Silent Practicing

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.