Stop practicing wrong already!!

[lostinidlewonder]

At the start of the new year I usually pick up a handful of new students. Every time I do I realise that the majority of them who have left their previous piano teacher had never been actually taught how to practice their music correctly. They have been simply told to repeat and repeat until it is done, this brute force method is inefficient and simply tests the students patience (a real reason why most give up).

SLOW TEMPO while practicing is a very well known concept when learning a new piece but how does this change the way in which we practice? Some people will choose a slow tempo but still pause, hesitate and search for notes. It is this pausing, break in musical thought which needs to be avoided and what sets you up for WRONG practice and countless hours of wasted time.

Slow practice is important but if there are pauses and hesitation then you are not going slow enough and are simply practicing inefficiently! You can practice the piano for 1 hour with all pauses and note searching, it will not be as effective as 10 mins of uninterrupted practice. An Australian concert pianist Roger Woodward mentioned to me that the brain can memorise shapes of the hand, movement of the hand, there is a nerve which attributes to this muscular memory, but as we pause and search for notes with bad practicing habits, we are interrupting this memorisation process.

So to practice correctly we must play exactly what is written on the sheet of music, not pause and try to find out where we are, we should have the ability to choose a tempo such that we have all the time in the world to find the next note without pausing and distorting the music. To me this is the most important factor of correct practice to memorise notes and something I drill to students who practice too fast.

I thought I'd mention this because I have been drilling the idea for the last month to my new students who are gradually understanding the difference and getting through a lot more music with less time.

[rc]

Hey, don't take out your frustration here!

 

But really, I agree, no sense in practicing wrong things. Practicing is something that can always be improved on.

I would add, in the case of hesitations, that maybe a more powerful concept than choosing a slow enough tempo, is to be able to think ahead. It's one of those powerful wisdoms that my teacher casually told me in two words ("think ahead") that took me a while to fully realize, but it seems almost every hesitation can be eliminated by anticipation and "thinking ahead".

[spirithorn]

Somehow the well known quote regarding the "how" of practicing comes to mind:

"Practice doesn't (necessarily) make perfect.  Practice makes permanent".

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

"Perfect practice makes perfect", I believe I heard that somewhere. More progress is attained when one practices correctly, whether slow or fast. However when practicing slow, one has more control over the notes, sound, dynamics, etc. So I suggest practicing slow, but correctly. There is nothing wrong with increasing the tempo or playing fast( I myself often find myself playing an etude fast, but not being in total control of the sound and finger movements), but the majority of time of learning a piece should still be slow, picking up a tempo once the piece is learned. Hope this helps.

[rimv2]

At the start of the new year I usually pick up a handful of new students. Every time I do I realise that the majority of them who have left their previous piano teacher had never been actually taught how to practice their music correctly. They have been simply told to repeat and repeat until it is done, this brute force method is inefficient and simply tests the students patience (a real reason why most give up).

SLOW TEMPO while practicing is a very well known concept when learning a new piece but how does this change the way in which we practice? Some people will choose a slow tempo but still pause, hesitate and search for notes. It is this pausing, break in musical thought which needs to be avoided and what sets you up for WRONG practice and countless hours of wasted time.

Slow practice is important but if there are pauses and hesitation then you are not going slow enough and are simply practicing inefficiently! You can practice the piano for 1 hour with all pauses and note searching, it will not be as effective as 10 mins of uninterrupted practice. An Australian concert pianist Roger Woodward mentioned to me that the brain can memorise shapes of the hand, movement of the hand, there is a nerve which attributes to this muscular memory, but as we pause and search for notes with bad practicing habits, we are interrupting this memorisation process.

So to practice correctly we must play exactly what is written on the sheet of music, not pause and try to find out where we are, we should have the ability to choose a tempo such that we have all the time in the world to find the next note without pausing and distorting the music. To me this is the most important factor of correct practice to memorise notes and something I drill to students who practice too fast.

I thought I'd mention this because I have been drilling the idea for the last month to my new students who are gradually understanding the difference and getting through a lot more music with less time.

