What I learned during practice today :

[countrymath]

I said I envy you because you can memorize pieces just reading the sheet. I can't do that. Like I said, I can do mental play (really mental play, like closing the eyes and imagining yourself playing) only for 2 bars only or for some really short difficult phrases, like one bar or less).

I learned the first arpeggio (and the folowing run) from Fantaisie Impromptu only using mental play.

I also do a lot of mental play with chords. I study popular piano too, so i mentally create some patterns of chords and practice it on my head, like and improvisation. Im good on that

But it would be great if I could do deep mental play like you. I also believe that its a great improv.

[m1469]

I think you've got me confused with somebody else  .  But, I do appreciate you explaining yourself!  I don't know if I am capable of that, quite yet ... I mean, not fully.  I still don't quite understand my own perception of pitch, because despite what other people talk about with "perfect pitch" and all, and despite the fact that I don't hear "A's" as such, there is something else that happens to me.  Well, the main point, though, is that I think in order to truly *only* use the sheets, you must have perfect pitch.  Okay, but see, part of what happens to me with pitch is that I'll hear a chord or a note and I'll immediately think of a piece of music, I've always related pitch with music.

Anyway, what I was doing last week was not just looking at the score but deeply imagining the precise way that something feels, too, or the way it looks on the keyboard, as well as what's on the page.  But, I've spent time prior to last week playing them though, too, or still had to refine or define certain motions so as to have a better concept to build my mental image upon.  But, something has changed, for sure, in my being able to more clearly see that there are certain things about it all that we can truly know.  But, last week was about deepening that understanding and not letting myself slip backwards into believing that that kind of understanding can't be achieved.  What happened is that my overall perception deepened, though, and that's affected my overall ability in ways I wouldn't have predicted.  It was exhausting the way I practiced last week.  I plan to have another round of it, too, as soon as I've reached the outskirts of what I learned last week.   It's like I was finding some kind of deep thing, and now I need to let it flow outwards through my limbs ... so to speak.  Then I need to go back in and deepen it again.  I think I absolutely need some ebb and flow like that, at this point.  But, I suspect that my perception *could* indeed grow to a point where I could look at a score and have things be more instantaneous than what they are now.  Lots of work to do though.  

PS-- again, I feel it necessary to point out that, although I do have my own mind and there are certain ways in which I may think, this process always, always includes for me what certain individuals have shared with me and what my teachers have passed onto me.  It's just that this process is all part of that information becoming my own, too.  But, once again, it's always with many, many thanks .

[m1469]

hmmm ... I am currently all about tackling and attacking things right now.  

I realized on my walk this morning that what I've been trying to most understand about my practicing last week is how it's affected my overall ability and perception.  I think I understand that better now, and so I'm feeling ready to go in deeply again, with the factor of how it will affect the rest of my ability and what I can "see" within that.  I'm sure there will be more glimpsing to come, but I think I can live alongside the deeper study now, and support myself with bulking up skill with baby pieces project, singing, and improvising.  I would like a whole new level  .  WOOT!

[dlipatti]

Today I barely touched the piano, I decided to do a lot more practice away from it - mental playing, so to speak. The reason is that lately I've had the tendency to spend too much unproductive time in front of the piano. On top of everything, I've also accumulated a lot of tension in my body, particularly my shoulders, and it's getting frustrating.

From now on, I will not touch any key before I have the entire piece memorized in my mind. I'll see how far I can get with this method. The first pieces I'll try this on will be Bach's P&F in C# major from WTC 1 and Chopin's mazurka op 33 no 4 in B minor.

[m1469]

Today I barely touched the piano, I decided to do a lot more practice away from it - mental playing, so to speak. The reason is that lately I've had the tendency to spend too much unproductive time in front of the piano. On top of everything, I've also accumulated a lot of tension in my body, particularly my shoulders, and it's getting frustrating.

From now on, I will not touch any key before I have the entire piece memorized in my mind. I'll see how far I can get with this method. The first pieces I'll try this on will be Bach's P&F in C# major from WTC 1 and Chopin's mazurka op 33 no 4 in B minor.

I would be interested to learn what you feel you gain by changing your routine in this way, if you feel like posting about it.

