Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice consists of practising a subject mindfully in order to develop one`s skills. This process doesn`t consist of a simple mechanical repetition but it is something much more complex. In order to increase the knowledge in a particular field it is necessary to focus deeply on it and practise it deliberately, challenging oneself continuously in order to improve consistently.The theory of deliberate practice took hold thanks to the Swedish psychologist Ericsson and his colleagues, who in 1993 published a study called, "The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance." The psychologist claimed that "the amount of time an individual is engaged in deliberate practice activities is monotonically related to that that individual`s acquired performance". However, maximisation of deliberate practice is not simple. It requires a work over at least 10 years and/or 10000 hours and optimisation within several constraints.First of all it is necessary to have enough time and energy, as well as access to teachers and training material and training facilities. Secondarily, it is important to find a way to feel rewarded after practising deliberately as the interest for it rarely initiates spontaneously. Finally, in order to maximise the gains, it is essential that one avoids exhaustion by practising for an amount of time from which it is possible to recover on daily or weekly basis.Ericsson and his colleagues demonstrated the validity of this theory conducting an experiment among young violinists of the prestigious Conservatory of Berlin. With the help of the conservatory teachers they have divided the musicians into three groups: The first group was formed by the best violinists, those with the greatest chance of having a career in the best international orchestras The second group consisted of good violinists, not as excellent as the first group but still very good The third group was made up of violinists with lower performance level, who were interested in having a career as violin teachers . The objective of Ericsson and his colleagues was that of trying to understand what distinguished these three groups. How much time did they devote to music? How and how much did they practise? What did they study in the past? Which differences did the best group have? To find out, they studied the daily routines and the past of the young students of the conservatory.The first result was that all the violinists spent the majority of their time doing music were drilled - alone or in company - played for fun, performed in public, took and gave lessons, studied or listened to music. Overall all these activities occupied on average about 50 hours a week. The music was their main activity. The interesting fact is that there was no significant difference between the groups: all of them spent more or less 50 hours a week on the violin. Where was the difference? In the type of practice.Among all the different activities carried out by young violinists, one in particular was considered by them to be the most important one to improve: the solitary practice. Playing with friends, or performing, or having lessons, are all ways to practice. But nothing was producing improvements such as deliberate practice, carried out in solitude, with the expressed purpose of working on their own limitations and overcoming them. And it was precisely in this type of practice that the first two groups - the excellent violinists and the good ones - were distinguished from the third group. In fact the young violinists in the first and second group spent about 24 hours a week on solitary practice while the violinists of the third group, only 9 hours. This difference was enough to explain the different skill levels reached. The best ones were those that occupied more time exercising in solitude.However, the researches still had to understand what distinguished the first from the second group: both dedicated themselves to deliberate practice in solitude about 24 hours a week. Why some were considered excellent and others just very good? Ericsson and colleagues were very convinced that the solitary practice was the real key to understand everything. So they went in that direction to look for confirmations. They asked all the violinists to reconstruct the number of hours of solitary practice they had accumulated since the time they started to play till the age of 18 years (before entering the conservatory). The results of this reconstruction confirmed the researchers` hypothesis: the excellent violinists, at the age of 18 years, had accumulated more than 7,400 hours of solitary practice. The very talented violinists had practised 5,300 hours and the ones in the third group, the aspiring teachers, only 3,400.At the end, the number of hours of deliberate practice perfectly explained the differences between the three groups. The most talented violinists of all were those who over the years had spent more time alone, face to face with their violin, with the purpose of practising to improve their skills. As further confirmation, psychologists studied a fourth group of violinists: they were middle- aged professionals who had already played in important international orchestras. As for the previous group, the violinists were asked to make an esteem on the number of hours spent on practice by the age of 18, and the result was very similar to the one of the young excellent violinists: 7.300 hours.In conclusion, Ericsson and colleagues claimed that the element that explained the success in playing the violin was the solitary practice. Talent, according to them, had no influence, neither before nor after. Successful