Learn Faster, Perform Better: The Neuroscience of Practicing with Molly Gebrian

Michelle Lynne: Well, hey, everybody. Welcome back to the “Fearless Artist Podcast.” I’m your host, Michelle Lynne, and today I’m honored to have Molly Gebrian on. Molly, welcome and thank you for being here today.

Molly Gebrian: Thanks for having me. I’m excited for this.

Michelle Lynne: You are the author of Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician’s Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing. Uh, this spoke to me, uh, because a very good friend of mine, a former piano student, is currently studying the viola at a local university.

Molly Gebrian: Oh, cool. Nice.

Michelle Lynne: Telling me about that she’s learning about the brain. And she, she took piano lessons with me, so she’s been relating it a lot to how musicians’ brains are different. Um, they’re bigger. There’s special parts that have expanded because of the ways that we’ve learned and over, you know, because we start so young. So I was super excited to find your book. I’ve seen it recommended by a number of different people now.

Molly Gebrian: Thank you.

Michelle Lynne: I got a copy this summer, and I would love for you to, uh, introduce yourself, first of all, to our audience, and then we can jump in as to why you wrote this.

Molly Gebrian: Sure. Sounds good. Um, so like you said, my name is Molly Gebrian. Um, I am a professional violist, but I also have a background in cognitive neuroscience, and my area of expertise is applying the science of learning and memory to practicing and performing. It’s something I’ve been doing, um, since I was a student, actually, but for many, many years. And yeah, it finally kind of culminated, or for now anyway, in, in this book of sharing, um, everything that I learned. ‘Cause just like your student, actually, when I started studying neuroscience, it started for me as an undergrad. I went to Oberlin College and Conservatory, and I double majored in, um, viola and, and neuroscience. I started seeing all these connections, just like your student, between what I was learning in my neuroscience classes and what I was learning from my viola professor about effective practicing. Um, and I just started looking into the research for myself, you know, to, to practice better. Um, and then it kind of snowballed from there. And now here we are, I’ve written a book, um, on, on the science of practicing.

Michelle Lynne: As one does. Just…

Molly Gebrian: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: …double major viola as if…

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: …that’s not hard enough.

Molly Gebrian: And then you continued your studies in Boston. Yeah, that’s right. So after, I didn’t have any plans to go on with, with neuroscience. It was just, I thought brains were fascinating. I still think brains are fascinating. I just wanted to learn about them, but I didn’t have any plans to go on. Um, but then I went to New England Conservatory for my master’s and almost immediately after I got to NEC, I realized I really missed the neuroscience. And I was like, well, I’m at a conservatory now. What do, what do I do? So, um, I’m very fortunate that NEC allowed me to do a number of independent studies on aspects of, of music and the brain that I had gotten interested in. So that’s when I started to really dig into the research. ‘Cause I hadn’t really had time at Oberlin to kind of do my own thing. Um, so at NEC I did a lot of sort of just my own, yeah, reading like reams of research papers. I used to go next door to Northeastern’s, uh, science library and, and just go through the stacks. Um, but then after that I went to Rice University for my doctorate.

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Molly Gebrian: In, in viola. Um, but I was back at a school that had classes other than, other than music. And so Rice actually allowed me to take neuroscience classes with the neuroscience PhD students pretty much every semester I was there. In addition to my viola studies, I was taking, you know, graduate-level neuroscience. Um, and I worked in a lab for a long time. I did a whole bunch of stuff at Rice, like totally unrelated to the viola, but it was, it was amazing. Um, and that’s when I really started teaching it to other people. Um, I was the assistant director on two interdisciplinary symposia on music and the brain that was organized, um, by one of the composition professors there, Tony Brandt, who has a real interest in, in music and the brain, and to get students like involved and excited about this event that we were planning. They asked if I would teach this lunchtime series. They called “Pizza and Brains.” The school supplied free pizza and soda for students. So they’d come and I just like, they were like, “Can you just like teach something about like music and brains to like get people interested in this?” And I was like, yeah, sure. It was great. It was so much fun. Like people would, obviously people came ’cause there’s free food, but like people came and people were really interested in it. And that was the first time I really, I don’t know, I thought it was this thing that I just, this quirky thing that I was interested in, but it made me realize like, wait, other people find this interesting, too, and it’s really fun to like share this information. Um, so at Rice I also taught a class on like music cognition and perception, like how we, how the brain processes music, that kind of thing. Um, and then from there, I, I got my first collegiate teaching job and I started writing about it a lot and presenting at conferences. So for the last ten years, that was sort of my life. I was a viola professor, collegiate, viola professor, doing all this stuff with science, the science of learning kind of on the side. Writing, presenting, doing like, um, social media stuff. Um, and then last summer I moved back to Boston and I now teach at New England Conservatory. I’m teaching classes on science and practicing, how brains process music, working with students one-on-one, doing workshops. Um, because early on in the pandemic, when everyone was scrambling to be like, “How do we teach music online?” People started asking me to come in and like do presentations and workshops on Zoom with their students and, ’cause I’d gone to NEC, they knew me and their and and my work and they invited me in multiple times and somewhere along the line they were like, “You know, it would be great to have you actually like teach here rather than doing this like one-off thing.” And I was like, that would be amazing. So now here I am. We just started my second year last week, so.

Michelle Lynne: And what an amazing story to come back to the conservatory where you couldn’t study…

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: …that you were so interested in, and now you are the person making it happen.

Molly Gebrian: Totally. Yeah. It feels very full circle to me in an extremely weird way. Like I never, ever would’ve guessed that this is how it would work out. Right. I…

Michelle Lynne: That’s just so beautiful is as we pursue the things that we’re passionate about, what interests us, then doors can open that were not planned. And we’d love to see that with musicians as yourself. Like showing the example of you can literally create your own career.

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, and I didn’t mean to do that, right? Like people sometimes ask me like, “How, like, how did you do this?” thinking I had a plan in mind. I was like, “I don’t know, I was just interested in this and things just started happening,” and you know, doors opened, like you said, but it wasn’t ever the plan, not even in a million years. So…

Michelle Lynne: That is so powerful and like almost worth hanging out here. Like we say, like, “Follow your passion” to the musicians.

Molly Gebrian: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: It’s, you know, you don’t have to put yourself in this position where you’re against all the other violists, and you have…

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: …created your brand new path just for yourself. You’re excited, you’re lit up about it. You have books, conferences, webinars. You’re being brought in to do guest speaking, and it’s not that you left being a musician, you only added…

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: …a wholehearted, whole full musician with extra strengths and skills and a whole other skill set that many people don’t have.