[cmg]

My latest teacher, a former Juilliard student of Beveridge Webster and later, privately, of Nadia Reisenberg, grew too ill to continue her teaching and performing schedule.  Cut loose, I asked around NYC for teachers of advanced adult students.  The name of an Abby Whiteside protege, on the Upper Westside, came up.  She was also a student of Murray Perahia.  I auditioned for her Monday with two Chopin Etudes (Aeolian and Oceanic) and a Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 4.  I thought I played well and she complimented me.  But, then the real work began.  "You use your fingers too much," she began and then launched into the most amazing lecture and description of Whiteside's discoveries about piano technique. 

Her explanation of the workings of my back, arms, wrists was a reminder that I had forgotten about the complex beauty of these body parts.  How they all worked as brilliant levers that were under my control.  The fingers were the final conduit of all this energy that comes from much larger muscles.  In fact, the entire body.

She took each Etude and broke it down into rotational movements that had their impetus from the arm, which rotates and moves forwards and backwards.  Alberti bass, she showed me, was a levered movement of not side-to-side as I always played it, but front to back rocking with the wrist moving up and down to facilitate the fingers.  I found that Alberti bass was effortless this way.

That was lesson one.  She is not inexpensive and insists that I come weekly for a while to integrate the Whiteside technique.  What I've learned so far is amazing.  The fingers as the final contacts with the keys; the entire body the source of the transmission.  My sound is improved already.  Scales have become, well, effortless. 

Looking forward to subsequent lessons.  And the final reward:  a recital with other students at Steinway Hall in NYC.  Wish me luck. 

You're NEVER to old to move towards mastery of the instrument.  Great teachers, however, are indispensable.   

[dlipatti]

I would be interested to learn what you feel you gain by changing your routine in this way, if you feel like posting about it.

Sure, I'll continue "blogging" as often as possible. I'm feeling very enthusiastic about this new routine already. I'm in my second day and I think I've already started to form some ideas around the pieces I'm working on. It's clear as the day that the biggest challenge will be to memorize the C#-major fugue, as it's quite long and has some tricky passages. The first part of the job will be to identify all the subjects, countersubjects, inversion, retrogrades and so on, memorize them, and then try to put them "together" in my head on the right places... Maybe singing each of the voices out loud in the shower will also help.

The Mazurka is a little easier though. Its very melodic and quite repetitive. The only trickier part will be the section in B major towards the end.

[orangesodaking]

Hmm... I'm not able to learn pieces to the point of muscle-memorization with mental practice, but mental practice still helps me immensly.

Today, I had my first lesson on Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 (D Minor). It's going to be a HECK of an undertaking, but he has faith that I can do it! He said the physically taxing parts will be no problem for me (octaves, octave trills, those arpeggios at the end of the first movement, etc.) but working on other things like projection, voicing, and many other fine details will be a whole lot of work.

I really feel that this piece is the pennacle of piano concerti up to its time. And Brahms wasn't very old when he wrote it!

[m1469]

Hmm... I'm not able to learn pieces to the point of muscle-memorization with mental practice, but mental practice still helps me immensly.

Well, I still sit at the piano and I am including a small amount of actual play through after I do my mental play throughs, but my actual playing is very minimal right now.  I still need it, but I can see how it may be possible to need even smaller amounts of actually playing through it than what I am currently doing.   Right now, I only play for 25% of my practicing.  At some point, I think you can theoretically have almost all of the muscle memory needed, built up through years of practicing and built upon principles of playing, and then if you are able to clearly attain a mental impression of the sensation.  I can tell that what I'm doing right now is only the tip of the iceberg  

Anyhoo, along those lines, my current practice motto is that you are only as good as your mental image.    

[birba]

After I had my last operation and couldn't get to the piano that often, I tried the Gieseking leimer method on a very easy piece.  Siloti's arrangement of the swan.  It did take quite a bit of time, but it worked and I would say it's fullproof.  When I started the Liszt Benediction, though, it hampered me, in a way.  I was too hepped up on the memory - I was "note bound".  Couldn't get beyond it. And I just wasn't getting it.   I put it away for a month, and yesterday when I took it up again, it was a miracle.  BUT, I played WITH the music.  And I even decided to put it in my little concert next month.  So, for me, this method helps, but I don't think I'm that gifted to use it in the way G.L. explained it.  I just don't have that extreme concentration it requires.  I don't know how m1469 can just go through mentally the pieces.  I do that when I'm in bed at night.  But I think I would just fall asleep if I did it during the day.  Wierd. 

