Why tutorials are not working, and how to make them work

Practice makes permanent

Whatever version you repeat is the version that sticks.

• My student picked a jazzy, bluesy piece for her Grade 2 exam, with a distinct swing feel. She had never played this style before, and she simply could not grasp the feel of it.
• She could swing the first two quavers, but the next two would slip back into straight time. We worked on it week after week, and even though I corrected her, she was not able to change it.
• That is what repetition does. Each time she played it her way, that version settled in a little deeper. Psychologists sum it up as practice makes permanent: the brain strengthens whichever pathway you repeat, whether it is right or not.
• It was not only the swing. Her fingers struggled to move fluently through the notes, and she told me herself it was a real struggle.
• So we decided together to switch pieces. Economists call what we escaped the sunk cost fallacy: the weeks we had already invested were not a good reason to keep grinding a version that had hardened.