How Maria João Pires Turned a Mistake into a Masterpiece: The Power of Deliberate Practice

The Art of Performance and Learning

Maria João Pires had misread the programme. She had prepared Mozart Concerto 23 instead of Mozart Concerto 20. And now she found herself at the front of the concert hall as the orchestra began its two-minute and twenty-second introduction, stranded and with that horrible realisation of what had happened. As she conversed with the conductor, it was too late to back out with the piece well underway. She composed herself and, remarkably, presented a flawless performance of the correct piece despite not having practiced it for months.

As a music educator, I've watched countless piano performances and noticed a particular pattern, especially at the amateur stage. A performer who has memorised a piece starts confidently, playing fluently and engaging the audience. Yet, if something goes wrong – an incorrect note is struck, throwing them off – they'll often resort to looking at the music, struggling to find their place, and becoming disjointed. The shift is palpable: they've moved from an automatic procedural pathway to a real-time declarative pathway, interpreting information as they go.

The Dance of Memory and Performance

I’ve also observed this in dancers the moment there’s a gap in the learned choreography, or in actors when the words don’t seem to materialise as expected. Each time, this sudden shift from the 'knowing how' (procedural) to the 'knowing what' (declarative) causes a stutter and often real-time panic in both less experienced and seasoned performers. This phenomenon, where the brain's automatic processing is disrupted by conscious thought, is well-documented in cognitive psychology, much like the distinction between automatic and controlled processes described by researchers like Schneider and Shiffrin.

This isn't limited to the performing arts. It can occur in sports, like tennis, when a particular shot isn't working as it should. The player might shift to the declarative pathway, overthinking their actions and often losing the automaticity of the procedural pathway in the process – a phenomenon often termed "choking under pressure" in sports psychology.

The Illusion of Mastery

Then there's the illusion of fluency, where our declarative knowledge gives us a false belief about our skill. For instance, you might know many facts about a subject, but your ability to connect and explain these spontaneously when required might be overstated. This is a common pitfall highlighted by researchers like Robert Bjork, who emphasize that simply reviewing material can create a misleading sense of mastery.

The distinction is simple: the declarative pathway is the knowing what, and the procedural pathway is the knowing how. Declarative memory involves readily accessible information (facts, events), while procedural memory is about the practice it takes to develop the ability to put that information into action.

Maria João Pires's extraordinary feat highlights how deliberate practice firmly establishes the procedural pathway. If something is truly going to stick with you, potentially forming a habit or a deeply ingrained skill, you want that to be established as accurately and applicably as possible.

Deliberate Practice: The Bridge Between Knowing and Doing

And this brings us to the intersection of two key points: the declarative and procedural systems, combined with deliberate practice. Deliberate practice, as the name implies, is intentional in its approach to both of these systems. It requires specific goals, intense attention and focus, the development of robust mental representations, and the ability to gain real-time feedback to make necessary adjustments. For instance, while the declarative pathway (the knowing what) relies on signals that tell our brain information is important to retain, simply repeating information (naive practice) isn't enough. We need to understand that isolated facts aren't enough; the connection between these two pathways should aim to be developed relatively simultaneously for the intended outcome.

Imagine a paint palette. It contains a range of different, isolated colours. We can build connections between these, examining the effect of blending them together, but there's no inherent purpose at this stage. Asking "what can we do with these colours?" starts to provide some insight, but it isn't until we pick up the brush and apply them to a medium that we begin to develop the procedural pathway – the skill itself. The deliberate practice process reduces the load on our working memory, freeing it to focus on other aspects. The pathways work in tandem: the declarative more quickly and readily adapting new information, and the procedural taking more time to develop.

If you consider the paint palette as flashcards that you regularly review, you are simply reinforcing isolated facts that don't demonstrate a practical use. Connections then become useful, but it’s not until you practice the skill of using this information to apply in novel situations, analysing and explaining more difficult concepts, or even creating something new, that these truly become useful.

The Language Learning Dilemma

If you’ve ever attempted to learn a new language, you'll know the difference: learning and understanding the meaning of words is very different from being able to write an intelligible sentence or have a comprehensible conversation. While apps can provide key starting points for the declarative system, at some point you need to activate the procedural pathway to truly make the gains and develop fluency.

There’s also a difference in how the brain processes each of these. Declarative memory leans more heavily on the hippocampus and the neocortex, while procedural memory connects to the basal ganglia, cerebellum, and motor cortex. This neurological distinction, deeply explored by researchers like Larry Squire, underpins why these systems function differently.

The Myth of 21 Days

Habits aren’t formed in 21 days – as research by Phillippa Lally and colleagues has shown, it often takes much longer for new behaviours to become automatic. Skills are the same. The repeated, consistent, and sustained instances required to achieve a particular action demand deliberate practice to reach the thresholds for a more automatic ability. The hippocampus needs to continually recall from the neocortex for declarative connections to strengthen, while the basal ganglia acts as a gatekeeper for the procedural pathway, initiating and facilitating particular actions in connection with the motor cortex.

The Symbiosis of Knowledge

This concept also aligns with Ron Sun’s Clarion model, which posits that the greater the implicit knowledge we hold (the embedded declarative and procedural pathways), the more easily we can process and encode explicit knowledge. There's a powerful symbiosis between the two that becomes more meaningful and tangible through a deliberate approach.

We can even find states of flow, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, result from procedural memory – the automaticity that occurs through practice and the focused attention that results from it.

Conclusion: Embracing the Journey of Learning

The key learning in all of this is understanding these two fundamental pathways, how each is developed, and how they can be leveraged to improve your approach to acquiring any skill you desire. Deliberate practice and memory is a match made in heaven.

So, the next time you find yourself in a pickle, like Maria João Pires, remember that even the most unexpected moments can lead to extraordinary outcomes. Embrace the journey, and who knows? You might just end up painting your own masterpiece!