[littletune]

I learned I can sometimes do some things better than I think I do. I wanted to practice the Etude that I have for my exam cause I'm not so very great at playing it yet... so I was sitting at the piano and I saw I don't have the sheet music for it but I didn't feel like getting up and looking for it so I just started playing and I could play all of it without the sheet music (even though I thought I still needed to look at it), and then I started practicing it with the metronome, because my teacher said I have to play it faster... and she said I should play at 72... and I thought oh nooo that's sooo fast... I'll just start first with 66 and then afer awhile I'll start playing it faster... but I have a new metronome and I didn't know exactly what I had to look at, so I was looking at the wrong thing... and I thought it was on 66 but it was really on 72!  and after a few times I could play it without mistakes, and then i thought oh now I can start playing it faster and I realized I was looking at the wrong thing and that I was already playing it as fast as my teacher said I should!!  so that was funny   

[birba]

I think it was Arrau who said once it's like racing horses.  Push the speed OVER the limit, and when it's comfortable, bring it down to it's actual speed and it's a breeze.

[m1469]

After I had my last operation and couldn't get to the piano that often, I tried the Gieseking leimer method on a very easy piece.  Siloti's arrangement of the swan.  It did take quite a bit of time, but it worked and I would say it's fullproof.  When I started the Liszt Benediction, though, it hampered me, in a way.  I was too hepped up on the memory - I was "note bound".  Couldn't get beyond it. And I just wasn't getting it.   I put it away for a month, and yesterday when I took it up again, it was a miracle.  BUT, I played WITH the music.  And I even decided to put it in my little concert next month.  So, for me, this method helps, but I don't think I'm that gifted to use it in the way G.L. explained it.  I just don't have that extreme concentration it requires.  I don't know how m1469 can just go through mentally the pieces.  I do that when I'm in bed at night.  But I think I would just fall asleep if I did it during the day.  Wierd.  

Well, I read and somewhat "studied" Gieseking's book about 10 years ago, by now, and it was like rocket science to me at the time.  I liked the concept, but I really hadn't any idea how to enact it and so at some point, I put it away.  I haven't read it or looked at that particular book for ... well, maybe ever since then, but about 3+ years ago I started using mental practice "again," after reading Bernhard and having a little help from somebody with formulating a better idea on what I'm trying to acheive.  That was very helpful on many levels, but something was still missing for me.  

It's just been within the last month (or however long it's been) since I was reminded of it here in this thread, that I really started using it again, or perhaps making an effort to deepen my effort, and this time around it's an entirely different beast than ever before.  Yes, the best results come from extreme and very deep focus, and I've found it takes firstly, a huge amount of calm thought and patience to even find that "space" internally, but it also seems to mean that I can hardly handle the external sounds of even cars passing, my husband milling about the house, or even the smallest sounds, etc..  Perhaps I am getting better with that, but sometimes I have been sitting at the piano while plugging my ears as tightly as I possibly can with my hands (even if I am not just trying to imagine the sound itself, per se, at that time).  All of this comes from an extreme desire, though, too!  Everything is cultivated from the desire to cultivate it, and then in understanding the skills which aid along the way.  It's loads and loads of effort though, and I don't think there is anything about what I am doing that doesn't involve the decision to do it and put in the effort!

On top of that, though, what my mental imaging involves now are layers of information that I've collected from "regular" practice (involving the obssessive study of information my teachers have passed along to me), and some of that has very recently become much more clear to me.  The main point being that I think mental practice is most useful after certain aspects of playing are very clearly defined, and I would assume that this is probably part of Gieseking's assumption in somebody picking up the book, and part of why I couldn't wrap myself around it more fully at that time in my life.  

I can tell, though, that what I am doing now --though a big improvement for me-- is just the very tip.

