To those who practice ANY FORM OF (piano) "exercises"

[m1469]

I am developing a little theory at the moment and would like to put a question out there regarding exercises, ANY FORM OF exercises.

I would like to know the answer to the following main question :

Do you have a very specific idea about what you are learning by doing a particular exercise ?

(or do you just have a more general idea that it is helping your technique ?)


Please feel free to respond in both the poll and by posting in the thread.  Your responses are greatly appreciated !



These are just other questions I have regarding the first, please answer as you wish :

1.  Is that specific something most often a specific physical sensation in the body, OR a specific sound ?

2.  How do you know when you are achieving the desired affect ?  From what you hear or from what you feel physically ?


As always, thank you very much !! 


m1469

[danyal]

Evening!

I dont really ever play excercises by Czerny or Hanon... Long story, and I dont really want to get into a debate about it, but pretty much for exactly the same reasons as Horowitz didnt.

In every single piece I play, I formulate an exact idea of how I want it to sound. In my head, it is perfect, every note, every phrase, and in practising, I aim for the same perfection. And I'm not truly satisfied if one note is not exactly the way I want it to sound, and live. Because, IMO, every note lives, every moment lives, and it is not doing it any justice by not granting it the attention it requires.

Technique wise: Lets take Chopin Op 10 no 4 for example. (One of my pieces and mainly because its the best example I can think of) Technically, its exeptionally demanding. It tackles quite a few of the technical aspects of playing. It requires virtuosity, finger strength, evenness, dynamic control, the ability to coax a decent sound from the piano, and most importantly... MUSICALITY. Anyone can hack through a Hanon and get away with it, but certainly not with this piece (or any Chopin).
So when I practise it, I dont just think of getting all the notes in, every note sounds for itself, one notes leads to the next, I'm aware of all the melodic lines, phrasing, dynamics, etc.

This way, I find, "developes technique and finger strength" better then any other way I know. To produce a beautiful sound rather than banging but with strong fingers.

I hope this answers your question...

Regards,
Danyal 

[m1469]

I hope this answers your question...

Regards,
Danyal 

Thank you for your response danyalswan.  Actually, yes, you did answer my question quite nicely, but perhaps not in the ways one might think.  And, everything you said is very helpful toward my developing thoughts. 


I would just like to clarify, just in case there is the need, that I am in NO WAY debating or wishing to start a debate about the usefulness of exercises (there are already plenty of threads for that purpose).  That has very little to do with my theory I am developing.  I am simply starting here at these questions to collect information that will give me somewhere else to go (perhaps unexpected places).


Also, I would love to hear from as many people that feel inclined to respond to these questions.  This is something I am aiming to collect information and ideas on, not a final answer at this point.  (My ultimate idea has a very different purpose).


Thanks again and I believe just about any response you may have (related to the topic) will be very helpful to me.  Even if you are a complete beginner and feel shy about posting...
he he



m1469 

[ted]

The only form of exercise I have ever done to any degree is with my silent practice clavier, which habit I have had for almost forty years. It is creative exercise and is never routine or mindless. In other words I vary it greatly and I know exactly what I am after.

1. and 2:  Sound is always the ultimate arbiter, and the freedom of having the physical means to make the sounds. As lostinidlewonder said in a recent post, the importance of which cannot be overestimated, relaxation, in the sense of being completely confident and without struggle must be so habituated that we can totally ignore it and concentrate on our art.

[lostinidlewonder]

I am developing a little theory at the moment and would like to put a question out there regarding exercises, ANY FORM OF exercises.

I would like to know the answer to the following main question :

Do you have a very specific idea about what you are learning by doing a particular exercise ?

(or do you just have a more general idea that it is helping your technique ?)

1.  Is that specific something most often a specific physical sensation in the body, OR a specific sound ?

2.  How do you know when you are achieving the desired affect ?  From what you hear or from what you feel physically ?

Excerises are tools for the Beginner to lay foundation upon (finger balance wise) and something advanced pianists might pull out now and then to act as an accelerant to practice away difficult fingering passages in pieces they learn and make it more automatic.

So for example we are looking at a Beginner who doesnt know how to play a scale evenly. You throw them Hanon no 1 and tell them to accent 1 and 5, keep the 1 and 5 above their notes while the other fingers play, keep the black keys under the hand, never coming above the bottom of the hand, keeping fingers relaxed tending to a straightened form rather than curled. When playing the first hanon, they have a recording of myself playing one octave, single handed and together, at very slow tempo (like 60 beats per min) and at a more vigorous tempo (120).

