The Lightbulb masterclass™ series
Lighting the path of understanding
Presents
DELIBERATE PRACTICE
Remember the enthusiasm and wide open hope of beginning to learn to play or sing music? And while we enjoy success in other areas of our life be it school, business, relationships, and other things we put our effort into achieving, that hasn’t really been the case for music has it?
So, your long journey searching for answers has led you here. For some reason, how to learn to play or sing well is a mystery. Why is this so frustratingly hard to figure out? Perhaps you’ve even given up, like maybe several times. What magical element are we missing? Is it talent?
The Lightbulb Masterclass™ Series lights the path to begin using the best methods from the learning science, that few understand, in a way anyone can use. The way learning works best is very different than the ways we’ve been led to believe.
These are no-fluff, all-learning, all understandable, quick-hit 30-minute lectures followed by Q&A. PDF resources and recording included. You’ll get more than 15% off the price than when the recording is published on the website, and you’ll get to be part of it in the live event.
Not by a longshot.
What we think of as ‘talent’ is really just a handful of elements working together to produce results beyond the traditional (inefficient, poorly conceived) learning that we all are ‘taught’ in school.
The way learning really works best is a secret, but it shouldn’t be.
All of that starts, and ends, with deliberate practice – the name researchers have given to the central thought process underlying all effective learning. And guess what? We rarely actually do it.
CLRP™ allows for group instruction that reaches everyone, so that any one at any level of skill or knowledge can be brought in and start learning. At the same time advanced learners will find their areas of need uncovered and quickly improved.
In this installment of the LMS, we turn our attention to one of the most foundational, useful, easiest, and least used things we can use to improve in practice - contextual interference.
In music, and in life, we tend to think that repeating something over and over, as accurately as possible, is the way to flowing/easy performance.
Did you know that each time you repeat something the same way in practice it has less and less benefit to your improvement? A lot less. These repetitions lose value almost immediately. Then every day you do it you get even less.
Any wonder why repeating something over and over for days and weeks doesn’t get you there?
The problem is it isn’t easy to figure out. Whole books have been written about it. There is lots of general advice like ‘get out of your comfort zone’, focus, seek models.
Then there are those in this burgeoning industry of trying to teach practice that many of us have checked out. They seem to have been studying this for years, but it doesn’t do the trick, does it? We find ourselves coming up against the limits of their knowledge.
Maybe that is why you are here reading this.
Others teach what has worked for them, but they can’t teach you how it works for everyone.
Your instructor, Gregg Goodhart, understands how to teach this like nobody else because he’s had a teaching journey like nobody else.
Have you ever heard of learning to play trouble spots with dotted rhythms, other crazy rhythms, single-hand practice, melodic sequences, whatever? They work really well very quickly then stop working once we use them a bit.
Whoever is sharing those things with us is not giving us the most basic information to make real use of this - that we must continue to vary what we are doing as soon as we start getting good at the one we are learning!
And we don’t need to get really good at each of these. Just getting them close works fine, so we need to know when to move on.
Which is why we’re thrilled to announce the grand opening of his new Lightbulb Masterclass Series of short, to the point, understand and get started now, see results, masterclasses on the essential elements of learning.
Featuring his exclusive Cognitive Load Reduction Protocol™, a revolution in teaching.
CLRP™ allows for group instruction that reaches everyone, so that any one at any level of skill or knowledge can be brought in and start using deliberate practice, as it is intended to be used, right away. At the same time advanced learners will find their areas of need uncovered and quickly improved.
So yes, he’ll get all you newbies, interbies and somewhere in-betweenabies onboard, but this ain’t no basic jasic, it is the real deal.
It will be a no-fluff, all-learning, all understandable, 30-minute lecture/demonstration followed by Q&A. Notes from Gregg’s Try This Now series and a chapter on deliberate practice will be provided, as well as access to the instructional recording.
Be ready to get serious about your musical improvement with a few minutes of deliberate practice a day.
You’ll see Gregg coach someone from oblivious (have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?) to improving their practice skills dramatically in a matter of minutes while learning the process of deliberate practice for the first time.
Gregg will explain and provide insight as to how the process unfolds.
We’ll get right to the essential elements necessary to begin growing this skill, and it will grow with you for the rest of your life.
This is the gateway to real personal progress, and we’ll understand exactly what we need to do to get it going in our practice.