[wolfverine]

I've been thinking for the past few months on how to improve my skills. I've have tried to practice as much as I could but noticed that every time I sit in front of my piano I started to lose my focus. Why is it so? I have noticed that improving my skills would not require anything much, it just needs the passion. The passion to play and be happy with what you do and rest just follows.

[m1469]

Well, for the past couple of days I've been trying to wrap my head around how many pieces I've got going, which for me is a lot and actually a little bit epic, even.  And, I've been creating strategies and still kind of in a trial and error phase with some of it, learning exactly what it all takes.  I can clearly see, though, that I'm going to have to go way deep.  Deeper than ever.  So, I might have to disappear a little bit.  My goal is to post 7 etudes, memorized and at least half tempo in a tiny bit over a week.  I can say, if I pull that off, I don't know who I will be if I do.  I mean, if I actually do, I'll probably feel fairly normal and will be a little confused, and probably pretty tired, but from here, I don't know *exactly* how ... or maybe just IF, I can do it.  But, as I've said, if I go down, I'm goin' down in flames.

So, on top of that, I need to start the others at least a little, because they are "due" somewhat shortly thereafter ... and then, I mustn't neglect my other pieces, either.  So, what I'll say to myself right now is that this is going to be a learning experience and hopefully something that will feel like it was worth the effort!  And, *raises glass* ... here's to discovering new things!

[m1469]

Okay, I've made now a new plan!  Duh!  It's going to be ridiculous for me, but still, now I can wrap my head around at least one step.  So, I'm alive and kicking  .  I haven't started to actually activate the plan yet though ...  :- ... *off to do so*

[m1469]

Well, I just have to say it!  This week the Chopin Etudes have been all-consuming, and it seemed for a little bit that I might actually make my goal of 7 etudes by Monday, but now I don't think I will.  I still have loads of work to do, but I'm hitting a little bit of a strange place in that, with Op. 25 no. 6, for example, I just can't take any more of it today.  I just can't.  So, I'm saving tasks for tomorrow.

What is strange, though, is that my hands feel different on the piano, I can tell there is something more expressive about my playing, my whole perception is different and changing, and I'm exhausted as though I've been working really hard all week (and I remember working really hard), but it's like I don't know if I've been working at all or if anything is *actually* changing!  But, I know that something is.  It's just that so much of it sounds SO bad -- especially this process of trying to record and having to come to terms with what it ACTUALLY sounds like, and not just my concept of what it SHOULD sound like!  This is a strange place to be.

Well, I think that realistically, I'm going to have to allow myself to make recordings through next week.  I ended up needing to prioritize just to get myself mentally sorted out, and now Op. 25 no. 6 and Op. 10 no 8 are my biggest priorities (in that order) to try to have recorded by Monday ... and then Op. 25 no. 10, and we'll have to see about Op. 25 no 9 and Op 10 no 2.  Overall, if I can wrap my head around it, I think that *something* must be improving ... I mean, even if I don't make my Monday goal, to actually memorize the others by the end of next week is something that I don't think I could have done three months ago.  :-

*walks around*

[m1469]

Something *is* changing.  There's still lots to have change, though, too .

[m1469]

Well, I am choosing to be happy about one thing that happened in my practicing just a bit ago, in that I accidentally played the "wrong" finger on a note in a piece, and was able to on the spur of the moment make a decision, use a different and instantly "planned out" fingering for the rest of the figuration, without skipping a beat or a note.  Right now, I'm going to tell myself that's a little victory as I don't know that I've done that in quite the same way before.

[landru]

I LEARNED HOW TO FLUTTER PEDAL! 

I have been practicing Mendelssohn's Song w/o Words op. 102 no. 4 (Sighing Wind) and I've got it up to speed. The problem has been the pedaling. The score I've been using has very broad pedal markings - sometimes over obvious harmonic changes. This leads to horrible overtones/muddiness. And even following the harmonic changes was a problem in that the harmonies with the melodies were somewhat chromatic - again muddiness/echo-i-ness. But using less pedal makes the sound very dry and gappy (the left hand cannot be done with strict finger legato). I couldn't make the piece sound good at all.

