LESSON REVIEW
Ensuring last lesson is fresh in your mind while you work
Maria's teacher told her that there were Five Really Important Things To Remember about her new piece.
The problem is that she can only remember three of them... and she's not so sure about one of those.
Although Maria is far from being scatterheaded, this is not the first time this has happened.
Is there anything she can do differently... so that she's not always practicing only half of what's needed?
~ 0 ~
It might not always feel like it, but even the least busy lessons are packed with information.
Sometimes this information will only affect tiny moments in your piece:
Consider using your 3rd finger instead of your 4th finger on this note
And sometimes it will be global:
You've ignored the key signature for the whole piece! You now have 243 B flats to insert.
At the time you're told these things, you'll nod, and tell your teacher "ok." It's not like the information is hard to understand.
But understanding the information is not the problem. The problem is remembering it. Especially when it's one of many, many things you were told.
The shopping trip
Let's imagine that you've been asked to do some grocery shopping.
"Here's what I'd like you to get" you're told. "We need milk, eggs, cat food, broccoli, sausages, washing powder, beans, more pegs for the clothesline, butter, breakfast cereal and a frozen chicken."
Like the points made in your lesson, it's certainly not hard to understand. But remembering it all...?
If your brain is anything like mine, by the time you're halfway to the shops, your head will be scrambling things:
"Milk, eggs, sausage powder, a chicken for the clothesline, a frozen cat... broccoli...? um... what was the other vegetable...?
When you come home, you'll have bought 5 of the 11 things you were supposed to... and another 10 things that were never on the list in the first place.
The same thing will happen to your lesson information.
With everyday that passes, you will remember less and less of what happened.
Don't believe me? Try the next exercise...
The Blue List
Right now, to and get yourself a blue pen and a sheet of paper.
Back already? Great. Now wrote down very point you can remember being made last lesson.
Take as long as you need.
When you're finished, put the sheet of paper somewhere safe... and then make sure you take it with you to your next lesson.
The Red List
At the next lesson, if your teacher has to remind you of a point they made last time - and that point is not on your blue list - then don't just nod and say "ok."
You need to add it to your list.
But you add it in red pen.
Chances are, as soon as your teacher makes a Red Pen point like that, you'll smack yourself in the forehead and think "How could I have forgotten that?"
Even more frustrating is that often these Red Pen points are things you could have easily fixed... if only you could have remembered.
Your pass mark
Once the lesson is over, quickly count up how many red pen points there were.
There is only one acceptable total:
Zero.
Anything higher means that your brain is leaking valuable information... and wasting time. The longer the list, the bigger the leak.
So what can you do to stop leaks like this? It's actually quite easy. You're going to stop them before they start.
Early blue lists are longer
Here's something that's a little weird:
If you created your Blue List straight after a lesson, it's going to be much longer than if you create it halfway through the week.
Why? Because your recall of the lesson will be at its strongest straight after the lesson... and then will diminish with every passing hour.
With 168 hours until your next lesson, that's a lot of diminishing.
It doesn't have to deteriorate like this though. There's a way to stop the information from fading, and it's something you should do every week before you practice.
Stopping the decay
The key to stopping information disappearing is to reinforce it.
And the earlier, the better. Don't wait until midweek before you try this, otherwise the damage will already have been done.
Instead, start by making use of the trip home. Before your car pulls into your driveway, you need to have listed all the points that were made at your lesson.
You'll find that because your lesson has only just finished, these points should still be fresh, and should come easily.
It doesn't sound like much. But two very important things will have happened then:
1) These points have appeared a second time. Your brain will notice this... and the information will be less likely to fade as a result.
2) You forced yourself to actively recall the information. This will forge pathways in your brain that will ensure that you can recall the information again in the future.
Contrast that with what happens if there is no review:
1) Your brain hears the information once, at the lesson itself. But it hears lots of things once, and to keep you sane, helps you forget most of them :-)
2) Your brain is not required to call on that information. And so it files it under "Probably not needed." Like something you put in an unlabeled box and stick in the attic.
And then just like that unlabeled box, you won't be able to find that information when you need it.
Which is a fancy way of saying that you will have forgotten it.
A second dose
If you really want to ensure that nothing fades, then you might want to have a further top-up on the day after your lesson.
Again, your job is to list as many points from your lesson as you possibly can.
Your brain will really have got the message now that this information is worth filing, and making accessible. And so you'll remember it.
Remembering is a good start...
...but it's only a start. These Lesson Reviews will help you recall all the points that you needed to work on, but it's now still up to you to actually do that work.
Decide on the techniques that will help you deal with each of these points, and then go knock them off one at a time.
Measuring your progress
Every so often, run the Blue List/Red List exercise again. While Lesson Reviews don't guarantee that there will never be Red List items, they do guarantee to radically shorten those lists.
Which means your teacher can spend less time telling you about things you really already know (but had just filed badly)... and instead can surprise you with new ideas.
:-D
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