Why Mental Practice is Important! (Tips/Advice With Asiya Korepanova)

What is the role of perfect pitch in this kind of practice? And conversely, can this help developing perfect pitch?

To expand on Roy’s question, I would be happy just to be able to keep relative pitch in my head when reading a score. I can do it with a single voice but it tends to break down with altered notes. I can sort of hear the basic triads and simple key modulations in my head, but I lose the harmony when it gets more complex. I starting reading music late in life and had no solfège growing up. Is there hope?

When away from the piano, I have trouble connecting my mental conception of a piece (i.e. its structure, harmonic analysis, the look of the notes on the page, other such details) with the physiological component (i.e. the gestures, fingering, etc. needed to execute).  They seem to reside in different parts of my brain. So practice away from the piano has sometimes helped me in memorization but not much in execution.  Also, in trying to recreate a piece in my memory alone, I tend only to be able to think of one line at a time (unless it's a single chord or something). so with a Bach prelude for example, i tend to get hopelessly lost when trying to keep track of 2+  lines in my memory.  I've always assumed that those are just limitations of how my mind works, but I would wonder whether the same thing happens to others, and whether you might have specific techniques that you use to address or get beyond those limitations.  Hoping I can make the live session but will review the recording later if unable.  Thanks for offering to share your insights with us!

Thurmond's mom here - Interestingly, I was discussing this topic with Thurmond a couple of weeks ago. In a former life I coached competitive gymnastics, and in the late 80's/early 90's there was a big push in the competitive world to begin teaching "mental practice" to the lower-level competitors (primarily visualization, positive self-talk, mental "check-points" to help memorizing routines, ways to tame the "monkey mind," etc.). I had wondered if this was used in the music world.

There was a study with higher-level athletes which revealed that those who spent more time visualizing and meditating performed more accurately and effectively. The study had one group of athletes do physical practice only for two weeks leading up to a competition, and the second group spend greater than 50% of their practice time doing positive visualization of routines/skills. The latter group performed significantly better in the competition. This same technique worked for learning new skills. Those who practiced in their minds more than with their bodies acquired the skills more quickly and with less stress than those who used physical practice only. I will be interested to hear how this is applicable to musicians!

For someone who is unfamiliar with mental practice, what are the tips on learning how to do it? At what stage of learning a piece do you do it? Can you share your routine with us?

Do you know an exercise or technique that helps to avoid random errors? I keep struggling with wrong and/or too loud/soft notes, even in pieces I've played thousands of times. I feel like it happens when I'm either not concentrated enough or too concentrated and I have yet to find a way to stay at the right level of concentration.

Thank you, Asiya! This was a very interesting, thoughtful and insightful Livestream and I am grateful that I am able to watch it. I thoroughly enjoyed the fitness/movement/running/hiking/walking analogies. It makes things quite clear. "Patience is a virtue." Asiya said. Yes, yes, indeed! Thank you to everyone who asked questions, too! Thank you, Dominic!

Sindre said, "This is gold." Well said, Sindre!

Thank you so much, Asiya and Dominic, for this Livestream (I have just watched it) absolutely interesting, as Pauline says. Never is late to put into practice something new like Asiya has explained because it is very useful and gratifying. Thank you.

I found excellent suggestions in this live streaming.
I don't want to seems unrespectful, but about the imaginative power of the mind of a composer, you quoted Mahler during the stream, I want to share one experience because I am one of that MIDI guys you talked about.
 

Last year I tried an experiment, I close myself in a room for four days, just me, a piece of paper, a pencil and a recorder, I used the one on my phone. I decided tempo, time signature, key. Than I decided what to talk about, musically speaking. Than I started improvising with my voice and I recorded all my stuffs. I was not able to transcribe my voice in musical notation. I did it after in my DAW. Than I started playing around with my musical material in a score software, and I tried to write a full symphony (it tooks me 4 month). I  read some books.

I have two questions: Do you think that what I wrote sounds like classical music?
I made an orchestral mockup, do you think that is credible? I ask because I think that you have very well trained ears.
 

Here is the first movement. For me it's a form of exercise.
 

Thank you in advance for any feedback

Hello everybody!

I hope it's ok to reply to this workshop one year after it actually took place. Maybe some of you may find interesting aspects in my comment about it:
I live in Austria and work as a piano teacher (for children, young adults and also grown-ups, mostly beginners or intermediates); of course I'm aware about the importance of mental practice and I advise my students often to go through some easy tasks.

Although I enjoyed listening to all the ideas of Asiya and Dominic, I was also disappointed that hardly any suggestions were shown on the piano or in detail; also very little score-views were given; it seemed to me as a big brain-storming on that topic - which is fine! But I'd like to share some of my ideas and I hope, without sounding disrespectful, it can help in getting some concrete tasks to go through:
- When playing a certain passage of your score, watch how your fingers and wrist or arm moves. Sometimes awareness about that can help improving sound or help to endure a difficult movement. Also all the little movements you're doing are being trained unconsciously, so keep an eye on potential tensions that happen in your body.
- Practice fingering without the piano: Repeat the numbers in your head, imagine the fingers walk on the keys, then play the fingers on the desk. 
- Practice dynamics: Go through a section or the whole piece only by remembering the dynamic diversity.
- Practice in shifts: Play one bar (or 2, 3,... in a row) only with left hand, next bar only with right hand.
- Call out the names of the notes you're playing in a specific spot.
- Change rhythms when having a long passage of consistent note values (e.g. Mozart's Rondo alla turca: f#-minor-passage, Etudes of any kind). The little "stops" you're doing here and there are good for memorization.

It's just a small list of easy steps to do. 
Thanks for your attention!

Milan

Hi Milan, thanks for your specific and very useful tips! I can also recommend Nicolas Namoradze from April 19 here on tonebase: "Unlocking the power of your mind". Unfortunately, the sound is not that good and a transcript of what he says would have been welcome  Greetings!