Klarinet Archive - Posting 001041.txt from 1997/02

From: Harlan Harris <hharris@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: practicing
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 17:25:23 -0500

Fred Jacobowitz writes:
>professionals practice quite a
>bit less than students because, among other reasons, a) we have
>already learned much of the repertoire we need, b) our technique is set
>and much of our practicing is just maintenance and not actively learning
>new techniques (which takes much more time), c) We have other stuff to do
>(such as families) which often cannot take second place to practicing,
>unlike students whose main priority is learning (practicing). So we learn
>to budget time wisely (we hope) and to prepare in advance for killer
>weeks.

Hm, interesting. I'm by no means a professional (until a couple months ago,
I was a lapsed amateur, now I'm back up to amateur status). But I recall
that there was a study in the last couple months that surveyed the
practicing habits of professional classical piano players as they age. Older
players (60+?), even though their general cognitive and motor skills were
measurably declined, were judged to be just as good as their younger
counterparts. But this was only true of those players that practiced _more_
than when they were younger. The theory was that as players lost brain cells
to the aging process, the extra processing was needed to shift the old
learned reflexes and memories to new parts of the brain.

At least, that's what I remember of the study. Please correct me if I'm
wrong, anyone...

-Harlan

--
Harlan Harris Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
hharris@-----.edu (217) 244-5974