The student then knows what an even excecution of the excersise should ideally sound like, they should realise that if they go too fast that their notes will sound blurred and messy. They should learn to sense the tempo they start with making it border just within their control but just fast enough to pose a challenge to their fingers. This challange may start at 20 bpm, but depite the speed the key to the sound is "eveness" and a "crisp clarity", the key for the physical nature is the relaxed posture and playing a group of notes with one action, not considering the individual parts of the group.

Their indirect aim of course is to increase this tempo rate. I do not suggest they aim for speed, but I suggest they aim for relaxation in excecution. If you are relaxed the speed is determined by the relaxed action pressing into the keyboard with a more mashed action than individual movements becoming faster and individual fingers tensing so they play faster.

The main aim then for the beginner is to increase their experiencing playing a simple pattern which demands particular control and relaxation of particular fingers or groups of. It is very obvious how hanon helps the eveness of a scaleand balance in the hand for a beginner. It is very hard to see application of any excerises for the more advanced unless they have dire problems with a particular technique.

[bernhard]

Do you have a very specific idea about what you are learning by doing a particular exercise ? ote]

Yes.

And this very specific idea can be generally stated as:

“To investigate and ingrain the most comfortable movement that will produce the specific sound I’m after for a specific passage.”

So this implies several things:

1.   That I have worked on the passage in several ways – mostly not at the piano – to decide what the best sound (or range of sounds) is for the passage. (This presupposes, of course that every passage in music is unique and each passage will require a different “technique”)

2.   That I know physically what “comfortable means” and that I have developed the necessary physical awareness to be sensitive to the minimal discomfort (a lot of sports people do not have that, since they must learn the converse skill of becoming unconscious and unaware of pain and discomfort if they are to excel).

3.   That “investigation” is different from “ingraining” and both stages require different approaches.

(or do you just have a more general idea that it is helping your technique ?)

No.

As you know, I don’t believe it ever works like that.

1.  Is that specific something most often a specific physical sensation in the body, OR a specific sound ?

Both. Ideally they should meld, so that the physical produces the aural and the aural requires the physical.

At the initial stages, they may (and possibly should) be separated, so that one can give one full attention to individual components of a complex pattern. However, it is important to not spend more than a couple of minutes on each, and instead switch between both as soon as possible, as explained in this thread:

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php?topic=5995.msg58928#msg58928
(when to work on expression - change focus every 2 minutes – comparison with plate spinning)

2.  How do you know when you are achieving the desired affect ?  From what you hear or from what you feel physically ?

Yes, this is a most interesting question. We are really talking about checking strategies: How does one know one is right?

The answer is not as simple as one may imagine.

Different people have different checking strategies. “Certainty” is an  internal experience of great variability. Some people “know” they are right because of a sensation on the belly. Typically these people will talk about their “gut feelings” and similar expressions. Other people may have visual checking strategies (“I could see clearly…”). Still other people may have aural confirmations for the correctness of their actions/beliefs (“God told me” – G. Bush).

These certainties, of course have nothing to do with the reality of the facts. As I replied once to an “intuitive” who asked me: “Haven’t you ever experienced certain moments where you simply know you are right?”

“Yes, many times, and 80% of the times I was wrong”.

Also checking strategies are learned and although in principle one should be able to learn new ones, and even unlearn old ones, this is very hard work since these things go back to one’s earliest childhood and have been ingrained ever since.

Now to answer your question:

It will completely depend on the person. A “gut feeling” person will  completely and totally rely on their physical feelings to decide when they have achieved the desired effect.

A “ that had a ring of truth to it” kind of person will use their aural sensations to decide.

A “it is totally clear and transparent to me” sort of person will use visuals to get there.

And of course they may all get to very wrong conclusions, in spite of their inner feelings of certainty.

Now for a counter-question: What would be the best checking strategy for this particular case? And how do we train ourselves to acquire it?

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[ted]

I have a shrewd notion that much of what I call intuition is really cold logic being carried out at high speed by my unconscious.

