The Brain behind the Playing.

[contrapunctus]

The other day I re-evaluated myself with regards to my pianistic abilities. I can play some Level 8+ peices, but can only play level 6/7 nearly error free, and I can sight read cleanly up to level 4. This made me think, I wanted to know why I could not play level 8+ without errors evrywhere and why I could not sight read better. And I wanted to know why and how there are many many people better than me.  The common answer and what I have always thought is that I just had not practiced enough or my technique was not as good. However this answer is completely fundamentally wrong.

Today, I came to the quite obvious conclusion that the brain controls every movement of my hands and fingers. My brain tells my fingers where to move in order to play something. It is funny that most people do not see it this way. Well, or course one thing led to another and I realized that the reason that I could not play with professional virtuosity and accuracy was not that my technique wasn't good enough but that my BRAIN was not good enough. This was quite startling. The fact that I could not site read level 8 was because my brain is not able to do it. I cannot play a hard peice mistake free because my brain can not tell my fingers what to do without making mistakes or lapsing.

Well, the next logical conclusion is that to play the piano well, the most is important thing to do is train your brain. Using logical puzzles and games to give your brain the capacity to think longer and harder is much more important than actually practicing the piano. The most effective way to become a better pianist is to do brain-training excercises completely un-related to the piano itself.

[lisztisforkids]

My dad can play chopsticks. So your saying if he does absoulutley nothing and does 'brain exercices' he will become a virtuoso? UHH.. NO. It just means he can do brain exercises really well, he still wont be able to play unless he practices.

Yes the brain controls the fingers, but that is how we train the brain. Train your brain by playing piano exercises not brain exercises playing the piano is essentially training your brain. If you want to sight read better, than practice sightreading.
Technique=your brain giving out complex commands

You go ahead and do brain exercises, come back and tell me in few weeks how your doing. But in the mean time, I will be practicing piano.

[allthumbs]

The most effective way to become a better pianist is to do brain-training excercises completely un-related to the piano itself.

What utter rubbish. While I can understand your apparent frustration with your current level of playing and I agree with your supposition that the brain controls every movement of your hands and fingers, you are missing the point with the above hypothesis.

Although 'brain-training' exercises could not hurt, the premise that it is the most effective way to become a better pianist is like saying that the way to become a great race car driver is to practice on a bicycle. There is some correlation, but not much.

When you say...

I realized that the reason that I could not play with professional virtuosity and accuracy was not that my technique wasn't good enough but that my BRAIN was not good enough.

...you are selling yourself short. While its true that you may not be able to play with 'professional virtuosity' as you call it, but it has little to do with the fact that you say that your 'BRAIN' is not good enough. The people, who play with ‘professional virtuosity' as you put it, have dedicated and disciplined a good portion you their lives training their brain to accomplish what they do. It's a matter of degree. What about the beginner, who looks at your ability and thinks, "I'll never be able to do that!"

Now for the realty check. It may be that no matter how much you practice, you may never reach the level of a virtuoso pianist because either you a) didn't start at the age of three b) were not a child prodigy with a high IQ c) didn't have the opportunity and/or discipline to achieve a loftier height.

But, who the hell cares. You have to ask yourself, 'Have I done the best I could to achieve my goals and am I happy playing the piano for my own enjoyment?'

If you answered yes, then that's all that matters.

Be like the rest of the 'duffers', (I'm speaking for myself, of course), keep plugging along and over time you'll see an improvement with your playing and sight-reading. Just don't give up.


Good luck!


Cheers

allthumbs

[cfortunato]

Well, if you "train your brain" to do certain things WHILE PLAYING - like looking ahead and absorbing the next phrase before you play it, which is essentially a brain thing - that would help.  But brain exercises and puzzles that have nothing to do with the piano?  Like mastering the New York Times Crossword will make you a better pianist? Of course not. 

[rc]

Be like the rest of the 'duffers', (I'm speaking for myself, of course), keep plugging along and over time you'll see an improvement with your playing and sight-reading. Just don't give up.

Duffers! hahah. That's me too.

Well, I'd had the epiphany of piano being brain-work a little while back. I figure that anyone who's played for a little while should come across that discovery.

So, it seems to me that a large part of the mental work is to simplify. From looking at individual notes, you can condense into hand positions, turning what was maybe 4 things to think about into 1. Also think of groups of notes according to the beat, or musical phrases. Focus and always thinking ahead are great.

I cannot play a hard peice mistake free because my brain can not tell my fingers what to do without making mistakes or lapsing.

Reading between the lines, this suggests that one must consciously tell each finger just what to do, which can be a problem. We can only be aware of so many things at once, and if you are trying to consciously keep track of all the little details of motion going on in piano playing, your brain will melt.

This is another piece of the puzzle, to be able to trust your subconscious to automatically take care of the details so you can consciously focus on the bigger picture. Of course, the subconscious has to be trained to know these things, through all that practice. This is the control that takes so much time to acquire, such a gradual progress that we probably never really notice.