Well excuse meh

[nastysanta]

Hey, don't take out your frustration here!

I for one am glad he/she took his/her frustration out on this forum because otherwise I would have never known this. Thank you lostinidlewonder ^^

[minstrel]

It's very true.. In defense of your students.. they don't know any better!

Maybe the prodigies just get this stuff right off the bat, but for everybody else it seems to take time.  It's legitimately one of the most important discoveries I've had at the piano.

It's almost counterintuitive to think to play fast you have to play slow.

[counterpoint]

It's almost counterintuitive to think to play fast you have to play slow.

You can't play fast just from the scratch. So this is self-evident. You have to read the music, find the notes, choose the best fingering etc.

But then: If they play with wrong notes, wrong rhythm, wrong pedal, wrong everything - what do they normally do: they play it again 
Again with the same errors - but they expect, that the wrong notes, the wrong fingering, the wrong rhythm will disappear automaticly after having played the same BS thousand (or two thousand) times 

"I must make the same mistake a thousand times, then - finally - it will disappear."

How stupid is that!

But that's the method, how most of the piano students waste their time (and the nerves of all people, who are forced to hear this sort of practising - including their own nerves!)

[nastysanta]

so i tried this technique for the first time this morning and it's been working like a charm but how well must i know the piece before i can start speeding it up? and also is it better to learn the whole piece slowly and then start speeding up or speeding each part of the piece up seperately?

[shingo]

so i tried this technique for the first time this morning and it's been working like a charm but how well must i know the piece before i can start speeding it up? and also is it better to learn the whole piece slowly and then start speeding up or speeding each part of the piece up seperately?

Personally I feel that it would be a lot better to learn the whole peice at a slower tempo and then speed it all up, that way you continue to play with the correct rythem and accents etc and an overall greater musicality.

Also, having dipped in and out of Chang's book and learned of his dislike for intuitive methods and all. But (after initial HT sight read through) I still tend to pratctice HS first and get them both off to a good grasp each at a slow tempo and then HT at the same tempo before gradually speeding up HT a little at a time. I read these parts a while ago but I seem to remember him syaing that actually HT straight away is better? Am I therefore practicing inefficiently or is the method generally sound? (I may have his interpretation wrong but just another question while we are on the topic.)

[stevetrug]

Hi Shingo,
I think that what Chang says is that you should not play HT at speed to start (unless the piece is well within your ability to do so accurately). He suggests that you learn HS and thus more quickly bring HS playing up to, and beyond final speed. The reason being (he says), that hand and wrist movements a full speed are different from those at slow speed. So you first teach each hand to play the piece (in sections), then speed it up to beyond the final desired speed, THEN put hands together and play it slowly (because you have already worked out the hand positions you need for final speed).
Chang says that this avoids the mistake ofpracticing HT too fast too soon and thus ingraining errors in both hands. By doing the HS practice, it is easier to hear mistakes which you might miss playing HT, until you really know the piece well.
I think it's worth reading Chang several times as there is so much in it.
Hope this helps.

[nastysanta]

HT and HS means hands together and hands seperately?

[nightingale11]

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5767.msg56133.html#msg56133
(huge collection of links)

[rc]

Nastysanta: yes
Nightingale: dead link

[quasimodo]

Nightingale: dead link

Try this: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,5767.msg56133.html#msg56133

[jkeithh1969]

I'm glad someone brought this up.  I was told the very same thing by my teacher at my last lesson (which by the way was only my second lesson).  I was playing way too fast and was holding my hands all wrong.  Once I started using his suggestions, I found that practicing was much easier and a lot more fun.

[loops]

I would add, in the case of hesitations, that maybe a more powerful concept than choosing a slow enough tempo, is to be able to think ahead. It's one of those powerful wisdoms that my teacher casually told me in two words ("think ahead") that took me a while to fully realize, but it seems almost every hesitation can be eliminated by anticipation and "thinking ahead".

exactly right rc. AND it needs to be slow enough to think ahead. 

