It includes games meant to sharpen the memory (participants are blindfolded and asked to describe the room) and the eye for structure. (Players must describe a page of music without simply listing the notes and rhythms, by, for example, describing patterns and sequences.)

It also involves cooking. Groups of students prepare different parts of a recipe one night, then switch responsibilities the next, an exercise that Mr. Chiu says fosters both collaboration and competition; or they are given a meal one night and asked to prepare it, without the recipe, the next.

''When you apply what they've learned to playing the piano,'' Mr. Chiu said, ''you find that a lot of the process becomes sitting at the piano and thinking about what you've done, rather than repeating the music over and over.''

So far 50 students have moved through the first two levels of Mr. Chiu's four-level program. No doubt it requires a particular kind of pianist: most simply want to get their octaves faster.

''The funny thing is,'' Mr. Chiu said, ''if you go through this method, your octaves will go faster.''