Why Mixing Up Your Practice Routine Leads to Better Results

Traditional practice wisdom often recommends intensive focus: drill one scale for ten minutes, then move to arpeggios, then work on that difficult passage. This blocked approach feels productive because you can hear immediate improvement within a session. But research in cognitive science reveals a counterintuitive truth: mixing your practice activities produces stronger long-term learning, even though it feels harder in the moment. Interleaved practice (the deliberate mixing of different skills within a single session) creates deeper retention and better transfer to performance situations.

The core principle of interleaved practice is simple: rather than drilling one skill in isolation until you master it, mix scales, chords, sight-reading, and theory exercises throughout a single session. Instead of thirty minutes on C major scales, alternate five-minute blocks of scales, chord progressions, and improvisation based on those scales. The mechanism driving this advantage lies in what researchers call the contextual interference effect. When you frequently switch between different types of problems, your brain cannot rely on simple pattern recognition from the immediately preceding trial. Each new task requires you to identify which problem type you are facing and then retrieve the appropriate strategy. This constant mental work; this struggle; forces deeper cognitive processing than repetitive drilling of a single task.

Carter and Grahn’s 2016 study provides direct evidence from music contexts. They had musicians practice new musical pieces using either a blocked schedule (where similar pieces were practiced in succession) or an interleaved schedule where different pieces were interspersed. When evaluated after practice, the blocked-practice group performed better on familiar pieces. But when the same musicians performed new arrangements of those pieces or faced unfamiliar contexts, the interleaved-practice group significantly outperformed them. Additional research examining music-specific skills found that interleaved training produces advantages for identifying musical intervals and classifying composers’ styles. The advantage appears because blocking allows shallow learning specific to immediate context, while interleaving forces abstraction of deeper principles that transfer broadly.

An important caveat must be acknowledged: interleaved practice feels subjectively harder during the session. Progress feels slower. You will not see the dramatic improvement within a single sitting that blocked practice produces. This discomfort is actually the signal that interleaved practice is working. Cognitive science has established that difficulty during learning predicts better long-term retention, a phenomenon called the desirable difficulty principle. If your practice feels easy and productive, you might be experiencing an illusion of competence. The struggle of interleaved practice represents genuine learning. Well-structured lesson plans that build variety intentionally (alternating among technical work, repertoire, and theory) are doing this deliberately, even if students sometimes wish they could focus on one thing at a time.

The student who mixes up their practice routine may feel less confident in the moment, but they outperform the blocked-practice student when it counts.

The Research

Carter and Grahn’s research demonstrated superior transfer when pieces were practiced in interleaved order. The contextual interference effect has been documented across motor learning for decades, and recent studies confirm its applicability to music skill acquisition. The core finding is robust: initial performance during blocked practice appears superior, but retention tests and transfer tasks favor interleaved practice. The mechanism involves forced discrimination and deeper encoding of underlying principles rather than surface features.

What This Means for Your Practice

Structure your practice sessions to alternate among different skill types rather than blocking by skill. In a sixty-minute session, spend ten minutes on technical work, ten minutes on sight-reading, ten minutes on a current piece, ten minutes on music theory or ear training, ten minutes on a different piece, and end with ten minutes of improvisation or creative work. This variety might feel scattered, but it produces stronger retention and better ability to apply skills in performance contexts. The transition between activities forces your brain to reset and engage afresh with each new task. If you typically practice one piece per session, consider spending time on multiple pieces, switching between them every few minutes. The interleaving principle applies at all scales of practice organization, and the evidence strongly supports organizing your practice time for variety rather than intensive blocking on single skills.

References

Carter, M. J., & Grahn, J. A. (2016). Optimizing music learning: Exploring how blocked and interleaved practice schedules affect advanced performance. Frontiers in Psychology

Mathias, B., & Goldman, J. G. (2025). How does increasing contextual interference in a musical practice session affect acquisition and retention? Journal of Research in Music Education