[gruffalo]

Before i move on to what i am about to say, i want to clarify that i am referring to slow practice to reinforce memorization. i do this once i have memorized a piece (or after memorizing passages) and i then reinforce it through ultra-slow practice, but not continuos slow practice. i dont do it for hours on end each day. if done right, it can solve memory issues very quickly. Note that i am not talking about slow practice to solve technical problems, that is a different issue and should be approached in a different way. I find the best way to discipline the mind to enable oneself to do ultra-slow practice without allowing time for hesitation is to use a metronome. after a couple of months of using this, i was then able to use this principle of slow practice and set my own pace without wavering. i am not trying to say that i had a problem with rhythm, it was more to do with the fact that i would allow that time to hesitate and search for the note. i can now do this diligently without a metronome. it is so useful. doing this to one passage for 10 mins (especially in the early morning) and doing it right just makes it impossible to hit the wrong notes when executed at a manageable speed.

[nightingale11]

Try this: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,5767.msg56133.html#msg56133

Thanks quasimodo, Do anyone know why it suddenly just has died? seems to be the same things with a lot of other links which have very recently been accessible.

[rc]

Thanks quasimodo, Do anyone know why it suddenly just has died? seems to be the same things with a lot of other links which have very recently been accessible.

They're links from when this site was pianoforum.net

[rc]

exactly right rc. AND it needs to be slow enough to think ahead. 

hmmmm... you're right!  One implies the other

[amelialw]

They have been simply told to repeat and repeat until it is done, this brute force method is inefficient and simply tests the students patience (a real reason why most give up).

Haha...my singapore piano teacher used to do that to me, when I came to canada, my teacher here got so mad when I told her how my previous teacher taught me how to practise

[stevey]

I was trolling around and saw this and decided to sign up for an account just to reply to this  .  I think that I completely disagree with the original poster.  I use the Chang method that people talked about above, but I think that there might be some confusion on this.

I work on HS much faster than regular speed before I ever try HT.  I do this for 2 reasons:
1. To work out the correct, at speed, fingering, and
2. To memorize HS, at faster than playing speed (this is the key)

I think it is a horrible idea to try and memorize HT, going slow, from the beginning.  Going slow and then "ramping it up" (without first having HS memorized), is very inefficient, and can lead to complete memory lapses since you are constantly trying to increase your memory recall speed.  If you memorize it from the beginning at faster than final speed, then you already have it memorized fast enough.

Memorize both hands separate, at faster than playing speed.  The goal is that in the end you should be able to sit at the piano and play either hand faster than playing speed.  Once you can do this, you can then go slow with HT.  But since both hands are already memorized, and you memorized them at faster than playing speed (and can therefore "think ahead"), you should be able to bring your HT work up to playing speed very quickly.

[amelialw]

I agree with stevey. My teacher said you must always work HS faster so that you can deal with the actual speed and play it with the correct speed,fingering and shape once you're ready for it, especially for chopin etudes.

[gruffalo]

I was trolling around and saw this and decided to sign up for an account just to reply to this  .  I think that I completely disagree with the original poster.  I use the Chang method that people talked about above, but I think that there might be some confusion on this.

I work on HS much faster than regular speed before I ever try HT.  I do this for 2 reasons:
1. To work out the correct, at speed, fingering, and
2. To memorize HS, at faster than playing speed (this is the key)

I think it is a horrible idea to try and memorize HT, going slow, from the beginning.  Going slow and then "ramping it up" (without first having HS memorized), is very inefficient, and can lead to complete memory lapses since you are constantly trying to increase your memory recall speed.  If you memorize it from the beginning at faster than final speed, then you already have it memorized fast enough.

Memorize both hands separate, at faster than playing speed.  The goal is that in the end you should be able to sit at the piano and play either hand faster than playing speed.  Once you can do this, you can then go slow with HT.  But since both hands are already memorized, and you memorized them at faster than playing speed (and can therefore "think ahead"), you should be able to bring your HT work up to playing speed very quickly.

im not sure we are all talking about the same thing here. i assumed that the topic was about reinforcing passages and using slow hands together practice to solidify what you have already memorized. yes, you are right that you can memorize better when playing a small passage with one hand faster, but once you have put hands together and played at a decent speed, taking the speed down to a very slow pace just for a short while can do wonders to your memory for that passage.

