The Trill

If you are an intermediate to advanced piano player, it’s very likely that you’ve come across the trill in your compositions. Generally, a trill is shown in modern musical notation with the letters “tr” above the trilled note, and a wavy line that proceeds. In musical pieces composed during the baroque and early classical eras, the wavy line on its own is used.

Musical Notation Denoting A Trill

The usual way of performing a trill is to rapidly alternate between the note indicated on the staff with the “tr” and/or wavy line and the note that is directly above it in that given scale (unless the trill indicates an accidental).

This Is The Way You Would Execute The Trill As Shown In The Previous Notation Above

Many of Chopin’s classical compositions include trills. They sound like a fast, flicking motion of the two fingers playing two successive notes very, very fast.

There are two main problems that the piano player MUST solve in order to play the trill effectively: (1) speed and control, and (2) continuity.

With a simple trill, there are only two notes you need to focus on: the note indicated, and the note that lies directly above the one indicated. If the first two notes are not started properly, learning the trill will become a very difficult task.

We can solve the problems of the trill by applying an exercise called “parallel sets.” A parallel set is a group of notes that can be played as a chord, and all parallel sets can be played infinitely fast. Within the parallel set, the delay between the successive fingers is called the “phase angle.”

As an example, if we were going to used fingers 2 and 3 to execute the trill (2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, etc.), you can use the 3 as the conjunction and get those first two notes right. Next, practice 3,2. Then, move onto 2, 3, 2, and then 3, 2, 3, 2. It’s really just this simple.

Try not to focus on speed, as this is insufficient. Experimenting with hand and finger motions is also a must. Try soft fingers, rolling motions, flat fingers, and so on. Relaxation is also one of the most important aspects for executing the trill; more than almost any other technical skill out there because of the need to acquire rapid momentum and balance. Allowing stress to build up will cause the fingers to lock into its larger members, such as the palms, hands, and wrists, which in turn increases the effective mass of the fingers.

Your physics lesson for the day: An increased mass means slower motions. Relatively speaking, a hummingbird can flap its wings thousands upon thousands of times faster than other relative species of birds, and small insects can flap their wings even faster than that of the hummingbird.

Therefore, it’s very important to free yourself from stress when practicing trills, in order to let the fingers do the work without the weight of the rest of your body. Trills are one technical skill that require constant practice and maintenance.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

The chord attack is the best practice method for keeping your trills in shape. See my post on The Chord Attack Method to learn more. Make sure that you don’t treat your trills as a series of staccato notes. Your fingertips should be placed at the bottom of the keydrop as long as possible, and make sure you stay aware of the minimal lift needed for the repetition. If you practice on a grand piano, take a mental note that this lift distance can vary from around twice as high as those who practice on an upright piano. Remember, fast trills mean smaller lifts, so on an upright, you may need to slow down your trills.

Related posts:

1. The Chord Attack Method If you've taken any formal piano lessons, you've probably been...
2. A Few Tips For Getting Up To Speed With Fast Pieces Yesterday, I touched on the topic of practicing by breaking...
3. Three Major Reasons Why You Should Practice Bar-By-Bar Segments My apologies for not updating in quite some time, my...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

You Don't Need To Break The Keys To Get Up To Speed...

Yesterday, I touched on the topic of practicing by breaking down difficult passages into small segments. When you break it down this way, you can maximize practice time and bring your playing up to speed in practically no time.

But how should you know exactly what speed to start at and progress toward? Like everything else, it will depend on your own personal skill and the piece itself, but here are some general guidelines and things to keep in mind in regards to velocity and choice of practice speed.

In general, we want to be able to play up to speed as quickly as possible. However, playing so fast that you begin to feel stressed and make mistakes will not help improve your technique. Additionally, forcing your fingers to play the same way at a fast speed will not help increase your speed.

Your technique will improve the most quickly and effectively when you play at a speed at which you can play accurately. This is especially true when you practice hands separately. When you practice the left hand and the right hand separately, you have more control, and therefore you can get away with playing much faster than you could if you were playing with hands together. Since the main goal of practicing hands separately is to gain speed, the need to quickly get up to speed and to practice at a speed which is optimized for improvements in technique become contradicting.

So, how do we fix this? The solution is to constantly change the speed at which you practice without staying at any one speed for too long.