Molly Gebrian: Right, exactly. And yeah, I like, I, I still play viola, obviously. I still love to play viola. Like, you know, I am pro, I still perform. Like, it’s not like I’m not a violist and I’m teaching, right? Um, and yeah, I mean, I have always been so adamant that people pursue their passion because if you’re doing what you really love in life, like you’re going to succeed because that’s what drives you to do things and pursue things that, you know, maybe would be too difficult to stay with, right? Like reading neuroscience papers. That’s not like fun, necessarily, right? They’re, they’re very, they’re, they’re very dense. But it’s fascinating to me. So it, so it is fun, right? And if I was doing something, I don’t know, if I was like sitting at a desk all day on a computer, like even if I was earning like millions of dollars, like that sounds so miserable. Why in the world would I, would I do that? Right? And so when you’re doing something that you really love, it makes it possible for you to do the parts of it that maybe aren’t quote unquote fun, but it doesn’t matter. Right? And then you, then you get where, even if you don’t think that’s where you’re going, you get where you’re going.

Michelle Lynne: It’s incredible because I think many musicians have been told you need to stay in the box.

Molly Gebrian: Yes, exactly.

Michelle Lynne: And you are still performing, you’re teaching, you’re an active freelance violist, and you have this whole other part of your career that this combination has created this fulfilling path for you. And I think that’s…

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: …amazing for everyone listening, that you don’t have to abandon your musical career in order to bring something else in. It can actually…

Molly Gebrian: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: …be something that strengthens it.

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, totally. I often get asked to talk to like high school groups, like youth orchestras or whatever, and a question I often get asked by the students is like, “What would you, what advice would you give to someone who has, you know, interest in music and something else?” And the thing I always say is like, “The world is going to try to pigeonhole you, don’t pigeonhole yourself.” Like, you’re going to be told you have to do one thing, you have to choose one thing. Fortunately, nobody ever outright said that to me. Nobody ever came out and said to me, “You must either choose between music or neuroscience.” But I was certainly made to feel that way. Like that was sort of implied. Definitely never by my family. Definitely never by my primary teachers, actually. So I’m really glad that that was the case, but I was definitely made to feel that like, you know, I should really choose. And I just don’t, I just never cared. Like, it’s, it’s my life. It’s not your life. I’m, I like, I know what’s right for me. I’m not going to listen to you people. Like, if you, if you don’t want to do music and neuroscience, that’s fine. That’s your life, but it’s not mine. And so I’m going to do what I want. Um, and I, I don’t know, that’s always kind of been me. I just like, “Okay, that’s fine. Go away. I’m not, I’m not going to listen to you.”

Michelle Lynne: That’s so powerful. Um, can you talk a little bit about energy management then? Because I think that’s…

Molly Gebrian: Ye…

Michelle Lynne: …what a lot of musicians would come up against. ‘Cause I mean, I’m, I’ve gotten into coaching now and I feel like, you know, I, Monday we had this, uh, conference, eleven hours on Zoom. Okay. I didn’t touch the piano, so I’m…

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: …thinking of, um, ebb and flow. Or like today I’m Coach Michelle, and then the next day I’m making sure I’m catching up on practicing. Like, how do you navigate all this?

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, that’s a really great question. So anybody that knows me knows how important sleep is to me, and I’m always talking about getting enough sleep. So my life, and it always has, my life has always revolved around getting enough sleep and eating regularly, because I know that if I don’t get, and enough sleep for me is eight to nine hours. Anything less than that, I cannot function. So getting enough sleep and eating regularly for me, if I don’t do those things, I’m a disaster and I can’t function. So I schedule my entire life around that every day. Um, and so those are the two most important things to me to make sure happen. Um, without those, I, I, there’s no way that I could do sort of my life ’cause I wouldn’t have the energy to do it. Um, but then in terms of like the ebb and flow of like practicing, let’s say, and, and managing that, I used to practice four hours a day kind of without fail. I haven’t done that in years because I don’t have time for that. But one thing I talk about a lot in my book, actually, is the research is really clear that we make the most progress during breaks, which is the most counterintuitive thing ever. Um, but that research has really helped me when I can’t practice. Like yesterday, I practiced for an hour. Probably today, I am not going to practice at all, actually. Um, but that research has helped me see, actually, the breaks aren’t wasted time. The breaks are what my brain needs to physically change itself. And then I’ll come back and it will, it will be stronger. Um, and so I think if I had known maybe ten years ago that, like, yesterday I practiced for an hour and today I’m probably not going to practice, that would’ve like freaked me out. Like, “Oh my gosh, no, no, no.” Um, but now it’s like, that’s not a big deal. Like, it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. Like, I get good work done when I’m practicing, and when I’m not practicing, like my brain is still processing the stuff that I worked on. Um, and that’s important too.

Michelle Lynne: This is incredible. We need to dig into this, and we, this is a great way to jump into the book, too, ’cause that really spoke to me, and you explained breaks in a couple different ways. You…

Molly Gebrian: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Lynne: …talked about a micro break and then you also talk about…

Molly Gebrian: Yep.

Michelle Lynne: …practicing over three weeks, for example, not touching it for, you know, a week and then somehow you come back. It’s better.

Molly Gebrian: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: This is giving me like, I feel like a, a sigh of relief coming over me. Can you, can you explain to our audience like those two different styles of breaks?