As I was practicing I just fell into a way of pressing and releasing the damper pedal very quickly - between halfway down to almost all the way up - and OMG the sound quality just sang! I had never heard my playing sound so good if I do say so myself!

[m1469]

If 'time' is your measurement of life, you will inevitably end up with regrets.


Statistics and chance do not govern originality and purpose.

[m1469]

hahah .... I accidentally drooled ever so slightly while I was just playing Rachmaninov  :-

[nanabush]

I learned that my dog likes creepy music!  I was trying bits from Gaspard de la Nuit (purely for fun, I'm not learning any of these seriously; mostly just playing the really 'spooky' bits from Scarbo), and he cuddles by my feet.

On a more serious note.  I actually feel like I can play chromatic passages, and flight of the bumblebee is extremely overrated!!  Learned this from l'Etude Pour les Degrees Chromatiques after finally knocking some sense into my left hand.

I also learned it's important to practice what people consider 'easy' scales.  I went back and practiced my C major, G major, D major, etc, formula patterns after having not played them for a long time.  It's nice going back to those and trying to increase tempo or add some articulations to them.  A non-stressful way to work on your tone/touch/whatever people call it.

[brogers70]

  Alberti bass, she showed me, was a levered movement of not side-to-side as I always played it, but front to back rocking with the wrist moving up and down to facilitate the fingers.  I found that Alberti bass was effortless this way.
   

cmg, if you're still around, I'd love to hear you describe that Alberti bass motion in more detail.

[lostinidlewonder]

I hate practicing in the early morning during winter time. They need to invent a piano with heated keys.

[akasimone]

Woooahhh.  My mind is literally blown.  I just read this entire thread.  (It took like two hours haha.)

I just want to thank everyone for all of these insightful posts.  You've really motivated me to think about my practicing in hundreds of different ways.  And your dedication is really inspiring.  (Also, some of your thoughts are incredibly interesting from a psychological point of view--that's my field and what I'm going to grad school for, so  )

I guess I should also say... hi   I troll this forum pretty often but hardly ever post.  Which makes me sound a little parasitic, but it's more out of an honest feeling that I often have little to contribute, rather than a genuine desire to leech off of fellow humans   Anyway, I'm attempting to be my own teacher for a while (end of undergrad = end of my parents paying for things like piano lessons).  So maybe I will be more interactive in the future as I discover what works for me. 

But, okay, in the spirit of symbiosis, here's something I often try to think about when I'm playing.  It has a bit of a back-story if you haven't studied psychology... hopefully I remember how to explain it right...

There's this cool trick they do in some psych/neuro classes where you have a person sit with one hand under the table, and you stroke the hand with a feather while also making the same exact motion on the table with another feather.  After the subject watches this for half a minute or so (they can only see the table from their position, right?) you stop stroking the hand but continue stroking the table.  If you do it right, they actually continue to perceive the tactile sensation on their hand, as if they are actually feeling the feather stroke the table.  They've associated the visual cue (feather on table) with the tactile cue (other feather on their hand), and it's as if their body image--their mental conception of their body--has expanded to include the table.  Like, the mind has temporarily sort of reached out and engulfed the table, made it part of the body image, sense-space.

So anyway, this is what I imagine must happen with the piano.  My mind has to expand over the instrument so I can know it as well as my own arms and legs--first the keyboard, so I feel where all the notes are, and then gradually the pedals and all the rest of it, so that I can feel exactly what motion is necessary for any kind of nuanced sound.

Hm.  Hopefully that makes some kind of sense and contributes something to this thread in return for all the ideas you guys just gave me 

[m1469]

wow, that's very impressive if you seriously read the entire thread!

I appreciate your idea with the feather, and though I think I 'get' the correlation between that and the piano, I'm not sure I see how it directly translates except for by imagination, since in your example with the feather there was first a visual and kinesthetic stimulation that led a person to being in sympathy with the table.  In other words, how does a person, in your opinion, get there with the piano while playing just like they do any other day?  The feather trick was something out of the ordinary for a person, not just a mental shift (though I see how it's *possible" that perhaps all that's needed is a mental shift, but still).

Glad you piped in .