But what happens when you reach block? A difficult passage? When you come across a difficult part that requires skills that you don’t already have, the best alternative is to bring it up in stages. You can use speeds that are too fast as exploratory excursions to figure out what needs to change in order to for you to accurately play at such a speed. Then, you can try slowing down and practicing those new motions. Keep in mind that if you lack the technique required, you need to go back to shortening the passages to extremely small segments, as explained in yesterday’s blog post.

To vary your speed, you first need to get to a manageable “maximum speed” at which you can play the piece accurately. After you’ve reached this, try to go faster and take a mental note of how your playing needs to be changed or adapted (at this point, don’t worry if you are not playing completely accurately). Next, use these newly discovered motions and play at the previous “maximum speed.” You should discover that it’s easier to play now. You can continue to practice at this speed for a while, and then try to slow down to ensure that you are playing completely relaxed.

You can then repeat this entire procedure. It will help you drive up your speed in manageable jumps so you can work on each skill separately. Generally, you should be able to play a new piece, at least in small segments, hands separately, at the desired speed during the first sitting. This may seem unattainable at first, but you’ll be surprised that you can reach this goal relatively quickly.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Using a metronome can also help with building up speed, but make sure not to overuse it. Metronomes should never be practiced with for more than a few minutes at a time, because your brain will become confused and you will begin to have trouble keeping up with the beat of the metronome. For more information on metronomes, read one of my previous blog posts here: Five Tips For Acquiring Accurate Tempo

Related posts:

1. Five Tips For Acquiring Accurate Tempo The rate at which you play a piano piece is...
2. Three Major Reasons Why You Should Practice Bar-By-Bar Segments My apologies for not updating in quite some time, my...
3. Slow Piano Practice One bad habit of many piano players is their excitement...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Ever Feel This Intimidated With Difficult Passages?

My apologies for not updating in quite some time, my computer had a complete virus meltdown and had to be stripped clean of everything and re-formatted.

Everyone gets frustrated with piano practice. In a perfect world, a piano player would be able to sit down at their piano and play a piece flawlessly. If life was like that, playing the piano would not be special. For me, personally, playing the piano is special because of the challenges brought on by it; the challenge of reading music, making sense of those black dots and squiggles, analyzing them with my brain, and transforming them into art with my hands. It takes discipline, motivation, and persistence to make time for yourself and sit down to practice your pieces on a regular basis.

Since most piano players know exactly what I’m talking about, I’d like to point out three very distinct reasons WHY bar-by-bar practicing is so effective.

1. Practicing the most difficult notes most often results in optimized practice. When practicing difficult passages, there are usually only a few note combinations that obstruct your playing. For example, if you have 10 bars that include 8 notes each, there may only be 4 difficult notes to play in that entire passage of 10 bars. Just by practicing those four notes, you will succeed in playing all 10 bars, which greatly reduces your practice time. Depending on your personal skill and the nature of the piece, the most difficult notes may include a key change, a large jump upward or downward on the keys, an awkward fingering position, a trill, an arpeggio, and so on. Focus on these areas, and you will greatly cut down your practice time.
2. Practicing short segments allows you to practice them dozens, or even hundreds of times in a matter of minutes. Using quick and successive repetitious practice methods is the most effective way to teach your hands new motions. In contrast, if you decided to practice a long passage that included difficult notes, the longer interval between your successive playing and the playing of the difficult notes will lead to confusion of the hands, resulting in much slower and less optimal learning. Moreover, piano players who are more adept to playing by memory and less by sight reading have an advantage when it comes to practicing short segments. Short segments are easier to remember, and as you practice them, you are instantly putting them to memory, thus killing two birds with one stone.
3. The shorter the segment, the faster you can practice it. If you’ve read my other posts, specifically on the topics of slow practice, you should be well aware that trying to play a segment fast that your technical skills allow you is detrimental. This may seem like a catch 22, BUT, shorten those segments, and you will effectively learn very quickly to practice those short segments very fast. Typically, the most common short segments you should choose are one bar or even less; perhaps something as simple as just two notes. When you start off this small, you can literally bring any difficult note combination right up to speed within minutes. This saves loads practice time, and as mentioned, helps put the piece’s segments to memory as well.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Stayed tuned for some great stuff I’ve been planning. Christmas is just around the corner and I’m getting ready to break out the Christmas music. Also, my performance of Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag is almost up to par, and should be up on YouTube hopefully sometime this month, if nothing gets too busy to prevent me from filming it.

