Archive for the ‘The Practice Routine’ Category
New Year’s Resolutions
December 29th, 2009
How Much Piano Will You Practice In 2010?
The new year (or new decade , rather) is only a couple of days away. Do you have your New Year’s resolutions set and ready to go?
Sometimes I think it’s kind of funny how most people mark January 1st as the beginning of a “new and better year.” You don’t really need a new year to achieve any certain goals, but I guess it gives a lot of people a clean-and-fresh-start type of feeling.
The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that people make ridiculously huge goals to achieve, but don’t make any real plan or mini goals to get there. Quitting smoking, getting into shape, and improving school grades are great goals, but they also take a lot of work and lot of time. Most end up falling off the wagon and never getting back up again.
I’ve done this. Since I stopped musical conservatory training, I’ve been not-so-great with making time for piano practice. After all, playing the piano is really just a hobby I do now. My worst habit is learning one or two pages of a piece without learning the rest. I probably have 10-15 pieces that I could play without their ending because I never stuck around to learn the rest. I always get bored and move onto another piece or get side-tracked and distracted by something else that reduces my practice time.
It’s time to set things straight. Here a few guidelines that you and I can both take to make it a better year for piano practice.
Make time to practice. There are only 24 hours in a day and almost everyone struggles to get everything done before the day is over. You don’t have to spend hours practicing the piano. In fact, you don’t even have to spend one hour, or half an hour. Spaced repetition is the best practice method. Long periods of practice are unproductive because the brain starts to tire and get bored after a while, thus resulting in less effective practicing. Try spending at least 15 – 20 minutes a day practicing. Maybe break that down into 5-minute sections of three or four pieces that you are working on.
Start off small. So, you want to tackle a piece that is 27 pages long? You’ll get there, passage by passage. Don’t rush it. Make it your goal to play one entire line within one week. Make a second goal to learn one an entire page by the end of the month. Mini goals like this will make the task seem less daunting.
Play it 10 times repeatedly. As Chopin once said, “Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.” Take one bar or one passage, and play it 10 to 15 times. Repetition forces your hands and fingers to get used to the positioning and forces your brain to memorize the passage. By the 10th repetition, you’ll probably notice that you can play the passage faster and more easily. Yes, it can be tedious, but it is necessary.
Use the metronome. Ah yes, the dreaded metronome. We all love that terrible little device that sends a piercing clicking noise through our ears and literally forces us to know the truth about our playing in conjunction with timing. Don’t avoid it. Use it. Lucky for you, practicing with a metronome for long periods of time messes up your personal sense of timing, so remember to keep metronome practice short. Read my post about how to effectively practice with a metronome here.
YouTube It. If you want to learn a specific piece, do a search on YouTube and you can listen to various interpretations. There are even thousands of tutorials that people make to help you learn. You can watch a person play and study the hand and finger movements as often as you want. Listening to a certain piece repeatedly is very helpful when you practice because your brain automatically develops a framework for what the finished piece should sound like, and then you can add your own artistic components to make the performance your very own.
Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:
2010 is going to be a big year for everyone. I know how hard it is to force yourself to sit down and groan through the repetitive and tedious movements of a certain passage, but it must be done to achieve what you want. Take these tips with a grain of salt and remember how good it feels once you’ve completed and mastered a piece.
Posted in The Practice Routine | 
Tags: 2010, Chopin, Metronome, New Year, Practice, Repetition, Time, YouTube | 
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The Art And Physics Of Mastering The "Trill"
November 11th, 2009
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.
A Few Tips For Getting Up To Speed With Fast Pieces
November 6th, 2009
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
Posted in Rhythm and Tempo, Technique (Discussions), The Practice Routine |
Tags: Hands Separate, Hands Together, Metronome, Speed, Technique |
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Three Major Reasons Why You Should Practice Bar-By-Bar Segments
November 5th, 2009
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.
Posted in Technique (Discussions), The Practice Routine, Tips For Reading Music |
Tags: Bar-By-Bar, Methods, Piano Pracitce, Practicing, Segments, Technique |
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The Chord Attack Method
October 11th, 2009
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 below:
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!
Posted in Musical Signs & Notation, Piano Chords, Technique (Discussions), The Practice Routine |
Tags: Chords, Quadruplets, Speed, Triplets |
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