[m1469]

Irrelevance to whether there is reason or not to continue, there is always a plethora of very logical reasons to quit.

[akasimone]

I think I 'get' the correlation between that and the piano, I'm not sure I see how it directly translates except for by imagination,

Well, admittedly, it may be mostly my imagination or, in other words, just a kind of metaphor for what actually haappens at the piano.  (In which case  I might refer you to Albus Dumbledore--"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on Earth should that mean that it is not real?" )

since in your example with the feather there was first a visual and kinesthetic stimulation that led a person to being in sympathy with the table.  In other words, how does a person, in your opinion, get there with the piano while playing just like they do any other day?  The feather trick was something out of the ordinary for a person, not just a mental shift (though I see how it's *possible" that perhaps all that's needed is a mental shift, but still).

Well, the feather trick, I think, involves a very temporary mental shift. I see it as a demonstration of how malleable perception can be. So I guess what I'm suggesting is that practice is sort of an extension of that; the original experiment works through the association of visual and tactile cues in the initial stage, and practicing involves doing just that, that is, associating the visual cue of the keyboard  (and indirectly, the more conceptual cue of the notes on the page) with the tactile/proprioceptive cues of actually playing the notes, in order to deepen the awareness of how the piano fits into your spatial map--until you become almost as aware of the instrument as you are of your own limbs. By that I mean, if you were asked to touch your right knee, you could pretty easily do it with your eyes closed, and you wouldn't have to calculate the distance and direction before moving your hand, you'd just do it. My goal is to make playing the instrument as intuitive as that. (A key difference of course is that your knees have actual proprioceptive neurons in them and the piano does not, so it will never be quite the same.)

I just realized it sounds like I want to learn to play mindlessly, which wasn't my aim... I think another level of conceptual thinking is also important. As an analogy, we all have the kind of proprioception I mentioned, but not all of us make art of it like a ballerina does.

wow, that's very impressive if you seriously read the entire thread!

Yeah, I have an addictive personality, so... :p

[m1469]

Ok, thanks for the thoughts, akasimone.  I will read them through again and consider it at the piano, too .  Cheers!

[akasimone]

Also, today I learned that I should probably consider getting a tattoo across the back of my hand, reading:  "LEAD FEET DO NOT MAKE UP FOR WOODEN FINGERS"

(I need to let up on the pedal a little.  Okay.  A lot.  It's not a crutch.)

[m1469]

Even if you become amazing, even if you become fantastic, the best you can ever get is amazing and fantastic amidst a sea of other amazing and fantastic players.  

Okay, and maybe you will also touch somebody ...

[countrymath]

Today i finished 2 pages of a cramer etude and one Schubert Impromptu.

Im calling it a day

[pianisten1989]

I learned that it's a stupid idea to start the practise session at 8 in the morning, and to end it 2 in the night....

[m1469]

*whispers* Sometimes I practice a piece in a very secret way, it's my way (but, for sure, it does include my training with my teachers), and it's always WAY different than I think the world thinks the piece is supposed to sound.  And, then I listen to it, and it's like the piece is telling a story, and it tells me what to say - and, if I actually listen to it every time, I don't think I'd ever play the same piece the same way twice.  Even though the story has the same text each time, it's like you find a hidden character ... you know, just behind that tree ... when you thought, originally, that the story was about one main character and that distracted you from seeing the little dude.

And, I secretly hope that one day I'll play it that way - well, I mean, that one day that 'way' will be trained and ripe and ready, and I secretly want that way to change everybody's mind  

[idreamofpiano]

i also realized that if i kept a jounral of my practice time it would help. i keep a blog of the song i'm learning now. you could use live jornal.com or eblogger.....both are free and btw....this kind of practicing helps !!!! it helps you see where you need to approve and apply the skills that you learned that day (= totally agree !!! Good luck with your practice journal.

[m1469]

It's about the flow; notes just (help to) provide a path.

[hastur]

That I missed practicing the piano! I can't wait to get some times booked with my new teacher

[akasimone]

I learned that I sound good!  Not good enough, obviously, but better than a week ago, or two weeks ago! 