Just a few weeks ago, I was confounded by how my teacher could play any scale/chord/arpeggio pattern immediately, whereas if I tried my fingers got all tangled. But now I'm thinking that has to do with how he'd have played through all these figurations countless times, he wouldn't think "this finger here, this finger there, thumb under...", he'd just think "Db" and go. Like when you have to hit the brakes in a car, you don't think of your leg at all, you just think "BRAKE!" and it happens.

As everyone else has said, there's no replacement for practice at the piano.

Here's another useful concept: Enjoying the level you're at. Not saying to quit practicing to get better, but to chill your ambitions a bit and learn to play some pieces that are at the level where you can pull it off and be able to think of the more musical aspects. Learning something easier, and learning it damn well. There was a student recital I played at a couple of days ago, I played a christmas arrangement that was very simple for me, but I made it as musical as I could. Today I found out that another student found my playing this simple piece inspiring, I'll be dammed!

Us instrumentalists sometimes fall into the trap of becoming a little too technique-oriented, always striving to become better is fine except when you forget the original intent - music. A listener doesn't care how challenging a piece is (there's always someone better anyhow), they care how well it sounds.

My point is that if you keep practicing, you'll reach more and more virtuostic levels, and still be reaching as the day you began. You might as well enjoy the music along the way, and share it, you don't have to be a master before going out and making music. You'll have a more gratifying experience, and probably grow faster because of it.

[jamie_liszt]

this true your brain controls everything, thats why if you dont concentrate while your playing you will f*ck up, not all the time but usually, and thats why you have to concentrate while playing! EHHH >?

[crazy for ivan moravec]

non-musical brain exercises will help you to think better when playing piano, thus having an indirect effect to the improvement of your piano playing and acquire added points or pluses as a pianist, but not to your playing itself bcoz they're non-musical exercises, remember? definitely a big chunk of your improvement comes from good practicing.

[pianistimo]

this is crazy, but my practice is helped by not thinking about anything.  zoning, if you will.  my mind tends to race and think about too much at once.  when i'm into the 'zone' i can concentrate at a deeper level without really trying.  it's like i notice things that weren't there before because i've relaxed and let my subconcious notice things.

maybe there are different elements that go into practice.  my routine is to follow the piano teacher's advice (point by point) and then just play - and then do some sightreading - and then play from memory as much as i can. 

i can't just sit down and start practicing, though, without getting into the 'zone.'  for me, that has been similar to physical exercise where i concentrate on breathing, just being, and leave room in my head for imagination.  meditation.

it seems that whenever i try too hard - it ends up being difficult.

[infectedmushroom]

Deepthinking mostly doesn't work for me either, though, I play almost everything by memory, since I can't really sightread. When you don't think about anything, you're all focust on what your hands are doing I guess... Or maybe not; let the music talk, thru your hands and just let your brains listen to it. 

[zheer]

I doubt very much, that these top pianists spend hours on mindless repetition.
Not too long ago i did a lot of reading for exams, something like 12 hours a day for a year and 8 hours a day for a couple of years.To my suprise when i returnd to playing the piano after some hard work my piano playing got better as a result of lots of reading.Mind power possibly.

[crazy for ivan moravec]

i'd like to think that everytime i practice with lots of concentration, really thinking about it, it's like i'm in a zone, too. when i think a lot, it makes me travel to another world of my own which is musical... and everything becomes easier. suddenly when someone knocks on the door, it's broken and i'd have to start all over again... that's probably the reason why i go crazy when they do knock!

but during a performance, it's quite different.
i just wanna share something since "the zone" is up...

i once had a rehearsal lesson of the schumann concerto, and i felt like i was in this different zone. it was great because i felt like martha argerich tossing everything off! i could not forget that moment... i CANNOT, i repeat: CANNOT play a wrong note!!! everything was so right like how i wanted it to be, and the third movement was really fast, hahaha, and because of this i was shocked. after the lesson i was really stunned! but the funny thing about it is i didnt think too much, i was literally yawning and looking at my accompanist go crazy with my tempo! but it never happened again. it felt like someone intervened.. IT WAS FREAKY BUT GREAT!!!

[helga]

. I can play some Level 8+ peices, but can only play level 6/7 nearly error free, and I can sight read cleanly up to level 4.