[quasimodo]

gruffalo, actually, slow repetition HT doesn't make you memorize per se but is just kind of a "reality check" to make sure that your memory of the piece is not just "muscle memory".
By playing very slowly, you inhibate the pure motionnal memory and have to actually think about the notes.

[timothy42b]

How to play piano despite years of lessons?

There seem to be a lot of people who take piano lessons, sometimes for years, and never succeed in learning to play.  We assume none of them reads this forum, but I guess you never know.

Yet people who buy a guitar can usually play confidently and fluently in public in a few months. 

Why the difference?  I vote for "real time" practice.  Guitar players practice with the radio or CD, or with a friend, and are forced to learn at tempo.

Piano players slow down, which in itself is not bad, but often results in disconnecting from the pulse and playing at NO tempo. 

[zheer]

   As far as i know,knowing that there are various ways of music making.        learning a new composition (for me) usually starts through hearing it played either through tabe,radio,friend,TV ,teacher ect. The next stage is looking through the written note, Time signature,harmony, the nitty gritty iddy bitty theoretics (away from the piano). It is then fun to play it through by sight reading.
The memory part invole, oral memory,visual memory and to some extent muscle memory, muscle memory is to piano tecknic as is sugar is to teeth (not good).
Since advanced  piano playing can be psycological ,it is possible to train the mind rather than to drill the music into the fingers.
    We can safely conclude that much of the work is done away from the piano.  

[gruffalo]

gruffalo, actually, slow repetition HT doesn't make you memorize per se but is just kind of a "reality check" to make sure that your memory of the piece is not just "muscle memory".
By playing very slowly, you inhibate the pure motionnal memory and have to actually think about the notes.

this is what i was trying to say. if you look carefully through the my last post, i said the following:

"i assumed that the topic was about reinforcing passages and using slow hands together practice to solidify what you have already memorized"
 
i didnt really explain the rest very well, but you basically summed up what i was trying to say.

[lostinidlewonder]

It is a personal interest of mine to ensure that my students learn at the fastest rate possible. Hands together or seperate do not come into consideration in my mind unless the student gets to a more advanced level. I will not pressure a beginner to do hands together immediately but I will definately pressure advanced students to do so. I will question the intermediate student why they cannot get hands together and work on the unique problems which restrict the individual to get to the hands together state immediately.

When we practice anything we should try to do it hands together immediately. I tell you all now doing hands seperately is a LESS efficient form of piano practice. All of my advanced students do hands together immediately unless a passage is very hard for them, most of my beginner students do seperate hands simply because they have not the ability to control both hands immediately. This is because they have not the piano playing experience to know general routines that you find on the keyboard. If you are a hands seperate practitioner then I really urge you to start trying to work out a way to get to hands together immediately. At the end you might have wasted 20% of your total practice lifetime doing hands seperately where you could remove that step and get so much more done. Yes it is uncomfortable to get to hands together immediately if you are not used to it, like I haven't heard that whining from my intermediate students who I encourage to do it.

The reality is that hands together feels different to hands seperate. There is an individual pattern associate when the hands are played together and which can only be determined when actually experiment with hands together. You waste time playing seperate hands, then looking how they come together by identifying the hands as seperate, not one sound with both hands acting as one but instead one sound with two hands acting individually. I do not agree with the layer approach, that is learn left hand, learn right hand then try to put together, this is ok for a beginner who is learning the ins and outs of piano music for the first time but you cannot stay in this state if you want to push yourself to larger, faster improvements.

When an advanced student of mine plays hand seperately I ask why and try to work out how to make it so they can make it BH immediately. When a beginner does it I forgive it because there is so much other information they are absorbing next to getting their music to sound nice and feel easy. An advanced student just wants to make the sound nice, a beignner has a lot more to think about because a lot more doesn't come naturally.