Related posts:

1. A Few Tips For Getting Up To Speed With Fast Pieces Yesterday, I touched on the topic of practicing by breaking...
2. The Three W’s of Memorizing Music Learn who can memorize, what you should memorize, and when...
3. Slow Piano Practice One bad habit of many piano players is their excitement...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Chord B-E-G

A “chord attack” occurs when you play a sequence of notes as chord. For example, say you had to play the quadrulplet, C-G-E-G in the left hand. If you practice this slowly and then speed it up gradually, you will eventually hit a “speed wall,” which is a speed that you can’t pass because stress builds up. To break the speed wall, you would have to play the quadruplet as a single chord, C-E-G. A “chord” is a combination of three or more notes that blend harmoniously when played together. You will then go from slow speed to infinite speed! And that’s why it’s called a chord attack.

Let’s take a closer look. Examine the passage blow:

In the right hand, the passage begins with the triplet, E-G#-C#. The fastest way to play this sequence is to play it as chord, along with the corresponding fingering. When you play a chord, there is zero delay between the playing of notes, so you are playing the notes infinitely fast. Chord attacks are a great method to enhance speed and velocity. You can use then wherever you find a series of notes that can be played as a chord.

Now that you can play a chord very fast with the chord attack method, what happens if you want to slow down? Firstly, you can play the chord while moving the hand up and down at the frequency at which the chord or quadruplet should be played. Try between one and two times per second. Experiment with your movements by varying your bouncing hands, and remember to adjust your wrist, arm, and finger movements as well. If you begin to feel tired after a while, you might be doing something wrong, or you haven’t quite figured out the technical movements.

Basically, practicing the up and down movement over and over again until you do not feel tired is necessary. And if you feel tired by practicing the motions with chords, you’ll definitely have a hard time with quadruplets.

But how should you move? This depends on your own body and level of comfort. You need to find the most efficient motions that personally compliment you. Try keeping your fingers very close to or touching the keys as you increase your speed, and get your whole body involved in the movements. This should definitely include your shoulders, your upper and lower arms, and of course, your wrists. Don’t play from your fingertips, use your shoulders and arms.

How will you know when you’ve done it? When you find that you can play the chord or quadruplet softly, relaxed, and without tiring, then you have definitely made great progress.

Remember that you need to play the notes as perfect chords, meaning that all notes should land one after the other, no stops, delays, or flub; note after note, infinite playing. Without this, you won’t acquire the accuracy needed to play them fast.

Practice the bouncing hand motions slowly. This is the best way to work on acquiring accuracy. Accuracy will improve faster when you practice them slowly.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Practicing chords can solve a lot of problems in piano practice and improvement. I’ve found some great resources for chord practice, even if you barely know a thing about chords.

The Talking Chord Chart

The first is The Talking Piano Chord Chart, which gives you some great virtual piano lessons, allowing you to see and hear each chord and how they are formed. You’ll know everything about major, minor, augmented, and diminished chords in no time. If you use this chart right, it’s quite likely that you can learn up to 48 different chords in a matter of 15 to 20 minutes.

Power Piano Chords

The second is Power Piano Chords, which gives you 39 separate lessons on piano chords. When you study and practice enough about chords, you can actually improvise in your music and even write your own arrangements, because you’ll understand how certain notes fit together to create desirable sounds and harmonies. I advise you to check them out soon!

Related posts:

1. The Art And Physics Of Mastering The “Trill” If you are an intermediate to advanced piano player, it’s...
2. A Few Tips For Getting Up To Speed With Fast Pieces Yesterday, I touched on the topic of practicing by breaking...
3. Slow Piano Practice One bad habit of many piano players is their excitement...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Don't Fight Gravity!

In my last post, I talked about something called the “gravity drop.” I think it’s important to take a closer look at it for you to really see how physics can work with you or against you when you play the piano. Try this exercise to see how the gravity drop works with your own hands and your own piano:

1. Place your right hand on the piano and your fingers (1, 3, and 5) in the correct position to play the chord, C-E-G.
2. Remember to keep your entire arm and body relaxed.
3. Keep your wrists flexible, and begin to lift your hand about 5 to 20 centimeters above the keys.
4. Allow gravity to let your hand drop, and let your hand and fingers drop as one entire unit, without moving the fingers.
5. Your hands should be completely relaxed during the entire drop, and then as your fingers come to impact the keys, you need to “set” your fingers and wrists to take the shock of landing and depressing those keys (remember to keep flexibility in your wrists).

