Piano Blog

There is No Middle of the Road in Art

Great works of art and great performances are never middle of the road.

Some of my favorite performers, like Richter and Argerich, also elicit my most negative reactions. Rudolf Serkin's concerts were incredible or disastrous, but rarely mediocre. Beethoven has a large collection of worthless compositions. So does Mozart.

This is the nature of real art: this is my world and to hell with you if you don't like it. The artist doesn't aim to please but to create -- even if the creation polarizes, offends, or falls apart completely. 

 

We are Human

"You do feel emotion don't you?" I once asked in exasperation. I couldn't stand one more soulless note. Especially not in late Beethoven.

"No." She replied.

This student did not last long. 

We are human -- there are thoughts, feelings, and deeply felt life experiences. We carry this into art. 

Today we seem to be in the business of producing thousands of piano-robots; automatons who can play the right notes in the right order in an emotional vacuum disconnected from their own lives and experiences. 

Scriabin gave the following advice to Horowitz's mother: "Your son will be a great pianist, but please, let him be an overall cultured man, and make him understand not only music, but other important aspects of life. There are the arts of painting, of philosophy, of literature. Only then will he be an all-around musician."

The Successful Piano Student

What makes for long term success at the piano?

I sat down a couple days ago and worked out that I've taught many thousands of piano lessons. Thats a lot of teaching, and a lot of students!! After a while, you can't help but see patterns and trends; who is successful and who gets frustrated and gives up.

My students range in age and ability quite a bit, from 4-year-old beginners to very advanced high schoolers and advanced musicians. If I were to pick *one* factor that predicts success at the piano, regardless of age and level, it would be this:

A Regular practice time that is adhered to every day; e.g. "30 minutes at 3:30 every day".

If you're a parent, you can add a second crucial element:

Active parental involvement in every practice session.

Yes, there are a lot of other factors that play into piano lesson success, but assuming you've got a decent piano teacher and some level of ability, these two things are the best predictors of long-term success at the piano.

Happy piano lessoning!

 

Pressure

Sort of a rant?

Stress is a scary thing. In the right amount, a bit of stress can really motivate, but just a bit too much of it can lead to disaster. An athlete under the right amount of stress excels, but under too much pressure he crumbles.

The same is true at the piano. I don't mean just in performing, but also in the process of learning. Sometimes serious students expect too much. I think many young students could be pushed more, but there are some cases where this is the reverse; the pressure from parents or teachers becomes obsessive and overbearing. The child is not "good enough" unless he or she wins a competition or plays perfectly.

Ironically, this pressure often leads to burnout, poor performance, and even complete rebellion or shutdown.

Why is this necessary? Why do we have to beat others to prove our worth? (What the hell does beating others have to do with music or art?) Why does self-worth rest on how accurately you can play a Mozart Sonata? What kind of message are we sending to students or children by telling them they aren't good enough because of a memory slip or a wrong note?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about new levels of achievement, aiming for your best, improving. There's a reason its called fine art - high levels of playing don't fall into your lap. 

But when music becomes all about stress, pressure, not messing up, and comparing oneself to others we lose interest in the music, because it isn't there anymore.

 

 

Sensitivity Training and Feedback Loops II

In my last post I discussed feedback loops in piano playing and their importance in cultivating physical awareness.* Now I'll try to give you an idea of how you can employ these ideas in your practice.I know that the last post might seem like a lot of information to keep in mind, but in practice its not so bad. So, if this is all new to you, here's something to try:

Take a 5 finger pattern, or a *very* small passage of only a second or two in length. For now do this hands alone . . . so pick a hand. Play this passage (preferably from memory) a few times, each time concentrating on the feel of your hand and arm, as well as the tactile feel of the keys against your fingertips and their movements up and down. Get as much "feel data" as you can each time you play the passage.

