Review: Learn Faster, Perform Better
Review by Ingrid Lindsay
Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician’s Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing (Molly Gebrian) was released in July 2024 by Oxford University Press.
Molly Gebrian is a former Suzuki student, furthering her musical studies as an undergraduate at Oberlin College and Conservatory. After taking a freshman course on neuroscience she ‘was instantly hooked’ and decided to double major in viola and neuroscience. She then went to New England Conservatory for her masters in viola performance followed by Rice University for her doctorate in viola performance.
She is, without doubt, an expert of the “why” and “how” our brain works in regard to music. Molly gives presentations regularly and is a performing professional violist with a particular interest in purely musical scholarship, her primary area of interest is viola pedagogy, specifically how to prepare advanced violist for the challenges of their largely 20th-century solo repertoire.
Having been introduced to Molly and having read her most excellent book, I can only say that I wish this book had been in my hands 30 years ago. The book is meticulously and thoughtfully set out. Molly has distilled a wealth of neuroscience and body-based research into chapters that flow in a way that helps us appreciate the wonders of our brains anew.
Learn Faster, Perform Better has outstanding graphs and illustrations to support whatever research/learning strategy she is covering. Her conclusion leaves one wanting to race to the practice room to try out some of the many, many tried and tested practice methods she explains in the book. The appendices and glossary and are brilliantly laid out and easy to access. As I read the book I learned that Molly also has a wonderful website with videos that support some of the topics in her book and also a digital workbook to help get a practice routine and put into practice the knowledge she has presented.
The book is directed at professional musicians, however the underlying principles can be easily adapted for teaching young students. Molly has included examples of practice routines that can easily be used for Twinklers and early books. Also, this book is not viola specific, even string specific – all the information works across all instruments.
It is wonderful to find scientifically backed reasons for some of the Suzuki teaching methods – just one example being ‘amplification of error’ which relates to the game ‘Fix the Naughty Teacher’. Any parent or teacher interested in how one learns and how memory works will be drawn to this book. It is a comprehensive resource of different tools and strategies for each parent, teacher, or older student to read and take what they need from it taking into consideration the skill level involved.
She covers what scientists have discovered works best about the ways we learn and practical methods you can apply to your practice. It explains why one day you can play something perfectly at home and it’s a disaster in your next lesson, how to fix bad habits quickly and permanently. Also the power of sleep for learning is highlighted and the surprising role of mental practice. The book has chapters on what constitutes good practice habits, myelination, the role of mistakes, using errors to your advantage, the fastest way to learn music, interleaved -v- blocked practice, variable practice, how memory works and strengthening it for performance to boost confidence in memorized performance and for Suzuki players most importantly how to best support and develop the auditory/motor captivation.
This is without doubt a most excellent book for anyone involved in music as it presents well researched studies to explain memory and performance and a scientific explanation on how the brain works. It brings an exciting and new perspective to teaching and learning, and confirms things that we as teachers have done and explains why things work with a deep passion. It is very clear that Molly is a Suzuki student and her bringing to our homes a way to foster a way to play music in a beautiful manner and bring the work from the practice room to group class, to the performance platform be it at home or out in our communities.
- Ingrid Lindsay
More information, free resources and to purchase the book you can head to Molly Gebrian‘s webpage:
https://www.mollygebrian.com/music-and-the-brain