Just saw this article on varying practice for progressing in music mastery. The article is by Noa Kageyama who’s blog, Bulletproof Musician, focuses on research-based tips to tackling everything related to music, from stage fright to efficient practice.

The article lists three tips:

1) Distributing practice - taking small chunks and practicing throughout the day
2) Variable practice - practicing a passage in different ways
3) Interleaved practice - take a few bits that need practice, and cycle them

This is all really interesting in the context of this project. A long long time ago, I discussed Distributing Practice under the guise of Pavel’s “greasing the groove.” I also touched on Interleaved Practice, but I called it “Microcycles” (here, here, and here).

Back then I was trying to attribute Distributive Practice to habit formation, and Interleaved Practice to regimentation. What’s interesting is that it really didn’t work for me. But I never thought to instead apply these to Mastery like Kageyama does.

The article recommends two books - The Talent Book, by Daniel Coyle, and Making it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel, two books I’ve already had on my to-read list.