ANYWAY no matter if you play hands together or seperately that is not really my intention of the thread. Saying: PLAY ALWAYS Hands together or seperately cannot be a axiom to apply to all students of piano.

What is a constant no matter what skill level is slow/even practice. (nb: slow might be 90% tempo of piece for an experienced, 5% of tempo for a beginner, the aim is to make what it means to practice slowly increase in speed for you) This is key to perfect practice. The movement you make when moving to a new group of notes when you play at tempo as opposed to very slow is pretty much the same IF IF IF! you focus on making it the same. You must learn to bring the tempo right down but keep it even! This is not as easy as it sounds. Keeping it even and in time is the challenge and what allows us to connect groups of notes to a muscular movement, or feeling at the keyboard with a slow controlled environment.

Sometimes we cannot help to pause but here is an important guideline to follow if you do pause, use CONTROLLED PAUSING. Completely freeze your hands. Do not search for notes, do not move a muscle if you pause, look with your eyes where the next notes are, do not move the fingers to them, when you are confident then move the hand immediately to that new position. In doing this you do not allow any inaccurate hand movements into your practice regieme. When we search for notes with individual fingers we are ruining our practice round. We must learn to pause, completely stop our hands from moving, holding them in the last position we confidently got to, measure where we have to go next, move all the fingers simultaneously with the same speed you would move as if you where playing the piece at tempo. This is something that most amature pianists neglect and what really makes their practice very inefficient.

Practicing controlled pausing by freezing your hands and then moving to new position immediately is an essential skill to develop. The better you get at it the fast you will be able to practice your music and learn it faster. Of course there are other skills such as sight reading, piano technique etc etc but if you do not know how to play a phrase of music slow and even, then it doesnt matter what else you know, not being able to play repetitions of slow EVEN practice will encourage inefficiency into your practice methods.

[slobone]

Hi, this is my first post so please be patient!

I've just started playing the piano again after a gap of several years. I'm practicing on my own (no teacher) and I hope I can do at least 2 hours a day. I've decided that the reason I never got to be very good in the past was that I wasn't putting in enough time, and not concentrating hard enough when I did practice.

So I'm experimenting with different practice techniques. At present I keep the metronome on almost constantly, because I've had a real lack of rhythmic discipline in the past.

I break the music up into short passages (maybe 4-6 measures) and start working on each one as slowly as necessary to play it correctly. By correctly, I mean, correct notes, correct rhythm, correct fingering, AND correct articulation (v. important). I don't try to do phrasing or detailed dynamics at the slowest tempo.

Then, when I feel I can really play it flawlessly at that tempo, I move the metronome up 3 clicks. I keep doing this until I reach something approximating the right tempo.

At that point I feel I know the passage well enough to start working on phrasing, dynamics, rubato, pedal, etc. Needless to say I turn the metronome off at that point.

It does take a lot of time, but I really feel like it works for me. I should probably mention that the main piece I'm working on right now is the Goldberg Variations. Maybe for other composers this isn't such a good method.

What do people think? Am I wasting time? Would I be better off playing at full speed from the beginning?

Oh yeah, and I very rarely play HS, unless there's a passage that I just can't get any other way. But I am interested to try the method suggested above, to play HS until you can do it faster than necessary, then do HT.

[intervals]

Someone mentioned that guitar players are "forced" to learn at speed from radio/CDs, implying that slow practice isn't how they get up to speed.  This is far from true.  When learning a new song or lick, we first slow down as much as necessary to get fingering and dynamics right, then move up to tempo gradually until we can handle it.  "Slow it down" is a constant refrain.  You'll hear this from other guitarists as well as see it in any of the magazines.

The above has served me very well on piano, my main instrument, and is true even for my own compositions, where I'll get sloppy with fingering, say, and start making mistakes.  I slow down to isolate the problem, then eliminate it with sensible, consistent fingering. 

So I'm with the original poster on this one.  Play it slow enough -- throughout the piece -- to play it right.  If need be, isolate difficult spots, but broaden this to a measure or two in front and after the trouble spot so you learn how to integrate it into the whole.  This gets the hands in sync with the brain and trains everything to work together.

