NOV 17, 2012: This would work with any electronic keyboard. Keep the keyboard turned off. Then go to a desk and memorize a portion of music. It can be only a few bars or a few lines---however much you can manage. Then go to the keyboard and, without turning it on, play the passage at a playable tempo for you. You might start at half-tempo and slowly work your way up using a metronome. While you are doing this, imagine how the music would sound---not only the notes but the tone quality.
Then--after getting it up to tempo---turn the keyboard on and play the passage the way you would hopefully play it for a live perofrmance. You might be surprised at not only how many notes you got but how close you were as far as the tone quality and the nuances.
The quickest way to learn would be to go straight from memorizing the passage at a desk to playing it at tempo, but this is another way of accomplishing close to the same thing.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Mixing Methods
NOV 13, 2012: The methods described on this blog can be used in a lot of different ways and can be altered to fit your way of working and conceiving music. You might try mixing some of the various methods and see how it holds your interest.
I believe that one of the most important things in working with a method is that you are able to stay interested in your piano studies. A lot of people have given up the instrument mainly because the music they were working on and/or the methods they were using to learn that music did not hold their interest or continually frustrated them.
Whatever way of working you use, your ability to stay with could be the difference between just a casual interest in the instrument and a lifetime of enjoyment with it.
I believe that one of the most important things in working with a method is that you are able to stay interested in your piano studies. A lot of people have given up the instrument mainly because the music they were working on and/or the methods they were using to learn that music did not hold their interest or continually frustrated them.
Whatever way of working you use, your ability to stay with could be the difference between just a casual interest in the instrument and a lifetime of enjoyment with it.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Composer's Style
NOV 5, 2012: One way to find out more bout a composer's style is to listen to non-piano works by that composer. Whether it's symphony or chamber music, you'll learn a lot about how this composer works in other media than solo piano.
Often, you can apply what you learned from an orchestral work to a solo piano work written by the same composer, because that composer may be thinking orchestrally.
At any rate, it fills in a lot of gaps of knowledge to be familiair with a composer's output other than just solo piano.
Often, you can apply what you learned from an orchestral work to a solo piano work written by the same composer, because that composer may be thinking orchestrally.
At any rate, it fills in a lot of gaps of knowledge to be familiair with a composer's output other than just solo piano.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Learning in Bits
OCT 26, 2012: Another way of learning or relearning is to learn in small bits---either short phrases or portions of phrases. You'll noitice patterns on the printed page of your piano music. That should give you a clue as to where the bits start and stop. You don't need to learn a whole phrase as one bit if that phrase is long and winding.
Another thing to consider is where you can easily start playing. If you have a bit that is hard to start playing, that means that your mind doesn't make sense of that as a starting place. Find the place that your mind can get into. This is crucial for the practical situation of finding your way if you lose it during an actual performance. These "landmarks" are critical to your getting back on track during a live performance.
Once you have learned one bit---starting slow and increasing tempo---you can learn another and then add it on. Remember that music is a bunch of small bits put together. You can try memorizing the small bits before you work on them, or memorize them as you're learning. After a while, the bits will connect and you can clearly see the strucutres built into the music.
Another thing to consider is where you can easily start playing. If you have a bit that is hard to start playing, that means that your mind doesn't make sense of that as a starting place. Find the place that your mind can get into. This is crucial for the practical situation of finding your way if you lose it during an actual performance. These "landmarks" are critical to your getting back on track during a live performance.
Once you have learned one bit---starting slow and increasing tempo---you can learn another and then add it on. Remember that music is a bunch of small bits put together. You can try memorizing the small bits before you work on them, or memorize them as you're learning. After a while, the bits will connect and you can clearly see the strucutres built into the music.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Resting
OCT 23, 2012: How much rest do you need during a practice session? I would say the first thing is to find out how long it takes before your mind gets tired. That may not be as easy as it sounds since your mind tends to be on autopilot more than you may think
I always find that if I can find it the first time---approximately how long---then I can use that as an indicator for the rest of the session. If 45 minutes is my limit for the day, I use that as the standard. It might be higher or lower the next time.
Mainly, knowing when to stop and rest will help you to get more done regardless of how much actual time you put in on a given day.
I always find that if I can find it the first time---approximately how long---then I can use that as an indicator for the rest of the session. If 45 minutes is my limit for the day, I use that as the standard. It might be higher or lower the next time.
Mainly, knowing when to stop and rest will help you to get more done regardless of how much actual time you put in on a given day.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Really Slow
OCT 16: When you practice a passage so slowly that it fails to make sense as music, you are really learning where the muscles need to go in order to make the passage work. At faster speeds, you may need to change the fingering---- but you'll still have the basics with really slow practicing
The problem is that it becomes more difficult to do it really slow, usually, than doing it at a moderately slowed down tempo. Your memory has to strain for the details, because the details are now distorted to the point where the natural flow of the piece is lost.
But as you take the passage gradually faster, you find the going easier because now everything is more in context. That's why context is so important. And that's why music is not just a bunch of notes strung together. It all fits somewhere. Really slow practicing shows some things about the music that aren't obvious at normal speeds.
The problem is that it becomes more difficult to do it really slow, usually, than doing it at a moderately slowed down tempo. Your memory has to strain for the details, because the details are now distorted to the point where the natural flow of the piece is lost.
But as you take the passage gradually faster, you find the going easier because now everything is more in context. That's why context is so important. And that's why music is not just a bunch of notes strung together. It all fits somewhere. Really slow practicing shows some things about the music that aren't obvious at normal speeds.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Starting From Tempo
OCT 11, 2012: Another way of re-learning a piece of piano music is starting from the original tempo and going slower. Allow yourself to make all the mistakes you want at tempo, just to find out where they are. Then go one notch slower and one notch slower, etc. until you reach a performable tempo. This is where you can prractice, slowly, the really difficult spots. After they are worked on individually, you can try again, at tempo.
It's not the ideal way to re-learn, but if you've got a deadline, it might be a faster way to get started re-learning, at any rate.
It's not the ideal way to re-learn, but if you've got a deadline, it might be a faster way to get started re-learning, at any rate.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Being Able to Play It
OCT 6, 2012: I think it's important that when you're practicing something on the piano, you can play and hear it all---all the pitches and rhythms and markings. When it all starts to get a little beyond your grasp, not only does it discourage you; you sometimes start to get less skilled at the piece you're learning. I've discussed all this before. But how do you get the desire to not press on when you know you've reached your limit? And also----if you don't stretch yourself, how will you be able to advance (get it faster)?
Usually sheer repetition will get you more proficient in a particular passage and it will become easier and easier with repeated playings---even if you just take it in one tempo. But if you've reached your limit and there has been no progress for several days, your best bet might be to take it one or two metronome clicks past where you are now and just deal with the mistakes---then go back to a comfortable tempo and try again. It may not work the first few times, but usually after a while you can advance one notch or so and still be able to play the passage.
The entire process begins to lose its potency with each hour and day of not practicing it----unless you know it so well and have played it so many times it's really deep down in there. But sometimes after weeks of getting no further, you start to make progress. That's why it's important to hang in there and keep working.
Usually sheer repetition will get you more proficient in a particular passage and it will become easier and easier with repeated playings---even if you just take it in one tempo. But if you've reached your limit and there has been no progress for several days, your best bet might be to take it one or two metronome clicks past where you are now and just deal with the mistakes---then go back to a comfortable tempo and try again. It may not work the first few times, but usually after a while you can advance one notch or so and still be able to play the passage.
The entire process begins to lose its potency with each hour and day of not practicing it----unless you know it so well and have played it so many times it's really deep down in there. But sometimes after weeks of getting no further, you start to make progress. That's why it's important to hang in there and keep working.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Over-Smooth
OCT 2, 2012: If you practice something for an extended period with great attention to detail and finger motion, you may just get the piece of piano music you are learning too smooth. By that I mean that everything will sound a little uniform as well as ultra-polished. That may make you as a performer feel good about your skill level, but it may be too much smoothness for the particular work you are learning.