violinists were made only by the ones who practised the most and in the right way. If we think of one of the most creative and brilliant characters of all the history, the inventor Thomas Edison, this hypothesis can only be strengthened. Edison is in fact the fourth most prolific inventor of all time. Between the age of 20 and 82 he invented 1084 patents, among which the phonograph and the light bulb. The repeated commitment and "sweat" were the key to his success. Nikola Tesla, his contemporary and rival, called him a "brute-force experimenter".Taking inspiration from this theory, the American writer Gladwell, explained how highly successful people spent at least 10000 hours of deliberate practice on their domain to become experts. Throughout the publication he also stated the importance of other influencing factors such as family, culture and friendship. In the beginning of the book he compares several Canadian hockey players and noticed that the rate of becoming a successful player was higher in those players who were born in the first months of the year. The reason is that these players had more time to refine their skills against players that were born months later. He called this phenomenon `accumulative advantage`.Furthermore, taking the example of the group of the Beatles, he demonstrated how they become successful thanks to the "10000- Hour rule". In fact by playing on many stages for 10000 hours they refined their musical talent and became great. He concludes that this rule is the key of success in any field and that genius is not an important factor to determine one`s success. For example, Christoper Langan had an exceptional IQ of 195 and be was considered to be the smartest man in America as well as the smartest man in the world, as media claimed.However in his life he only ended up owning a horse farm in Missouri. Further in the book he explains how the success of American students belonging to different socio-economic backgrounds is highly correlated to the time they spent in school or in educationally rich environments. This book received several critics because of its oversimplified conceptualisations. For example, Roger Gathman claimed that his conclusions were too mechanically applied to historical or cultural phenomena just to create a `gotcha` moment. Kevin Jackson, in Sunday times claimed that the author of the book focused exclusively on American subjects, therefore he found it unbalanced.Furthermore, Jackson was disappointed because of the lack new ideas, noting that it merely expands on the concept that "you have to be born at the right moment at the right place to the right family (posh usually helps) and then you have to work really, really hard". Ericsson describes what could only be Gladwell s work as: [A] popularized but simplistic view of our work, which suggests that anyone who has accumulated sufficient number of hours of practice in a given domain will automatically become an expert and a champion. Ericsson clarified that this is not what his research showed. Within that study, there was no magic number for greatness. 10,000 hours was not actually a number of hours reached, but an average of the time elites spent practicing. Some practiced for much less than 10,000 hours. Others for over 25,000 hours. Additionally, Gladwell failed to adequately distinguish between the quantity of hours spent practicing, and the quality of that practice. This misses a huge portion of Ericsson s findings. acquisition.In contrast with this theory Ferris, in his book The four-hour chef introduced millions of readers to the idea of meta-learning. That is, the learning about learning. Once one understands how their brain and body learn, it is possible to create a far more efficient learning regimen. In fact, Ferris, during a presentation claimed: "I believe you can become world class in any skill in 6 months or less". This may or or may not be an exaggeration, but what Ferris wants to underline is that quality is more important that quantity. Repetition alone, outside of a deliberate plan by which consequences are applied, is not sufficient. It is the conditions that surround that repetitive practice that will begin to answer the question of how long it takes to strength an habit around the globe (sports, music, academics, etc.).But how do unrelated places with no knowledge of each other come up with similar training methods? Why do good teachers and coaches share common traits? Coyle finds his answer in neuroscience and its new discoveries about myelin. Here s Coyle s basic premise: Performing a skill uses circuits of neurons in your brain. A fatty coating of myelin builds up around our nerves axons, the long wire that connects them to other neurons.Researchers defined it for a long time as just an insulator, but now they understand that it strengthens and speeds up nerve signals. When a neuron fires, it attracts cells called oligodendrocytes that add new layers of myelin. Repeated firings like in practice cause more myelin growth. More myelin improves your skills. If it was clear what causes myelin growth , it would be easier to focus on practices and teaching methods that influences its fastest growth. In the Scientific American article White Matter Matters, myelin is explained like this: White matter, it was thought to be passive tissue for a long time, but it actively affects how the brain learns and dysfunctions. While gray matter (composed of neurons) does the brain s thinking and calculating, white matter (composed of myelin-coated axons) controls the signals shared by neurous, and coordinates how well brain regions work together. Coyle subdivides the talent code into three factors he thinks