"Repeated note-groups"

[00range]

In many of his posts, Bernhard talks about these "repeated note-groups". I've searched around a little, and I was unable to find a reference regarding this. Can anyone explain, or slap up a link?

[dorfmouse]

Look at reply #12 in Paul's Plan to try it himself,for Bernhard;

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4858.0.html

[BoliverAllmon]

Look at reply #12 in Paul's Plan to try it himself,for Bernhard;

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4858.0.html

ok I looked at the replies. I understand the concept but do you apply this to ever section or just the section that are giving you problems. I mean the process can take 30 min or so and if that is the case then how can you learn all the pieces that Bernhard is describing? I must be missing something.

[00range]

I could be totally misconstruing it, but it seems that it's reserved for particularly challenging sections.

Thanks for the links dorfmouse!

[BoliverAllmon]

I could be totally misconstruing it, but it seems that it's reserved for particularly challenging sections.

Thanks for the links dorfmouse!

that would be what I would think.

[mound]

while you certainly could apply this to every passage you learn, that is likely not necessary.. Just as it is likely not necessary to hire a dump-truck to haul away the dirt you dug from the garden to plant a single flower.

My experience has shown that for fast challenging passages, where other practice techniques don't seem to be working, a repeated note group exercise is the way to go. It is time consuming and must be done properly and completely for full effect as it methodically and systematically breaks down every possible motion, develops each one fully and sticks them back together. If you can already play a passage to your satisfaction, or know you will soon be able to by following your more conventional practice techniques, there's really no need. Using this technique for every passage would take a LOT of time and thereby, potentially defeat the purpose?

-Paul

[BoliverAllmon]

that's what I was thinking,  but wasn't sure. I didn't know if there was some hidden benefit I didn't know of.

boliver

[asyncopated]

Hi,

Was trying this technique this weekend with mozart's sonata in C (K545) and it works miraculously!  After warming up I can play the right hand at 150 (crochet) without a hitch, possibly faster!  Amazing!  Now I am working on lightening my touch and putting in dynamics. 

There are a couple of things that I've noticed that may possibly help speed up the learning process from repeated note groups.  Although I have not tried these out yet, I will soon.   If it does not work, I'll go back to the old method of following every step.

The idea to decompose everthing into it's basic action and recombine it again in one exercise is excellent.  But I've noticed that I play certain uncomfortable positions many more times when practicing than i do the comfortable positions.

I'm thinking that if you are sure about the comforable runs, you only need to jump and play the uncomforable ones in the repreated not groups.  This will save some time, depending on the complexity of the piece.


So far, I've come up with a short list to identify what I consider are potentionally uncomforable runs.

1. runs include passing the thumb over 
2. runs with a stretch in the third and forth.
3. runs starting and ending with third, forth and fifth fingers (weak fingers).

The rest of the them seem easy to do, and i would just play them once, or not at all. 

So the idea is to still go through the process of identifying groups of 2, 3, 4  notes and so on, but only play the ones that are difficult.  When you get to a fixed set, that is natural to the rythm (eg. multiples of 4)  go through the whole set to make sure that you are confortable.  If not go back and redo some of them.  This will save quite a lot of time if it works!

I'm also thinking of methods to determine when I need to used repeated note groups in it's full, or when I can use a diluted version and when I can just get by without bothering.  If you have any suggestions or comments, I will really appreciate them.

al.

[bernhard]

The idea to decompose everthing into it's basic action and recombine it again in one exercise is excellent.  But I've noticed that I play certain uncomfortable positions many more times when practicing than i do the comfortable positions.

Yes. So you must change your technique on these passages. Correct technique is never uncomfortable. Experiment with the way you move, with the fingering you are using and change it! To every uncomfortable position/fingering/movement there is always an alternative that is comfortable, painless, free of fatigue and injury free. Make it a big aim in your practice sessions to figure out how to make a passage easy. The body always rejects inappropriate techniques. So listen to your body. Any passage you have to keep practising forever or it will fall apart, is being played with an inappropriate technique. Appropriate techniques demand very little practice time to learn and ingrain, and once learned they are yours forever – even if you do not practise them (just like riding a bicycle). Repeated note groups is a great tool to show you the bits of a passage that are being negotiated with an inappropriate technique, since as you have noticed they are uncomfortable.