How do you regress that smoothness so that you get a little more rough edges? One thing you can definitely do is scale back your practicing on this piece. That will automatically get it rougher.
Another idea would be to take the smoothness you've got and add some deliberate edges to it. Try a different touch or play with the dynamics or the timing a little. Any of those things will give the performance some added variety.
Smoothness is good. But if it's overdone, if it's too uniform or too uninteresting, there are many ways you can spice it up. You don't need to settle for over-smoothness in your performance--no matter how hard you worked to get it.
How do you regress that smoothness so that you get a little more rough edges? One thing you can definitely do is scale back your practicing on this piece. That will automatically get it rougher.
Another idea would be to take the smoothness you've got and add some deliberate edges to it. Try a different touch or play with the dynamics or the timing a little. Any of those things will give the performance some added variety.
Smoothness is good. But if it's overdone, if it's too uniform or too uninteresting, there are many ways you can spice it up. You don't need to settle for over-smoothness in your performance--no matter how hard you worked to get it.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Touching With the Mind
SEP 24, 2012: Learning the score of a piece of piano music away from the instrument is the quickest way to really learn where the notes are, there's no question about it. Otherwise, you're trying to learn by touch. But it's the mind that comes first, then the fingers.
The problem with learning the notes away from the instrument is that it takes a lot of concentrated thought. There aren't too many people who can sit there hour after hour and learn the notes and the patterns. You have to pause a lot, because memory and abstract concepts are involved. And then you have to imagine touching the instument while you read. But often enough the touch you finally do produce on the instrument after this is much more pleasing than the kind of touch you improvise at the instrument while learning the notes straight off the page.
The other way, just learning it from the score directly to the instrument, involves a lot of fumbling that you can do without if you get all that organized away from the instrument. You also find that you remember more of where the notes are and what comes after what if you simply get that stuff done at a desk.
But learning away from the instrument has its drawbacks. It's possible to underestimate a technical difficulty while sitting there reading. However, with time your judgement is likely to improve. I think the best places to learn away from the instrument are the tricky ones. It's nice to really know and conceptualize those places that would be so draining to the mind and fingers if you're reading the music while playing----and get them worked out before you sit down to play.
The problem with learning the notes away from the instrument is that it takes a lot of concentrated thought. There aren't too many people who can sit there hour after hour and learn the notes and the patterns. You have to pause a lot, because memory and abstract concepts are involved. And then you have to imagine touching the instument while you read. But often enough the touch you finally do produce on the instrument after this is much more pleasing than the kind of touch you improvise at the instrument while learning the notes straight off the page.
The other way, just learning it from the score directly to the instrument, involves a lot of fumbling that you can do without if you get all that organized away from the instrument. You also find that you remember more of where the notes are and what comes after what if you simply get that stuff done at a desk.
But learning away from the instrument has its drawbacks. It's possible to underestimate a technical difficulty while sitting there reading. However, with time your judgement is likely to improve. I think the best places to learn away from the instrument are the tricky ones. It's nice to really know and conceptualize those places that would be so draining to the mind and fingers if you're reading the music while playing----and get them worked out before you sit down to play.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Notation and Performance
SEP 20, 2012: There is a relationship between the printed score of a piano piece and the performance of it, but it seems unclear at times. The main thing from a practical standpoint for the performer is: do you know the relationship between the printed score and your own performance?
If you haven't looked at the score before you play it, you can close your eyes momentarily and memorize some of it on the spot. But if you try and learn it away from the instrument first and then play it on the keyboard, you may be up against technical problems which you didn't forsee. Any way you look at it, the relationship between what's on that page and what's happening at the keyboard is a complex one.
Playing the piece like a computer would play it may be a good start, but eventually you will have to put some of your own sense into it. Ultimately, knowing the notes beforehand is a very handy way to learn the piece quickly, but you still need to check the score to see if you got into the habit of hitting some wrong notes or leaving out some important markings.
Even more, you may have invented a beat or two---or even a whole bar, in the left hand, in the right hand, in one voice, in a bass line. You've suddenly turned composer and you don't realize it. So going back and checking the score is a great way to find out how imaginative your composing/revising skills actually are. Hopefully, in most instances, you'll agree with what the composer wrote as long as it's playable for you.
If you haven't looked at the score before you play it, you can close your eyes momentarily and memorize some of it on the spot. But if you try and learn it away from the instrument first and then play it on the keyboard, you may be up against technical problems which you didn't forsee. Any way you look at it, the relationship between what's on that page and what's happening at the keyboard is a complex one.
Playing the piece like a computer would play it may be a good start, but eventually you will have to put some of your own sense into it. Ultimately, knowing the notes beforehand is a very handy way to learn the piece quickly, but you still need to check the score to see if you got into the habit of hitting some wrong notes or leaving out some important markings.
Even more, you may have invented a beat or two---or even a whole bar, in the left hand, in the right hand, in one voice, in a bass line. You've suddenly turned composer and you don't realize it. So going back and checking the score is a great way to find out how imaginative your composing/revising skills actually are. Hopefully, in most instances, you'll agree with what the composer wrote as long as it's playable for you.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Tempo Adjustments
SEP 18, 2012: A lot of the small tempo adjustments you do in performance are intuitive. You may never quite do them the same way twice. But sometimes you get a tricky run or sequence of notes that you can't play at the same tempo. Maybe you could get it up to tempo after months and hours of work. But supposing you want to perform it next week.
Here's a suggestion: why not slow down--just slightly---the whole section that comes before it. If not the entire section, then a few bars before. I'm not big on completely changing a composer's score. But there are some ways to slow down the place right before the problem area so that you can deal with the tricky passage and still make it sound integrated with the rest of the section and the entire work.
You may have to work an hour or two on the run or sequence or whatever it is (trill, embellishment, pattern), but once you get past those two hours or less and have adjusted it all properly, not only will it still be in keeping with the composer's intentions; you may have figured out a new approach to the piece that is still faithful to it in that you got the notes and rhythms (and markings) correct while at the same time fitting it into your current technique.
Here's a suggestion: why not slow down--just slightly---the whole section that comes before it. If not the entire section, then a few bars before. I'm not big on completely changing a composer's score. But there are some ways to slow down the place right before the problem area so that you can deal with the tricky passage and still make it sound integrated with the rest of the section and the entire work.
You may have to work an hour or two on the run or sequence or whatever it is (trill, embellishment, pattern), but once you get past those two hours or less and have adjusted it all properly, not only will it still be in keeping with the composer's intentions; you may have figured out a new approach to the piece that is still faithful to it in that you got the notes and rhythms (and markings) correct while at the same time fitting it into your current technique.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Going Back
SEP 13, 2012: As you're taking the tempo slightly faster when practicing---particularly with a metronome---it's important to know when you have lost mastery over the passage or bar you are practicing. Living in denial seems to be the rule, sometimes even for professionals. So....when you suddenly realize you're not playing the notes anymore (leaving some out, missing some, playing some wrong ones), now's probably the time to take the metronome back several notches.
You may be thinking, "I've already done this. I'm spending too much time on this." That may be a good reason to allow more time than necessary. But when you go back to where you do have mastery--and start the slowly-getting-faster process again, it will feel good. Because now you know you're getting it. And "getting it" at any tempo is what it's all about!
You may be thinking, "I've already done this. I'm spending too much time on this." That may be a good reason to allow more time than necessary. But when you go back to where you do have mastery--and start the slowly-getting-faster process again, it will feel good. Because now you know you're getting it. And "getting it" at any tempo is what it's all about!
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Woodshedding
SEP 6, 2012: If you've ever had the urge to just take some time off of your regular practicing and concentrate on one or two key bars of difficult music, you're certainly not alone. If you could only get those two difficult bars----then everything would be better, or so you believe.