You’ve never seen anything like it. Maybe that is why you are still searching.
Your search is over!
That is what I want to teach you in the next installment of the Lightbulb Masterclass™ series -- the things I’ve learned about the creative application of Contextual Interference for a lifetime of use.
Because we don’t know how the underlying systems work we cede control of their quality to someone else. We get little drips and drabs of tips and tricks.
Let’s learn the key to it all, shall we?
The Lightbulb masterclass™ series
Lighting the path of understanding
Presents
DELIBERATE PRACTICE
Deliberate Practice Book Chapter
Try This Now Quickstart Guide
30 Minute Instruction With Q&A
Why is Gregg's Teaching So Different?
One reason is he knows the science like no other teacher.
“. . .as a psychologist, I can say he is certainly on the money when it comes to incorporating the latest neuropsychological research findings into his work.”
Gary Radler, Clinical psychologist in private practice, Victoria, Australia
And the thing is he knows how to explain it to anyone in a way they can understand.
“It was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!” (exact number of exclamation points)
Student, Green Valley High School, Las Vegas
Adult learners too.
“I am 67 and have tried to learn to play the guitar multiple times since I was a teenager. What I have discovered is that most teachers show you what to practice with no organized method for how to practice. Enthusiastically teaching how we learn, and how to effectively apply that to both practice and performance, is where Gregg absolutely excels!”
Eric Mosley
It even surprised a Yale law professor
“I learned more about how I learn from Gregg than I have learned in any other single experience or from any other single teacher in my life.”
And a university music student
"A summer in Aspen didn’t fix some of the problems I’ve begun to truly remedy in just a week…”
Edward Charity, Violin Performance Major, Florida State University
Do you know what goes on at Aspen each summer?
There is nobody teaching this like Gregg, nobody, and that’s what you’ve been looking for.
Even a professional concert artist was amazed.
“If you just sit down with 30 pages of Chopin arpeggios you’re like, “aaaaa!” but (Gregg taught me) you have a path to follow so the whole idea of sitting down and practicing is. . .really. . .fine! Before I just kind of worked and hoped I’d get things together on time and sometimes there seemed to be like a glass ceiling. Practice is enjoyable and flies by. It is relaxed but goal-oriented.”
Dr. Jesse Plessis, concert pianist
Bob G
Classical Guitar Student
“ He’s a wonderful resource for us. His techniques, and great personality (are) so conducive to a student to learn and reach the goals that they want to reach.
Now, with Gregg, the practice is deliberate practice. . .I’m actually having more fun because I’m taking a piece I’m working on and I am acting like a kid again actually.
. . .when I get to the performance part of it I pull it back to the way it should be and play it through and it’s so much easier. I have the focus, I know what’s going on. . .it’s a lot easier.
The niche that he has placed himself inside the musical community, and through his online teaching anybody in the world can get access to him. . . ”
Mike M
Guitarist and Teacher
United Kingdom
“ I’ve been passing (these ideas) on to my students who seem to be benefitting from it as well. In a matter of a week it made a huge difference, and I’m not able to practice every day at the moment believe it or not.
It made a huge difference to my playing in quite a short while. . .also it made a difference to my confidence.
That’s another thing. I used to think I haven’t got enough time to practice, but I’ve found that actually by doing the things that (Gregg) suggested I got loads more out of my practice time, and I’ve made far more progress than I would have thought considering the comparatively small amount of practice time I’ve had.
Without a doubt practicing is probably the hardest skill you’ll ever learn as a musician. Some people think it might be performance or performance nerves, but honestly, if you get the practice right you won’t have the nerves when you’re performing because you’ll have gotten the practice right in the first place. ”
Nat H
Professional touring guitar and oud player, Teacher
United States
“ I was feeling like I had hit the plateau. . .The same problems that I had for years were still there. Even though I was putting in the time, discipline was not a problem. . .there were things that really felt like they should be better as hard as I am working on it.
I’ve had the good fortune to study with a lot of the top musicians in the kind of music I play, but I couldn’t find anybody to help me break through those plateaus.
(Now) there is the feeling of your technique cooperating with you. . .it feels better, it feels so much musical and expressive. If all of your attention is going to struggling to make it (work) that never feels good, and that’s where a lot of musicians and students live a lot of the time.
It really surprised me how quickly it takes effect.
It was life altering for me. It’s something I’ve been looking for for years.”