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, totally. So, um, the research on breaks looks at breaks of all sizes and lengths. So micro breaks are like little short breaks, like ten, fifteen seconds, a couple minutes breaks, and then up to like a day or a week or months, um, taking time off. And basically, this is so hard to wrap your mind around because while we’re practicing, that’s when you feel like you’re making the progress, right? ‘Cause you’re practicing. But in order to get better at anything, in order to learn anything, our brains have to actually make physical changes to themselves to support that higher level of skill or learning or whatever, which I think makes sense if you think about it, right? Like your brain has to change in order to learn. But the brain can only make those physical changes really when you’re taking a break. Um, so an analogy I’ve been using more frequently actually that’s not in the book, that seems to really resonate with people is that of strength training. ‘Cause I think most people have experience doing some sort of physical activity and, and getting stronger. And I think most people know that you don’t actually build strength during the workout itself. You create micro-tears in your muscles, right? And then your body repairs those micro-tears stronger while you’re resting. And I think everybody knows the importance of rest days. Like you can’t do leg day two days in a row, or certainly like every day out of a week, like your legs are going to be ripped to shreds and you won’t be able to walk, right? You need to have a break so your body can repair itself essentially, and then it repairs it stronger. Our brains are exactly the same. You’re not creating micro-tears in your brain, but you are giving your brain input that your brain then does something with just like your muscles when you’re, when you’re taking a break. So within a practice session, micro breaks, those little short ten, fifteen second breaks are really important to give your brain a chance to process what you just did. There’s a really cool study that I talk about in my book where, um, they had people learning, it was just a button-press sequence on a computer keyboard. Um, they’d practice for ten seconds and then take a ten-second micro break and then practice for ten seconds and so on. And they found that the vast majority of the improvement happened during the breaks, not during the actual little practice sessions, but also they had people’s brains hooked up to a brain scanner to see what was happening while they were practicing or taking a break. And they found that in those ten-second micro breaks, the brain was replaying what they had just practiced twenty times faster. So it was like a super fast-forward replay. Like so cool, right? Like you feel like, so cool. Like you feel like when you’re taking a break, it’s like you’re not doing anything, but like, yeah, the brain is doing so much. And so that’s, that paper came out in 2021. Um, and before that I wasn’t taking micro breaks ’cause I didn’t, I didn’t know about it. Right. But since then, I’ve been taking micro breaks and it’s wild how well they work. Like ten seconds of just standing there and like getting a sip of water and like, spacing out. And like, I, I always practice in front of a window, so I like spy on my neighbors and look at the dogs walking around or whatever, you know? And like, you’d think that that would be like such a waste of time, but oh my gosh, it makes such a difference with how quickly I can learn things, how well I retain things. It’s, I mean, it shouldn’t be amazing ’cause I know the research, but it feels amazing. It feels like this magic bullet in a way that you just stand there and you space out. Um, and then longer breaks, like, or I talk a little bit about this in the book, but early on in the pandemic, like April, 2020, I, so I was always scared to try this big breaks thing like days or weeks off because like, I don’t know, like you feel like that’s not going to work, right? If I take a day off, I’m going to like lose how to play. But early on in the pandemic, there were no concerts, right? Everything was canceled. And I was like, “Okay, this is the perfect opportunity actually to try this long breaks thing out. Because if it backfires and it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter ’cause I don’t have any concerts anyway, right? And I can just see what happens.” Um, so I did this huge experiment on myself with, you know, different length breaks. I am never, ever going back to how I used to practice, which was trying to practice everything every day, trying to practice every day. I haven’t practiced on Sundays since, yeah, April, 2020. I take every single Sunday off and I have for the last five years. Um, but yeah, now I have this schedule of taking days and weeks off and the, and the breaks get longer and longer, the better you get at something. That’s what the, that’s what the research shows. And I learn music so much faster than I used to. It feels so much more secure than it used to. And it’s just, yeah, it’s kind of wild how well breaks work. And we just don’t know this. Right? Like, it’s not part of our training and we’re, we’re led to believe that taking breaks is bad and you’re lazy and you shouldn’t take time off. And like, that’s so much the opposite of what the research shows.

Michelle Lynne: Thank you for explaining all this. And I was also very surprised when I read about the micro breaks.

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: Like, you’re allowed to just sit there and do nothing for ten to fifteen seconds.

Molly Gebrian: Not only are you allowed to sit there and do nothing, you should sit there and that’s what you do. Like, you, the brain needs to space out. Which is another weird thing ’cause we’re, we’re led to believe like, you know, like, oh, like, “Stop daydreaming,” or “You need to focus,” or, you know, like all those messages. But the brain actually needs to space out and rest. And it does a lot of stuff, but you have to let it. You have to let it, right? And so, yeah, during my ten to fifteen second micro breaks, I usually get a sip of water and I, yeah, I just like look out the window and yeah, watch the dogs walking by, look at the pretty leaves, changing color, like, you know, whatever’s happening out there. And then, and then I go back and I do another, you know, if I’m trying to get like a certain number of correct repetitions to solidify something, I’ll do another repetition or two, um, or, or whatever. But yeah, I just kind of space out, don’t do anything and then come back.

Michelle Lynne: Don’t look at your phone during that ten-second break.

Molly Gebrian: Don’t look at your phone. Exactly. Yeah. That’s, that’s something I need to add, that if I, if I do a second edition of my book, everybody’s always asking, “Is it okay to go on social media?” No, don’t go on your phone. Don’t go on social media.

Michelle Lynne: But people need you at the same time, and you are like…

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. Nope, nope, nope. Don’t do that. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: If people haven’t got the book yet, can you explain when the micro break happens, how many after? How many repetitions?

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. So actually, I’ve changed things from how I describe it in my book. ‘Cause I’m always experimenting on myself. So, um, what I describe in the book was, um, like if you are, I think all of us have the experience of doing repetitions to solidify something. Right. To make sure you can, you can do something. Right.

Michelle Lynne: Over and over was how I learned, like ten times.

Molly Gebrian: Right, right.

Michelle Lynne: And start over if you mess up.

Molly Gebrian: If you start over, you mess up. Yeah, exactly. Um, and I used to do that just like one after another, right? So I started experimenting after that micro breaks with, “Okay, what if I only did three? Instead of like a whole bunch, three and then a micro break and then, and then three more.” ‘Cause it’s symmetrical and it’s easy to keep track of. And so that’s what I was doing when I wrote the book. And that works really well, like doing two or three. More recently, actually, I’ve been experimenting with doing one repetition and then taking micro break and then the next repetition and micro break. And that seems to work better. Um, yeah. Isn’t that…

Michelle Lynne: Just waiting.

Molly Gebrian: And then just, yeah, waiting and then do the next repetition and then just wait. And I, I always have a timer on when I’m practicing to sort of keep track of time. And if I were to add up all of the micro breaks, I practice in thirty-minute segments of time. If I were to add all of them up, they would add up to like ten to fifteen minutes of my thirty-minute practice time. So like a very large chunk of my practicing doesn’t have sound in it because I am just standing there allowing my, yeah, you are processing. Yeah, exactly. And like it’s amazing how much more I get done and how quickly things stick with me. I think we’ve all had the experience of like, you are just like pounding something over and over and over and it’s not getting better and it doesn’t seem to stick, and you feel like you got it and then you come back the next day and like all your work is gone and you’re like, “Oh, what the heck? Like I figured this out yesterday. Why, why can’t I do this anymore?” But when that, that experience, especially of coming back the next day and being like, “Oh my gosh, I have to do all my work over again,” that is an indication you didn’t practice well the day before, even if it feels like you did because your work… Yeah. And this is like, I think all of us just think that like the process is like ten steps, exactly like ten steps forward, nine steps back. I think that’s what we think the process is, right? And that we’re always just having to go back and do our work over again. And that’s not how it should go. You should come back the next day and your work should either be where you left it or better than where you left it because you slept, because you took micro breaks, because you interleaved your practice, which is something we haven’t talked about yet, but like it, it sometimes to me, practicing in this way now after having not practiced that way so many years, like growing up, right? It still sometimes feels too good to be true. Like, “Are you telling me that I practiced way more than I had to,” you know, growing up when I was in school. And I wasn’t really accomplishing anything. Like that’s, that’s not a good thing. But it is nice that like, ’cause I don’t have a lot of practice time now, like, I’m lucky if I get in two hours a day. Like that these days, that’s like a, like a really good practice day for me is two and a half. Um, but like, I’m happy with two. Most days I get one, one and a half if I’m lucky, but I learn music faster than I used to when I was practicing four hours a day.