You are now letting gravity lower your hand, therefore referencing your strength or sensitivity to a completely constant force. Maybe it doesn’t seem that interesting right now, but to really dig deep into piano playing, it’s necessary to look at how physics compliments the structure of the human body to create, you guessed it, music.

Did you know that an underweight 6 year-old and an enormous sumo wrestler dropping their hands from the exact same height onto the piano will produce sounds of equal loudness?

Why does this happen? This happens because the speed of gravitational fall is actually independent of weight or mass and the piano hammer will be launched into free flight as soon as the knuckles are taken off the jack, which are the last few millimeters before striking the strings.

If you majored in physics, you might say, “Ok, what about kinetic energy? Kinetic energy is conserved so the above statements are not precisely true.”

Piano keys do not have the mechanical structure to physically act like an “elastic collision.” In an elastic collision, the piano key would fly off the fingertip at a high velocity, sort of like when you play staccato. However, because the fingers are kept relaxed and fingertips soft, inelastic collisions are produced and kinetic energy is not conserved. The smaller mass, which are the piano keys, can stay with the larger mass, which are your fingers/arm/hands, which results in a controlled key drop.

Now, the sumo wrester will probably create a slightly louder sound because of his arm being 20 times heavier (momentum conservation), but the difference between his sound and the sound of the 6 year-old will be relatively small.

So, what’s so great about practicing YOUR gravity drop?

Using gravity to lower your hands allows you to rid yourself of all forces and all tenseness that cause some of your fingers to land before others. And most importantly, using the gravity drop allows you to practice relaxation.

Gravity is the perfect force for playing the piano, and it’s no coincidence. Human beings have evolved under the complete influence of gravity; walking, running, jumping, and of course, playing the piano. Just remember that you only need the amount of force that is relatively equal to that supplied by gravity. You don’t need to bang the keys or keep your hands tense. This will be detrimental to your practicing. It’s a great idea to practice the gravity drop for a number of weeks or even months, every time you practice. Once you are truly relaxed, you’ll be able to feel the gravitational effect on your hands as you play.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

At the time of impacting the keys, stiffening your hand will ensure that your entire weight of your arm will transfer to the key drop. However, make sure not to add force during the stiffening. This takes practice. A pure gravity drop becomes more difficult as you increase the height of your hand. That’s why I recommended a height of 5 to 20 centimeters from the keys. Choosing a height of 5 centimeters will be easier because you will have a better chance of not adding your own forceful impact in combination to gravity.

Related posts:

1. How To Relax When Playing Piano Relaxation is one of the most important aspects you must...
2. Introduction to Piano Fingers There seems to be a lot of confusion about piano...
3. The Chord Attack Method If you've taken any formal piano lessons, you've probably been...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Relax!

As you build up your speed in your piano playing, it becomes more and more important to learn how to relax at the same time. Generally, this means that you should only be using the muscles that are needed to play. You can achieve relaxation much easier by practicing your pieces hands separately. Here are a couple pieces of advice that I follow during my practice routines:

It is better not to practice at all than it is to practice with even the slightest bit of tension. It’s much more efficient to relax and play a single note, and then advance carefully; only playing those easy materials that can be played relaxed.

Do not forget to relax all areas of the body, including breathing and periodic swallowing. You thought hands and arms and fingers were the only parts of the body needing relaxation? Well, think again. Some students will stop breathing when they find themselves playing very demanding pieces because the muscles are anchored at the chest. If you’re throat is dry after playing, it means that you also stopped swallowing. My piano teacher told me a horror story of her younger years when she had been playing for an audience at a recital, when all of a sudden she started choking on her own breath right in the middle of her playing.

To fully relax, you must find the proper energy and momentum balance as well as arm, hand, and finger positions and motions that allow you to play with the right amount of energy. This may seem complicated, and it can be. Relaxing can require a lot of experimentation. If you have been concentrating on relaxing on a regular basis during your practice routines, then you should be able to quickly execute this. For those who haven’t been practicing their relaxation, you can try practicing an easy piece until you build up stress, and then try to relax. For this, you’ll need to find different motions and positions of the arms, wrists, and body. When you find them, you’ll feel the stress gradually drain away from you.

