The Value of Thoughtful Repetition
I’ve been thinking about repetition recently. It can take a surprisingly long time to truly ingrain a groove, a passage of music, a rudiment or technique, or many other elements of music. Students must learn to embrace repetition in their practising, but some approaches are more effective than others. One of the most important elements in the process is feedback.
Progress will be slower if you repeat something without thinking about it or paying attention to it, even if you play it over many times (although there’s always an exception! See below…) You will be better served by gaining feedback, either by directly assessing yourself, by recording yourself (audio and/or video), or by playing for other people. Here are a few guidelines:
Repeat more than you think you need to! Playing through something once or twice is not enough, especially when it comes to developing technique. This is true for any instrument, in any genre of music; to truly ingrain a musical element, you will have to repeat it many times, over the course of many days.
Repeat thoughtfully! Play through whatever it is you are working on. Stop and think about how it sounded, and how it felt physically. What worked well? (Make sure to do that again!) What would you like to improve? Play it again, attempting to adopt the feedback you gave yourself. Try occasionally recording yourself - either on video, or just the audio - and listen/watch back in order to decide your next step. Repeat this process many many times!
Play for others! You don’t need to limit yourself to playing for your teacher at your lesson. Try playing for a friend or family member. This could be someone with musical knowledge, or without. They don’t even necessarily need to give you feedback themselves: just the act of having to communicate a musical idea to someone else will be very revealing to you! Take feedback from your listener, or give yourself feedback (step 2), and then apply it to what you are working on.
The Exception… As mentioned above there is an exception to the rule of avoiding mindless repetition - in limited doses! Some musicians advocate repeating something on a loop while watching tv (in certain circumstances) - for example I’ve found this can work well for learning certain techniques. The idea is that it gives your body a chance to figure out how it wants to accomplish the technique, without your brain getting in the way (because everyone is physically different, there’s usually no “one size fit’s all” approach to technique. Also, the suggestions above can sometimes lead to “over thinking” things). This is a bit of an advanced situation though - it will be more effective once you have learned to evaluate your own playing, as discussed above. That way you’ll have a better idea of when it might be appropriate.
Have fun, embrace repetition, and enjoy the gradual process of improvement!