But suppose the progress you make on those two bars are so small compared to the hours put in that it seems it may take years to master them. Then, maybe it's time to look for alternate solutions. Trying different fingers may work. Also, trying different speeds, subtle shifts in tempo, may help. But a lot of times you may need to get in there and leave out a few notes--or recompose the bars altogether.
The difficult part is getting it to blend in with the rest of it so that only those really familiar with the work will notice that anything's different. As you know, it's possible to play the same piano piece with the same notes and dynamic marking and yet make it sound altogether different. How about reversing the process---so that you change or leave out a note here and there, and yet it sounds similar to other performances.
I don't want to go into detail about how to do this. Obviously, someone with more composing skills will have less effort in doing this essential process. But however you do it, it would help if it sounded natural, and even those extremely familiar with the music may not notice it unless they're listening closely.
You might use that alternate passage until you master it as written. But if it takes hours and hours and you're making minimum progress on it, that may mean it's time to revise the passage to fit your technique.
But suppose the progress you make on those two bars are so small compared to the hours put in that it seems it may take years to master them. Then, maybe it's time to look for alternate solutions. Trying different fingers may work. Also, trying different speeds, subtle shifts in tempo, may help. But a lot of times you may need to get in there and leave out a few notes--or recompose the bars altogether.
The difficult part is getting it to blend in with the rest of it so that only those really familiar with the work will notice that anything's different. As you know, it's possible to play the same piano piece with the same notes and dynamic marking and yet make it sound altogether different. How about reversing the process---so that you change or leave out a note here and there, and yet it sounds similar to other performances.
I don't want to go into detail about how to do this. Obviously, someone with more composing skills will have less effort in doing this essential process. But however you do it, it would help if it sounded natural, and even those extremely familiar with the music may not notice it unless they're listening closely.
You might use that alternate passage until you master it as written. But if it takes hours and hours and you're making minimum progress on it, that may mean it's time to revise the passage to fit your technique.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Getting a Feel for the Practicing You've Done
SEP 5, 2012: Sometimes when you're learning a tough new piece of piano music, you can get lost in the negative feelings about your abilities---when in actuality you've made great strides. Every piece that's new to you has challenges that you've probably never encountered before. Or, if you've encountered them previously, you haven't seen this particular array of problems in this particular order.
Still, I think it's good to ask yourself after you practice on a section: how did it feel to you? Sometimes there's one small thing that's off---and it's still bothering you. It taints the entire section. You can go back and work on that detail, but even if you learn the detail, putting it into context with the section often doesn't go as well as planned.
If you've been using the method I described in the opening post of this blog, you may think that all you need to do is to keep adding bars of music until you get one section completed. Once it's completed, then it's on to the next. Well, sometimes it can be that way, if there are no significant challenges to you in the section you just learned. But more often than not, it seems, there will be something that didn't feel right. Maybe the timing needs work. Maybe the touch wasn't what you thought was supposed to be there. It could be dozens of other things.
One way to check about whether the work you did felt a certain way is to try it again the next day and see if the same feeling comes back. If it does, and the feeling tends toward the negative, now you've got a clue as to what to do next. At any rate, just putting the time in regardless of how it felt to you may not be a help in the long run. Knowing how the work on your practicing felt after you completed it is a good way to anticipate problems that often come up later on.
Still, I think it's good to ask yourself after you practice on a section: how did it feel to you? Sometimes there's one small thing that's off---and it's still bothering you. It taints the entire section. You can go back and work on that detail, but even if you learn the detail, putting it into context with the section often doesn't go as well as planned.
If you've been using the method I described in the opening post of this blog, you may think that all you need to do is to keep adding bars of music until you get one section completed. Once it's completed, then it's on to the next. Well, sometimes it can be that way, if there are no significant challenges to you in the section you just learned. But more often than not, it seems, there will be something that didn't feel right. Maybe the timing needs work. Maybe the touch wasn't what you thought was supposed to be there. It could be dozens of other things.
One way to check about whether the work you did felt a certain way is to try it again the next day and see if the same feeling comes back. If it does, and the feeling tends toward the negative, now you've got a clue as to what to do next. At any rate, just putting the time in regardless of how it felt to you may not be a help in the long run. Knowing how the work on your practicing felt after you completed it is a good way to anticipate problems that often come up later on.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Immersion and Segmentation
SEP 4, 2012: Is it better to drop everything else when learning a new piece of piano music? Or would it be more practical to segment the amount of time in units of 20 or 30 minutes---or even smaller?
If a new work has to be ready for performance within a month, it might be a good idea to engage in immersion---work on it to the exclusion of everything else. That is, if there are no other obligations. But there's a lot to be said for taking the learning process in units of 15, 20 or 30 minutes. For one thing, if you can get yourself to stop after the alloted time, you can measure how long it may take to get a section learned. When you're in immersion, that kind of objective thinking often gets left by the wayside. You may jump from one section to another during immersion because it all has to get done, so you may think there's no harm in doing the learning in a highly unplanned way.
But immersion has its good points, too. If you're concentrating on one piece of music exclusively, you can develop a sense of continuity that you simply can't by taking the learning process in segments. Oftentimes, a piece of piano music will come together after a certain number of hours---things will suddenly start to fall into place.
Looking at the score without performing the work is just an outstanding idea, I think, because then you know where you're going---regardless of which learning method you use. Just throwing a bunch of time at a new piece of piano music may get frustrating if it's not structured too closely.
Yet another solution is to partially immerse---by practicing, say, three hours a day in addition to the rest of your work at the keyboard. That one would make sense, even if there's a deadline coming up. The main thing is that it needs to make sense to you, the performer. Because if it makes sense to you during the practice time, who knows, it just might make sense to your audience, too.
If a new work has to be ready for performance within a month, it might be a good idea to engage in immersion---work on it to the exclusion of everything else. That is, if there are no other obligations. But there's a lot to be said for taking the learning process in units of 15, 20 or 30 minutes. For one thing, if you can get yourself to stop after the alloted time, you can measure how long it may take to get a section learned. When you're in immersion, that kind of objective thinking often gets left by the wayside. You may jump from one section to another during immersion because it all has to get done, so you may think there's no harm in doing the learning in a highly unplanned way.
But immersion has its good points, too. If you're concentrating on one piece of music exclusively, you can develop a sense of continuity that you simply can't by taking the learning process in segments. Oftentimes, a piece of piano music will come together after a certain number of hours---things will suddenly start to fall into place.
Looking at the score without performing the work is just an outstanding idea, I think, because then you know where you're going---regardless of which learning method you use. Just throwing a bunch of time at a new piece of piano music may get frustrating if it's not structured too closely.
Yet another solution is to partially immerse---by practicing, say, three hours a day in addition to the rest of your work at the keyboard. That one would make sense, even if there's a deadline coming up. The main thing is that it needs to make sense to you, the performer. Because if it makes sense to you during the practice time, who knows, it just might make sense to your audience, too.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Near Repetition
AUG 27, 2012: Some of the most difficult passages to learn involve what I call "near-repetition." That means that it's almost exactly the same---with a few small changes by the composer. In a literal repeat, the near-repetition could be the second ending. It's critical to make the difference in your mind between the first and second endings, because if you should slide into the second ending before you performed the first ending, you could shorten the composition by a great deal. And if you repeat the first ending, you'll probably need to go all the way back to the repeat sign---and go through it all over again.
In the case of first and second endings, assuming the section repeated is small enough, it might be good to take the whole thing as one unit. Play the first ending, go back and then play the second---at half tempo. And slowly increase your speed until you get up to tempo.
But sometimes the near-repetition doesn't involve repeat signs, because the changes the composer made are too elaborate to be able to use a repeat sign. Then the danger is that in actual performance you will mentally jump to a similar section rather than the one the composer indicated on the score page.