The most important element of relaxation is energy conservation. There are at least two different ways to conserve energy. Firstly, do not use unnecessary muscles, and secondly, turn off those muscles as soon as their jobs are done. Again, this is easier said than done. You can experiment with this using the gravity drop, During a gravity drop, you allow gravity to pull the arm down, but at the end of the key drop, you need to add tension to the finger for a moment to stop the hand. Then you need to quickly relax all of your muscles, but do not lift the hand. Just rest it comfortably on the piano with just enough force to support the weight of your arm. This is a lot harder than you would assume, because the elbow is practically floating in mid air. You can test whether or not you are pressing down by taking the arm off the keys and resting your forearm on your legs, completely relaxed. Then you can carry over that same feeling to the end of your gravity drop.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Without relaxation, neither music nor technique could be possible. Technique comes from the brain. Non-musical playing actually violates so many aspects of nature that it interferes with the human brain’s natural processes for controlling the mechanisms of playing. Basically, if you spend your practice sessions doing mindless repetitions, you will find yourself going through a long, roundabout way of learning piano.

Related posts:

1. A Closer Look At The “Gravity Drop” Gravity is just the right force needed to play the...
2. Playing Scales On The Piano Using Thumb Under and Thumb Over Methods When you play a scale on the piano, the thumb...
3. Introduction to Piano Fingers There seems to be a lot of confusion about piano...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Analytics Vs. Artistry

It’s true, there were very few great pianists who could master the art of teaching piano, as they spent their entire lives mastering their own training and artistry. Learning and teaching are essential parts of exploring science. However, some of the most well-known pianists who had not received sufficient teaching training were actually pushed into teaching.

By human nature and throughout history, we have looked up to these great composers and pianists for guidance and piece of mind in how we relate to learning piano. If they can do it, they should be able to show us how, right? If you asked a famous pianist how to play a certain piece, he or she would sit down at the piano and play it. Notice that the language of the pianist is spoken by the hand and the piano, as opposed to the mouth.

Not only that, but that pianist may also be completely unaware about how exactly the fingers are moving in the right way to manipulate the piano keys. It literally takes the ability to control thousands of muscles and nerves in the fingers, hands, and forearms to learn how to manipulate the keys the proper way.

Acquiring technical skills can come from two different extremes. The first is the analytical extreme, where every movement and muscle is analyzed. The other is the artistic extreme, where the piano player discovers his or her own way of expressing musicality through body motions and feelings, thus acquiring the correct movements to execute proper piano playing.

And so, technique through the artistic extreme is difficult to communicate to students, because it’s acquired through completely personal and nonlinear musical aspects. Still, even knowing the proper and analytical practice methods is not enough. The correct explanations as to why they work are needed, which usually lies outside the expertise of the pianist.

There seems to be a gap in the development of proper teaching tools. The artist or the piano teachers lack training to develop these tools, but scientists and engineers who may have such training lack piano experience and artistry for teaching piano.

We can’t deny that some of the most well-known pianists of all time were indeed geniuses. Many discovered and theorized new ways of incorporating mathematics and physics to improve piano playing, so we can’t say that absolutely no analytical aspects were combined with artistry in piano playing.

These long-developed and even re-invented technical piano playing aspects have actually never been documented historically in a systematic way as they have evolved over the years. Piano teachers struggle to teach because it’s very difficult to hold the artistic approach while trying to identify what correct theoretical explanations work for teaching practice methods. And unfortunately, without a sound explanation for why these work can cause the teacher and the student to misuse or misunderstand the right practice methods.

This is why no other piano practice methods have been developed throughout history. Learning and understanding why a certain practice method works, is just as important as the method itself.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Do you ever see a really great piano player and just think that they have been blessed with pure, amazing talent? Well, don’t. Most conservatories do not accept students unless they are of advanced levels, yet without proper conservatory training, many students are unable to attain the skills required to be accepted. A grey area has been created by the lack of good piano teaching methods, directly translating into a “lack of talent.” When this is all taken into account, it becomes more evident to see why some of the greatest pianists of all time could not teach piano.

