Piano Blog

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.

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!

 

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!

The Thing About Piano Competitions Is . . .

Piano competitions can be a real pain in the ass. Not just for the competitors, which is obvious, but for teachers as well.

Placing well often this means playing a piece somewhat conservatively at, say, 80% of a student's technical capacity. But improving can often mean practicing something at 90%, or even 110% capacity. (Within reason of course.)

Don't get me wrong I'm not against competitions. My more competitive students still enter them. But this "competition is everything" mindset some people have can wear thin; especially when it comes at the expense of real musical growth.

Developing musicians around the age of 13-18 need space to grow. They need to experiment, try out things, find their voice, and push up against pieces that might be a bit above their head both musically and technically. The fact is, this doesn't always lend itself well to polish and precision.

I'm not one of those people who is against competition per se, or anti-sports or anything else. But sports is sport and music is art. Art is a deeply personal thing, and the budding artist is finding himself through his practice. What are we teaching children when they work like hell on music they love, and then made to feel like failures because this or that judge was in a bad mood? 

Long story short. Go and compete, but keep the big picture in mind. End of rant.

More on Piano Muscles

 Along the lines of the previous post, here's a quick tip:

If your practice isn't "sticking", maybe you aren't doing enough "reps". Many people will take my advice on working in small sections, but won't repeat enough. They'll figure out how to get through a section, repeat it maybe once, and then move on. But really, they ought to play it through several more times. These "reps" are where the real muscle gets built. Don't spend several minutes figuring out how something goes without repeating it. If you do that you are wasted most of your time! 

Alternately, if you're moving at a glacial pace, learning a measure a week or something like that, maybe you are doing too many reps. Its much better to cycle small sections. Maybe repeat a two-measure bit 6 times, move on to the next bit, and then after a few minutes review the first bit again. You have to find your sweet spot - a good balance between repeating and covering a decent area. There's an art to this kind of practice.

Now go pump up your piano muscles. 

Scale Fingering

Do you get your fingers mixed up when you play scales?

Here's a quick tip. Say the fingers to yourself in groups as you play, instead of one finger at a time.

For instance if you're playing the F Major scale, don't think:

1 on F

2 on G

3 on A

etc...

Instead think

Starting on F: 

1-2-3-4

1-2-3-4

or for C Major:

1-2-3

1-2-3-4

etc...

Thinking in groups of notes before playing is much easier than thinking one finger and note at a time.

Try it!