[rc]

I've just started playing the piano again after a gap of several years. I'm practicing on my own (no teacher) and I hope I can do at least 2 hours a day. I've decided that the reason I never got to be very good in the past was that I wasn't putting in enough time, and not concentrating hard enough when I did practice.

Exactly, especially about concentration.  It's a difficult thing to do consistantly!  Wanda Landowska says:

"If everyone knew how to work, everyone would be a genius!  I hate the word practice.  Practice breeds inurement.  Instead of discovering, of distinguishing traits that are deeply hidden or merely veiled, one ends seeing nothing anymore.  One ceases to be aware.
  To be aware, to be conscious at all times is what appears to me the worthiest in my thoughts and in my work.  While interpreting, even at the impetuous moments when a musical phrase overflows with passion, I want to remain conscious.  I may forget a liberty I took at one place or another, but this does not change in any way my state of consciousness, which is always on the alert.
  Akwardness and mistakes in my playing are always due to a lack of concentration.
  I attach great importance to concentration because I was born into a family of undisciplined individuals.  I had to kick and scold myself.  But I believe that I have acquired the faculty of concentrating, and now I can teach it to my pupils."

What do people think? Am I wasting time? Would I be better off playing at full speed from the beginning?

Oh yeah, and I very rarely play HS, unless there's a passage that I just can't get any other way. But I am interested to try the method suggested above, to play HS until you can do it faster than necessary, then do HT.

Notching the metronome works.  Sometimes after getting the right sequence we can jump it right up to speed, there's another method of setting the metronome sporadically - suddenly throwing it to 5 notches above the speed you want, going from 60bpm cleanly to 132...  Often I've surprised myself to find that I can actually handle the sudden jump pretty well.

I don't like using the metronome too much, it plays games with my mind to have it on too long.  My mind begins to tune it out like roadnoise, suddenly I'm noticing the spaces between clicks.  I use it like HS - on an as-needed basis.

[slobone]

Great quote from Landowska, thanks for posting that!

I don't like using the metronome too much, it plays games with my mind to have it on too long.  My mind begins to tune it out like roadnoise, suddenly I'm noticing the spaces between clicks.  I use it like HS - on an as-needed basis.

I'm pretty much a metronomoholic at this point. But I do make myself cut it in half after a certain point -- instead of 132 to the eighth I'll go to 66 to the quarter.

By the way, I should add that the main piece -- almost the only one -- I've been working on the past few weeks is Bach Goldberg Variation #1. It has the feeling of a toccata, so it needs a steady pulse. The metronome is very helpful in achieving that.

I've never heard a performance of it where the performer varied the tempo (not even Gould #2, although he does a lot of other weird things.)

[quasimodo]

Well, this thread is starting to become confusing, mainly because it seems to me some posters have a dogmatic, ideological approach.
My opinion is that there is no such thing as a best way to learn ANY piece, there is a best way for each specific difficult section.
When confronted to a raw mechanic issue, like say ultra-fast double-notes, no matter what your level is, you will need to work it out HS in an AFAP (As Fast As Possible) approach providing you already have acquired an appropriate amount of dexterity through your past experiences.
On the other hand if your concern is to get an overall grip of a piece as far as co-ordination, accuracy and clarity are concerned, slowing it down can be of great help.

To my fellow guitarist “interval”, I would say your statement is right and wrong in the mean time. I do agree that you need to sort out fingerings – which is even more complex on the guitar for the same note can be played on different strings, while on the piano a note = a key – yet, the concept of speeding up gradually is wrong. Once you think you have the right fingerings, then you have to practice it AFAP immediately to check it and if it works, memorize it.

So in general, the crucial question we need to answer to is “What am I practicing exactly?”

[lostinidlewonder]

My opinion is that there is no such thing as a best way to learn ANY piece, there is a best way for each specific difficult section.