Michelle Lynne: Incredible. And I also love how much emphasis you put on your sleep because you are saying some days, an hour…

Molly Gebrian: Yep.

Michelle Lynne: …is all like practice. Well, if you slept an hour or less, you could practice an hour more, which is how most musicians probably think.

Molly Gebrian: Think about it. Yeah. But like sleep, I mean, sleep is the ultimate break. Your brain is doing so much stuff when, when you’re sleeping to process what you did during the day. Not to mention that it’s just really hard to focus when you’re really tired. Right. And so you’re not going to be practicing well like to begin with. Um, but. Yeah, I mean, sleep is really, really powerful for learning. And there’s tons and tons of studies where they’ll have people learn something on day one and then go home, go to sleep, get a full night’s sleep, come back on day two, and they are way better on day two. There’s this huge jump in their performance and it’s attributable to the sleep, not anything they did during practicing. Um, so yeah, sleep is, sleep is really critically important.

Michelle Lynne: Guilt-free naps from now on.

Molly Gebrian: Yes, naps. There’s also really cool research on naps that naps are so, so beneficial. I mean, one of the best things you can do is practice and then go take a nap. Like, that’s like, that’s like one of the very best things you can do for learning. Um, so yes, do not feel guilty about your naps. That’s exactly what you should be doing.

Michelle Lynne: I wish I had known that sooner. This is great. I know it’s in the book, but can you talk about that three-week practice strategy that you have for learning a new piece and how you have evolved your practice strategy?

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, exactly. It’s more, I think it’s more like four and a half weeks is what it turns out to be than three, but whatever. Um, so yeah, this comes from my experiment on myself. Early in 2020 was taking breaks. So, um, I experimented with lots of different schedules. Of taking increasingly long breaks from what I was, what, what I was working on. What I do these days is, um, on the first day of practicing something, and by something I mean like a single phrase, like I’m not taking three weeks off from practicing or whatever. Like I’ll, I’ll work on like, let’s say a phrase of a new piece, and I’ll work on that phrase, usually three days in a row. On average, if it’s really easy, maybe only two, but three days in a row, and then I’ll take a day off from that phrase and I won’t even think about it, won’t do anything with it. And then, so let’s say I practice Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, take Thursday off, then come back on Friday. And I’ll do every other day, usually three times on average. So actually not Friday, Sunday, Tuesday. ‘Cause I don’t practice on Sunday. So, um, Friday, Monday, Wednesday is what I would do. Um, and then after that, sort of every other day, three times on average, I’ll take a week off from that passage. Don’t think about it. Don’t, it’s, yeah, you know, outta my awareness. And then I come back after a week. Um, and then, um, usually what happens in the book, I talk about doing it. Three days in a row. Again, I rarely need those three days. Sometimes I come back after a week and it feels fantastic. I’m like, great, goodbye. I’ll see you in two weeks. Sometimes on the first day, a few things are a little bit like I have to remind myself about them, so I’ll practice it that day and then the next day, and then I’ll take two weeks off. It’s rare that I need like three days in a row, and then I come back after two weeks and almost always after two weeks, it’s like, this feels great. Ready to go. Um, and so once, and I always have like many, many passages making their way through this sort of schedule of breaks. I use my Google calendar to keep, to keep track of it all. And it’s also great ’cause I can just open my Google calendar every day and look at what’s on the docket for today. And it tells me what to practice and I kind of don’t have to decide, which is nice. Um, but yeah, I mean, and then once things make their way through their, through the schedule, they feel very solid, like surprisingly so, given how little I’ve actually practiced them and they, they’re now, they’re ready for me to just get ready to perform them. So like, integrate with larger sections, um, to work on stamina with larger sections, to practice, like performance readiness, to test, “Can I play it just on the first try and, you know, the way I would want to in a concert?” But it’s, it’s so different than how I used to practice and it works so much better.

Michelle Lynne: Say for a sonata, you’re mentioning working one phrase at a time.

Molly Gebrian: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Lynne: Like, how do you divide the piece?

Molly Gebrian: Mm-hmm. How do I divide the rep? Yeah. So one of the first things I do after I’ve gone through and I put in my fingerings in my bows, ’cause that’s the first step, like how physically am I going to play this thing? Then I divide the piece into red, yellow, and green sections. So red sections and a section could be a measure in this case, but red sections are emergencies, like things that are really hard, either that I know. Like, looking at it, it’s really fast and it’s really high and it has a lot of double stops, like automatically that’s, that’s going to be red. Or things that when I was putting my fingerings in, I’m like, “Oh my God, that is so awkward.” Like, or that’s really hard to hear. Anything that, like, if I tried to play it right now would be embarrassing for me to play in front of somebody. Those are my red sections. Yellow sections are things that need work, but they’re not emergencies, and usually it’s pretty clear the difference between those. And then green sections are things that are fine. Like, sure, I’m going to practice them, but if I had to play it right now, they would be, I wouldn’t embarrass myself. It would be like acceptable playing, sight-readable or like, yeah, exactly. Um, and then I get to work on my red section. So it’s, I rarely just start at the beginning and learn in order. Um, I start with my red sections ’cause that’s what’s going to need the most time. Right. Um, and then I, you know, I usually choose the reddest of the red, like what is the hardest section in this whole thing? And I start with that. And I just start by breaking it down and figuring out like, “Okay, what, what are the problems in here? What are the, what are the things I’m going to struggle with? How can I break this down into manageable chunks?” And then, yeah, I start with that passage and it works its way through, through the schedule of breaks. Usually when I start a new piece on any given day, um, I will have. On the first day, I would say I usually have three to five sections that start their way through the schedule, sort of depending on how much time I have and stuff like that. Um, and then as I have time working through the schedule, I just sort of add, add new sections, um, add new sections in. So totally depends on the red section. Um, so some red sections need a lot of time because there’s a lot of stuff in there that needs to be sort of broken down and, and worked out. Other red sections like I’m, I learned two new sonatas over the summer, so I’m thinking like of this one movement in particular. The reddest of the red sections. It was actually just one little transition from one note that was very high to a double stop that was very awkward. Everything else actually wasn’t that bad once I started digging into it, but it was that part that needed attention, so it didn’t actually need that much time because it was just like essentially two notes. Um, whereas there’s another, in a different sonata, there’s another red section that’s not as hard as that really high awkward thing. But it’s, it’s longer. It’s sort of a long double stoppy section that’s like, uh, a big sequence that was just kind of hard to get really well in tune and it’s fast. So I had to work it up to tempo. So that actually required more time over the weeks that I was, I was learning it, um, even though it’s not quite as hard technically as that other thing. So, yeah, it’s hard to say how long per red section.