In all seriousness, I am not sure an optimum checking strategy exists for me, for what I do in music. I don't think it would be hard to prove it cannot exist, but I can't be bothered formulating it. I have genuine trouble deciding from one day to the next whether something I create is good or bad. In fact my variability of discernment with time makes the notion of quality in music very difficult for me. I do not seem gifted with the sense of absolute musical "goodness" or "badness", even personally never mind universally, which most people take for granted.

I listen to a recording of something I played yesterday and say, "That's amazingly good !" Then next week I might say, "That's a bit twee and uninteresting !" But here's the worst part - I respond like that to famous music and famous players too ! So I am really not in any position to make weighty pronouncements about anything !

My regular, short activity (I don't make a big deal of exercises - a few minutes a day is enough) at the practice clavier does enable me, by and large, to forget about physical matters while making music at the piano; I think I can say that much truthfully. Whether it is simply because I have established a psychological/physical need for it I do not know, but it hardly matters.

There also remains the embarrassing fact that all this is not an atom of use to anybody else. Sorry Bernhard, my self-analysis is not up to answering your question.

[Bob]

I didn't read the whole post.  I'm just responding from the original one.



I know exactly what I'm doing in most exercises I do.

They can be created for any reason -- sound or sensation.  Doesn't matter.


You know when you achieve the effect.  Simple as that.  Sound is easy to hear.  Ease is easy to feel.

Most of my exercises don't have an end.  You can always go faster or do more of them.  So there is no end that way.

And some I do just to maintain things.  I hate going back finding I've lost a skill or that it's eroded.



Exercises can be created from anything for any reason.  You can create an exercise to strengthen things, something for ease, something to perfect a sound, something that only applies to a piece.  It depends what you want.

[rc]

Different people have different checking strategies. “Certainty” is an  internal experience of great variability. Some people “know” they are right because of a sensation on the belly. Typically these people will talk about their “gut feelings” and similar expressions. Other people may have visual checking strategies (“I could see clearly…”). Still other people may have aural confirmations for the correctness of their actions/beliefs (“God told me” – G. Bush).

These certainties, of course have nothing to do with the reality of the facts. As I replied once to an “intuitive” who asked me: “Haven’t you ever experienced certain moments where you simply know you are right?”

“Yes, many times, and 80% of the times I was wrong”.

Also checking strategies are learned and although in principle one should be able to learn new ones, and even unlearn old ones, this is very hard work since these things go back to one’s earliest childhood and have been ingrained ever since.

Now to answer your question:

It will completely depend on the person. A “gut feeling” person will  completely and totally rely on their physical feelings to decide when they have achieved the desired effect.

A “ that had a ring of truth to it” kind of person will use their aural sensations to decide.

A “it is totally clear and transparent to me” sort of person will use visuals to get there.

And of course they may all get to very wrong conclusions, in spite of their inner feelings of certainty.

Now for a counter-question: What would be the best checking strategy for this particular case? And how do we train ourselves to acquire it?

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

...A person may also use different representational systems at different times. I think that I tend to use aural and kinesthetic, still sometimes using visual.

Certainly, the feeling of certainty is unreliable, but it shouldn't be ignored. It seems to me that while that certainty isn't always true, it's always for a reason, and through that I can learn something... I might learn that I don't believe anything a particular person says, and a little more digging reveals that this person has been exposed as a charlatan before and I have reason to be suspicious.

I take my emotional responses with caution in the moment, but there's always a reason for them. So I'm in the habit of intellectually analysing my emotional responses, after the fact, to find a reason why I had the response. I learn a lot about myself that way, and come to have a sort of trust in my emotions.

In the case of music, you've already answered:

"the most comfortable movement that will produce the specific sound I’m after for a specific passage.”

Kinesthetic and aural... If it sounds right and feels right, then it is right.

So, in order to be able to properly judge whether something is right, one needs to have the conception of what it is to 'sound right' and to 'feel right', as you've said. To tell what sounds right, a lot of careful listening to the desired effect, or through experimentation to perhaps discover the desired effect. To tell what feels right is to have some knowledge of anatomy, being aware of what problems to look out for, to always strive for ease and comfort.

The best checking system, and way to learn it, would probably be through a teacher.

IMO.

[rc]

I have genuine trouble deciding from one day to the next whether something I create is good or bad. In fact my variability of discernment with time makes the notion of quality in music very difficult for me. I do not seem gifted with the sense of absolute musical "goodness" or "badness", even personally never mind universally, which most people take for granted.