I'm thinking that if you are sure about the comforable runs, you only need to jump and play the uncomforable ones in the repreated not groups.  This will save some time, depending on the complexity of the piece.

With the above in mind, naturally there will be passages that are more difficult to tackle than others – this means that it may take you longer to figure out the movements and develop the co-ordinations necessary to play them with ease. Even these more difficult passages should not feel uncomfortable though.

But you are absolutely right: Repeated note groups is reserved for the truly impossible passages, not for the ones you can sail through.

So far, I've come up with a short list to identify what I consider are potentionally uncomforable runs.

1. runs include passing the thumb over 
2. runs with a stretch in the third and forth.
3. runs starting and ending with third, forth and fifth fingers (weak fingers).

.
The rest of the them seem easy to do, and i would just play them once, or not at all. 

You should never stretch. There is always an alternative fingering/movement that allows you to play any passage without the need for stretching. Repetitive stretching for hours on end is a sure way to get an injury. Hence never work on the same passage for more than 15- 20 minutes, and never repeat a repeated note-groups routine more than once in the same day (you will not get any benefit from it anyway).

Also, if you are using the appropriate movements/techniques, no finger is weaker than the others, and therefore there is no need to try to “strengthen” any of them (which is impossible anyway).

So the idea is to still go through the process of identifying groups of 2, 3, 4  notes and so on, but only play the ones that are difficult.  When you get to a fixed set, that is natural to the rythm (eg. multiples of 4)  go through the whole set to make sure that you are confortable.  If not go back and redo some of them.  This will save quite a lot of time if it works!

Yes, this is correct. You should only repeat a group for as long as it takes to master it (usually 7 repeats are enough. If you need more than 25 repeats to master a group, it is too large. Cut it in half).

This means that the easier groups will be mastered in far less time than the difficult ones – which is at it should be: you end up practising more the difficult bits and less the easy bits.

I'm also thinking of methods to determine when I need to used repeated note groups in it's full, or when I can use a diluted version and when I can just get by without bothering.  If you have any suggestions or comments, I will really appreciate them.

Repeated note-groups is a very time consuming procedure. I tend to regard it as the final solution. If nothing else worked, than RNG will! So I tend to reserve it for the truly impossible passages. However, the level of the student has a big input here. For a beginner, almost every passage is impossible, so RNG tends to be used more. Advanced students rarely use it.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[asyncopated]

Hi Bernhard,

Thank you very much for your invaluable advice.  I really appreciate it.   

To every uncomfortable position/fingering/movement there is always an alternative that is comfortable, painless, free of fatigue and injury free. Make it a big aim in your practice sessions to figure out how to make a passage easy. The body always rejects inappropriate techniques. So listen to your body. Any passage you have to keep practicing forever or it will fall apart, is being played with an inappropriate technique.

Last night I was practicing a series of arpeggios on the left hand GBDG(8va)GCEG(8va) repeatedly and realized that my hand would seize up after a while.  I stopped and after doing something else, tried it again, but this time without stretching over the octave but just rolling off one note the other and lifting (don't know if this makes sense).  I seem to be able to play that now quickly, without much problem. 

Appropriate techniques demand very little practice time to learn and ingrain, and once learned they are yours forever – even if you do not practise them.

Thank you for the reassurance.  I've just started using RNGs and everytime I go back to the piano, I have this phobia that I've lost it.  Perhaps it’s because I did not have to slog for it. All that is required is some patients.  No weeks of practice with slow tempo and cranking up the speed.  Learnt to play it at tempo in 2 days!  But it's still there!  Haha... Just paranoia I suppose.  What you say makes a lot of sense, listen to your body. 

If you have the time I have a couple more questions.

Repeated note groups is a great tool to show you the bits of a passage that are being negotiated with an inappropriate technique, since as you have noticed they are uncomfortable.