If two sections are totally different, there's no problem in sequencing them correctly. But when they're similar, and particularly when they are nearly alike except for some small details, it's hard to tell them apart if you haven't looked at the music for a while---or even if you have.
Looking at the score away from the piano may help. Or it could be that slow practice on the similar sections is needed. Whatever it is you have to do, make sure you find some way to distinguish one section from the other.
In the case of first and second endings, assuming the section repeated is small enough, it might be good to take the whole thing as one unit. Play the first ending, go back and then play the second---at half tempo. And slowly increase your speed until you get up to tempo.
But sometimes the near-repetition doesn't involve repeat signs, because the changes the composer made are too elaborate to be able to use a repeat sign. Then the danger is that in actual performance you will mentally jump to a similar section rather than the one the composer indicated on the score page.
If two sections are totally different, there's no problem in sequencing them correctly. But when they're similar, and particularly when they are nearly alike except for some small details, it's hard to tell them apart if you haven't looked at the music for a while---or even if you have.
Looking at the score away from the piano may help. Or it could be that slow practice on the similar sections is needed. Whatever it is you have to do, make sure you find some way to distinguish one section from the other.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Fast Forwarding
AUG 25, 2012: This technique is good for knowing where you are with a piece of music you have learned at some point. It's particularly helpful if you just learned it and are still a little shaky about some of the fingering, the transitions to the different sections, the bass line in one place, and so on.
Sit in a comfortable place without the score of the piano piece you have learned. Also, make sure you are not too close to a keyboard. The idea is to check the piece using only your brain. You don't need perfect pitch to imagine the sound of the music--even if you're at all close to the actual pitch, it will be enough. Start performing the piece in your head. Imagine your fingers moving, too---preferably without actually moving them. As you listen to the piece in your mind and imagine yourself performing it (fingering, hand motions, etc.) you may find that you're pretty familiar with it all. In which case, you can "fast-forward" the music. See how fast you can get through a section but still get all the notes. When you come to the passages you're not sure of, slow down. Maybe get it even slower than your chosen tempo. Way slow if you need it. If you're not sure what happens in the music at this point, see if you can continue. Latch on to the nearest scrap of music that will get you back on track----and roll with it for as long as you can.
Go back to the keyboard and work on the passages you forgot. Then, try it again. Fast-forward, keep fast-forwarding. When you get to the troublesome spot, slow down just a little, but maybe not as much as the last time. Do this a few times until you can fast-forward the troublesome section and get all the notes.
Now go to the keyboard and play it again to check if it "went in" (your brain/finger complex). If it still didn't, go back again. After a few times, if it still didn't get in there, go to the troublesome spot and isolate hands, fragment the music, isolate its components, take everything super-slow, and be prepared to try the fast-forward technique yet again.
It may not work equally well for everyone, but it's a quick way to discover where your memory lapses are in a piece of music. You can also use it to go over your entire repertoire to see how much of it is up and running and how much of it has "gone to sleep". The great thing about this technique is that you can do it anywhere---sometimes even while other music is playing.
Sit in a comfortable place without the score of the piano piece you have learned. Also, make sure you are not too close to a keyboard. The idea is to check the piece using only your brain. You don't need perfect pitch to imagine the sound of the music--even if you're at all close to the actual pitch, it will be enough. Start performing the piece in your head. Imagine your fingers moving, too---preferably without actually moving them. As you listen to the piece in your mind and imagine yourself performing it (fingering, hand motions, etc.) you may find that you're pretty familiar with it all. In which case, you can "fast-forward" the music. See how fast you can get through a section but still get all the notes. When you come to the passages you're not sure of, slow down. Maybe get it even slower than your chosen tempo. Way slow if you need it. If you're not sure what happens in the music at this point, see if you can continue. Latch on to the nearest scrap of music that will get you back on track----and roll with it for as long as you can.
Go back to the keyboard and work on the passages you forgot. Then, try it again. Fast-forward, keep fast-forwarding. When you get to the troublesome spot, slow down just a little, but maybe not as much as the last time. Do this a few times until you can fast-forward the troublesome section and get all the notes.
Now go to the keyboard and play it again to check if it "went in" (your brain/finger complex). If it still didn't, go back again. After a few times, if it still didn't get in there, go to the troublesome spot and isolate hands, fragment the music, isolate its components, take everything super-slow, and be prepared to try the fast-forward technique yet again.
It may not work equally well for everyone, but it's a quick way to discover where your memory lapses are in a piece of music. You can also use it to go over your entire repertoire to see how much of it is up and running and how much of it has "gone to sleep". The great thing about this technique is that you can do it anywhere---sometimes even while other music is playing.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Highlighting Notes
AUG 22, 2012: After learning each section by adding on bars and taking each add-on at about half speed or slower and slowly increasing the speed until you get up to tempo, you should have the sound of the music in your ears. Now, you might want to go back and highlight some of those notes to make sure you have them firmly in your fingers and mind.
One way to do this is to start with the first complete phrase and take the right hand only---at about half speed and keep increasing the speed with a metronome until it is up to tempo. For example, play it at 60, then play it again at 63, then 66 then 69 then 72 etc. Then do the same with the left hand. Then put the two hands together. Repeat the process until you get all the way through the section.
Even after this, some details will evade you, so take those details---by this time you surely know where they are---and work on them slowly, taking the hands separately if necessary. Most pianists are looking at the clock by now and wondering how long it will take to learn the piece at this rate. I think the answer might be that however long it takes you to learn it, this process could make it happen quicker. If you learn the piece too quickly, you might be thinking, "okay, so I've learned it. Now on to the next." When actually your learning of it was superficial.
After this highlighting process, now you can look at the score away from the piano with confidence since you really know it from a finger/brain standpoint. And now you can add other details that you might have missed because you were too busy working on the obvious details.
One way to do this is to start with the first complete phrase and take the right hand only---at about half speed and keep increasing the speed with a metronome until it is up to tempo. For example, play it at 60, then play it again at 63, then 66 then 69 then 72 etc. Then do the same with the left hand. Then put the two hands together. Repeat the process until you get all the way through the section.
Even after this, some details will evade you, so take those details---by this time you surely know where they are---and work on them slowly, taking the hands separately if necessary. Most pianists are looking at the clock by now and wondering how long it will take to learn the piece at this rate. I think the answer might be that however long it takes you to learn it, this process could make it happen quicker. If you learn the piece too quickly, you might be thinking, "okay, so I've learned it. Now on to the next." When actually your learning of it was superficial.
After this highlighting process, now you can look at the score away from the piano with confidence since you really know it from a finger/brain standpoint. And now you can add other details that you might have missed because you were too busy working on the obvious details.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Start With Simple
AUG 20, 2012: If there's a piece of piano music you would like to learn---but you find it overwhelming because of its length or its difficulty or both---you might want to look at it away from the instrument and identify the easy passages. Most piano pieces are not uniformly difficult unless you're talking about some sort of study---like the Chopin etudes. Barring that, there will be stretches of music that any reasonably accomplished player can tackle without putting in too much time or effort.
On the other hand, there may be pieces of piano music that are relatively easy for you to get all the notes and rhythms---except for a few bars of intricate passagework. Often, those few bars discourage even the most enthusiastic of performers. In that case, the opposite may work: learn everything but the intricate passage. Then, only after you've completely learned the music, minus that passage, start to work out the difficulties of that dreaded tangle of notes. Work it out slowly and you may find it's not nearly as difficult as you thought.
That's true of any piece of music that's new to you. It almost always seems more difficult at first than it actually is. Usually the individual gestures are not so hard---so isolating those during your practice session is probably a good thing----but it's putting those gestures together in sequence that's always the tough part. You may have to do gestures 1, 2 and 3 in the space of a single bar, a fast bar to make it even more frustrating.
But you'll notice that after you put the gestures together and can play them without straining your mind, you may be able to play it so effortlessly that you wonder why it was so much trouble to have learned it.