I believe that there are rules we follow no matter what level or piece we are learning or our own level for that matter. One of the most important constants to our practice is; when you practice it is INEFFICIENT to practice with uncontrolled pausing. The definition of uncontrolled pausing is, when one plays and then must stop (because of many different unsolved problems), interupting the constant tempo of the piece.

If you can play, by memory, a phrase of music, finger perfect, note perfect and at a percentage of the normal tempo (even 1% would work but it is very hard to play and/or sense playing evenly at this speed), you have set up the basis for gaining mastery over what you specifically practice. From slow and controlled comes control for any speed.

If you can play something at say quater tempo completely controlled and with near 0% error rate, then pushing up the tempo becomes automatic and not an effort. I disgaree with slowly notching up the tempo because this is missing the point of controlled playing. If you can play controlled you can play any tempo, as simple as that, there are not say 20 steps to take, notching up the tempo a little bit every day, very inefficient even though it will work.

Some people believe that to play fast you must practice fast, this is incorrect, also it is wrong to think that to play big loud sounds you have to pound on the piano. Everything with our hands centres in on comfort, effortlessness and control, of course all of these are commanded by the sound production but that is another issue. If you can play completely controlled you can play fast. Still I have met many people who have played piano for many years and do not know what controlled actually means. Identifying something playing controlled actually takes a lot of experience knowing what it means to play controlled. And one person might play controlled slightly different to the other, this is where experience from teaching many different hands can help, but really you only need to know your own hand and konw what it means to play controlled. However you will get ideas of control by observing masters play and try to put these elements into your own playing. Talking about what it means to play controlled can open a whole new book of discussion.

When we practice we aim to get the notes memorised and comfortable to play. Then alterations to the sound can be more easily achieved. We need a strong foundation of control and accuracy before we can decorate up our music and make it sound nice. Also we need to undertsand how phrases can be played with one movement of the hand, yes there are many movements in the hand but we must strive to see many movements as one whole movement of our hand. This is developing your muscular memory, making combinations of movements feel like one movement.

We can only ever achieve this muscular memory if we practice WITHOUT uncontrolled pausing. I am yet to see anyone not play a phrase of music at tempo after demonstrating to me they can play it half tempo note perfect, finger perfect, completely controlled with close to no chance of errors. I do however see people struggle through phrases of music that they are practicing with uncontrolled pausing. This uncontrolled pausing can be as obvious as completely stopping, or as subtle as a rushed movement to a new position.




And Metronomes, they should all be burnt or kept away with a very long stick. I believe they are a useless device for keeping you in time, you should have an inbuilt timing device in your head. You must know what it means to play evenly without a machine telling you so. It is a security blanket, and also music doesn't really walk well on the tightrope set by metronome perfect tempo.

[quasimodo]

And Metronomes, they should all be burnt or kept away with a very long stick. I believe they are a useless device for keeping you in time, you should have an inbuilt timing device in your head. You must know what it means to play evenly without a machine telling you so. It is a security blanket, and also music doesn't really walk well on the tightrope set by metronome perfect tempo.

That, I totally agree!

[guendola]

Short note about guitar players learning so fast:

There is a big misunderstanding about people playing along the guitar to pop song in a few minutes. They often do, yes. Strumming a few chords is dead easy. Playing them well is a different story. However, for both you need experience. I haven't played any pop music on piano yet. I suppose it is similar though. Now watch the rehearsal of an ambitious band. You will see as much struggle and hard work as you are used to know from your own practising.

Very short note on slow playing: I love it. I had a 20 years break on playing piano and just by playing it slowly I recovered a lot of my former repertoir. Too bad my piano teacher never told me about it. Maybe I could have taken the double out of the six years of lessons - by practising more effectively and being less frustrated.

"And Metronomes .... I believe they are a useless ... you should have an inbuilt timing device in your head..."

Ahem, do you think all people are born with such a timing device? What about those who don't? Any alternative recommendations?

[lostinidlewonder]

"And Metronomes .... I believe they are a useless ... you should have an inbuilt timing device in your head..."

Ahem, do you think all people are born with such a timing device? What about those who don't? Any alternative recommendations?

