Piano Blog

I Don't Want to Practice Piano

"What do I do when my child doesn't want to practice? "

Piano teachers hear this question a lot. I think it implies a more fundamental question: What is the nature of a child's wants and desires? 

The answer to this question can lead to two different parenting approaches:  One approach holds that every moment and decision of a child's day must be scheduled and controlled. The other approach says that a child should be allowed to do however he or she feels on the whim of the moment. 

I disagree with both approaches, because I think they both deny the fundamental nature of what a child is. A child is a potential adult, but not a fully formed adult. A child is in the process of forming values, learning his or her likes and dislikes, and forming a full psychology. 

So what does this mean? 

A child's values and psychology aren't completely formed. This means that a child's decisions and emotions will often be at variance with his long-term self interest. For example, a child might want to eat sweets and candy all day. Or she might love the piano but not feel like practicing because it requires too much effort. In such cases, the parent is obligated to reduce the number of sweets, or encourage or even mandate practice.

On the other hand, a child's values and psychology aren't completely plastic. Although he isn't an adult, he does have some nascent values and psychology. To deny this fact, or thwart early attempts at self-discovery is to invite serious problems down the road.

For example, if a child has a clear preference for drawing or some other activity, and yet you deny this in favor of hours of daily piano practice, you're heading for disaster. In a case such as this, an "I don't want to practice" isn't an out of context whim, but rather the correct response to a value contradiction imposed from the outside.

The answer then to "What do I do if my child doesn't want to practice?" is: "It depends." If your child has other interests, and has had piano imposed from the beginning, you should consider letting her explore. If your child enjoys practicing in general but needs a day off, then let her chill out. If your child loves music but won't practice because of the effort involved, it could be time to find some creative motivation or be a strict parent. If your child doesn't want to do anything, it might be time to look for someone more qualified than a piano teacher for advice.

Aristotle Agrees

Regarding my last post on repetition, it's good to know that even Aristotle agrees with me:

"It is from the same causes and by the same means that every excellence is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are produced. . . if this were not so, there would have been no need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at their craft."*

So, says Aristotle, if you want to be good at the lyre, or um. . . piano, you can't just goof around. The good and bad pianist both practice the piano (hopefully) but some of them become excellent, and some don't. The excellent people make a habit of it by repeating the right things over and over again.*

Thanks Aristotle. 

*Nichomachean Ethics 1103b10. My edition is the W.D. Ross Translation.

*There's more expicit stuff about repitition in his later sections on excellence. But that's the subject of a future post.

Keep it Simple

Playing a musical instrument is a complex task. Almost anyone could practice on a daily basis. But without guidance, there's a good chance this practice won't be beneficial in the long run. 

When a child learns to walk, for instance, he gets immediate feedback as to whether he's doing something incorrectly. (That is, he falls down.) But often the feedback you get with a musical instrument isn't so easily interpreted. You might play the right notes in the correct order but at the same time use your muscles or your mind in a way that hinders progress down the road.

But let's assume you're getting good guidance and the technical elements are more or less in place. There's an unavoidable fundamental to playing: automatization. You simply don't have a choice but to make the physical elements of playing automatic.

What does this mean? Repetition. 

The devil is in the details. They are important. But don't lose sight of the foundation of good practice. To become truly facile, you have to move to the level of the automatic. Watch any number of great musicians over time and you'll observe this simple common denominator: tireless, intelligent, repetition of the music.

Don't let details bog you down and sap your motivation. Keep it simple, over and over again.

Things Mean Piano Teachers do Just to Be Mean

Why am I such a mean teacher?

One of my favorite things to do is have my students transpose small pieces and exercises into different keys. This is usually met with a fair amount of resistance. But, I insist, it is one of the BEST ways of really understanding the keyboard. I always say: you want to be able to play in more than one key don't you?

In fact, all my children learn their 5 finger positions ASAP so they can move a simple piece to every major and minor hand position on the keyboard.

Quick break.

I finally made it back to the gym today. I could have done a bunch of isolation exercises on my legs. (These are exercises that work very specific muscles.) Instead of did a few sets of squats. For those of you who don't go to the gym: squats suck. They work about every muscle in your body at the same time. Afterwards you feel like you want to die. BUT they're awesome. You work everything and you get HUGE. (No, I am not a big muscle man.)

Back to piano.

Here's why I brought up squatting. Transposing is like the squat of the piano. (Or maybe the deadlift.) If you select a couple measures with some smarts, you can work your technique, your ear, your understanding of theory, and your musicality. All at the same time. 

As they say at the gym: crush it.

Piano Practice and Exercise - Similarities

There are no quick worthwhile results.

Extreme amounts of repetition are necessary.

Poor execution causes more harm than good.

A stupid approach means years of frustration and wasted time.

Each session is best planned in advance.

Showing off is detrimental to real progress.

More time is spent worrying than doing.

 

Mastery - Part I

I'm currently re-reading an excellent little book by George Leonard called Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment. I've read it several times now and have a few short posts coming up on it. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning any craft, skill,art -- or learning anything at all. 

In his book, Leonard talks about 3 personality types or learning habits: The Dabbler, The Obsessive, and The Hacker.

The Dabbler starts each pursuit with extreme energy, but soon dwindles out. The process of getting started is addictive, until the new quickly becomes the old.

The Obsessive lives for constant results. Like the dabbler, the obsessive starts out strong, but does not give up so easily. In fact, the obsessive is unable to accept anything but constant progress at all costs, often at the expensive of long-term results. The dabbler quits out of boredom, the obsessive quits out of burnout.

The Hacker gets the hang out things but thats about it. For him, there isn't much use in doing more than good enough. The goal for the hacker isn't to master an art, it's to get by and maybe be part of the clique. 

I see these personality types all the time in both my teaching and my personal life. (Of course you can have different approaches to different areas of your life.) However, as far as Mastery is concerned, each of these types falls short. In contrast to these three types, Leonard discusses "The Master's Journey", which will be the subject of Sunday's post!

 

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!

 

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.

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!