Each piece of music you learn--no matter how ancient the actual date of it is---has some new problems to solve. Each problem solved can be applied to the next piece. And the next.
On the other hand, there may be pieces of piano music that are relatively easy for you to get all the notes and rhythms---except for a few bars of intricate passagework. Often, those few bars discourage even the most enthusiastic of performers. In that case, the opposite may work: learn everything but the intricate passage. Then, only after you've completely learned the music, minus that passage, start to work out the difficulties of that dreaded tangle of notes. Work it out slowly and you may find it's not nearly as difficult as you thought.
That's true of any piece of music that's new to you. It almost always seems more difficult at first than it actually is. Usually the individual gestures are not so hard---so isolating those during your practice session is probably a good thing----but it's putting those gestures together in sequence that's always the tough part. You may have to do gestures 1, 2 and 3 in the space of a single bar, a fast bar to make it even more frustrating.
But you'll notice that after you put the gestures together and can play them without straining your mind, you may be able to play it so effortlessly that you wonder why it was so much trouble to have learned it.
Each piece of music you learn--no matter how ancient the actual date of it is---has some new problems to solve. Each problem solved can be applied to the next piece. And the next.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Learn First Then Memorize
AUG 17, 2012: Here is another way to memorize a piece of piano music. First of all, divide the piece you are learning into sections as described on the first post (July 14). Once you have learned all the notes and rhythms this way, then you can start memorizing. You'll find, probably, that you have memorized a great deal of it already just by going over it the way it's explained in that opening post.
Now the fun begins. You get to try different shades of dynamics. For instance, the composer writes mF, which means "medium loud". What is medium loud, anyway? You have to decide that. You also have to decide which accents are to be really accented and which can be done gently. Or should they all be done gently? There are no easy answers, and if the composer was there standing in front of you, you might get a simple explanation or you might get an ambiguous one. At any rate the composer is usually not standing there, particularly if this work you are learning is over 80 years old.
You can change your ideas about this as you memorize. Memorize away from the instrument, and it should be easy to hear the music in your head as you read along, because you now have a powerful associational link between the printed page and the sounds it actually produces. Now you can look for inner voices, for melody and harmony, for bass line and phrase structure--apart from your performance of it. You can look at the music in the abstract. And as you're looking, you can remember what comes after what. Memorize by phrase, by bar, by line, by page, whatever. Just make sure that the process makes sense to you and that you can put the individual gestures of the music together---in correct sequence.
Since you've already gone through the process of listening to this music over and over again in small segments, you've acquired the technique for putting the stuff together mentally. So now, read along at your desk and do it--it shouldn't be too hard. After this, your playing of the music should get away from any mechanical qualities it might have had when you first learned it, because now it's making sense to you as music and not just some black dots on a page filled with horizontal lines. The music's really what it's about, not the details you see in print.
Now the fun begins. You get to try different shades of dynamics. For instance, the composer writes mF, which means "medium loud". What is medium loud, anyway? You have to decide that. You also have to decide which accents are to be really accented and which can be done gently. Or should they all be done gently? There are no easy answers, and if the composer was there standing in front of you, you might get a simple explanation or you might get an ambiguous one. At any rate the composer is usually not standing there, particularly if this work you are learning is over 80 years old.
You can change your ideas about this as you memorize. Memorize away from the instrument, and it should be easy to hear the music in your head as you read along, because you now have a powerful associational link between the printed page and the sounds it actually produces. Now you can look for inner voices, for melody and harmony, for bass line and phrase structure--apart from your performance of it. You can look at the music in the abstract. And as you're looking, you can remember what comes after what. Memorize by phrase, by bar, by line, by page, whatever. Just make sure that the process makes sense to you and that you can put the individual gestures of the music together---in correct sequence.
Since you've already gone through the process of listening to this music over and over again in small segments, you've acquired the technique for putting the stuff together mentally. So now, read along at your desk and do it--it shouldn't be too hard. After this, your playing of the music should get away from any mechanical qualities it might have had when you first learned it, because now it's making sense to you as music and not just some black dots on a page filled with horizontal lines. The music's really what it's about, not the details you see in print.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Repetitions
AUG 15, 2012: With enough repetitions---going slowly enough to get everything---the pianist can learn just about anything within that pianist's skill level, and maybe even a little beyond the current skill level. If it's way over the skill level of the performer, either adjustments might need to be made (taking the whole thing slower, leaving out notes, making a simplified version) or the performer could wait until further mastery of the instrument has been achieved and then try re-learning the music.
If you have to practice hours just to keep it correct at a certain tempo, then the piece may be beyond your present skill level, but there's no harm in stretching your ability to perform difficult music, provided you take it slowly enough to get all the notes and all the music written on the page.
After a certain amount of repetiton, the passage should feel natural enough so that you can perform it without strain or concern. But that doesn't mean you don't need to concentrate. One test you can use as to how well you know the work is to get away from the music and the keyboard and try to imagine the way the piece feels on a keyboard and the way it sounds. If there are holes in that knowledge, you can then go back to the passage or the bar where your memory is fuzzy by consulting the score and then playing it over. This may be the place that needs real work.
At any rate, once you get everything worked out, it should sort of click into place. At the very least, you need to know what's coming up in the next ten seconds or so at any point in time so that you're prepared to perform it.
If you have to practice hours just to keep it correct at a certain tempo, then the piece may be beyond your present skill level, but there's no harm in stretching your ability to perform difficult music, provided you take it slowly enough to get all the notes and all the music written on the page.
After a certain amount of repetiton, the passage should feel natural enough so that you can perform it without strain or concern. But that doesn't mean you don't need to concentrate. One test you can use as to how well you know the work is to get away from the music and the keyboard and try to imagine the way the piece feels on a keyboard and the way it sounds. If there are holes in that knowledge, you can then go back to the passage or the bar where your memory is fuzzy by consulting the score and then playing it over. This may be the place that needs real work.
At any rate, once you get everything worked out, it should sort of click into place. At the very least, you need to know what's coming up in the next ten seconds or so at any point in time so that you're prepared to perform it.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Run-throughs
AUG 14, 2012: Once you have all the sections of a piece worked up, you might try playing them in sequence and then connecting them as if you were performing it. The best way to do this, I think, is at home or a comfortable place. Some sections may defy your memory, so you'll need to go back and work on those places. Now you know where they are, so that makes them easier to focus on.
Once you get them technically ready to play, you can add everything: pedals, dynamics, nuances. And you'll keep getting new ideas about playing the piece the more you go over it. This is the final stage before actual performance.
The more you perform it from beginning to end, the more ready you are for an actual audience. You might even pretend that an audience is in the room while you are doing this. Otherwise, you will need to break it in with real audiences, and then things can be unpredictable. With enough repetitions, you should be able to get all the pattern of the music in your head. And then you can be able to perform it in front of a real audience with confidence.
Once you get them technically ready to play, you can add everything: pedals, dynamics, nuances. And you'll keep getting new ideas about playing the piece the more you go over it. This is the final stage before actual performance.
The more you perform it from beginning to end, the more ready you are for an actual audience. You might even pretend that an audience is in the room while you are doing this. Otherwise, you will need to break it in with real audiences, and then things can be unpredictable. With enough repetitions, you should be able to get all the pattern of the music in your head. And then you can be able to perform it in front of a real audience with confidence.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Intricate Passages
AUG 8, 2012: Here's a question: what do you do when there's a passage so full of detail, where the hands cross or have so many awkward things to do, that you simply can't play it at a slow speed and slowly work it up to tempo?
This has got to be one of the more frustrating things about practicing the piano. It seems that no matter what you do you'll be working on this passage for weeks if not months and with minimal results. So, first of all, it might be good to step back a bit and see what's actually going on in the music, isolating the different lines, looking at the score closely for the main melody and the sub-melodies, or the bass line if that applies.