Now, take your hand away from the keyboard. Close your eyes and try to visualize yourself playing *every note* of this passage. Visualize as slow as necessary to be exact in your mind. Do this several times, and with each repetition try to make the visualization include a very vivid kinesthetic component. Don't go for speed; be patient and aim for clarity. Try to visualize not only the look and sound, but the *feel* of playing this passage in the muscles of your hand and your fingertips (but without actually moving your hand.)

(There is a helpful German word in this context: spielart, which the famous piano technician Franz Mohr explains as "simply the way the action feels to you, or how the action functions under your hands, in combination with what comes *out* of the piano . . ."** This is what you want to visualize.)

Now return to the keyboard and play the passage very slowly. Your goal is to visualize the sight, sound, and *feel* of each keystroke an instant before playing. After you do this a few times, you can work the passage up to speed, while continuing to visualize ahead. After each repetition, STOP, and consider what the play-through sounded like. Was it under your control? Did you get the sound you wanted? Did it "feel" how you wanted or expected? Use this information to make adjustments to the next run-through.

If you're patient with this, you can make this sort of analysis a practice habit. Although I focused here on the tactile component of the process, reflecting on every aspect of playing is a crucial part of effective effective feedback loops. The most effective musicians do this sort of analysis constantly--probably without even being aware of it. If you take the time to build it into your thinking, it will pay off many times over.

--- 

*(As a side note, I think more than anything else, its this awareness that allows a good pianist to make instantaneous adjustments necessary for a good performance. This responsiveness also allows, after a lot of practice, for a pianist to adapt quickly to a new instrument.) 

**Franz Mohr. My Life With the Great Pianists, pg. 28. 

 

Sensitivity Training and Feedback Loops

Here's an element of piano playing that I think many people are unaware of. To develop a really refined technique, you need to be very sensitive to the *feel* of your hands on the keys. This means, the the tactile sensation of your fingertips, the weight of the keys, the motion of the key going down and how that motion *feels* in your fingers and hands.

Maybe this seems obvious, but a surprising number of people become extremely mechanical the instant they put their hands to the piano.

Why is this important? Really good piano practice, and piano playing,  involves setting up a "feedback" loop. It goes like this:

1) Sound concept -> 2) Attempted Sound Production ->  3) Result -> 4) Analysis of Result -> 5) Adjustment of Desired Sound/Attempt

(Sorry for the clumsy presentation, but you get the idea.)

The result of these steps 1 and 2 is a sound 3 that either matches the "Sound Concept" or not. Steps 4 and 5 can lead to an adjustment of the first two steps, which starts the process over again. This is a feedback loop. 

Many people fail in their practice because they don't really understand Step 2. In fact, most people focus almost exclusively on Step 3 to the exclusion of everything else! Of course this is very ineffective practice. Getting a desired result is worth very little if you don't know how you got it. Piano teachers are fond of saying "slow down". What we really mean is: "Slow down so that you can think about the results you are getting in comparison to the sound you want to produce and your attempt at producing it, and make adjustments as necessary while carefully thinking ahead." That's just a mouthful so we don't say it.

One note about step 2: like any non-habitual action, it involves 2 parts: a "foresight" or "pre-visualization" of the action, and the action itself. For instance if you decide to raise your hand above your head, you first visualize that action on some level and then you do it. For habitual actions, this visualization seems to scope out to larger levels. For instance, because typing is so habitual to me, I don't need to think ahead about pressing the keys of the keyboard, but I do need to think about what words to type. 

Too much information? Bear with me. Just remember, when you DO something (step 2) you have to "visualize" it and then do it. So step 2 has two parts.

Now, in piano playing, there are many elements to Step 2, such as note-reading, finger dexterity, hand position, fingering, and on and on. I want to focus here on one element that is almost universally ignored: the *feel* of playing. 

 When I ask people to visualize playing a certain passage, they often have no trouble understanding that they can visualize the correct key and the correct sound before playing. When you say "think ahead while you play", its somewhat obvious that you would think ahead about what notes to play and what those notes should sound like. It's less obvious to think ahead about what playing will *feel* like.