Related posts:

1. The Requirements of a Piano Teacher Many beginner piano players overlook the requirements needed for a...
2. The Three W’s of Memorizing Music Learn who can memorize, what you should memorize, and when...
3. Misconceptions About Piano Technique It's hard to understand exactly how the human brain and...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Piano Hands

Where do I place my fingers on the keys? How do I know if I’m doing it right? What’s the best position? Curled or flat fingers?

These are just a few of the common questions that many piano players wonder when they find themselves struggling to make sense of a piece and position their hands and fingers to play the notes. In most beginner books, the fingering is shown in each piece to help guide students for later levels and also to help improve finger/muscle dexterity and motions.

Since everyone has their own idea about finger positions, there are no real “rules” about where and how to use them to play the piano keys. Different people have large hands, small hands, short fingers, long fingers… and so even these physical characteristics create differences in finger positioning.

One overall rule you can follow: The fingers should be in the most relaxed and powerful positions possible. Here’s a small exercise you can follow to test this:

1. Make a tight first.
2. Open your fingers and stretch them as far out as you can.
3. Relax your fingers (still stretched outward but without your forced stretching).
4. Place your hand on a flat surface with all of your fingertips resting on the surface, with your wrist being at the same height as your knuckles.
5. Notice anything? Your hand should be forming a dome-like shape. Because your fingers are relaxed and not stretched, they tend to curve a little bit.
6. Your thumb should be pointing slightly downward and bending just slightly toward your fingers so your thumb is parallel to your other fingers.
7. Many people don’t notice, but they tend to position their thumb slightly outward, away from the other fingers. It’s very important to keep the thumb parallel to the other fingers when playing chords and wide spans because you are less likely to hit adjacent keys. It also positions the thumb so the right muscles are used to raise and lower your thumb.
8. Your fingers should be slightly curled downward and meeting the piano keys at angle (approximately 45 degrees). This is very important, because it allows your fingers to play the black keys.
9. Look at all of your fingertips in this position. They should trace an approximate semi circle, from your pinky to your thumb.
10. This is an ideal starting position for playing the piano. Obviously, as you gain more experience and advance to higher levels, you can modify it to suit your own playing style.
11. When you place both hands in this position, side by side, your thumbnails should be facing each other. You can use the part of the thumb directly below the thumbnail to press the keys (as opposed to the joint).
12. Your other fingers contain a bone that comes very close to the outer skin of your fingertips. Inside the fingertip (away from the fingernail), your flesh will be slightly thicker. This fleshy part of your fingers should come in contact with the piano keys, not the fingertip itself.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

This exercise is just a really simple one to familiarize yourself with the mechanisms of your own hands. They are just suggested starting positions, but as you begin to play, these rules will most definitely change and even fly right out the window after some time. Depending on a lot of things (speed, dynamics, key combinations, and so on) you may need to stretch your fingers straighter or curl them even more. Again, this all depends on your personal style and what you are playing.

Related posts:

1. Playing Scales On The Piano Using Thumb Under and Thumb Over Methods When you play a scale on the piano, the thumb...
2. How To Relax When Playing Piano Relaxation is one of the most important aspects you must...
3. A Closer Look At The “Gravity Drop” Gravity is just the right force needed to play the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Piano Keys

I used to hate practicing scales. I didn’t think they sounded as nice as a playing song would, so I avoided practicing scales as much as possible. Scales are actually a very important part of acquiring piano technique and thus improving your ability to learn and play music quickly.

Scales and arpeggios are the most basic of piano passages. Despite their importance, the most important method for playing them are usually not taught at all.

There are two main ways to play a scale. The first is the very well-known “thumb under” method and the second is of course the “thumb over” method. With the thumb under method, the thumb is brought under the hand to pass the third or fourth finger. The thumb over method treats the fingers like the four other fingers, making the motion much simpler. Both of these methods are required to effectively play a scale, but each is needed differently. Using the thumb over method helps facilitate fast, technically difficult passages, while the thumb under method uses slow, legato passages, or when certain notes need to be held while others are being played.

Throughout history, several piano teachers had no idea about the thumb over method. This caused a lot of problems as long as students did not progress to advanced levels. With the right amount of effort and work, it’s actually possible to play fairly difficult passages using the thumb under method. Even some very accomplished pianists think that the thumb under method is optimal. This is because they have subconsciously learned how to effectively use the thumb under method in such a way that it works as well as the thumb over method.