Everyone can clap a beat or rhythm, if you cannot you should not be trying to play music. Most people lose their ability to time theirown  playing because they cannot hear the music that they are playing, they are too preoccupied with fingering, notes etc. It is the teachers responsibility to realise what is causing a failure in the students timing and it can be anything, must more often than not an inability to listen to yourself. In fact I had one young student who did not understand whether the tempo of a piece got faster or slower. I would play a piece for her and accelerate it very quickly, she would notice its getting faster, then I would have to make this acceleration less and less with many different pieces. I would ask her to do the same with a simple piece she already learnt, it was a real grind but eventually she got it.

I find some talented memorisers I teach lose control of their tempo or constantly speed up, it is almost as if their brain is saying, ok we know this pattern and the next pattern coming is this, so quick lets get through this so we can add the next part.  You gotta get into your students heads, see what they are thinking, find out which points cause them to increase or decrease their tempo uncontrollably. Test certain points many times to make sure it is not a one off inaccuracy, or you might go in the wrong direction.

[gilad]

This has been my number 1 downfall.

There is little I can say really. When I started learning piano 2 years ago I would not accpet that I needed to play already easy music at a slow tempo. I was to proud and would try to race through it. Needless to say I never ever finished a piece of music!!!!!! !!!!! !!!!!!! And as you can see that is something that really annoys me still.

Luckily I worked out how essnetial it is to play slowly, I in fact learned it from "The Idiots guide to playing the piano" It was an all impotant lesson for me. I saw the results almost immediately.

[dmc]

Thank you for starting this topic.  Its cleared up some things for me.  I've been doing it wrong for many years and hopefully can break some of the bad habits I've no doubt formed because of this.  I've learned some fairly advanced pieces but always did it via the "brute force method" (good description) because no one ever really told me otherwise.   Wish I'd known this sooner.

I expect I'll have to backtrack some in terms of piece difficulty because my reading skills need work as well.  But if it helps in the long run, it will be time well spent.

[vijaye7]

At the start of the new year I usually pick up a handful of new students. Every time I do I realise that the majority of them who have left their previous piano teacher had never been actually taught how to practice their music correctly. They have been simply told to repeat and repeat until it is done, this brute force method is inefficient and simply tests the students patience (a real reason why most give up).

SLOW TEMPO while practicing is a very well known concept when learning a new piece but how does this change the way in which we practice? Some people will choose a slow tempo but still pause, hesitate and search for notes. It is this pausing, break in musical thought which needs to be avoided and what sets you up for WRONG practice and countless hours of wasted time.

Slow practice is important but if there are pauses and hesitation then you are not going slow enough and are simply practicing inefficiently! You can practice the piano for 1 hour with all pauses and note searching, it will not be as effective as 10 mins of uninterrupted practice. An Australian concert pianist Roger Woodward mentioned to me that the brain can memorise shapes of the hand, movement of the hand, there is a nerve which attributes to this muscular memory, but as we pause and search for notes with bad practicing habits, we are interrupting this memorisation process.

So to practice correctly we must play exactly what is written on the sheet of music, not pause and try to find out where we are, we should have the ability to choose a tempo such that we have all the time in the world to find the next note without pausing and distorting the music. To me this is the most important factor of correct practice to memorise notes and something I drill to students who practice too fast.

I thought I'd mention this because I have been drilling the idea for the last month to my new students who are gradually understanding the difference and getting through a lot more music with less time.

A valuable advice. I agree completely to this as I realized it myself a few days back. Searching for notes really frustrated me. But I am reading comparatively well now. Most of the times, it is because of the wrong fingering, reading notes slowly and not reading by intervals. I am overcoming these slowly.

When given a new piece, I will be interested to know how you guys start practicing and progress.

I read in some website to look for patterns. Well, that really helped.

You guys being wonderful in this, could you please advise me more to improve my note reading?

Also have difficulty concentrating both Treble and Bass staves (Yes! I am a typical beginner). I really appreciate your advice in overcoming that too.