With the piece I'm playing at the moment Mozart's sonata facile K545 , I know that the fingering is reasonable (I have a version with the fingering given.)  When playing I've realized that there are two types of uncomfortable feeling (if this makes sense).  One is simply because I'm not used to a particular interval, say B-C# with the third and forth fingers.  The forth finger seems wobbly when I first play, and not very flexible.  This is probably because I've not attempted to play this interval allegro before.   After a number of repeats, my fingers start the find it's place, or somehow just manages a better technique and it begins to feel more natural.  I write this type of feeling down to simply being unfamiliar with the interval. 

The second type is the one I've described above, playing the arpeggios.  In spite of practicing, it seems not to get any better.  In this case I know that the uncomfortable feeling is because of wrong technique, not simply one of unfamiliarity. 

It is difficult for me the distinguish the two, and only after about 5 to 10 mins of practice do i realise if the what I've been doing it is wrong.  Is there a quick way to tell?   

if you are using the appropriate movements/techniques, no finger is weaker than the others, and therefore there is no need to try to “strengthen” any of them

This is an interesting statement.  I was always told that the 4th and 5th fingers are weaker (in whatever sense of the word) and that the 3rd and 4th fingers are less flexible with respect to each other because the share the same ligament(?).

I was also told that there are certain principles to fingering that takes this into account to achieve even tone in all notes.  And that many exercises (czerny? clementi?) are aimed at training independence of fingers.  Was wondering what your take is on all this?

I have just one more question. I’ve noticed that when slowing down, from 150 to say 100 (crochet) slight unevenness corps in (playing groups of semiquavers).  When I go even slower to 70, it goes away again.  Perhaps the unevenness is there at 150 but I my ears/brain isn’t keen enough to hear it, or perhaps its because required movement to play at those two speeds is inherently slightly different, so I will have to try to even out things at 100, or to do RNGs for a mid speed.  What do you think? 

Repeated note-groups is a very time consuming procedure. I tend to regard it as the final solution. If nothing else worked, than RNG will! So I tend to reserve it for the truly impossible passages. However, the level of the student has a big input here. For a beginner, almost every passage is impossible, so RNG tends to be used more. Advanced students rarely use it.

In any case, I would like to thank you very much for inventing and advocating such a procedure.  It is invaluable to anyone's development as a pianist and I can see why it's so effective at eliminating stumbling blocks.  After seeing the results I am much more confident at being able to achieve my goals, which is eventually to be able to learn and play any repertoire of my choosing (rach's second when I’m 40? Haha...).  I was not very confident of this because I'm a late starter (28, 9 months ago) and there's a lot of stigma that goes of that (most of it unwarranted in my opinion). 

If anyone else is reading this, just chuck Hanon out. I highly recommend RNGs! 

al.

[bernhard]

Hi Bernhard,

Thank you very much for your invaluable advice.  I really appreciate it.   

You are welcome.

It is difficult for me the distinguish the two, and only after about 5 to 10 mins of practice do i realise if the what I've been doing it is wrong.  Is there a quick way to tell? 

Yes. Progress and an increasing feeling of easiness/effortlesness. If you have to keep practising something otherwise it goes back to nothing, then you are trying an inapropriate movement which your body is rejecting. Good technique is easily learned and once you get it you never forget it - even if you neglect the piece. It is exaclty like riding a bycicle. If you cannot ride a bycicle after six months not riding it, you never learned it properly in the first place. However, just because appropriate technique is ultimately easy, does not mean that you will acquire it easily. 

This is an interesting statement.  I was always told that the 4th and 5th fingers are weaker (in whatever sense of the word) and that the 3rd and 4th fingers are less flexible with respect to each other because the share the same ligament(?).

I was also told that there are certain principles to fingering that takes this into account to achieve even tone in all notes.  And that many exercises (czerny? clementi?) are aimed at training independence of fingers.  Was wondering what your take is on all this?

Hanon, Czerny & co. are misguided. I have just posted something that anwers this question in more detail. Have a look here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7887.0.html

I have just one more question. I’ve noticed that when slowing down, from 150 to say 100 (crochet) slight unevenness corps in (playing groups of semiquavers).  When I go even slower to 70, it goes away again.  Perhaps the unevenness is there at 150 but I my ears/brain isn’t keen enough to hear it, or perhaps its because required movement to play at those two speeds is inherently slightly different, so I will have to try to even out things at 100, or to do RNGs for a mid speed.  What do you think? 