I had a looonnnngggg day in the lab yesterday, so my attention span was pretty shot by the end; I managed to stay focused for at least few minutes on each piece, so I did work out a couple of small kinks, but then I just... played, and listened.  I still have work to do but it was nice to realize that for the most part I sounded not awful

So I guess most of that time shouldn't *really* count as practice, but it was a nice morale-booster to take a minute to note progress made rather than how far I have to go.  Twice as motivated to practice effectively today

[m1469]

I need to find a whole 'nother level.

[countrymath]

Today I learned that I need/want to practice more blues and less classical.

[m1469]

Lately I've been doing very focused, HS practice more than I have maybe ever done before.  I am especially working to bring my LH/side up another level (or few  ), and I am realizing something that is pretty fundamental, but in a deeper way than before, that HS practice and really developing independence between hands is key (at least for me right now) to overall improvement.  It's like an octopus who can think independently with each of his arms.  The more we can do that, the freer we are, which means to me that we are feeling motions and shapes, being able to really comprehend each hand separately, and being able to listen to them and demand from them, individually, and then in ensemble.  I've got quite a ways to go with this, but I'm happy for this deeper time with it.

[jollisg]

One thing I've practiced today is to stay relaxed in some passages in Chopins Fantasie-Impromptu, like those in measures 7-8 and 11-12..

[hastur]

My piano stand finally arrived yesterday, so today is the first day in a long long time that I've had the opportunity of practicing properly. I quite quickly discovered while doing Hanon #1 with the metronome that my left hand finger strength and stamina is faaaaaar behind that of my right hand.

Taking a break now to recuperate, then I'll be back at it again, I suppose I should put in more practice time with my left hand to even them out a bit.

[hastur]

Apparently, if you haven't done a lot of finger exercises before, Hanons will give you quite the sore wrists, hehe. Trying to figure out a good way of stretching them.

[m1469]

Singing is my third hand.

[m1469]

My perspective -what I view and experience as myself- needs to be deeply and completely (in a kind of absolute sense) transformed.  I need to allow this transformation to occur.  It feels unknown, yet I know -not just believe- it's necessary.

Step #1 -  ??  My hunch is that it's got something to do with what I identify with, and this needing a change at the base.  Yikes  .

[m1469]

When it comes to the 4th and 5th fingers, just because the term "independence" can be physiologically argued over, doesn't mean these fingers can't be consciously trained (or that they *should* go untrained).  Physiological independence and musical 'training' are not the same thing.

[goldentone]

Lately I've been doing very focused, HS practice more than I have maybe ever done before.  I am especially working to bring my LH/side up another level (or few  ), and I am realizing something that is pretty fundamental, but in a deeper way than before, that HS practice and really developing independence between hands is key (at least for me right now) to overall improvement.  It's like an octopus who can think independently with each of his arms.  The more we can do that, the freer we are, which means to me that we are feeling motions and shapes, being able to really comprehend each hand separately, and being able to listen to them and demand from them, individually, and then in ensemble.  I've got quite a ways to go with this, but I'm happy for this deeper time with it.

Yes.  I think in terms of our concentrative capacity.  The poorer our technique, the more concentration we must give to it, and less to making music.  And as our technique improves, we are that much freer to make music.  And the independence of the hands that you discuss would be another territory to reclaim for the increase of our freedom.

I suppose the goal is for our technique to become unconscious.

[pmwpmw]

I've just had an insight in to anger!  Not an emotion I associate with piano practice normally. But I'm trying to get the Poulenc Toccata learnt for a recial on 4th september and it's not going well. I was angry with the piece a few days ago. It is hard, but not as hard as some of the Chopin and Rachmaninov I play. So why wouldn't it speed up without derailing? I started to practice with more force - OK if you not angry I suppose.
I think what I now realise is that a plant will only grow at a certain speed. You have to back off and accept that it may not be ready, but keep going anyway so as to have it for a later concert (I only advertise the composers, not the pieces, so I can decide at the last minute). Now I have become very gentle with the piece, savouring all its little points as I go along. I am marking sections with a 'score' of the metronome stting I can play it to. The full lick is 160 and I am on about half that, even less on the last page! Anger doesn't pay. PW