Michelle Lynne: So just one more time, three days in a row, and then every other…

Molly Gebrian: Uh-huh.

Michelle Lynne: …day except Sundays for the first week.

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. Except Sundays. Yeah. Three days in a row, take a day off. Yeah. And then every other day, three times. Then take a week off, three times, take two weeks off, three times. The three, though, is an average. Sometimes it’s only two days on all these like three steps. Sometimes it’s three days. Sometimes it’s four days. Sometimes it’s one day. If it’s really easy.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, I mean, sometimes even like, there have been passages where I’ve done it three days in a row, I take a day off and then, so like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, take Thursday off, play it on Friday. And I’m like, this feels totally fine. Like, if I could, if I had to play this for someone right now, that would be absolutely no problem. I do not need to practice this again. See you at a week. Um, and I just put it on the schedule for, for the next week, uh.

Michelle Lynne: This is all the rep that I got to learn. I mean, for pianists, too. We have a lot of notes. So this, I’m thinking now I need…

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: …to score the scores. Red, yellow, green. Um, I love that. I mean, I definitely have the red…

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, right. I mean, I think we all, I mean, I think we all know our red sections, right? I think we sort of know that intuitively, that like, oh, these are the really, really hard parts. But the thing with doing the red, yellow, green, and sometimes people ask like, “Well, what if you, what if you’re wrong? Like, what if you call something red and it’s actually yellow?” Like, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a way to get started. It’s just a way to cut down on the overwhelm and like, once you can see really clearly. Like, and sometimes movements that seem really difficult. You do the red, yellow, green and you’re like, “Oh, actually there’s only five red sections. Most of this is yellow.” Like, and that, and that. Yes, it needs practice, but it helps you realize like, okay, there’s really only a small handful of things. They’re like really tricky. And the rest of it like is needs practice, but is is manageable and it just, yeah, it just helps cut down on the overwhelm and I feel like it’s like a bird’s-eye view of the piece that’s really hard to get. I think when you’re just looking at the piece as a whole with nothing sort of marked out like that, at least, at least to me, I…

Michelle Lynne: This is like, so, I mean, I’ve started to look at…

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: …the piece all at once and kind of listening to the recording and seeing sections and just kind of getting the overall view first…

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: …but my pianist tendency was always to jump in and go for the notes without seeing the big picture.

Molly Gebrian: Right. Right. Yeah. And I think it’s, I, I think that’s so relatable that you just jump in and you start learning. But if you don’t have a big picture view of the piece of like, “How is this put together structurally, or what’s going on musically in this piece?” you can’t even, at least for string player, like you can’t even decide on fingerings. Sometimes because what you’re trying to say musically is sometimes dictated by, or the, the fingering sometimes dictates the musicality and, and vice versa. Like, what string you’re going to play it on. It sounds really different. And so you need to know at least on a preliminary level, like, “Okay, this part is like the climax and it needs to be really brash and like in your face.” That’s going to be a really different fingering and potentially bowing than if it, if it wasn’t that sort of character. Um, so you don’t have to necessarily know it super, super, super, super in depth before you start, because obviously you’re going to, you’re going to get to know the piece better as you work on it. But having an overview before you start, I think helps you start so you know what you’re doing and what the context is of everything that you’re playing.

Michelle Lynne: And you can sleep better at night ’cause you, you know what the hard spots in your head are working on.

Molly Gebrian: Exactly.

Michelle Lynne: Exactly.

Molly Gebrian: That’s the other thing. Like I think a lot of people start from the beginning and they just start learning notes and you kind of have in the back of your mind, I think like, “Oh no, what if there’s really hard stuff?” Or like, “Am I spending too much time in the beginning or whatever?” Or you don’t think about that and then you get to the last page and you’re like, “Oh crap. Like this part is so hard. I should have started this weeks ago.” Whereas if you give yourself this overview and you see, okay, the hardest thing of all is like the last two lines, which is not uncommon, right? ‘Cause it’s really fast and this big flourish at the end, like, start with that, and then you can rest easy knowing, “Okay. That I’m looking at that, that’s under, that’s under control. It’s sort of in my practice system,” whatever that may be. Um, and it’s not sort of looming over your head. You’re, you’re dealing with it.

Michelle Lynne: This is so great. Um, can you talk about the interweaving that you mentioned before?

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. So, um, we think we should practice in sort of breaks aside like big blocks of time. Like, “Okay, I am working on my concerto and I’m going to work on it for half an hour or an hour or like, whatever.” Um, and then once I’m done with that, “Now I’m going to go work on my sonata or whatever.” And we think, “Okay, we put these big blocks of time,” and it seems to make sense. But what the research is really clear on is that things stick with us better. We make more progress when you are constantly switching between things. So you do a little bit of your concerto, then a little bit of your sonata, then a little bit of, you know, whatever. Um, because there’s a variety of reasons why this works, but, um, one thing I often talk about is, as musicians, we need to have a lot of cognitive flexibility, right? Because when you are performing, the music just keeps going it, you know, and you have to constantly change your frame of mind and being like, “How do I play this section? Oh, right now here I am in this section.” And it, it, it just takes a lot of flexibility. And so when you practice in this interleaved way that you’re constantly switching between things, you have to practice that skill of flexibility, of switching gears and just, you know, doing something else. People often say to me, “It’s really hard for me to switch, to get my mind in this new thing.” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s the point.” Because you need to be able to do that. You need to be able to switch your, your frame of mind on a dime when you’re performing or think about an audition, right, when they’re asking for different things and you just have to go and you have to switch gears. Um, so it practices the skill of flexibility. When you’re constantly switching between things, you also come back to things, and that is one of the most important parts that you work on something for a while. Work on other stuff and then come back to that first thing. You give your brain a reminder about that first thing, and it helps cement it in your, in your memory. Um, one of the examples or one of the analogies I give for this that I think people resonate with is if you took a class and on the first day of class the professor talked about something, a whole bunch and then never, ever mentioned that again, and suddenly it was on the exam, you’d be like, “What the heck is this?” Like you, you’d be like, “I guess we talked about that, but like, I don’t remember.” Right. But if the professor talked about that topic a little bit, every single class and kept returning to it, by the time you got to the exam, you wouldn’t have to study that thing. You’d be like, “Yeah, we’re talking about this all the time. Like, I know this.” Right? And so with practicing, if we do one big block on something and don’t, don’t return to it, that practice day, our brain has a much harder time holding onto it than if we practice it for a little bit, do some other stuff, come back and practice it again, remind our brain. Do some other stuff, come back and, and practice it again. Um, that’s not doing enough. Interleaving going away and coming back is one of the things that’s behind that experience of coming back to your piece the next day and feeling like you’ve lost all your work because you didn’t give your brain those reminders throughout, throughout the day.