I listen to a recording of something I played yesterday and say, "That's amazingly good !" Then next week I might say, "That's a bit twee and uninteresting !" But here's the worst part - I respond like that to famous music and famous players too ! So I am really not in any position to make weighty pronouncements about anything !

I don't think the idea of having absolute 'good or bad' sounds in something so subjective as music is very useful anyways. It's probably true of most people that they'll want to hear something different from day to day, depending on a mood or situation... Being open to hear music in shades of different, rather than 'good' or 'bad', can only make you a more versatile player.

[rimv2]

Ah start with a light jog to warm up.

Ah then do explosive one-legged calf raises, focusing on immitating actual jumping.

Ah then practice getting a running start and then springing off either leg as fast and as high as a possibly can.

Then a jump as high as possible in place

Ah believe this helps with mah jumping technique, but ah could be a little wrong

[m1469]

Yes.

And this very specific idea can be generally stated as:

“To investigate and ingrain the most comfortable movement that will produce the specific sound I’m after for a specific passage.”




Both. Ideally they should meld, so that the physical produces the aural and the aural requires the physical.



Now to answer your question:

It will completely depend on the person. A “gut feeling” person will  completely and totally rely on their physical feelings to decide when they have achieved the desired effect.

A “ that had a ring of truth to it” kind of person will use their aural sensations to decide.

A “it is totally clear and transparent to me” sort of person will use visuals to get there.

And of course they may all get to very wrong conclusions, in spite of their inner feelings of certainty.

Now for a counter-question: What would be the best checking strategy for this particular case? And how do we train ourselves to acquire it?

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

Okay.  I am going to answer this question in a maybe somewhat longish way, but I can't help it right now.

Where this thread originated from is in me having realized that most "exercises" like czerny and such have at least some form of a distinct goal.  And most of the time, the entire exercise concentrates on a single primary aspect at a time (although there are always the three which are occuring).  The focus will either be that of achieving a certain physical ability (translates into a sensation) like "finger independence," for example;  a certain tonal product (like leggiero, for example), or a specific rhythmic ability.

People who practice the same exercises over and over get very accomplished at this exercise, sometimes even more so than the repertoire they are working on (if one separates them out).  "Why is that ?" ...  I wondered.  Well there are three main reasons that I can figure :

1.  They practice them everyday

2.  They are always aware (to a degree) of a somewhat specific goal, even if the person is thinking mainly "this is improving my technique"

3.  There are very few musical pressures (allowing one to focus on whatever the primary objective is of the given exercise).

This is how it has been for me anyway.  I realized then that I treated piano repertoire and piano exercises much differently than each other.  With exercises I could focus and achieve a freer ability with them because I did not approach it with a (false) sense of musical pressure, and there seems to be a clear focus (and incidently, the exercises would end up being quite musical).  With repertoire, I would go bananas trying to discern whatever the music was trying to say... blah blah blah.. he he.  Basically, I did not know how to focus properly.

Then, I got the idea to approach my repertoire like exercises, and that changed everything for me and lead into some very meaningful realizations for me.  For example, Chopin's prelude in G Major, Op 28 no 3.  If  looked at as an exercise, one can discern two primary objectives :

1.  Flowing 1/16th-note patterns in LH w/ simple melody in RH (like many Czerny exercises).

2.  Leggiero touch

So, I realized first that there is a physical feat involved with both points, and that the main idea behind the physical feat would be to get the "feel" for each.  The funny thing is, of course, once the physical feat is achieved, there is a specific sound that comes along with it.  I realized some things along these lines as well (I am so excited I can barely type) :

That very sound which stems from the physical feat being achieved is the very music itself, as well as the intentions of the music AND ultimately the intentions of the composer (is this overly simplistic ?).  The desired sound is exactly those patterns in the LH (with leggieor touch) with the charming melody on top; no more, no less.

Another good example would be Chopin's prelude in Bb minor, Op 28 no 16.  When I looked at this piece as though it were an exercises, I wondered what the primary physical feat/objective would be.  In this case, a lot of the piece has the challenge of LH leaps, and scalar flowing RH 1/16th-note patterns.  Achieving that physical feat, would achieve the desired sound.  And that very sound is exactly the music.  So, it is not "unmusical" to approach repertoire in this way, because achieving whatever the primary objective may be, will achieve the music (I really don't know if I am making any sense what-so-ever).

