JAVS Fall 2024

Book Review

Learn Faster, Perform Better by Molly Gebrian by Kaleigh Miller

Many of the topics Dr. Gebrian writes about are familiar, but there is a new level of nuance and specificity giving guidance on how to approach topics including breaks, practice scheduling, metronome use, and more. The book is organized in an accessible manner, with easy to implement suggestions within each chapter and in the appendix. It is important to note that, while Dr. Gebrian has made a thorough collection of YouTube videos on music and the brain, her book does indeed cover new topics that she previously has not written or spoken about. Who is this book for? While the content in the book is appropriate for all levels and ages of students, I would recommend the book for any teacher or advancing young adult student. I have been recommending the book to all my professional and music educator colleagues in the hopes that we can collectively shift the landscape of how to practice for all musicians—from pre-Twinkle to college students and adults. Many of the techniques for structuring practice, visualization, and improving memory strategies can be applied to other mediums, both for you and your students. As a professional, I have found many of the approaches to be helpful in learning orchestral repertoire more quickly and thoroughly and have benefited from practicing intonation and pulse in new ways. I have also found the thorough chapter on mental practice to be incredibly helpful in guiding my own mental practice and in helping students outline and prepare their own mental practice approach. Furthermore, the book contains an appendix that summarizes the chapters, offers spaced practice suggestions, variable practice strategies, and a glossary. While the book does not specifically look at only one type or genre of musician, this would be an invaluable guide to any performer or music educator looking to improve progress, recall, memorization, and overall performance. It also gives a collection of tools to problem solve your own practice challenges more effectively, while adding novelty and, ultimately, making the whole process of learning more rewarding, and most importantly, fun.

Publisher: Oxford University Press Published: July 30, 2024 ISBN-10: 0197680070 Available for purchase: Amazon.com

Like many other musicians, practicing was certainly a struggle as a child, as it wasn’t clear to me how to practice or why things sounded worse than when they had at home. As a teenager, I became obsessed with reading about how to practice and learn better, and while there were a handful of books out there, most of them focused on mindfulness and awareness in the practice room (both good and important things), rather than best practices for learning based on cognitive research on learning and skill acquisition. Former AVS board member Dr. Molly Gebrian’s book, “Perform Better and Learn Faster: A Musician’s Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing” fills this critical gap in the performance and music education literature. At its core, the book seeks to dispel the tired myth of endless repetitions, instead replacing practice as a laboratory of experimentation, self-inquiry, and problem solving. Given that there are now many other books on practicing, peak performance, and music out in the world, how does this book differ from other similar works? At its simplest, Dr. Gebrian looks at common practice habits to avoid, better habits to implement, and how to structure your time—all of this backed by research in motor learning, psychology, neuroscience, and more. The book includes a brief survey of neurology and neural pathways, and why learning things right the first time saves work in the long run, as well as non-instrumental efforts that support learning, such as sleep, breaks, and mental practice.

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Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 40, No. 2, Fall 2024