On Tuesday I was so excited to share my images and stickings that I accidentally shared the post twice. Apologies, and thanks to those who read it twice.

Before I share more about how one might determine what kind of sticking works the best for a particular musical passage (that will be next week…), I want to touch on an intermediate step that is often overlooked.

What can our stickings teach us about how we learn?

Are stickings like a recipe, or more like a taxi driver? Are they clothes you grow out of, or more similar to wearing someone else’s shoes? I can’t think of a good analogy, but what I do know is that how we play percussion has as much to do with how we learn percussion as the other way around.

Mental Representations

In their “The PETTLEP Approach to Motor Imagery: A Functional Equivalence Model for Sport Psychologists,” Paul Holmes and David Collins articulate 7 key elements that constitute a powerful motor learning environment:

• Physical
• Environment
• Task
• Timing
• Learning
• Emotion
• Perspective

These are the building blocks of mental representations, and thus the cognitive atoms that make up our learning and performing. The presence of each of these elements in a performer’s visual representation of a task increases confidence, reduces anxiety, and increases motivation. Moreover, imagery that allows performers to “see themselves succeeding… or performing a skill correctly that they had trouble performing in past competitions” is particularly powerful.

Our stickings sit in a number of these categories of imagery—physical, task, timing, emotion, sometimes other ones. Thus, have a solid physical representation of a task before one does it seems pretty helpful!

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Stickings can also be traps. When we rely too much on our physical cues for memory, we are very susceptible to performance anxiety, those moments where what was part of the unconscious mind becomes very conscious. Plot a course through a piece with stickings alone at one’s own peril!

Stickings as Research

When should we determine our stickings? Ideally, before we learn the piece, since—as noted above—they can help solidify a physical manifestation of our mental representation. Stickings should relate to our research and/or pre-practice preparation: in fact, we can get a general sense of what kind of stickings will work from based on the performance context, the style of the piece, the broad style of the composer, our own pervious experience, idiomatic considerations, and the details we discover while aquainting ourselves with a new piece.

For example, if the performance will be in a gigantic concert hall, we might choose stickings which allow for low and clear playing. For light and effervescent playing in smaller spaces, we might choose bouncier, more ebullient digitations. Stickings might also be influenced by composer-specific information or orally transmitting performance practice.

Stickings Change

Often, we make mistakes where we come up with a sticking that might work at a practice tempo, but fails or flails at a higher speed. Or, a sticking might work when played softly, but not necessarily when the dynamic is loud.

But, research shows that we learn the best when we move information around in our minds. Stickings should be intentional, but they should also be fluid, changing over time, contributing to our knowledge of a piece rather than detracting from it. This approach has the side benefit of reducing our dependence on physical memory and allowing more space for aural and visual memory to support our nerve-sensitive muscles.

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Next time, my approach to stickings for maximum learning, peak performance and maximum fun.

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