I don't think there's anything damaging about going to one specific measure and breaking it down. Even if you get three notes correctly, you've done something. And it doesn't matter about tempo; you can deal with the correct tempo later on.
One of the most effective strategies might be to take the hands separately. If you can play one hand slowly and take it up to tempo, that's a great start. But supposing you can't. Then what? I'd say, simplify the passage yourself. Go one step further from understanding where the main events are in that bar and actually re-edit or even re-compose the bar keeping it as close to the original idea as possible. Redistributing the notes so that the left hand takes some of what the right hand was going to do---or the other way around---is an excellent way to achieve simplicity and clarity. Sometimes composers think orchestrally when they write piano music. That's because it's easy to conceive of a piano as a small orchestra. Unfortunately, they often leave you, the performer, with a lot of grunt work in terms of realizing what they want. In other words, their directions are not always simple and crystal clear. Your response might be, "okay, if you're not going to be clear about how this is to be realized, I'll step in and get the passage to work for me." To put it another way, this is probably not the time for being "faithful" to the score. Maybe the composer wasn't even sure what being "faithful" to the score was. You don't always know.
Being able to roll with an intricate passage and be willing to work with the details of that passage is a skill unto itself. And it's a skill worth working on. Because sometimes, when you get past the details, the general effect is really simple.
This has got to be one of the more frustrating things about practicing the piano. It seems that no matter what you do you'll be working on this passage for weeks if not months and with minimal results. So, first of all, it might be good to step back a bit and see what's actually going on in the music, isolating the different lines, looking at the score closely for the main melody and the sub-melodies, or the bass line if that applies.
I don't think there's anything damaging about going to one specific measure and breaking it down. Even if you get three notes correctly, you've done something. And it doesn't matter about tempo; you can deal with the correct tempo later on.
One of the most effective strategies might be to take the hands separately. If you can play one hand slowly and take it up to tempo, that's a great start. But supposing you can't. Then what? I'd say, simplify the passage yourself. Go one step further from understanding where the main events are in that bar and actually re-edit or even re-compose the bar keeping it as close to the original idea as possible. Redistributing the notes so that the left hand takes some of what the right hand was going to do---or the other way around---is an excellent way to achieve simplicity and clarity. Sometimes composers think orchestrally when they write piano music. That's because it's easy to conceive of a piano as a small orchestra. Unfortunately, they often leave you, the performer, with a lot of grunt work in terms of realizing what they want. In other words, their directions are not always simple and crystal clear. Your response might be, "okay, if you're not going to be clear about how this is to be realized, I'll step in and get the passage to work for me." To put it another way, this is probably not the time for being "faithful" to the score. Maybe the composer wasn't even sure what being "faithful" to the score was. You don't always know.
Being able to roll with an intricate passage and be willing to work with the details of that passage is a skill unto itself. And it's a skill worth working on. Because sometimes, when you get past the details, the general effect is really simple.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Practicing Without Pedal
AUG 6, 2012: If it's possible for you not to use the pedal when you practice, I'd say that's the best way to go. Some people feel so uncomfortable practicing that way that they may use the pedal in places anyway. The reason I think it's a good idea is that you can hear every note with the pedals off. But there are sections of certain pieces of piano music which make no sense unless you do pedal shadings (or hold the right pedal down) even in the beginning stages of learning.
Here's another solution if not using the pedal while practicing bothers you: try practicing it without pedal for a while---and then add the pedal for a while. In other words, do your practicing in two versions: one with pedal, one without. Even if a certain passage doesn't make sense without pedal, you'll still hear things you wouldn't ordinarily hear this way.
What may happen if you choose to practice without pedal is that you'll develop a taste for really clean playing---and you'll refrain from using pedal in places where you would use it routinely. At any rate, when you finally do add the pedal---to get the piece ready for performance---you'll hear it differently, and possibly more accurately, than before.
Here's another solution if not using the pedal while practicing bothers you: try practicing it without pedal for a while---and then add the pedal for a while. In other words, do your practicing in two versions: one with pedal, one without. Even if a certain passage doesn't make sense without pedal, you'll still hear things you wouldn't ordinarily hear this way.
What may happen if you choose to practice without pedal is that you'll develop a taste for really clean playing---and you'll refrain from using pedal in places where you would use it routinely. At any rate, when you finally do add the pedal---to get the piece ready for performance---you'll hear it differently, and possibly more accurately, than before.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Bar by Bar
AUG 2, 2012: This method I'm about to describe will work best if you've already learned the piano piece you wish to bring back into your repertoire. It is an interesting alternative to either re-memorizing at a desk or crawling up the metronome notch by notch with each section.
Assuming the piece is not too difficult (a slow movement with few obvious technical problems), start by playing over the opening bar at a comfortable tempo---where you can play all the notes. Play it eight times correctly. As an option, you might try playing that first bar from memory. If you've learned the work before, this should be no problem. Then do the same with the second bar. Then try playing the first and second bar together. No metronome is required for this.
At the third bar, repeat the procedure and play it eight times correctly. Then play the bar before it and the bar you're currently working on together as a unit (this would be bar 2 followed by bar 3), and play those two bars together correctly at least four times. This is to insure that you have those two bars linked in your mind and fingers. Then, start from the first bar and play up to bar 3. Then take bar 4, play it correctly eight times at whatever tempo is comfortable and playable for you, and then link on bar 3--and play bars 3 and 4 correctly four times. Then start from bar 1 and go all the way to bar 4. Then take bar 5 and etc. Keep repeating this procedure until you reach the end. The end of what? The end of a section, the end of an entire piece, whatever you need to go over. Often, it would just be a short passage that you've forgotten. This will bring it back quickly.
I would always suggest, after you get the whole sequence up and running, to then start it at half-tempo on the metronome and take it up notch by notch till you reach the end. That's assuming there's no tempo change in the section or passage you're working on. Somehow, there's always a sort of even and sure touch you get from doing this that is hard to obtain otherwise.
Assuming the piece is not too difficult (a slow movement with few obvious technical problems), start by playing over the opening bar at a comfortable tempo---where you can play all the notes. Play it eight times correctly. As an option, you might try playing that first bar from memory. If you've learned the work before, this should be no problem. Then do the same with the second bar. Then try playing the first and second bar together. No metronome is required for this.
At the third bar, repeat the procedure and play it eight times correctly. Then play the bar before it and the bar you're currently working on together as a unit (this would be bar 2 followed by bar 3), and play those two bars together correctly at least four times. This is to insure that you have those two bars linked in your mind and fingers. Then, start from the first bar and play up to bar 3. Then take bar 4, play it correctly eight times at whatever tempo is comfortable and playable for you, and then link on bar 3--and play bars 3 and 4 correctly four times. Then start from bar 1 and go all the way to bar 4. Then take bar 5 and etc. Keep repeating this procedure until you reach the end. The end of what? The end of a section, the end of an entire piece, whatever you need to go over. Often, it would just be a short passage that you've forgotten. This will bring it back quickly.
I would always suggest, after you get the whole sequence up and running, to then start it at half-tempo on the metronome and take it up notch by notch till you reach the end. That's assuming there's no tempo change in the section or passage you're working on. Somehow, there's always a sort of even and sure touch you get from doing this that is hard to obtain otherwise.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Upper Limits
AUG 1, 2012: If you've tried the method of crawling from a slow comfortable tempo (where you can get all the notes) to a slightly faster tempo and then an even faster tempo, etc. until you reach your designated tempo and can play the passage with accuracy, you already know about the "upper limits". When you reach it, you start to lose coordination and balance.
But trying again isn't necessarily going to solve the problem. If you go back three or four times to the starting point and you still hit a stone wall at your former upper limit, it probably means that something needs to be altered---like your fingering for this passage, or your hand motions. Maybe you need to slow the passage down in your mind instead of trying to mentally rush through the difficulties. Or it could be that you need to slow that passage down just slightly in order to fit in the notes.