Andrean N
Classical piano student and Teacher preparing for upper level RCM exams
Canada
“ This is huge. In two to three weeks my whole practice has changed, my outlook has changed. I can’t stress how much of a change that has made for me. . .I’m going to go into it (performance exam) far, far, far ahead of where I could have possibly gone in the trajectory I was going.
Oh yeah, I totally had the wrong viewpoint. I was working myself into a frenzy over practicing enough, the (problem) is I wasn’t fixing anything! . . I didn’t really have the tools to make that work.
I’ve seen such a difference in my own music already I feel like I’ve won! I really feel like I’ve won already, and I haven’t taken the exam. I’ve got two months to go! I’m really pumped.
I’m just so thankful, this is the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve done a lot of good things for myself in this whole process, but this is (what I was missing). ”
“The most valuable thing I learned from the class was desirable difficulty. By focusing on learning– really learning — I now know how to use my practice time in a meaningful way. Instead of just working on a passage until I get it right, I practice every permutation of that passage until I can’t get it wrong! The practiclass not only helped me but it will help my elementary and middle school students too. They felt the “blearn” when we repeated music over and over again — but in the week since we’ve started using your method, I’ve never seen them play better. Thank you for sharing your amazing knowledge of music, the brain, and of course, how to practice –come back to visit us when you can!”
Anne Marie Patterson
Elementary Strings Teacher,
Charles County Schools,
Music Director of Charles County Youth Orchestra and Encore Strings (Maryland)
"I had the pleasure of attending Gregg Goodhart’s session on Better Learning Through Neuroscience at the 2015 ASTA convention. He is bridging the gap between the scientific world and the field of music education, applying scientific evidence to the process of learning. His enthusiasm and knowledge in this new field is inspirational. I look forward to hearing more from him in the future, and encourage all my students to do Skype lessons with him whenever possible. "
Andrea L. Meyers
Colorado Music Educators Association,
Membership Chair Sol-Via Modern Arts Center,
Project Coordinator Colorado Chamber Orchestra,
Board Member Private Cello Studio Denver, CO
“I just finished a wonderful summer conference with the Colorado American String Teachers Association. One of the most impressive sessions was with Gregg Goodhart. Please take a moment to read “My Dog Ate My Talent“. The essence of quality practice and forward thinking is in this article. This is life altering information!! Starting with, ‘Self Discipline.’
Thank you for the exceptional presentations and sessions. You are an inspiration to the teaching, learning, and musical profession. Bravo for taking the time to share your research, knowledge, creative spirit/energy, and practical techniques for further study. Inspirational!!”
“As an educator and parent trainer, I found Gregg Goodheart’s training to be dynamic, insightful and powerful. Passionate about cognitive neuroscience and child development, Goodheart took cutting-edge research and brought it vividly into everyday life. If every kid in our society had this information, “no child left behind” would be a reality.
I look forward to the day when every educator has this information and uses it to empower students to achieve their highest potential.”
“I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Gregg Goodhart as he invited me on three occasions to give Master Classes at the Servite School of Music (LA), where he taught for many years. We also had Master Classes several years in a row at Trilogy guitars, a famous guitar dealer in Playa del Rey (LA).
When I first met him, I was impressed by the excellent relationship he has with his young students. This was a clear sign to me that Mr. Goodhart might be a great teacher as well. And he was indeed.
His students – whether playing solo, duo or part of a guitar ensemble – always showed me a high level of preparation, a deep involvement in music playing, and even passion. And I can say that every one of our meetings was a real pleasure for me.
In addition to this I have to mention that Mr. Goodhart has a very innovative approach in his teaching, by showing his students elements of neuroscience. His teaching obviously helped them in music learning, and will continue as the students further their music careers.
The many students and teachers he meets at this workshops are all very enthusiastic, agreeing on the fact his “philosophy” is absolutely the type of work necessary to attain high levels of performance.
For these reasons I do fully recommend Mr. Gregg Goodhart for any opportunity you may get for him either as a teacher, a lecturer, a tutor or a coach. His skills in music education are just obvious to me.”
“Mr. Goodhart addressed our guitar masterclass at Azusa Pacific University with his presentation on how “talent is overrated” and it was a huge success. The students were genuinely fascinated by his presentation and were riveted to their seats.