Michelle Lynne: How short are the blocks of time to come back to something?

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. Right. So there’s, there’s sort of an infinite number of ways to do this. Some people prefer to schedule it out that like every five minutes or every ten minutes, or I like to use a three-minute time. Or every three minutes, you are switching what you are doing and you write down sort of the order of switching before you start practicing so you know exactly what you are doing. Um, and I do that sometimes. I like a, I like a three-minute timer, actually. I’ll pick three little things that need practicing. I’ll come up with an order of switching, um, usually a random order, so like 1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 1, 3, 1, 2. Let’s say I put on my timer to go off every three minutes and every three minutes I just switch, you know, to whatever is next in, in the list. More common for me, though, is to, I know what I’m practicing for the day. ‘Cause my Google calendar tells me. I know how much time I have. I practice in thirty-minute segments, like I said. And so in any thirty-minute segment going into that, I know, okay, I have these five sections, let’s say, that I want to practice that need attention. I know what my goal is for each of those sections, what I’m hoping to get done, and I know how I’m going to approach trying to achieve those goals. And usually I will interleave and switch between them in a more intuitive way. I’ll usually start with the thing that needs the most attention, uh, whatever that is, and I will practice it for, it is hard to say. Sometimes I’ll practice it for two minutes. Sometimes I’ll practice it for ten, twelve minutes. But these days I never practice any one thing for more than about ten minutes. Um, and then I will take a break from that and go practice something else. And maybe that’s something else only needs like two, three minutes ’cause it’s a tiny little thing. Um, and then maybe I’ll return to the first thing. Maybe I’ll go to thing number three and work on that for a while. But I kind of have these five things kind of like floating around, you know, and I’m, I’m returning to them, um, regularly within the practice. But how exactly I do it is sort of more intuitive based on, you know, what I feel my brain needs. That’s so vague. Um, but I can, these days I can feel like, okay, I’ve been working for about ten minutes on this really intensive section for intonation and like really listening to the pitch really, really carefully. And I can feel, okay, my brain needs to do something different. So now I’m going to go work on something where the rhythm is really tricky, let’s say. And like making sure I can feel the rhythm. Um, but the more you interleave your practice and the more breaks you take, you start to feel actually that your brain needs a break from something. Um, most people grab their phone. Actually that’s a really good thing to point out. ‘Cause I think people say, “Well, how, what does it feel like?” But you’re right, people know ’cause they grab their phone ’cause they start spacing out. Um, so when you feel that urge to grab your phone, take a break instead and just stare at the dogs in your, the micro break. Yeah. Go look out the window. Yeah, exactly. Or you know, sometimes I’ll go in the kitchen and get a snack. Sometimes I will take a break and do some random chore. Actually something that’s really great is laundry. So I’ll put my laundry in practice for the length of the laundry, then go put the laundry in the dryer, then practice, then get the laundry out. I do like, it’s a, it’s actually chores are a really good thing to, to do, you know, during your break or practice around the chores. ‘Cause then you get your chores done, but it’s also helping you manage your breaks.

Michelle Lynne: Wow. I’ve, I’ve got so much to process here with everything you are saying. Um, I wanted to go back to when you were talking about interweaving. Um, do interweaving…

Molly Gebrian: Interweaving. It’s with an L. Interleaving. Yeah. Interweaving, though. I mean, it is the same thing. You are interweaving everything. Yeah. We’re le interleaving. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Is there any pushback around, like, you need to spend a certain amount of time before switching or else you, it won’t stick or you have to just give it enough? Yeah. How do we manage that?

Molly Gebrian: No, I, I mean, there is, there is pushback, but that’s not the, the research doesn’t, doesn’t show that. Yeah. And you know, it’s kind of amazing, like in the research they often force people to switch after a certain amount of time. Like time goes off and then they have to switch. Um, and what I found in my own practicing, like, especially with that three-minute timer thing like. Three-minute timer goes off, maybe I’m not done with what I was working on, but I have to switch and it doesn’t matter. It’s kind of amazing. Like you’re in the middle of working something out and the timer says you have to go do something else. Okay, so you go do something else. You come back to that thing and you’re like, “What was I in the middle of? Oh, right, okay.” And you pick up where you left off, and that sort of “Oh, right” reminder is what helps it stick for you, which is really counterintuitive. Um, but, and, and students are always really skeptical and a lot of times I will actually do this with students in a lesson or in my practicing class that I teach at NEC. We have a number of our classes on Zoom with everyone in their own practice room. So I can sort of guide people through practice session. And we always have a class with this interleaved practice thing with the timer, and everyone is always astounded. “I thought that that was going to feel really chaotic. I felt like nothing was going to stick with me, but actually it was the complete opposite of that.” And students always say, especially in my NEC class, ’cause it takes a three-minute timer, three times, takes twenty-seven minutes. Students are always like, “That was the most productive twenty-seven minutes I think I’ve ever had. I got more done in those twenty-seven minutes than like my entire four hours of practicing yesterday.” It’s really, it feels so weird. It feels like this can’t possibly be, but then you do it and you’re like, “Okay, yeah, that does work.”

Michelle Lynne: Three things, three times.

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, I’m not three pieces, three. I mean, you can’t get much done in three minutes, so you have to be really, really targeted. So yeah. So what I might do in a three-minute segment is like, work on one shift, right. Or, or something like really small like that. Three targeted things. Exactly. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: In that twenty-seven minutes, except the micro breaks, maybe.

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, the micro, so it’s important to still take the micro breaks within those, those three minutes. You can also, I mean, it’s not a problem at all to within between each three-minute segment, to put in a little break of fifteen seconds, thirty seconds. What I use for this is an interval timer, so there’s all these timer apps you can get. It’s for high-intensity interval training. Exercise, um, and you can program the timer to, to do whatever you want. So I usually just put in a three-minute timer that just keeps going. But you could program in three minutes of work, thirty-second break, let’s say, three minutes of work, thirty-second break. Um, because it’s so easy to, to program those timers and just do that.

Michelle Lynne: Sounds, yeah.

