Any good book recommendations?

[jamie0168]

I'm trying to make my practice time more efficient and longer. I fell that one reason I can't seem to practice as much as my teacher wishes (4-6 hours a day) is because I don't practice efficiently and get bored. Every once in awhile, I have a very good practice session and an hour goes by in what seems like 15 minutes.
I'm looking for a book that will tell me how make the most of my practice time. Please give some suggestions.

[rc]

My favorite book on piano practice is easily 'The Art of Piano Playing' by Heinrich Neuhaus. I really like his ideas and approach to playing the piano. I ought to warn you though, the book isn't terribly structured or methodical (if I remember right, the author says so himself a few times, heh). HIGHLY recommended. To everyone!

Along the same lines as Neuhaus' book, is this site: https://www.pianoeu.com/indexje.html ... Which is actually where I got the idea of reading Neuhaus' book from. So there is a lot of overlapping ideas. The author of this site isn't a native english speaker, and so his english is sketchy. It can be tricky to understand, but I would also advise decyphering this site because the ideas are pure gold.

The basic premise for effective practice time from these two sources is to cultivate a strong musical imagination with which to drive your practice. As in, knowing more or less what kind of sound you are aiming to achieve through practice. It's a truely worthy approach to develop.

Also, another free resource: Bernhard. If you haven't already, do a search for what he has to say. This guy's pretty much written a book worth of posts on this forum... I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to at some point compile all the great posts he's given 'round here. I'd hate to see all that lost through some accidental crash of the server or something...

Have a good practice

[nicco]

My favorite book on piano practice is easily 'The Art of Piano Playing' by Heinrich Neuhaus.

I second that!

[jlh]

I second that!

I agree.  It was his teaching that produced some of the greatest pianists, such as Richter and Gillels, among others.