The Spot Method
By Philip Johnston

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This technique is more a diagnostic tool than anything else - it lets you know which parts of the piece you really should be working on, so that you don't waste time practicing the bits that don't need the work

Start from the beginning of the piece. As soon as you make your very first mistake - however slight - you need to stop, and then put a small spot above the exact place in the music where the mistake occurred. Not just the exact bar, the exact beat too.

Then start playing again, but this time from where you stopped. Keep going until your next mistake. Then put another spot. Start again from there, and so on. You're not trying to fix anything - you're just recording where problems are.

Once you get to the end of the piece, go back to the beginning and do it again. For this method to work properly, you will want to cycle through the whole piece half a dozen times, stopping and putting spots every time something goes wrong.

After six times right through, look at the music.. Some of the bars will have spots above them and some won't. Some will look as though they have measles. They are the sections that you need to practice first, and practice the hardest.

Spot free sections you probably don't need to practice at all.

That's all. Simple, but very revealing.