By all means slow down. The only important consideration is that you should never practise slowly but in slow motion, that is practise slowly but use the same motions that you will use when playing fast. There are two aspects to slow motion practice: you slow down the movement, but you also enlarge the movements, that is,  ultimately speed is achieved not by moving faster, but by moving smaller, so whenyou slow down you must magnify the movements.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

I have been considering your questions for a while now. The main problem is that it is very difficult (and lengthy) to provide a satisfactory answer in writing. All this is easily demonstrated in a couple of minutes. I do not want to leave you empty handed though, so I will explore a single one of your questions and hope that you will be astute enough to expand the conclusions to other areas of technique.

This is an interesting statement.  I was always told that the 4th and 5th fingers are weaker (in whatever sense of the word) and that the 3rd and 4th fingers are less flexible with respect to each other because the share the same ligament(?).

Although this is true, there is a completely different way to look at this problem, one that provides a completely different set of solutions. In short, if you regard the 4th finger problem (if it is a “problem”, that is) as weaker and less independent than the others, then you may try (as did many of the 19th century pedagogues) to remedy the problem by submitting the poor 4th finger to all sorts of weird gymnastics and unnatural movements in order to “improve” its strength and independence.

If then you learn that it is actually anatomically impossible to do so, you are in a dead end: the 4th finger cannot be made stronger or independent – logic tells us.

But then you see pianists which clearly have overcome the problem: their 4th fingers seem to be as strong and as independent as the other ones. So clearly there is a way to deal with it. Unfortunately if these pianists have been raised in a regimen of Hanon/Czerny/Pischna/Dohnanyi/whoever for several hours a day – which is a very common pedagogy – they may attribute their success to such practice regimen – when in fact it has nothing to do with it, as we shall see.

Unfortunately (and in other aspects, fortunately) piano learning is a master-apprentice relationship and therefore highly authoritarian. Independent thinking is frowned upon. The student has no time for investigation – after 300 years of piano playing everything has already been mapped out and we do not want to waste time trying to rediscover the wheel – or so our teachers may tell us, and since this makes sense and since we are paying for this advice we tend to follow it unquestioningly.

But the human body/mind/spirit does not work this way. We are crafty and sly. We never truly “obey” to the letter our teacher’s instructions (and this goes for everything, not only piano). We may even consciously try to do so, but unconsciously we do not. And this is ultimately our saving grace, for any teacher’s instruction – no matter how good -  is always defective and incomplete and if we truly followed to the letter we would never raise above mediocrity level (in any subject, not only piano).

In all my years of teaching, I have changed my mind about the way to go about things infinite times. In the beginning I was always bitter with student’s attitude: “If this student would just obey my instructions he could progress beyond his wildest dreams”. However, a few months later I would realise that what I was teaching could be improved upon (or was downright wrong), and I was very glad indeed that the student had not obeyed my instructions to the letter. And this is still the situation. There is no guarantee that what I think is the best way at this point in time may not be superseded tomorrow by some even better way.

At the same time, I learned to trust the student’s unconscious to come up with the best solution for that particular student – a solution that many times can be transferred to others. The astute teacher/student will be very observant of unconscious movements (another reason to play fast before playing slowly, since the speed allows the unconscious to bypass the conscious controls).

As an example, consider this 5 year old, who when presented with a passage where she had to play a G followed by the C# below it with fingers 5 and 1, insisted on playing it with the thumb on G, and then pivoting on the thumb and playing the lower C# with the 2nd finger. At the beginning of my career, I would have tried to correct the fingering and perhaps launch in a big preaching on how the “correct” fingering was important. And I might have stayed in that particular rut forever, and still be preaching the same. But what if the fingering that little girl was using was actually better? In time I realised not only that it was better, as that it was the common way a 17th century keyboardist would have approached the same problem. In fact this realisation came to me because at the same time I was trying to learn a Scarlatti sonata in which a passage seemed completely intractable no matter how much practice was put into it. Then I had this simple but revolutionary idea: “What if instead of piling up hour upon hour of practice on something that was clearly not working, I tried a different way?” So I tried the little girl’s fingering. And Lo and behold!, 30 seconds later the passage had been mastered.

