ABSTRACT
Experts have a large and well-organized store of knowledge of their discipline. Experts can quickly distinguish between relevant and irrelevant details and know what knowledge needs to be applied when and how. As a result, they are more proficient at problem-finding and problem-solving. Experts can extract underlying principles and apply these principles to unfamiliar situations. Those who engage in what researchers call “massed practice” have not built high-level structures of skill and often confuse familiarity with fluency.
Many great musicians of the past wrote about the importance of building structures of knowledge and skill. Sergei Rachmaninoff outlined how this is to be done in a 1923 article in The Etude. Rachmaninoff and others use building metaphors to get their points across, and buildings must be designed.
Chapter 2 looks at what the author calls “the technique-from-pieces fallacy,” which finds condemnation from outstanding artists from the past as a means of training. Pianist Alfred Cortot spoke for many when he wrote, “[T]he mechanical and long-repeated practice of a difficult passage has been replaced by the reasoned study of the difficulty contained therein, reduced to its elementary principle.”
Chapter 2 explores well-designed ways of acquiring a solid foundation—spaced, interleaved, and varied practice—along with the reasons why they are so effective.