encourage myelin development: Deep practice how to acquire skill by building myelin Ignition what motivates deep practice and what he calls primal cues Master coaching how teachers encourage deep practice and ignition The myelin theory is interesting, because rather than leaving the role of talent up to genetics, nationality, luck, fate, or magic, it lets you think of something that everyone has in their heads and say That s what does it. Coyle doesn t eliminate the presence of those other factors, but he agrees with the theory that myelin underlies all of it. The problem is that myelin research is relatively new (which Coyle admits), and myelin s role in learning is not yet totally understood. Myelin is likely a large component to the neurological basis of learning and improving skills, but to state that myelin equals skill is an oversimplification that ignores other complex processes in the brain. In trying to make talent and greatness understandable to anyone, Coyle leaves some problems in his theories unexplained. The most obvious is why two kids with the same passion could receive the same instruction but only one can really greatness.Coaches and teachers value hard work over natural genius (a point Coyle makes), but they also know that every student has different dispositions, and not everyone is destined to be excellent. Coyle s theories do not make clear distinctions between acquiring a talent, popularity and being commercially successful, or achieving greatness. Coyle tries to minimise the role of genetics in determining natural talent, but by basing skill development on a physiological process (myelin growth), he opens the door to genes influencing it.Coyle believes as well that talent is a results of many hours of hard practice. Using myelin development as his fundamental reason, Coyle points to frustrating training as the most valuable kind because it triggers repeated and urgent neuron. Hambrick of Michigan State University and Frederick Oswald of Rice University, analysed scientific researches about the role of practice and performance in several fields such as music, games, sports, professions, and education. 88 of the studies they analysed had specific criteria, including a measure of accumulated practice and a measure of performance, and an estimate of the magnitude of the observed effect. The researchers took the 88 studies and did a meta-analysis, comparing the data from the studies to examine if there were specific patterns. Almost all of the studies had a positive relationship between practice and performance: The more people practised, the higher their level of performance in their specific field.Overall, practice influenced for only about 12% of individual differences observed in performance in the various domains. However, the domain itself made a difference. Practice was responsible for about 26% of individual differences in performance for games, about 21% of individual differences in music, and about 18% of individual differences in sports. But it only influenced about 4% of individual differences in education and less than 1% of individual differences in performance in professions. Macnamara stated that There is no doubt that deliberate practice is important, from both a statistical and a theoretical perspective. It is just less important than has been argued, . For scientists, the important question now is, what else matters? The psychologists Hambrick and Mainz carried out other interesting experiments as well published in Current Directions in Psychological Science.The purpose of this research was to observe and measure intellectual efficiency by analysing the capacity of working memory to store and process a large amount of information at the same time. The study involved 57 pianists with a range of experience between 260 and 31,000 hours. They had the task of playing a piece that they have never seen before, reading it from a score. Those who had more experience performed better, but the researchers noted that independently from the hours of practice, intellectual abilities have had a significant influence on performance. They have concluded that the efficiency of working memory affects the number of the next notes that a player can read and prepare while playing. Hambrick and Mainz have concluded that both acquired skill and talent play an important role in the performance level. In addiction, Hambrick demonstrated the importance of genetic influence on the rate of success in music. He examined 850 Swedish same sex twins and he found out that one quarter of the genetic influence on musical achievement was related to the act of practising itself. In simple words, certain genes drove some children to practise more. He concluded that people can have different basic abilities determined by genes, but it is necessary for them to be developed in a properly motivating environment.To assess how the innate abilities affect performance in sports, the Sports Illustrated reporter David Epstein studied visual skills of American baseball players. He noted that professional players on average have better vision than normal people. The author of The Sports Gene explains his point of view with a metaphor to the effect that talent represents the hardware while practice represents the software . Epstein concludes that basic skills (hardware) directly influence reactions during practical exercise (software). McPherson and Perncutt spoke about deliberate practice in their book "The science and psychology in music performance." In particular they state that in order for the practice to be successful there should exist different important conditions such as: - Metacognition (reflecting on their own