Molly Gebrian: Try it. It’s amazing. It’s, yeah. I mean, and that’s what I say to people. Like, I feel like people have two reactions to this. Either, “Ooh, that sounds kind of fun. I want to see what that’s like,” or people are like, “No, that sounds terrible. I don’t want to do that.” And to the people who are like, “No, I don’t want to do that,” I’m like, “It’s twenty-seven minutes out of your life. Like just, it’s an experiment. Give it a try. Test it. See how, see how you feel.” Um, and yeah, people are always surprised at like, ’cause I mean, three minutes, you have to be really focused in three minutes. You, you can’t waste time, you can’t space out. You have to really know what you’re, what you’re trying to do. Um, and yeah, people are always surprised at how, how well it works. So…

Michelle Lynne: So we are going to return to those three things three times.

Molly Gebrian: Things.

Michelle Lynne: In the return.

Molly Gebrian: Yep.

Michelle Lynne: With practicing the micro breaks.

Molly Gebrian: Right.

Michelle Lynne: And keeping our focus for three minutes, and not turning to a distraction when you feel your brain’s starting to…

Molly Gebrian: Yep. Right.

Michelle Lynne: In the end, we will be…

Molly Gebrian: Right? Yep, exactly. It have your laundry done. Exactly.

Michelle Lynne: Already. Okay. What’s something that really surprised you writing this book?

Molly Gebrian: Oh my gosh. Um. I mean, the thing that surprised me the most is the, the timeline of publishing. How, how weird of, I wrote the book in 2021. It came out last summer in 2024. Uh, that, that’s what surprised me the most, actually, is how much time of just sitting around and wondering like, “What’s happening?” Um, like a big, yeah. I mean, yeah, there was like, between a certain step of the process, there was almost a year where I was just sitting around like, “Okay, what’s happening?” Um, but yeah, I mean, uh, all of the information in the book is stuff that I knew before I wrote the book and had pre been presenting on for many years. So it’s not like there was information that was new to me, like through, through writing the book. Um, and it came out a year ago. It came out, yeah, July 30th, 2024. So a little over a year ago.

Michelle Lynne: And what kind of response have you been getting?

Molly Gebrian: Yeah, I, the response has been incredible, actually. Like so many people have read my book, which is just so nice that like I wrote something that’s helping people, but I get emails since it came out. I get emails pretty much every day, it feels like, from random people all over the world who have discovered my book from like professionals or students in conservatory or whatever, to amateurs who just started learning the guitar like yesterday or something. And the whole gamut, like people who played an instrument growing up and stopped playing and now they’re retired and they’re coming back to it. Or people who have always wanted to play an instrument and they’ve been learning for a couple years in their retirement, like. All ages, all instruments, all levels. People emailing me either to ask me questions like, you know, “You said this in your book. I’m not sure how this applies to my specific,” you know, whatever. Or people just thanking me, which is so nice, um, to, to hear that it’s really helping people. ‘Cause that’s, that’s why I, that’s why I wrote it. And yeah, I mean, the, the response has been amazing. I’m just, I’m just so grateful that I, I was able to create something that that helps people.

Michelle Lynne: It’s brilliant. Yeah, I mean, I told immediately everyone in our community about it, as soon as I started reading it, and I posted it on Instagram and I was like, “Everybody get this right now.” Um, okay. You’ve got a billboard. You are allowed to put one thing on it. It’s the biggest mistake that most musicians are making practicing. What is the first thing that you’re telling them to stop doing?

Molly Gebrian: I think what I would put on a billboard is take breaks, I think. I think that would be the thing. Like, because I think we, I think we think that it’s not practicing if you’re not constantly making sound, right? That a practice session should be like making sound the whole time. And you know, in my, in my class at NEC, students often talk about, yeah, like, I can remember when I was a kid and I would try to take a break and my mom would be like, “I don’t hear any music up there.” Right. Right. And that, I’m like, no, like that’s so damaging. Um, like breaks are…

Michelle Lynne: I love my mom, but she said…

Molly Gebrian: Right. Breaks are like, breaks are the most important. And so yeah, if I could put something on a billboard, it would say, “Take breaks.”

Michelle Lynne: That was when before I had a phone…

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. Like…

Michelle Lynne: …I was sitting there like…

Molly Gebrian: Right. And it was good, like your brain was processing, doing that. I mean, the other thing, too, which we haven’t talked about is, is mental practice. Like the, the importance of doing things, rehearsing things in your mind, making sure you can feel things and and hear things. I do a lot of that in my practicing, too. I said about ten minutes of my practice time is micro breaks. Probably another ten minutes is, is mental practice. So a minority of the time in my practice session is there actual sound coming out of my viola. Um, that’s really different than how I used to practice. It used to be sound the the whole time, um, but not anymore. ‘Cause it works a lot better to take breaks and, and mental practice.

Michelle Lynne: I know for memory for myself, right before I sleep, I try to…

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. That’s a great thing to do. Yeah. To, to rehearse in your mind like, “Okay, can I hear what it’s supposed to sound like in my mind, and can I feel myself playing it on the instrument in my mind?” And if I call them black holes, if there’s any black holes, places that I either, I’m totally blank and I’m like, “I don’t know how it goes,” right there. Or it’s like kind of fuzzy and I can’t really tell, “Is that an F sharp or an F natural? I don’t actually know.” Like, I want to identify those black holes so that I can plug them up or make them into stars. I don’t know that the analogy breaks down, but the, I, I, I want to find those black holes so that I know what’s supposed to be there and I can feel it and hear it so that the black hole doesn’t show up in a performance, right? Because we’ve all had that experience of like coming up to something and be like, “Oh my God, I have no idea. What comes next.” Like, that’s the worst feeling ever. But if you can discover those black holes beforehand and make them not black holes, then that’s not going to happen to you in performance. Make them stars. Yeah, there you go.

Michelle Lynne: Do you, is there anything in the research about working with recordings or score study?

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. You know, that’s interesting because a lot of the research I talk about was not actually done on musicians. It was done on athletes or everyday people or surgeons or whatever, like applying it to music. Um, but rec, listening to recordings is really important. Um, and I think a lot of times, especially at the conservatory levels, students are discouraged from listening to recordings of their pieces. Um, but my reaction to that, I have never understood that because listening or like modeling great artists is such an important, yeah, is such like, like I have to drive by the Museum of Fine Arts when I go to NEC to teach. Always, there are students sitting outside at this time of year like sketching the, the sculptures that are outside. If you go to any art museum in the world and at any time, there are always art students there, right, with their sketchbooks and they’re making copies of the great artwork. Um, and so for us as musicians, I think we need to listen to the possibilities that exist, right? Like listening to a bunch of recordings, not to necessarily copy them, but to get ideas to hear, “Ooh, I really like that,” or, “I don’t like that interpretation.” Like, it’s okay to say that you don’t like a great artist’s interpretation. They are not God. You can disagree. Like even if they were God, you can still disagree. Um, you know, and just getting ideas for yourself because if you don’t have any ideas in your head, if you don’t have any models to sort of draw from, you’re limited to your own experience, and our own experience is by definition limited because it’s just yours. It’s just one person’s experience. But when you listen, you hear what’s possible and then you have much more to, to draw from. Um, so that is critically important as is score study. Like we were talking before, like getting an overview of the piece. Brains really don’t like information that feels like it exists in a vacuum, that it feels just like random pieces of information. Brains do a lot better when you can take information and put it into some kind of larger structure or under some kind of larger umbrella, or understand it in a deeper, more multifaceted way. And when you do score study and you really understand like how the piece is put together or you make connections between, “Oh, whoa. Like those are the same notes here and here, but they’re like totally mixed around here.” But it is, yeah, like you just understand music so much more deeply when you actually like take a minute to look at the score and you’re not thinking about, “How do I play this?” physically, but like, “What was the composer doing?” then it makes it easier to learn. It makes it a lot easier to memorize, um, because you understand it much more, much more deeply. Um, so yeah, those listening and score study I think are such important things for us to do as musicians.