There are many difficult passages that can be solved by the working out of maybe two or three small places in the passage. It could be an awkward leap or a place where the fingers get gnarled up.
Taking the hands separately almost always works, particularly if most of the difficulties are in one hand. Then it's helpful to crawl up the metronome with that one hand---and after working out the difficulty, start again but this time use both hands.
If nothing else works, revising the passage is always an option. If you know the style of the music you're playing, and particularly if you find a way to make something sound similar but still leave out certain notes (or other things, like changing the octave register where it won't be noticed, say, in a fast passage) you can generally find a way to make it work. If nothing else, you may have to take the whole piece slower.
But as your technique improves, and it usually does if you keep working at it correctly, you'll find that in the long run you might be able to play the passage as written after all.
But trying again isn't necessarily going to solve the problem. If you go back three or four times to the starting point and you still hit a stone wall at your former upper limit, it probably means that something needs to be altered---like your fingering for this passage, or your hand motions. Maybe you need to slow the passage down in your mind instead of trying to mentally rush through the difficulties. Or it could be that you need to slow that passage down just slightly in order to fit in the notes.
There are many difficult passages that can be solved by the working out of maybe two or three small places in the passage. It could be an awkward leap or a place where the fingers get gnarled up.
Taking the hands separately almost always works, particularly if most of the difficulties are in one hand. Then it's helpful to crawl up the metronome with that one hand---and after working out the difficulty, start again but this time use both hands.
If nothing else works, revising the passage is always an option. If you know the style of the music you're playing, and particularly if you find a way to make something sound similar but still leave out certain notes (or other things, like changing the octave register where it won't be noticed, say, in a fast passage) you can generally find a way to make it work. If nothing else, you may have to take the whole piece slower.
But as your technique improves, and it usually does if you keep working at it correctly, you'll find that in the long run you might be able to play the passage as written after all.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Learning and Re-Learning
JUL 30, 2012: The main problem about re-learning a piece of piano music is, for me anyway, that I have to own up to something: the piece needs re-learning. I don't know why that's such a difficult thing to admit to oneself, but apparently I'm not alone in this dilemma.
Oh sure, you could fake your way through it at a performance and even improvise something functional if need be, but that's getting around the main issue: you don't really know the piece anymore. There are gaps in your knowledge of this music.
The good news is that if you learned it once not too long ago, the piece comes back with surprising ease once you get past a certain point of renewed contact with it. I think it's important to know when that point is, because great things start happening once you get there.
More specifically, I take each section at half speed and slowly crawl up to tempo with a metronome---even if I think I know it like the back of my hand. Every time I catch myself thinking that I already know the section and therefore this is wasted time, I say to myself, "just do the work and worry about the wasted time later." More often than not, I find that it was time well spent.
After putting the sections together, there's always going to be a little ajustment. In particular, some details will still need work. And---this is the tough part---there will be new details you never had problems with before that suddenly give you an unbelievable run for your money. How do you explain it? I think it might be because you perceive the piece in a new way, and you might even touch (or "sculpt") the work differently now in your mind and fingers. You might have played it super-legato before, and now you believe that some portamento is called for. Now the mind has to over-adjust, not only to that passage but to the entire section.
I would not advise starting from scratch when re-learning. It might pay off in the long run, but time is pressing, and you have obligations. Usually taking the individual sections at half-speed and slowly increasing the speed is sufficient for a second learn.
In fact, there may be some instances when re-learning bar-by-bar the way you learned it the first time will be confusing to you. Have you ever been in a classroom where the material is so familiar and so "easy" that the instructor's words don't even make sense? The instructor is certainly not going to say, "if you already know the material, you can skip this class." Well, the piece of piano music may do exactly the same thing to you if you try and learn it from the ground up again.
The first learn-through definitely involves bar to bar detail-searching and phrase by phrase accumulation in order to complete the section. You don't get the hassle---and the same joy of discovery---when you learn it the second time. But if you can get past the I-know-this-already syndrome, you may find that your technique has gotten slightly or even significantly better since you last touched this piece. You may hear yourself play it with a smoothness and confidence you never had before. And then you realize that as good as it was to learn it the first time, it's even better on the re-learn.
Oh sure, you could fake your way through it at a performance and even improvise something functional if need be, but that's getting around the main issue: you don't really know the piece anymore. There are gaps in your knowledge of this music.
The good news is that if you learned it once not too long ago, the piece comes back with surprising ease once you get past a certain point of renewed contact with it. I think it's important to know when that point is, because great things start happening once you get there.
More specifically, I take each section at half speed and slowly crawl up to tempo with a metronome---even if I think I know it like the back of my hand. Every time I catch myself thinking that I already know the section and therefore this is wasted time, I say to myself, "just do the work and worry about the wasted time later." More often than not, I find that it was time well spent.
After putting the sections together, there's always going to be a little ajustment. In particular, some details will still need work. And---this is the tough part---there will be new details you never had problems with before that suddenly give you an unbelievable run for your money. How do you explain it? I think it might be because you perceive the piece in a new way, and you might even touch (or "sculpt") the work differently now in your mind and fingers. You might have played it super-legato before, and now you believe that some portamento is called for. Now the mind has to over-adjust, not only to that passage but to the entire section.
I would not advise starting from scratch when re-learning. It might pay off in the long run, but time is pressing, and you have obligations. Usually taking the individual sections at half-speed and slowly increasing the speed is sufficient for a second learn.
In fact, there may be some instances when re-learning bar-by-bar the way you learned it the first time will be confusing to you. Have you ever been in a classroom where the material is so familiar and so "easy" that the instructor's words don't even make sense? The instructor is certainly not going to say, "if you already know the material, you can skip this class." Well, the piece of piano music may do exactly the same thing to you if you try and learn it from the ground up again.
The first learn-through definitely involves bar to bar detail-searching and phrase by phrase accumulation in order to complete the section. You don't get the hassle---and the same joy of discovery---when you learn it the second time. But if you can get past the I-know-this-already syndrome, you may find that your technique has gotten slightly or even significantly better since you last touched this piece. You may hear yourself play it with a smoothness and confidence you never had before. And then you realize that as good as it was to learn it the first time, it's even better on the re-learn.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Memorizing
JUL 24, 2012: If you can train yourself to do it,the most effective way to memorize piano music is away from the instrument---sitting in a comfortable chair or at a desk. The more you do it, the more you can hear the music inside your head without actually performing it.
According to Karl Leimer in his book The Shortest Way to Pianistic Perfection (1930), the performer begins memorizing by learning short phrases or bits of music--and gradually learns to memorize in larger chunks. The ability to hear music just by looking at the printed score is a cherished goal for any musician, I would imagine, and that is the secret of Beethoven's ability to compose after he became totally deaf. Leimer asserts that the performer begins to work out the details of the performance away from the piano "so that work which had at first been purely technical, becomes purely mental." Sometimes even the fingering can be worked out mentally.
When I memorize, I don't use the metronome very much. I even speed up the parts that are technically unchallenging and slow down the difficult passages when playing over a chunk of music I have just learned from memory. But once the notes are all there--in the brain as well as the fingers---I get out the metronome. Starting at a reasonably slow tempo so as to still get all the notes, I take the metronome up notch by notch until I reach tempo. I would do that anyway, but the main difference is that there is no music in front of me. I think it's important to keep checking it with the score so you don't stray too far from the printed page, but it's a fact that when a composer makes a "composer plays composer" recording for the general public, the score reader will usually notice a lot of small changes between what's on the printed page and what the composer actually does on the recording. There's no reason you can't do the same within reason, assuming you have a familiarity with the style of the music and the composition itself.
