Play better now with this amazing practice trick

Does it ever happen to you that you practice something, think you’ve got it, and then it falls apart in your lesson or performance? Or does it take you too long to learn a new piece? One technique that expert practicers use is called “chunking.”

What is chunking?

“Chunking” is the name psychologists give to breaking up something to be learned into smaller pieces. The information you are learning while practicing includes what the passage sounds like and how you moved your body to achieve it. By breaking the task into smaller pieces, you avoid overwhelming your brain, thus learning more reliably.

Many musicians make practicing inefficient by always starting at the beginning of a piece. When they make a mistake, they often go back to the beginning instead of identifying the issue and working it out. Say you always get confused and play a wrong note in measure 7. What’s happening with that mistake? Do you need more clarity about what the music is asking for? Do you need to figure out a movement—fingering, hand position, or movements of the jaw, tongue, or lips— that isn’t coming naturally?

Making a mistake is an opportunity. The first thing is to identify the problem area, even if you don’t know quite what the problem is. This is where chunking comes in.

How can I use it?

The chunking practice technique can take many forms. In its most basic form, you break up the music into manageable sections, perhaps one or two measures at a time. For instance, you might need one- or two-measure chunks for a particularly difficult piece. Practice repetitions of this chunk until you feel comfortable. Always include at least one note of what will become the next chunk, because later on, you will join smaller chunks together, and you want to know how to move from one chunk to the next. 

Chunks can be any length that is useful to you. If the first chunk is two measures and the second chunk is three measures, after mastery of these chunks try to put them together in a five-measure chunk.

Make it simple

The technique is about breaking things down into simpler chunks that are easier to learn. You can break different aspects of the same chunk into even smaller chunks by separating out, for instance, rhythm and pitch.

Often, simply understanding the rhythm is the first step to mastery. Remove the pitches and play, clap, or sing the rhythms. By singing and clapping, you can more deeply understand the rhythm by, for example, singing the rhythm while clapping the beat or subdivision.

For difficult passages, I often remove rhythm entirely and practice only the sequence of pitches. This removes the time urgency of staying with the rhythm. By doing this, you are emphasizing what the sequence of movements is: where your fingers, arms, legs, and any part of your body involved in playing need to move to. By removing the timing element dictated by the rhythm, you can learn the sequence of movements so movement is free and easy.

Even kids can do it

With young students, I use an implementation of the chunking practice technique I invented that I call the “Post-it Note Method.” Because youngsters often only know playing from beginning to end, I put one Post-it note at the start of the chunk and a second one at the end of the chunk. This gives them a visual stopping point—they can’t keep going because the next note after the chunk is hidden. This can train them to think about practicing in more efficient ways.

This chunking practice technique really works!

By using chunking in your practice, you are able to learn more effectively, conquer challenging passages, and build confidence in your playing. Whether you’re mastering a tricky rhythm, perfecting your movements, or stringing together sections into seamless performance, chunking transforms practice into a more joyful task. So the next time you sit down to practice, take it one chunk at a time—and watch your music come together like never before.

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