This content was created by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This content was uploaded by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This is a YouTube episode titled "Cognitive Science & Music" (created 2025-04-21 UTC) featuring Dr. Molly Gabriel, a violist, neuroscience researcher, and author of Learn Faster and Perform Better. The excerpt contains interview-style remarks from Dr. Gabriel about how neuroscience-informed practice can make musicians more efficient and overcome common practice/performance problems, interspersed with a host/announcer promo (Speaker B) announcing the episode premiere on April 22 at 8:00 PM Eastern and VIP Substack early access on April 21. The content functions as both an interview excerpt and a promotional preview aimed at musicians and listeners interested in learning and performance science.
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As a teacher, I think it's really important that we understand how our brains learn because that's what you're doing as a teacher, right? And as a musician, we spend so much time on our own in the practice room trying to improve. And if you understand how your brain works, then you can do that much more efficiently. And yeah, that's— I mean, I think that's all of our goals, right? Like practice efficiently and get better. The mindset, especially in classical music of, you you need to practice as many hours as you can possibly cram in the day, and you need to practice for as long as you can possibly tolerate it, like 3 hours, 4 hours at a time, right? And that's just like so not how the brain works. That's so not what the research shows. Um, and so I'm very happy to help dispel those, those myths because it's, it's just not how it works.
Join the premiere of this incredible and educational episode Unlocking the Brain: Neuroscience and Music Practice, featuring Dr. Molly Gabriel, violist, neuroscience researcher, and author of Learn Faster and Perform Better. This episode is packed with practical wisdom and deep insight from a professional musician who has dedicated her research to helping us understand how our brains truly work when we practice. She shares tools that can reshape how we learn, teach, and perform, grounded in science but tailored for real musicians.
All of us as musicians have had this experience too of feeling like you practiced really well, and then you go the next day to practice the same music again, and you feel like you have to redo all of your work, that nothing really stuck with you from the previous day. Or like, you know, if you made 10 steps forward yesterday, you have to go 8 steps back today. You like basically have to go back to the beginning and like do it all over again. And like, that's really frustrating, and it feels like— it just feels like a real waste of time. How many times have all of us gotten on stage, not played well, and been like, if I could just do that again, that would be so much better if I was given a second chance, right? Because it's much easier to do it a second time when you've just done it. It's really hard to just do it on the first try. And I mean, I think there's so many things that go into preparing for performance. And the biggest game changer for me with bridging that gap of, okay, I sound fine in the practice room and I feel confident, and then I go out on stage and like, it's a disaster. And it's like, what's happening? The biggest change for me and the thing that I've seen be a really huge change for my students too is—
Want to find out what neuroscience is all about and how it gave Dr. Molly Gabriel the tools to transform her own practice and teaching? Tune in Tuesday, April 22nd at 8:00 PM Eastern time on our YouTube channel or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Are you a VIP Substack member? The full audio episode is yours one day early on Monday, April 21st at 8 PM Eastern Time. For the rest of our TPP community, see you Tuesday.
