practicing on the kitchentable

[principe7613]

hey guys,

I was wondering if any of you have experience with practicing on the kitchentable; I've been doing it recently consciously with chopin's opus 10/2, and it seems to help, but i cannot explain why... I just take the score, put it in front of me and start playing it on the table, imagining meanwhile ofcourse the music; anyone got experience with this?

i saw a lot of russian students do it right before performing in a competition or so;

grtz, Joost

[lufia]

what i do is, find a hard passage/bar i cant play efficiently, memorise it then play it subconsciously, on a table. why practice on the table when u can bang tha piano :S

[joachimf]

I try to visualize my fingers hitting the keys instead of actually moving them if I'm away from the piano. When you practise on the kitchentable do you lift the fingers up from the table? When playing on the piano I like the idea of just releasing the tension and letting the key rise with the finger, this doesen't adapt too well to practising elsewhere on kitchentables, etc. I guess...

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

Practicing on a hard surface is extremely helpful to me. My teacher always recommends to practice like that when not at a piano. This helps with scales, certain passages, ect. It is also very fun to me so... I do it regularly. Although I shouldn't be doing it at school, but do it anyways... hehe. Not distracting though. Anyways this excercise is very helpful especially on scales and finger flexibility.




Best wishes to all.

[ted]

I've never found this to do me much good. Practising against a fixed resistance feels too different from actual playing for my liking. A practice clavier, on the other hand, I have found very effective indeed.

[bernhard]

I agree with Ted. Unfortunately, practice claviers are almost impossible to come by these days, but you can always practice on a switched off digital. For the details why this is a good idea, have a look at these threads:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2075.msg17593.html#msg17593
(silent practice and its advantages)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2298.msg19672.html#msg19672
(Practice environment – the Virgil Clavier)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2368.msg20470.html#msg20470
(Virgil clavier & silent practice – Ted gives some good information. – how Arrau used one)


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[chelsey]

My former teacher used this hard surface method to identify weakness in runs or really note-y passages. Going through the motions without pressing keys really hilighted unevenness or areas in the passage that were not secure. This was not repeated practice, and she only used it as a diagnostic method to pinpoint what we needed to fix.

There are videos of exercizes one can do away from the piano (stretches, exercizes to improve dexterity, etc) however these are unspecific to a piece. As far as actual table-top practicing goes, I don't think this is a very effective/beneficial way to practice.

[principe7613]

My former teacher used this hard surface method to identify weakness in runs or really note-y passages. Going through the motions without pressing keys really hilighted unevenness or areas in the passage that were not secure. This was not repeated practice, and she only used it as a diagnostic method to pinpoint what we needed to fix.

i had a similar experience while doing this exercice: the strange thing is that there are passages that are going without problem on the piano but that i can't play on a hard surface, because i miss the 'guidance' of my ears. For example, a lot of runs that are going fine on the piano i start to mix up fingers when playing them on my kitchentable;

this must mean that during this runs i'm guided almost solely by the sound and not by any muscle-automated movements; is this bad? do i need to put in more muscle-automation exercises, or is it good because i let my muscles entirely move on my ear's decisions and not on something monkey-trained?? plz advice, thx

Joost

[joachimf]

prince:
If you can play the piece by memory, very very slow on the piano, you're fine. Lol, that's at least my experiences. When you play very slow you're not using muscle memory at all and that is a goal in itself. In other words muscle-automated movement is not a goal..

But I would make a slight guess that that passage you couldn't play on the kitchentable, you're probably able to play it on a muted digital piano. I don't really know why I think this.. lol, but I feel it makes sense...

[kelly_kelly]

I tend to do this unconciously.