As an example, when I'm about to play a five finger pattern, I don't just have an image of the keys, but also a feel in my fingers of what it will feel like to produce that sound. This "feel" is a mixture of kinesthetic awareness (the feeling of my hands and their motion) as well as an awareness of how the keys feel on my fingertips and their movement up and down. 

OK This is enough of the details, so the end of part I. 

I'll continue this article in a second part with an exercise or two to help develop kinesthetic awareness and strong feedback-loops in practicing.

Posting Schedule

Hi Everyone

From now on I'm going to start keeping a more regular posting schedule with Piano Blog. Between teaching, practicing, composing, blogging, and wine drinking I've got a lot on my plate! So from now on you can expect posts on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Of course today is Tuesday, and I can't help but tell you that I'm off to see a solo recital with Spencer Myer this evening, a phenomenal pianist - I'm very excited!

Just so that you stick around, tomorrow's post (if all goes as planned) will be a very short excerpt from the forthcoming pamphlet on technique for adult piano students. The subject is "The importance of tactile awareness in developing your technique" . . . if you can make heads or tails of that.

Piano Placement and Friendship

My Piano is placed very near my front door. Here's a picture:

 

 

 

 

See? Door, then piano.

I think its fair to say that when you fill a room with pianists and insert a piano, the piano becomes the nexus of almost all social activity. That or wine. Preferably both. 

In any case, since most of my friends are pianists. Typical interaction goes like this:

    Banging on the door ->

    Enter the house ->

    Quick greeting ->

    Start playing the piano

How do normal people function without a piano in the living room? Probably quite normally. Luckily normal is boring. 

 

Adult Piano Technique - I'm not Dead, Just Working

Hi Pianobloggers!

Yes I'm still alive, contrary to rumor, and much to the chagrin of any students who would like to get out of lessons this week. My latest project has taken me away from the blog for a few days, as I've been planning a small pamphlet on piano technique for beginning and intermediate adults. This is in response to common trouble spots many adult piano students, especially those who are self taught or have little formal training.

This will *not* be a course on playing the piano, but rather a short collection of thoughts by yours truly about the fundamentals of piano technique necessary for beginner, intermediate, and perhaps even early advanced piano technique. 

Just to whet your appetite, here are some of the subjects I plan on dealing with:

- Posture and using your body at the piano

- How to continually improve your technique

- The proper role of the arms, wrists, and fingers

- Slow vs. Fast practice

- Economy of Motion

These are only a few key topics, although I'm trying to keep this thing concise! (As my students know, I can go on and on.) My goal is to present the theory behind each concept, while also making it applicable to real life situations a beginner or intermediate piano student might encounter.

For example, I'll be applying some of this theory to basic problems of piano playing such as: correct scales, chords, overcoming technical limitations, developing velocity, chord technique, etc.

I'll keep you updated in the coming days - Including some excerpts to tease you along. The tentative release date is: November 30th!

Practice - The Last 10 Percent Is The Most Important

If you've read much of pianoblog.com or are one of my students, you know how important repetition is to me.

What many people don't understand about practice, is that the last 10 or so percent is where the majority of improvement occurs. Repeating a section 10 times vs. 5 times doesn't mean it will only be twice as good. In fact repetitions 8, 9, and 10 might add an extra 200 percent. (If you can't tell, I'm making these number up, but you get the point).

Its very similar to building muscle at the gym. The last repetition determines the majority of the muscle growth. How much should you repeat? There's an art to this. After a certain number you reach a point of diminishing returns, and you'd do better to work on a different section for a while and then come back. After a lot of practice, you'll get a sense of what is enough…there's a sort of "locking" in that occurs, where you can tell you actually learned something. As against a sense of murkiness and uncertainty about the section at hand.

But in general, I'd say most people err on the side of not enough repetitions. So, go forth and repeat.