance and Deliberate Practice: an updated excerpt from Ericsson (2000)http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.html, Retrieved on June 9, 2008
L I E B E R T, Mary Ann, Exploring Feldenkreis Practitioners’ Attitudes Toward Clinical Research, The Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, Volume 13, No. 6, (2007), P. 593
M A G I L L, Richard A., Motor Learning and Control, 7th Edition, Mc Graw Hill, New York, 2004, P. 334
S A K A I, Naotaka, Hand pain attributed to overuse among professional pianists: a study of 200 cases, Medical Problems of Performing Artists: Volume 17 Number 4: Page 178 (December 2002)
www.dispokkinesis.com, Retrieved June 9, 2008
www.Kinesiology.net, Retrieved June 9, 2008.
1Feldenkreis is a system for developing self-awareness through movement, using the body as the learning instrument. Taken from Mary Ann L I E B E R T, Exploring Feldenkreis Practitioners’ Attitudes Toward Clinical Research, The Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, Volume 13, No. 6, (2007), P. 593 2 Kinesiolgy is the science of movement that is used to diagnose various health problems though muscle tests. From www.Kinesiology.net, Retrieved June 9, 2008. 3 „Dispokinesis is a scientifically based procedure to give students and performing artists […] a Re-educational Processing (REP- re-education of posture and motor capacity).“ From the International Center for Dispokinesis, www.dispokkinesis.com, Retrieved June 9, 2008
[4] This is confirmed in a study by Ericsson et al., 1993. This study documented the practice hours citing a remarkable diffference between the hours practiced by the „good“ and the „best“ students. (This information is quoted from classnotes of Mag. Anna Hofstätter in the course Psychologie für IGP, Kunst Uni Graz, 2008). The Ericsson study states, „For example, the critical difference between expert musicians differing in the level of attained solo performance concerned the amounts of time they had spent in solitary practice during their music development, which totaled around 10,000 hours by age 20 for the best experts, around 5,000 hours for the least accomplished expert musicians and only 2,000 hours for serious amateur pianists.” http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.html, Retrieved on June 9, 2008
5 Naotaka S A K A I, Hand pain attributed to overuse among professional pianists: a study of 200 cases, Medical Problems of Performing Artists: Volume 17 Number 4: Page 178 (December 2002)
[6] Richard A. M A G I L L, Motor Learning and Control, 7th Edition, Mc Graw Hill, New York, 2004, pp. 61-62
[7] Ibid. P. 334
[8] Ibid.
[9] EMG, or electromyography is „a measurement technique that records the electrical activity of a muscle“ from Richard A. M A G I L L, Motor Learning and Control, 7th Edition, Mc Graw Hill, New York, 2004, P. 33
I’m reading Daniel Coyne’s The Talent Code right now which is getting me all fired up about deliberate practice, talent, and myelin (his website is worth checking out at http://thetalentcode.com/) . On his site one of his links is Fires in the Mind, which you can visit at http://firesinthemind.org/. They ask “What does it take to get really good at something?” And their answer is: “deliberate practice.”
Elements of Deliberate Practice
What elements qualify something as deliberate practice? Many researchers into cognition and learning describe it as follows:
What is NOT Deliberate Practice
Deliberate practice is not the same as work. “When I’m fixing something on my car,” said Ruben, “I might be doing my best, but I’m not exactly practicing a technique. I’m just trying to get the car repaired.”
Deliberate practice is not the same as play. “When I sit down with my guitar just for fun, I’m not necessarily trying to improve my technique or anything,” said Marquis.
Deliberate practice is not the same as rote repetition. All practice involves repetition. But unless they care about what they are repeating and why, students are “doing it just to do it”—not to learn. “We have to memorize chemistry formulas for the test,” said Christian. “But I never remember them later if I don’t get what they’re about.”
Reprinted by permission from Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery, by Kathleen Cushman and the students of What Kids Can Do. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2008. For more information, go to www.firesinthemind.org
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