Is Blocked Practice the best method?

What is your motivation to practice?

To have fun and enjoy making music? To try and copy your idols and sound like them? To play in a band, or perform solo for friends and family?

Whatever your drive to practice is, it probably revolves around learning and improving on your instrument – technically, musically, or intellectually. You want to get better, learn new pieces or techniques, and do things that you couldn’t do yesterday, last month, or last year.

So let's take a look at learning in relation to the type of practice that you can do.

The definition of learning is “the act or process of acquiring knowledge or skill.” This can be done in a number of ways – through self-study, experience, or being tutored by a teacher or coach. Updating your knowledge causes changes in your behaviour, which hopefully leads to better results. Therefore understanding how your body and mind operate is crucial in working out how to optimise learning. 💪🧠🤓

In my research on the science of learning over the past few years I’ve found that the most recent research-based techniques are sometimes counter to the traditionally held beliefs of productive practice. What APPEARS efficient in the practice room is often an illusion of competency and development. If learning is all about acquiring skill and knowledge, then this means that we have to practice in a way that will create the greatest level of RETENTION from session to session. Real learning is when improvements are seen in the following days and weeks, not necessarily in the session itself.

The first type of practice I’ll look at is called “Blocked Practice”, also known as “Massed Practice.” This is when the learner performs a single skill over and over, with emphasis being on lots of repetition to learn the skill as thoroughly as possible. The aim is to create consistency and improve each skill to an acceptable level before moving onto the next task. It might look a bit like this:

Skill/piece A – AAAAA (10 minutes)
Skill/piece B – BBBBB (10 minutes)
Skill/piece C – CCCCC (10 minutes) etc.

You would have probably done this type of practice before, believing it to be the most productive way of practising due to the noticeable improvements made in a session. The perceived level of development makes you think that you’re well on the way to achieving your goal of becoming a better musician.

But how often have you practised this way, only to feel like your improvements have been completely erased from the previous day, and you have to start from scratch again!?

Yep, I know how you feel! 😫

Blocked Practice is useful when first learning a skill. It is effective in establishing new neural pathways in the brain, so it works well with beginner students by keeping practice simple and straightforward. It helps build confidence and creates a better understanding of the various mechanics needed to execute a skill.

For teachers, it tends to be easier to assign blocked practice “homework” following weekly lessons – “Play passage A for 10 minutes with lots of repetitions, before moving onto passage B for 10 minutes, followed by passage C.”

Lessons are often conducted using this method too. Positive advancements are heard after several repetitions of a particular section or technique, creating the perception that this approach is an effective learning strategy. Perhaps this is a good reason why it is so widely used in practice – the perception of dramatic improvements in a short space of time is a powerful demonstration of one’s capabilities, and provides great motivation and confidence.

However, despite this perceived logic, research has shown this method to be less effective when it comes to skill RETENTION. But why is this so? 🤔

We’ll look at a few different learning principals in the coming weeks, but one important one to take note of is that for greater learning to occur, some forgetting is essential.

Huh!? So I have to forget something to remember it!? 🙄

Absolutely! 👍

When doing Blocked Practice, there is no opportunity for you to forget much of what you’re doing. The constant repetition is designed to burn each section into your brain, never to be forgotten again! Unfortunately this method only burns what you’ve just played into your short-term memory, which is mostly erased when other new memories are created later that day.

What strengthens long-term memory is an effortful retrieval of the learning that took place in the past. This means that the more effort you need to remember something, the stronger it will stick in your long-term memory, and the deeper the learning that will occur. Struggling to remember exactly how you executed certain skills, the strategies you used, or how you wanted a particular phrase to sound actually forms stronger neural circuitry than if you can remember details quickly and easily. Sounds counterintuitive, right?

Whilst Blocked Practice lulls you into the feeling of competency and improvement, don’t be fooled by its illusion! Far greater learning and development is possible, but you’ll have to be prepared to change the way you approach it.

I’ll cover more learning concepts and practice strategies in the coming weeks, but this post will hopefully give you a bit of food for thought. Much more to come, but get in contact if you’re interested in learning how to better structure your practice routines each day!