How to improve technicals

[quacker]

Hi, my teacher pushed me hard to sit for exams(skipping a grade or two in a year). as a result, my technicals are still not well developed... i find that my fingers are not strong enough, i can't play fast passages well, etc... i took an exam once and the examiner remarked on the result sheet "You play with sensitivity and understanding of style but the technical demands are not always well yet." can you advice me on this? how do i fix this problem? thanks..

[cloches_de_geneve]

Brahms 51 Excercises, Liszt Excercises, Scales & Apreggios, and a few Chopin Etudes for fun.

[term]

hmm why?
I think you don't necessarily need to to extra etudes.
If you ask how to improve technique, the simple answer is: just practise your piece. And practise more, and more...until you have it the way you want. Don't give up early.
That's how everybody does it^^

[counterpoint]

To improve technicals means optimizing movements (of finger/hand/arm/body).
In most cases, movements are too big, too jagged and you need too much effort to do easy things.

I don't think, that it's a lack of power - but a wrong use of the power (and too much tension which works against your playing).

[quacker]

Thank you for the suggestions. i thought of doing more Hanon and Czerny.. will that help too?

[counterpoint]

Thank you for the suggestions. i thought of doing more Hanon and Czerny.. will that help too?

It will help to play Hanon and Czerny (and pieces, that are similar to them) better.

It depends on what you are playing otherwise.

[rc]

I was in the same boat once, I could handle slower pieces, make 'em juicy and enjoyable, but I was sloppy as soon as speed was needed.  I knew it and I hated it.  The solution was simple, I learned more speedy pieces and soon developed better control.  That's a reason why I like learning easy classical sonatas like early Haydn - to learn the whole sonata you get to do both fast and slow.

Counterpoint is spot on, it's all about economy of motion.

I'd like to add that there comes a point where you have to stop thinking mechanically and entrust control over the details of movement to your subconscious.  After you've figured out how to play something at speed, and drilled the movements, you should be able to forget about what your hands and fingers are doing and instead put your focus on the music...  and to ALWAYS be listening carefully - the more picky your ear is, the more you will not accept sloppiness from yourself.

...It's a bit of a trap I sometimes fall into, that I keep thinking mechanically after I already know how to do it.  Obvious as it seems, heh, I sometimes wind up fixing things that aren't broken (completely screwing myself up!).

I find this to be especially a problem with technical exercises like hanon, scales, arpeggios, etc.  Because there isn't much music there, the focus is more succeptible to wind up overly mechanical.  I don't think they're terrible or anything, but I find learning through actual music preferrable, because there's more to learn...  When you have a passage of music you learn all the little nuances that give it character, and those nuances are technique as well.  You can learn these things through hanon and scalework as well, but it's not so natural as in a piece of music.

[gonzalo]

You should drop ALL YOUR REPERTORY and only play Hanon and Pischna exercises until you're a virtuoso pianist.

[pita bread]

Was that supposed to be remotely funny?

[rc]

No need to be snide, but I see your point - Imagine if some poor beginner came in, not knowing any better,  and took the 'advice' seriously and really DID drop music to learn only Hanon and Pischna!

 

[verywellmister]

Rachmaninoff Prelude in C minor, Op.23 no.7

[quacker]

thanks for the really helpful suggestions!!  by the way, what is Pischna exercises? i've never heard of them..

any other suggestions are most welcome..

quacker...