thought process) - Mental practice in combination with physical practice - Study and analysis of scores - Relatively short and regular practice sessions - Intrinsic motivation - Listening to appropriate musical examples including professional recordings and/or teacher Mental practice should be integrated with normal practice in order to achieve better results. It consists first of all the of role of imaginary.It`s possible to have two perspectives during imagery: internal and external. In having an internal perspective, the performer imagines a real-life situation, recreating the visual, auditory, and physical sensations which would be experienced in the actual situation. In studying the relationship between imagery perspective and muscular response, Hale found that internal imagery produced localised activity in the muscles which would be involved in the actual movement. In contrast, the external perspective caused activity only in the eye muscles.A study of kinesthetic versus internal and external visual imagery was conducted by Mumford and Hall. They were interested in the effects of these varying modes of imagery for autonomous tasks performed in a static environment. Their subjects for this study were ice-skaters of different skills. While imagery training did not increase the level of performances of the various groups compared to the control group, the more experienced performers seemed to have more ease with kinesthetic imagery than the less experienced subjects. Mumford and Hall suggested that the more experienced athletes were more able to use benefits derived from mental imagery because they could internalize a more precise model, but that experimental design was not adequate to produce a significant effect.This experiment indicates that skilled performers have a tendency to adopt an internal perspective, with emphasis on kinesthetic rather than visual imagery. Nevertheless, an external perspective can still be a useful tool, giving an opportunity to mentally go back from the details and see the general picture. Concert preparations, for example, could include visualisation of a perfect performance from the audience`s perspective.Another way of giving objective feedback is by the use of audio and video tapes as models. A combination of watching and listening to a model, imaging a sequence, and performing it physically provides a wider range of feedback from which it is possible to update and enhance imagery vividness and accuracy. And then every mental repetition involves a deliberate effort to include all the corrections took from the model or physical performance. For musicians, audio and video tapes could be beneficial. Various camera angles could be used in videotaping, depending on which detail of technique might be under inspection. If audio-tapes were used, the listener could imagine the visual and kinesthetic aspects of performance that might produce the sound that they were listening to. Another interesting aspect is to understand if certain applications of imagery can actually detract from performance. Researchers Woolfolk, Murphy, Gottesfeld, and Aitken compared the effects of picturing a poor versus a successful task outcome immediately prior to performance. Their findings are in line with the opinions of many teachers and performers who feel that negative thoughts will affect the performance negatively.In light of these findings, the development of cognitive strategies should be carried out to help block or interrupt negative images. During mental rehearsal, the rate of the imagined movement can be manipulated to simulate a fast-forward or slow-motion film. In 1986, Andre and Means analysed the effects of mental practice which utilised a mostly slow-motion rate of imagery. They suggested that slow-motion imagery would enchant the subject`s imaginal experience, therefore increasing the effectiveness of their mental rehearsal. For example, in learning a new skill or in working again on a technique, a slower pace should allow an easier identification and correction of mistakes.Although the hypothesis seems logical, the results of this study showed no evident difference in the effectiveness of various rates of imagery. These results are not conclusive however, and if slow-motion imagery seems to work for an individual, then its use should certainly be encouraged. One factor, which all the above cited studies have in common, is that they all use imagery as an independent variable and examine its effects on performance. The other side of the coin of this would be to consider how physical performance influences imagery. Improvement in the physical performance of a skill would likely result in better vividness and accuracy in its mental representation. This issue was analysed in a study by Bird and Wilson. They measured certain physiological responses (including EEG and EMG patterns) as they correlated with mental rehearsal, and examined changes in these responses over learning period of eight weeks. The subjects were eight novice music conductors and their teacher Bird and Wilson discovered that the students with better skills and the instructor with experience showed more frequent and repeatable EEG patterns during imagery than the less skilled subjects. They also found that the instructor produced different EMG patterns during mental rehearsal which reflected the actual performance.In conclusion I believe that even if several researches showed how genetics and talent affect the musical progress, it is undoubtedly that the role of deliberate practice plays a key role in musical development, therefore it should be followed rigorously by every musician who wants to reach a level of expertise.