Contrapunctus,
IMHO how good your technique depends on several factors, like talent, what age you started piano, whether your teacher knows how to teach technique to you and how you practice.  As a child I used to take piano lessons and I hated it in part because my teacher didn't know how to teach her students what she herself knew very well. Today I'm back to piano lessons. My child and I have the same teacher that we both absolutely love. But even though I've been playing many more years than my child, he plays better than I do. He started early, with a very good teacher and from day one his teacher watched like a hawk that he doesn't develop tension while playing and also she paid a lot of attention to sequence of introducing new technique, to memorization, etc. And this is just basic stuff, any good teacher will have a bunch of tricks to make students like to play the most boring excercises and etudes. My child's sightreading though, is another story. This is one area where he really feels a little lost. Part of the problem is that when choosing sightreading pieces he has always felt uncomfortable to challenge himself with more difficult pieces because he, being a child, liked to take everything fast. My sightreading though is way better than his. I attribute it to having no fear selecting more challenging pieces for sightreading than I can actually play at designated speed. I mean if I take an etude that should be played allegro, I sight read it as a playing piece. It's OK to do that.  Every time you engage as many senses as it takes to play a piano piece hands together, with correct fingering, dynamics, etc. you create new brain connections. If you make it a habit, your sightreading will get better before you know it. Just don't rush when you do it.
Now when you start noticing progess in the difficulty level of your sightreading pieces, that's when you'll also be able to include some of them in your repertoir. You'll still need to work on technique to be able to play it up to tempo, but half of your work will be done if you know how to sightread at your playing level or above.
Good luck. You certainly got a lot of advice from this forum members. Hope some of it will be of use to you.

[helga]

Contrapunctus,
sorry I did my whole post as a quote. Next time I'll be more careful.

[rc]

Contrapunctus,
sorry I did my whole post as a quote. Next time I'll be more careful.

In the upper right corner of any of your posts should be a "modify" button. Give it a click and you can make corrections.

[contrapunctus]

Okay, this entire topic is not supposed to be about what level of playing I am at. I only said that because it was an effective way to lead into my question. It is quite irrelavent information and I made up grades anyway. If you noticed, I was trying to start a debate on the importance of non musical brain excercises on piano performance.

Once you have a basic technique, i.e. you instinctively know where the notes are on the keboard, brain excerses that help attain a deeper and longer state of concentration would be much more helpful than mindless repition. Learning knew repertoire is the only helpful thing that needs to be done while sitting at the piano. Instaed of memorizing while playing, a much more effective method would be to study the score at a desk-- memorizing the notes that way. You can see the music in your head while performing, which gets rid of all uncertaints, and you do not get tired a of playing the piece.

[maul]

It's only mindless repetition if you make it mindless. You're idea of memorizing the score I find to be ridiculous. The last thing I want to be thinking about while performing is the physical equivalent of the music. Besides, visualizing the keyboard and the notes to be played is much easier than memorizing notes on a page... to me at least. I also don't see how it could possibly make you not get tired of a piece.

[contrapunctus]

It's only mindless repetition if you make it mindless. You're idea of memorizing the score I find to be ridiculous. The last thing I want to be thinking about while performing is the physical equivalent of the music. Besides, visualizing the keyboard and the notes to be played is much easier than memorizing notes on a page... to me at least. I also don't see how it could possibly make you not get tired of a piece.

If the only time you play the entire peice is during a performance then you wo';t get tired of it.

[leahcim]

Is the matrix out on budget DVD or something?

You can't program yourself to do kung fu.

Because the development of your physical body is still a significant part of any physical activity even though it's true to say that your brain moves your fingers. It can do that because you have muscles and tendons and whatnot.

Watch the olympics and observe the different body sizes and shapes of athletes in different events to see that no amount of thinking about lifting a piano is going to make you Geoff Capes.

PIano playing might not require the same degree of physical development that some sports do, but whatever you did to get to the level you are at now is this "brain training" you're looking for.

Albeit, it's not just that, which is why you can play. Whereas reading this forum and listening to music might give someone's brain a great insight into many different aspects of playing piano, that's all it does.

There are many threads discussing stuff that you can do away from the piano though, especially w.r.t non physical aspects of playing, like improving theory or music reading etc.

And practise methods vary, so you might find a better way than what you are doing currently. Although some aspects can be done away from the piano you aren't going to learn grade 8+ pieces by selling your piano and buying Derren Brown's Xmas video.

[rc]

Okay, this entire topic is not supposed to be about what level of playing I am at. I only said that because it was an effective way to lead into my question. It is quite irrelavent information and I made up grades anyway. If you noticed, I was trying to start a debate on the importance of non musical brain excercises on piano performance.

Once you have a basic technique, i.e. you instinctively know where the notes are on the keboard, brain excerses that help attain a deeper and longer state of concentration would be much more helpful than mindless repition. Learning knew repertoire is the only helpful thing that needs to be done while sitting at the piano. Instaed of memorizing while playing, a much more effective method would be to study the score at a desk-- memorizing the notes that way. You can see the music in your head while performing, which gets rid of all uncertaints, and you do not get tired a of playing the piece.

That's the idea of mental practice. But you've still gotta put in a load of actual practice to get that point, there's no way around it. You can't really learn to do something new just in your head.

It's probably a natural progression as one gets better at this piano thing, to be able to do more and more in the head.