Michelle Lynne: Do these count as practicing, those two?

Molly Gebrian: They count as practicing. Yes. Yeah, they absolutely. Yeah. We think practicing is making noise on the instrument, and that’s like just a tiny part of it.

Michelle Lynne: Speaking of multitasking, I am currently on like this health kick to hit fifteen thousand steps a day. So on the treadmill, I’ve got my iPad with the score…

Molly Gebrian: Uh-huh.

Michelle Lynne: …and I’m going through the score and like trying to get the…

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: You’ve got your laundry, I’ve got…

Molly Gebrian: There you go. Perfect.

Michelle Lynne: Okay. Speaking of possibilities, what is the next step for you? I mean, you’ve got all of these incredible musicians. I mean, everything you are saying is so obvious and helpful, but we’ve been learning backwards, so how do we keep spreading this message and, and reach…

Molly Gebrian: Right. Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I always have like a million different projects like, you know, going in my head. Uh, yeah. I mean, I would say one project that I’ve wanted to do for a number of years, but it’s very time intensive, so I need time to do it, is I want to learn an instrument from scratch and, and document that whole process for, because… Right, because I get contacted by so many adult beginners who understandably aren’t quite sure how to apply all this stuff to what, what they’re doing or think it doesn’t apply when you’re, when you’re a beginner. Um, and I want to document that process as someone who knows how to practice. But maybe doesn’t know anything about playing whatever instrument, um, I choose. ‘Cause I, I’m probably going to choose guitar, actually, because there’s such a huge adult amateur community of guitarists. That’s a, a very popular instrument that people pick up later in life. And also it’s not very expensive and it’s not very big. Um, the other one I would pick is piano, but pianos are expensive. And I don’t have room for piano in a piano for a piano where I live. Um, so. But yeah, I would, I would love to do that. ‘Cause I think one, it would be super interesting for me to learn an instrument from scratch again. Um, but to document that process I also think would be super, super interesting.

Michelle Lynne: We need like a film crew following you around. We can make a YouTube channel.

Molly Gebrian: Right? Yeah, exactly. So that’s one thing, kind of cooking. And then another thing, I get lots and lots of questions about, um, neurodivergent learners, specifically autistic and ADHDers. And that is something I, I say in the book that I, you know. I’m not commenting on that because I don’t really have that expertise. But since I wrote the book, I have learned a heck of a lot about those things, um, and I can talk much more knowledgeably about it. So that’s sort of another big project for me coming up, is creating resources around that, both for neurodivergent students, but also for teachers helping their, they’re neurodivergent students. Um, ’cause all of this stuff does absolutely apply. That’s some, that’s usually the question I get, like, “Does this apply to my ADHD students or my autistic students?” And the answer is yes. It’s just the specific application might look, look different. Um, so…

Michelle Lynne: Wow. And anything around like a practice lab? I mean, when you said that you had your students come in and…

Molly Gebrian: Right. Yeah, I mean, I teach online classes. Actually, my online class just started again last Sunday. And as part of my online classes, we do exactly that, that we have time in the class to try out different practice methods. Everybody, I mean, we’re on Zoom, right? Everybody in their own practice room, um, and then be able to, to talk about it. Um, but yeah, having some kind of like regular practice lab would be would be really fun. Over this past summer I taught a five-week class online about starting new repertoire. ‘Cause that’s something I get a lot of questions about. And most of my online classes are very sort of science heavy, I would say. I like do a presentation where I present the science, then we try out practice things and talk about it. The class over the summer was more like, okay, how do you start something new? There was twenty minutes in each class where we all, including me, practiced and I videoed my practice for people to sort of watch later, and that was much more sort of practical hands-on all of us. I learned something from scratch for that. All of us going through the process of, “What does this look like? How do you handle the challenges that come up when something is new? What does it look like to start something new?” and sort of work through that process over five weeks. Um, so that was, yeah, I’ll probably teach that class again. ‘Cause it was, it was really fun, um, and helpful, I think.

Michelle Lynne: Amazing. I mean, this has been just packed full of information. I want to encourage everybody run out and get your copy on Amazon, Learn Faster, Perform Better.

Molly Gebrian: Yes.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Molly, if you had an action point for everyone listening right now, what would you tell ’em to do?

Molly Gebrian: I, I would tell people, both sides, my book, the action point, I would say, is to take three micro breaks today, during your practicing. More is better, but three is a good place to start. See if you can take a ten-second break during your practice today at three ti at three points as just as a way to get started with that.

Michelle Lynne: Okay, we’re going to know what the neighbors are up to. Our…

Molly Gebrian: Yep. Yep. Exactly.

Michelle Lynne: We’ve got it all together. Molly…

Molly Gebrian: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: …this has been incredible. I really appreciate you coming on. Um, you also have a great newsletter people can sign up for through your Instagram. What is your…

Molly Gebrian: Yeah. My Instagram is just my name, I think. Yeah, just Molly Gebrian, or through my website. There’s a link on my website to sign up for my newsletter.

Michelle Lynne: And uh, yeah, you can also DM us, The Fearless Artist, and we’ll send it. I think we’re going to be giving away three copies of your book to…

Molly Gebrian: Oh, exciting. Oh, thank you.

Michelle Lynne: …all they have to do is, uh, leave a review of the podcast and share it on their stories. And we’re going to pick three winners.

Molly Gebrian: That’s exciting.

Michelle Lynne: To keep spreading this message ’cause it’s so important and fun.

Molly Gebrian: Thank you. So much. Thanks for having me.

Michelle Lynne: Absolutely. And uh, yeah, we will see everybody on the next episode. Remember, be fearless. Thanks, Molly.

Molly Gebrian: Thank you.