What Mr. Goodhart presents does not just apply specifically to the guitar but to all of learning. He breaks down the elements of what occurs in the human mind when we learn and how to get into study habits that allow individuals to maintain a higher level of achievement in their respective areas. Mr. Goodhart explained to my students that excellence is achieved by a logical approach to study habits that become a progressive routine in their lives. Hours of training with a specific purpose produces specific results.
If a student is given the correct information and routinely applies this information to the problems they are trying to resolve, the student will see positive results. When students see themselves achieve, they gain confidence and the learning snowball just keeps on rolling. I have rarely seen an audience of music students so interested in how to learn. They didn’t want to let him go, as they were compelled to learn more about this aspect of learning. Mr. Goodhart gives students a step by step approach to what it takes to achieve their goals in a realistic no-nonsense approach that is both honest and refreshing in the world of education today.”
“Gregg’s visit at TLU sparked invigorated practice and interest in good practice techniques amongst our students in just two days. The practice consultations gave each student concrete reasons and methods for practicing more effectively- once implemented they saw marked improvement right away and have improved their private practice. We wish he could work with the students every day!”
"Mr. Goodhart, I attended your lecture during the ASTA convention and I must say it was extremely capturing. I learned a great amount dealing with how the brain functions, which is knowledge that should always be considered valuable. The information and research given was brilliant, but what truly wrapped your lecture nicely was your enthusiasm for the subject that really immersed the audience."
Elizabeth Zempel
Falls Baptist College,
College-Conservatory of Music,
Director, Music School,
Menominee Falls (WI)
"Exceptional ability to drill down to the root problem that hinders the student’s progress. The results are amazing and the students gain confidence to make their own decisions when they are alone."
Mimi Zweig
Professor of Music (Violin, Viola),
Director Pre-College Strings,
Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University (Indiana)
"Gregg Goodhart’s sessions for the Jacobs School of Music String Academy were extremely insightful and inspiring for myself and the students. His specific practice techniques coupled with his positive and genuine enthusiasm resulted in immediate progress with continuing development raising the performance bar since his Bloomington visit."
Lyda Osinga
Prelude and Central Conductor,
Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestras,
High School Orchestra Director,
National Board Certified Teacher, (Wisconsin)
"…so I have to tell you, you fixed (my student) Domingo. I came back after vacation and he had completely changed his practicing, searched your website, downloaded all your practice tips and showed me some amazing results.…and three months later… BTW, Domingo went from last chair first violins in one orchestra to 4th chair 1st violins in the next level orchestra – made some kids mad because he skipped over them – that’s how much he has improved!"
Dr. Brenda Brenner
Associate Professor of Music Education,
Co-Director, IU String Academy,
Indiana University (Indiana)
"Thank you so much for your wonderful visit to IU. It has made a big impact on my students and teaching. All of them walked away with new ideas and motivation to work hard, which is invaluable. Many of the college students who attended on Friday have remarked to me about how much they enjoyed the presentation and how much they learned. The people I admire most at IU. . .have each mentioned to me that they loved your talk and are using your ideas. You are a dynamic conduit between research and practice, and that is a vital link."
"You have provided one of the most beneficial presentations to my teachers I think they have attended since I began working with the school. It’s not often when you meet someone who understands and works to apply time maximization and utilization properly to achieve positive results."
"Hi Gregg, I have told countless people about the things that I learned -or heard with new ears – at your ASTA presentation in Louisville last March. You were amazing! I couldn’t agree with you more! I would like to find the notes for My Dog Ate My Talent, because I did not get the handout at the convention (you were THAT popular)."
I’ve never been able to express myself when I get up on the stage. Now I’m not nervous so I can let the emotion come through and that makes performance really fun.
Mikela R, Violin Student, Pacific University – Oregon
That is going to stick with me forever and it is the reason the “difficult” passages are no longer stressful (once practiced the right way). . .Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Joe K, Cello Performance Major, Florida State University
(Now) there is the feeling of your technique cooperating with you. . .it feels better, it feels so much musical and expressive. If all of your attention is going to struggling to make it (work) that never feels good, and that’s where a lot of musicians and students live a lot of the time.
It really surprised me how quickly it takes effect.
It was life altering for me. It’s something I’ve been looking for for years.
Nat H, Professional touring guitar and oud player, Teacher, United States
. . .but honestly, if you get the practice right you won’t have the nerves when you’re performing because you’ll have gotten the practice right in the first place.
Mike M, Guitarist and Teacher, United Kingdom
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