This has had several ramifications for me. 

1.  When approaching a piece of music, discern what is the primary/predominating objective of the entire piece, or section of the piece.  Then, in finding the place to begin practising, and along the lines of the most difficult aspect holding the key to the entire piece (the most difficult aspect being physical feats which one is least familiar with), one would pick a place that best requires the predominating physical feat.  Once the feel for that is achieved, the feel for the entire piece (or section) is achieved.  Then it is just about filling in the gaps as far as notes and so on are concerned.

2.  This is what allows there to be a lead up to certain pieces.  One would pick a piece with a similar physical feat (this has been said before, but it is finally becoming very clear to me).


3.  There is a sound that comes along with every technical achievement (physical sensation), and a phsical sensation that comes along with every sound.

Now, to (attempt to) answer your questions (and mine) :

I would think that ultimately, it is the sound which determines whether or not one is achieving the desired objective (as has been previously mentioned).  However, being aware of the phyiscal sensation which achieves that sound, is very useful and quite important.  And, sometimes one may need to concentrate on the physical aspect of the feat before worrying about the exact sound.  But once again, as soon as the physical feat is accomplished, so is the sound (they happen at once).

BAH... I don't think I am answering this question... and my head is all exploding and stuff.... I will come back later.


m1469

[ted]

In trying to answer m1469's questions, and the questions of others like m1469 on various forums, I am slowly realising my total inadequacy in explaining anything I think or do, inside music or out of it. I seem to be like a plant of some sort, perhaps a rose but probably a weed, which just exists and does what it has to do. The more I attempt explanations, the more tangled I seem to get. My entering discussions on religion and philosophy has proved pointless because I seem to either asphyxiate in the battle for breath of the predicate calculus, or drown in the Huxleyan treacle of intuitive mysticism - largely depending on what the weather is like and what I have had for breakfast.

Talk and thought seem like dried arrangements after the first chord of the morning leaps into existence. Nonetheless, I suppose we must keep doing our best, as language and mathematics, incomplete as they are, comprise our only reliable communication.

[rimv2]

Ah see the topic was renamed

Ahve studied some hanon and czerny, but ahve never committed mahself for more than  a week

Boring


Uninspiring

[sarahlein]

 And, sometimes one may need to concentrate on the physical aspect of the feat before worrying about the exact sound.

I've given this some thought so here's what I think

Could it be that this tranference of concentration from the physical aspect to the exact sound is done very quick without us always being conciously aware of it?
I mean, surely (in practice) one does not need to spend 5 hours on the physical aspect before worring about the sound.
Especially when one follows the advice, given so many times, on listening various recordings before attepting anything on the piano.
I have found that when I did that (listened to recordings)  I do have an idea of what "it should sound like"
That idea is then realized as I physicaly play; sometimes it's "just right" and other times it's only a "shadow" of what I had in my mind. I think it depends on how well my body, arms and so on co-operate in the playing process. That being the case then I have to train them (I assume that's the physical aspect you're refering to) to reproduse the sound that's already there in my mind.
So concern about the sound is always there. How "musical" it sounds depends on how well chosen the movements are. (Wrong movements result in bad sound.)
Their choice however is guided by the sound we're after. And we know the sound we're after, if we've done our homework (eg. listened to recordings)   

[abell88]

Talk and thought seem like dried arrangements after the first chord of the morning leaps into existence.

I did not expect to meet such poetry when I logged on today. Thank you, Ted.

[Floristan]

Talk and thought seem like dried arrangements after the first chord of the morning leaps into existence. Nonetheless, I suppose we must keep doing our best, as language and mathematics, incomplete as they are, comprise our only reliable communication.

T. S. Eliot had something to say on this subject, I believe:

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

  

[ted]

Yes, I read the Four Quartets quite often. They are rather like the best music, in that they have an invariant abstract power you can keep returning to and continually draw sustenance from. Joyce's Finnegan's Wake does the same thing in a different way for me, although it lacks accessibility for most people.

I didn't mean that words and numbers are themselves incapable of art, only that that a stage is reached wherein only the art can explain itself. The one who comes closest to explaining these things in everyday English is Huxley, it seems to me. Even then, he had to invent poetic expressions - "suchness", "clear light of the void", "land of lit-upness" and so on, which demand an intuitive leap of understanding on the part of the reader.