This modification is very important because it is physically impossible to play such rapid scales using the thumb under method. And so, it is very important for students to begin to learn the thumb over method as soon as they have achieved the novice stage and before the thumb under habit becomes ingrained in too many passages that should be played using the thumb over method.

A lot of students begin playing slowly and then ramping up their speed. They can get by using the thumb under method at slow speeds while consequently acquiring the thumb under habit. They then find out that as the get up to speed, they need to use the thumb over method.

This change can be difficult, frustrating, and time consuming to master because of the strong, developed habit of using thumb under. In fact, the thumb under motion is one of the most common causes of speed walls and flubs. Once the thumb over method has been learned, the student should always become used to playing runs except when the thumb under method presents better results.

The main muscles for the thumb lie in the forearm, just the same as with the other four fingers, but the thumb has other muscles in the hand that are used for moving the thumb sideways with the thumb under method. Therefore, using those extra muscles for the thumb under method makes it a much more complicated motion, which can in turn result in more mistakes.

Teachers who teach the thumb over method claim that for those who exclusively use the thumb under method, 90% of their mistakes actually originate from the thumb under method.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

You can actually demonstrate the disadvantage of the thumb under method by experiencing the loss of thumb motion with its “tucked-in” position. To do this, first stretch your fingers out. All of your fingers, including the thumb should have mobility up an downward. Wiggle your thumb up and down rapidly. You’ll notice that the thumb can move about 3 or 4 centimeters vertically quite easily and without rotating your forearm. Now, gradually move your thumb underneath your hand while keeping up the rapid wiggling motion. As it goes under your hand, it loses much vertical motion until it actually becomes immobile and almost paralyzed as it likes underneath the middle finger. The muscles that are used when your thumb is underneath your hand are much more clumsy in mobility, which is making mistakes with the thumb under method is very common.

Related posts:

1. How To Relax When Playing Piano Relaxation is one of the most important aspects you must...
2. Introduction to Piano Fingers There seems to be a lot of confusion about piano...
3. Some Of The Greatest Pianists Could Never Teach Piano Some of the greatest composers that we have all looked...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Basically, from following the definition of technique as explained above, it proves that practicing something (such as a scale) several times over and over again will not exactly improve your technique. We actually have to discover new things about our own human bodies to acquire technique. This can be almost impossible for any given person (unless you have been dedicated to it from a very young age). Even still, many people struggle to acquire technique.

But why does it take practically an entire lifetime to achieve? Well, without proper guidance, a piano player has to discover their own correct motions and movements through trial and error. You actually have to depend on the smallest probability that your hand will actually somehow form the right motion that works. A lot of people never discover the right motion to acquire a certain set of technical skills, and thus they are stuck in a technical rut forever. This is sometimes referred to “speed wall.”

Another misconception about acquiring technique has to do with the hands and fingers becoming amazingly skilled, so that once that is achieved, a person can play absolutely anything at all. This is not true because every single passage or piece is different, and must be learned from scratch. Very experienced piano players seem like they can play almost anything because they have practiced all musical qualities that are encountered often and they know the route to go in order to learn something new very quickly.

A piano player has to make their own discoveries in acquiring technique for two reasons. Firstly, there are millions upon millions of different passages, and the methods for playing each of them cannot all be listed. Secondly, each person is different, so methods can really only guide an individual as a starting point through acquiring technique. The individual must then adapt in order to search for and establish their own needs as a piano player.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Don’t get discouraged by this post. I know I put a lot of negative points into this article, but this does not necessarily mean that you will never, ever progress with piano technique just because you are a regular person. I made this post to help you understand how technique is actually acquired, and why we need it. It really comes down to the different needs of individuals. Technique can guide you, but after that, you’re on your own to discover what works best for you. It’s an adventure all in itself. Never give up hope! Acquiring technique is an art that takes time to master.

Related posts:

1. A Few Tips For Getting Up To Speed With Fast Pieces Yesterday, I touched on the topic of practicing by breaking...
2. The Requirements of a Piano Teacher Many beginner piano players overlook the requirements needed for a...
3. Some Of The Greatest Pianists Could Never Teach Piano Some of the greatest composers that we have all looked...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.