The day I learned that (perhaps) the most important aspect of practising is investigation of the proper movements, and that there are no set techniques – that is movements in piano playing. You have to figure it out for the passage in question and for your physicality in particular. This means that the basic idea behind technical exercises - that there exist a limited number of “optimal movements” that you must practise in isolation and acquire before you can tackle a piece of music – is completely unsound. From that day I dropped technical exercises and have never looked back. As a result, my technique (and my student’s) improved in a way I had never thought possible before.

So to sum up this long digression:

1.   When tackling a new piece (or a new scale, or a new arpeggio) spend most of your time deciding how exactly you want it to sound – this work is to be done away from the piano: studying and analysing the score, listening to several CDs of the piece, going to recital where the piece is played, asking your teacher and fellow pianists to play it for you.

2.   Once you get to practise/learn the piece on the piano, spend most of your time investigating movement and movement patterns (this includes fingering) that will result in the sound you decided upon in 1 above. Pay attention to the way your unconscious wants you to move; do not try to impose on your body movements learned from tradition (on the other hand do not avoid such movements simply because they come from tradition – even if it is a tradition you disagree with). Once you hit on the precise fingering/movement pattern (fingering always imply movement), then and only then you are ready to practise it in the sense of repetition. If you do so, you will see that it takes just about 30 seconds of repetitions for the passage to be perfect and learned forever (I am considering a small passage: one or two bars). However, to get to these final 30 seconds, may well have taken you a two hour session of investigation.

3.   If your final set of movements/fingerings is such that you must be constantly practising it for hours everyday otherwise it will “escape you”, there is something wrong and inappropriate in that set. It has no importance whatsoever that your teacher can do it, or that Glenn Gould can do it, or that Horowitz can do it. For you and for that passage it is the wrong technique and no amount of practice is going to change that perceptibly. Have you noticed that many pianists specialise? Some will never touch Bach – even though they may play Rachmaninoff perfectly. Others produce exquisite rendition of Bach, but they would not dare to play Chopin in public. The explanation is simple: Their technique (= way of doing things) is limited. They are trying to approach every passage with the same technique. Technical exercises are simply not varied enough to cover everything. I always laugh at Hanon’s subtitle (“The virtuoso pianist”) and at his absurd claims that everything in piano technique is contained in those silly 60 exercises. The bottom line is: Anything that is taking an inordinate amount of time/effort to do at the piano should be taken back to the investigative stage and figured out. Proper technique will allow ease of playing and mastery of a passage in very little time. And one you get it, you will never forget or have to practise it again – just like riding on a bicycle (Yet professional cyclists practise every day, and that should give you pause for thought: they are not practising, they are training towards exhibiting a peak performance – and the same is true of piano – once you learn a piece, you don’t practise it anymore: you train for a peak performance)

(he he – the summing up was longer than the digression)

[to be continued…]

[bernhard]

[…continued from the previous post]

The most important aspect in all this is to have a clear goal. If you do, your body will adapt and try to achieve it.


Now to go back to the 4thfinger problem.

What frequently happens in regards to the 4th finger is that although you may be trying hard to achieve the goal of equal strength and independence by following your teacher’s misguided approach or practising Hanon with lifting fingers high and not moving the hand, unconsciously your body may be doing something very different and usually invisible to the eye (so that your teacher cannot catch you doing it).

In fact, if you become a true believer in the wrong methodology, your unconscious may make it invisible to you as well. So after a while you start progressing thanks to your unconscious efforts, but since it is unconscious (and since the unconscious never bothers to claim merit) you (and your teacher) attribute the success to the pedagogy (whatever it is) being used. This way the “tradition” (so important in teaching that follow a master-apprentice model) is not only safeguarded from criticism (“I’ve been doing it for 30 years, and look at me! I am living proof that it works! How can you argue with that?”) as it is empowered and vindicated generation after generation, even though results are accrued in spite of it, not because of it

But as Mahler once said, “tradition is laziness”.