Learning away from the instrument helps you see the structure. Playing passages at different tempos insures the performer that they will be able to find things not obvious to them if they had chosen to stick with one tempo (usually the one marked by the composer). You might think of those various tempos as different flavors of the same beverage. But it goes beyond that. If you understand what's possible at one tempo, you might be able to transfer it to another---not right away, maybe, but after putting in enough time.
The thing is to put in the time.
According to Karl Leimer in his book The Shortest Way to Pianistic Perfection (1930), the performer begins memorizing by learning short phrases or bits of music--and gradually learns to memorize in larger chunks. The ability to hear music just by looking at the printed score is a cherished goal for any musician, I would imagine, and that is the secret of Beethoven's ability to compose after he became totally deaf. Leimer asserts that the performer begins to work out the details of the performance away from the piano "so that work which had at first been purely technical, becomes purely mental." Sometimes even the fingering can be worked out mentally.
When I memorize, I don't use the metronome very much. I even speed up the parts that are technically unchallenging and slow down the difficult passages when playing over a chunk of music I have just learned from memory. But once the notes are all there--in the brain as well as the fingers---I get out the metronome. Starting at a reasonably slow tempo so as to still get all the notes, I take the metronome up notch by notch until I reach tempo. I would do that anyway, but the main difference is that there is no music in front of me. I think it's important to keep checking it with the score so you don't stray too far from the printed page, but it's a fact that when a composer makes a "composer plays composer" recording for the general public, the score reader will usually notice a lot of small changes between what's on the printed page and what the composer actually does on the recording. There's no reason you can't do the same within reason, assuming you have a familiarity with the style of the music and the composition itself.
Learning away from the instrument helps you see the structure. Playing passages at different tempos insures the performer that they will be able to find things not obvious to them if they had chosen to stick with one tempo (usually the one marked by the composer). You might think of those various tempos as different flavors of the same beverage. But it goes beyond that. If you understand what's possible at one tempo, you might be able to transfer it to another---not right away, maybe, but after putting in enough time.
The thing is to put in the time.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
The Difficult Details
JUL 17, 2012: To me, one of the maddening things about performance is the details that get messed up during performance---as well as the details you didn't expect to get but came so effortlessly. How do you figure it? I wish I could come up with an explanation.
One thing I'm pretty sure of: the more quality practice time you do, the less those little mistakes will mar your performance. But what do you do about those tricky details that refuse to fit in with the rest of it? They often seem to have a life of their own. After a while, the selection I'm performing will feel smooth and safe for me to play, but these little trouble spots always give me cause for concern as I come up to them while I'm in front of an audience.
Hard as it is to relax, I think just letting go mentally could do a great deal to solve the problem passage. One thing that seems to happen over and over: these problematic details seem to come in bunches. And they are often bunched together. It's as if the composer was thinking "difficult", and difficult music came out---technically, musically, intellectually, or any other way.
The problem is that if you don't master these details by a certain time, you tend to think that you never will. This is true of everyone. I absolutely refuse to try a passage up to tempo over and over again if I know that it's difficult. The worst thing that could possibly happen in this situation--I'm beginning to believe---is that you get the passage perfectly after doing it wrong seven or eight times.
I really think the best thing is to go back and take it as slowly as you need. Sometimes the composer even makes it easy for you by dividing the note values squarely so that it's all divisible by two----sixteenth notes, eighth notes, quarter notes, half notes. Once triplets get in there, or anything that's not divisible by two, it becomes much harder to practice something slowly. At any rate, you certainly can't break it down as easily. Even so, I think it really needs to be played slowly enough so you as a performer can get all the notes.
After that, it might be a good idea to go back and put that passage into the context of the section where it came from. Play the whole section, including the difficult spot, at a slow enough tempo where you can get it all even and consistent. That's a tall order right there.
But what if disaster happens? For instance, you did all this and the passage was going correctly when it was up to tempo. You play it in front of an audience and it starts to fall apart again. Somehow you manage to hold it all together so that the performance keeps its continuity, but inside you're thinking, "I may never get this passage."
So you go back and relearn the section. That works for a while. But later----same old thing. Maybe that's just the passage talking to you, saying something like, "you need to get back to me and find out where the specific problem is." And THAT may take some time to figure out.
One thing I'm pretty sure of: the more quality practice time you do, the less those little mistakes will mar your performance. But what do you do about those tricky details that refuse to fit in with the rest of it? They often seem to have a life of their own. After a while, the selection I'm performing will feel smooth and safe for me to play, but these little trouble spots always give me cause for concern as I come up to them while I'm in front of an audience.
Hard as it is to relax, I think just letting go mentally could do a great deal to solve the problem passage. One thing that seems to happen over and over: these problematic details seem to come in bunches. And they are often bunched together. It's as if the composer was thinking "difficult", and difficult music came out---technically, musically, intellectually, or any other way.
The problem is that if you don't master these details by a certain time, you tend to think that you never will. This is true of everyone. I absolutely refuse to try a passage up to tempo over and over again if I know that it's difficult. The worst thing that could possibly happen in this situation--I'm beginning to believe---is that you get the passage perfectly after doing it wrong seven or eight times.
I really think the best thing is to go back and take it as slowly as you need. Sometimes the composer even makes it easy for you by dividing the note values squarely so that it's all divisible by two----sixteenth notes, eighth notes, quarter notes, half notes. Once triplets get in there, or anything that's not divisible by two, it becomes much harder to practice something slowly. At any rate, you certainly can't break it down as easily. Even so, I think it really needs to be played slowly enough so you as a performer can get all the notes.
After that, it might be a good idea to go back and put that passage into the context of the section where it came from. Play the whole section, including the difficult spot, at a slow enough tempo where you can get it all even and consistent. That's a tall order right there.
But what if disaster happens? For instance, you did all this and the passage was going correctly when it was up to tempo. You play it in front of an audience and it starts to fall apart again. Somehow you manage to hold it all together so that the performance keeps its continuity, but inside you're thinking, "I may never get this passage."
So you go back and relearn the section. That works for a while. But later----same old thing. Maybe that's just the passage talking to you, saying something like, "you need to get back to me and find out where the specific problem is." And THAT may take some time to figure out.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Beginning
JUL 14, 2012: I have been told that the best use for this blog is to examine and demonstrate techniques for learning the piano. Since piano is my instrument, and I've spent some time looking at various methods, I'd like to explore some ideas with you.
First of all, I want to share a simple technique that improved my playing by leaps and bounds. Without going into too much detail, the procedure is this:
Break the piece up into sections. Start at the beginning of each section with its opening bar and take that bar at half speed or slower. Then, using a metronome, increase the metronomic number notch by notch until you can play that opening bar at tempo. Then do the same with the first two bars (you already know the first bar), and then the first three bars (you already know the first two), and etc. until you reach the end of the section. Putting the individual sections together is usually not too difficult, but you may need to spend time learning how to go smoothly from the end of one section to the beginning of the next.
I have no idea of the piano skills that you, the reader, have acquired at this point. But I would say that if you have not reached a high level of mastery, and you do nothing else but use the method I described in the above paragraph, I believe your progress on the piano will dramatically increase---and you will continue to find improvements the more you experiment with it.
First of all, I want to share a simple technique that improved my playing by leaps and bounds. Without going into too much detail, the procedure is this:
Break the piece up into sections. Start at the beginning of each section with its opening bar and take that bar at half speed or slower. Then, using a metronome, increase the metronomic number notch by notch until you can play that opening bar at tempo. Then do the same with the first two bars (you already know the first bar), and then the first three bars (you already know the first two), and etc. until you reach the end of the section. Putting the individual sections together is usually not too difficult, but you may need to spend time learning how to go smoothly from the end of one section to the beginning of the next.
I have no idea of the piano skills that you, the reader, have acquired at this point. But I would say that if you have not reached a high level of mastery, and you do nothing else but use the method I described in the above paragraph, I believe your progress on the piano will dramatically increase---and you will continue to find improvements the more you experiment with it.
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