Fixing the Flub—Not!
If there is anything I nag my students about more than any other thing, it’s about fixing the flub.
Here’s what I mean. You are playing through a piece and, oops! Wrong note. You stop. Back up and play through the part to continue playing.
I call that fixing the flub. It’s bad. Really baaaaaad!
If you allow yourself to make the same flub when going through a piece, time after time, you are practicing the flub. It doesn’t pay to practice a flub. It pays to eliminate the flub.
Even if you mentally reject the flub and fix it by replaying the passage the way you want it, you are wasting time. It’s faster and more efficient to just eliminate it as soon as you identify it.
Here’s the first killer tip. When you are playing through a piece and, oops! You hit a wrong note. Stop. Pick up your pencil. Mark the part lightly so you can find it easily.
Now you have identified a place in the music where you make an error. It might be a hard part, an awkward part, something you are not used to doing. By looking closely at the spot, you know exactly where you hit the wrong note, the off pitch, use the wrong rhythm. The possibilities for error are extensive, aren’t they?
The Slowdown Technique in Music Practice
Show yourself that you can play the passage the way you want, the correct way, by playing it slowly. Almost anything can be in your grasp if you go slowly enough.
Next, you integrate it into the whole. It’s a two step process. This is a powerful deep practice technique.
First go through just enough notes to complete the tough spot. That would include at least one note before the passage that is not hard and one note beyond the passage that is not hard.
That is your primary segment of practice. There is already a speed at which you can execute the passage with no error. Find that speed and get well acquainted with it.
You may even spend a minute going over the spot to increase the speed a little bit. Be patient, and do not attempt to get it up to speed at this point. Just get it 100% reliable at a slow speed.
Second, play through, the entire piece at your normal pace until you get to the hard part. Just as you get to it, slow down to your reliable practice speed, avoiding any flub. Go as slow as you need to go to avoid the flub.
This technique connects all the dots. (Pardon the pun.) This creates a pathway in your brain that is good and reliable. (Myelin is getting wrapped.)
Now the only thing is to build speed. The main thing is to keep the passage clean and accurate as you work your way through the whole piece. Success is assured.
I use this technique for fiddle tunes and folk songs, as well as orchestra parts. In classical music, as you advance you get to longer pieces, concertos, sonatas, etc. You need to chunk these down to a manageable section that only has a few really tough spots. Then you can apply the process and enjoy playing the section with no errors.
Even etudes will sometimes have too many places of danger to do the whole thing right away. They are often made that way to challenge the student. Any piece of music that has seven or eight flub-worthy spots is too much. Too much to listen too and too much to work with. Chunk it down.
The big principle is this: you are training your brain to work through data and produce a definite desired result. It isn’t the hands that are being trained. It’s the brain.
When you get the result you want, you are allowing all the neuron connections and relays to work in just the right order. Even if it’s very slow, the right order is the right thing to do. Speed can be increased. But, flubs cannot be fixed. They must be eliminated.
There are some traditions in which a flub is not necessarily a mistake. Improv playing can allow you to choose a fortunate error and repeat it. Now you have a new way of playing a passage.
Even in your improv tradition you can choose to do a piece note for note a certain way. This can teach you a valuable new way to produce music, taking you beyond your favorite licks or ways of contouring a melody.
In summary, it doesn’t take many times through a new piece, or etude, or section to know where you tend to mess up. Once you spot the places, mark them. Resolve to work them out.
I mark them with a wavy line over such places. It symbolizes, “Caution, dangerous curves ahead.” Just slow down and succeed.
Tags:deep practice,music practice technique,music practice tip,slow down technique
As a violin player trained in the classical style, I feel that I identify with this post all too well from playing throughout the years.
Unfortunately it is quite simple to make a mistake and continue playing to finish the song/line/bar, what have you. I can readily recall and admit to “mentally rejecting the flub,” as you say.
In my experience, I have either completely forgotten about the flub when I have finished playing until the next time I play the specific part(s) again, or have made a temporary mental note that was soon forgotten after I packed my violin away for the day.
My excuse was that I was so into the piece I was rehearsing that I did not want to pause what I was doing and go on a hunt for a good, sharpened pencil and eraser.
Eventually I reconciled that it is necessary to always have a sharpened pencil and eraser sitting on the music stand in front of me. With the pencil and eraser in place, there are no exceptions to not pause and briefly mark my music.
I’m happy to say that now I will not begin my practice session without something to mark the music with. It has allowed me to identify, remember and ultimately fix glitches fast.