So what is the answer? The answer is surprisingly simple. The forth finger lacks strength and independence only if you try to lift it. If you press it down, it is as strong and independent and the other fingers, and you play the piano by pressing the fingers down, not up! And of course the way to lift the fingers is to lift the hand. This very brief explanation is considerably expanded in this thread, so I don’t need to repeat the whole argument:

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7887.msg79326.html#msg79326
(why the lifting of the 4th finger is a non-problem)

Now have you ever heard that 5th finger is the weakest and needs to be “strengthened”. Well, consider this little fact that no one seems to realise:

As you stand up with your arms relaxed by your side, what is the position your hands are in? The thumbs are pointing forward, right?

But when you sit at the piano and get ready to play, you rotate your forearm so that your hands are now at a 90 degree angle to the relaxed position above. This way the thumb is brought to rest on the keys. If you were to keep the hands in the same relaxed position you had them when standing up, the fingers would all be in the air, with only the little finger touching the key.

This means, that – although people are mostly unconscious and unaware of it – when you play the piano, you are constantly making a rotational effort to keep the hand in its playing position.

Have you heard people say that you should relax when playing the piano? Well, if you truly followed this instruction to the letter, you would end up lying on the floor. “Don’t be silly, Bernhard, what we mean is that you should relax only the playing apparatus – arms, shoulder, forearms, wrists, hands and fingers, and only in between touching the keys. When pressing the keys surely you use your musclses, but otherwise relax”. Ok, I will accept that. Now next time your teacher tells you to relax ask for a demonstration. And notice if as s/he relax at the appropriate moments his.her hands rotat back to their resting, natural position. You see, you cannot keep the hands in playing position fi you relax the muscles that keep the hand in that position. As you relax you naturally rotate back towards the little finger. And you should do that. Because this back rotation that relax the rotating muscles makes the 5th the finger the strongest of them all. The other fingers, and especially the thumb need to fight this tendency  of the arm to go back to its relaxed, resting position, but the 5th finger benefits and takes advantage of it. So the 5th finger is actually the least in need of “strengthening” exercises, as long as you are aware of the very natural rotational movement I have just pointed out.

Yet a whole platoon of misguided Hanon lovers will tell you to keep your hand rigidly immobile (use coins on top of it to make sure) while lifting the 5th finger high in order to “strengthen” it. So, at the same time they tell you to do a movement that cannot possibly result in any strengthening, they stop you form doing the very naturally movement that guarantees the maximum strength of the 5th finger – a strength that is already there as your birth right.

So how come so many people claim that Hanon strengthened their 5th fingers? Well, the unconscious is crafty. It goes after results, not after merit. The unconscious is quite happy to let the conscious mind claim the merit for the improvement and justify it with Hanon, while the unconscious is doing all the work through micro rotations that are invisible to the eye (but they can be felt if you observe and are honest with yourself). But eventually, even the unconscious may not be enough to prevent a nasty injury if one insists on misguided and unnecessary physical movements repeated for hours a day.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[xvimbi]

IMHO, in those two posts, you have presented the most fundamental aspects of piano practice, and a few fundamental guidelines for almost every aspect of life, if people are able to recognize the analogies. Not that you haven't been saying this all along, but here it is exceptionally well put. You should indeed write a book.

Cheers

(One could now safely leave the forum. Everything has been said.)

[bernhard]

IMHO, in those two posts, you have presented the most fundamental aspects of piano practice, and a few fundamental guidelines for almost every aspect of life, if people are able to recognize the analogies. Not that you haven't been saying this all along, but here it is exceptionally well put. You should indeed write a book.

Cheers

(One could now safely leave the forum. Everything has been said.)

Thank you

(I will paste that one on my CV )

[mound]

IMHO, in those two posts, you have presented the most fundamental aspects of piano practice, and a few fundamental guidelines for almost every aspect of life, if people are able to recognize the analogies. Not that you haven't been saying this all along, but here it is exceptionally well put. You should indeed write a book.

Cheers

(One could now safely leave the forum. Everything has been said.)

My thoughts exactly as I was reading this. Well done Bernhard! I think that may be in line for the  "best post ever" award!

-Paul