What's your learning style?

[mycrabface]

How would you attempt a piece? Do you start immediately by playing with both hands, or do you use one hand first?

[counterpoint]

Since I ever can think, I learned all pieces with both hands together from the beginning - in slow tempo of course. I have to hear the complete chords to understand the music. Only if there are tremendous technical difficulties, I practise special parts with hands separate. But then there is often a problem with fingering: some fingerings work well when played hands separate, but they don't work when played both hands together.

[danny elfboy]

How would you attempt a piece? Do you start immediately by playing with both hands, or do you use one hand first?

It all boils down to a common human limitation: you can't be conscious of two things at the same time. This applies to many things. For example you can both be conscious of basic motion and reading and musical expressivity so one of these things must becomes automatic. This is a case for creating a good foundation away from music so that when music and more demanding pieces are approached the foundation, the basic form and the basic motions are all automatic.

With your hands it's the same thing. Also notice that difference hands are controlled by different areas of the brain.

Learning hand together from the beginning means that you are switching your conscious focus on one and not the other. Also because of the same reason if you do mistakes or practice wrong coordination with hands together it will be very hard to recover from that but with hand separate you can make mistake and correct them easily or unlearn a previously unefficient coordination. It's easier to play with natural and effortless coordination (while having all the mind focusing on music making and expressivity) when you practice on hands separately (focus on just one at a time) and then harmoniously fuse them together while maintaining their melodic independency than focusing 100% on both (impossible) by playing together from the beginning.

[pianogeek_cz]

That's a tricky question.

It really depends on your compendium of technique (disambiguation: technique as your ability to play given figurations/passages straight away AND as the motoric abilities - simply put, how comfortable you are with the keyboard - that determine how fast you'll be able to learn the given figuration/passage).

For example, if I see Alberti bass patterns, there's no need for me to learn them separately, because all I need to master this specific part is just learn the notes, not the principles of motions that are supposed to be used - I already have these principles ingrained.

Even simpler with a major scale somewhere in the piece: I just need to know where it starts, where it ends and check if the standard fingering is applicable to these endpoints. There's no need anymore to work on the scale in between, again, it's ingrained.

This is one category of technical skills: passages that you can play straight away. There's no point in intensive HS work once both hands are working in a way you've already mastered before. (Of course, for memorization, I play through the passage a few times HS, but that's a matter of two minutes.)

The next category would be, say, a tough RH run with an easy LH accompaniment. (Prokofiev, Vision Fugitive no. 2, for example.) This is a situation where, although I know how to do RH runs as far as the theoretical principles of wrist and finger work are concerned, I need to figure out the motions and fingerings for this specific run separately. It won't take that long, though - if I work consistently, the run could be nailed after two or three practice sessions. The point is - I've done RH runs quite a few times in the past, so I already know what's necessary to master one, but this is a new case, so it needs separate attention. Quite unlike the Alberti bass, which, motion-wise, will be roughly the same every time it appears. This is a place where HS work is indeed very wise to do, since it will enable you to focus on the problem (contrary to category one, there now -is- a problem) without having to worry about the other hand. The key word here is FOCUS. Can't stress that enough. Just plow through your deposit of practice tricks and you'll get there, eventually.

The third category includes problems which I haven't enocuntered before, don't know how to tackle and generally have no clue as to how am I supposed to go about learning this. You need to figure out the very basic principles which direct the motion patterns which, in turn, you need to apply to this specific place. This is a place where a teacher is more or less necessary to show you the correct principles. (Unless you actually enjoy going by trial and error, which, unless you're reeeeally lucky, can take literally ages.) An example I've countered: the coda of Chopin's first Ballade. The freaking figuration took months to learn, and even now it's not always error-free. Without HS and veeeery slow-motion practice, technical problems of this calibre are moslty impossible. However, the good news is that as soon as you master one passage like that, then the specific technique moves over to category two.

So, to answer your question: as long as you can't play HS right away, do HS. If the score requires you to do more than category one technique, then those passages are to be worked on HS. If you attempt category two or three passages HT right away, not only will you not learn them, but you'll definitely mess up the other hand's part, resulting in a painful error-eliminating process.

The Backhaus quote: "I only practice the right notes". If you make errors HT, then there's no point pushing on and hoping it will work out somehow. Just go HS and do it without errors. At a sufficiently slow speed, HS is always manageable error-free, once you are in category two.

[theodore]

When I see a piece for the first time it is important that I try to see both the sheet music and the keyboard without glancing back and forth. So I try to posture myrself a bit further from the keyboard than I normally sit.

Then I do a soft fingering of the notes with both hands and do it slowly and calmly. Play the notes at more than one half the tempo and think harmonically of chords and of arpeggios id they are present. I try  not to read note by note; but read in larger chunks.

My best results are in reading from the bottom upwards; bass clef first then have your eyes skim upwards to the right hand treble notes.

The above works for me…

Ted

[knabe31]

I guess as in most things it depends on the individual and perhaps the teachers instructions. I find that I always start with HS. This provides the opportunity for me to study each hand fingering, speed, etc... before moving on to a slow tempo HT. Perhaps this is more of a beginner method but, I find that it has worked very well for me and especially with some pieces that may have been beyond my ability otherwise. Work HS for as long as it takes to understand each hand then start to put it all together.   

[rc]

hmmmm... I think I typically wind up memorizing the thing right off the bat, get the section fleshed out, then work on the details.

Lately I've been trying to improve my sightreading, so I've got this 'sightread it' phase.  I wind up memorizing anyhow after a few runs.  My strength has become a crutch.

[pianistimo]

i have the opposite problem. i have to memorize it from the beginning - but have no trouble sightreading a piece forever. 
 
since i got this casio - i'm trying to figure out how to do a 'music minus one' and program the thing to play back leroy anderson's pc (secondo).  once i can do that - i will be a self-contained entity that can open up shop on the street.

as i see it - whatever your learning style - just do it.  that's the problem is getting started (for me at least).  one thing leading to another is alright with me.  i can get very sidetracked.  but, who cares. 

[hellfire]

What I do to approach a piece, is starting with both hands. I think that saves a lot of effort because once you learn it , that's it    . When I used to work starting with separated hands and then trying to put them together, it was like learning the piece 3 times. And I also wasn't too expressing because what you hear with each hand separate isn't what you get when you combine them. That holds even for one hand practice(although that's very acceptable if you haven't heard what you are playing , or if it is very difficult and you want to learn the right hand thorough and then try the left hand).

I think that it's important that I have written about how to approach a piece. When you are up against technical difficulties, it's true that you have to exercise each hand separately and then put them together again. But that's after you have memorised the piece and learned to play it with both hands.(My first post  )

[m]

My learning style is simple.

First day, for the first time I sightread entire piece, then play it twice or three times more from the beginning to the end, but already with stops, paying attention to the hard spots.
Second day I do the same, carefully analyzing whole logic of the piece, its entire structure and any details I can grasp, hands separately if needed.
Third day I sightread it through again, and then start memorizing. I would not go  to the second page until I know the first, and so on for about 3-4 hours.
Next day I start from the point I left the last day and do the same (I don't get back to what I have learned yesterday, yet).
After I got to the end of the piece, certainly I've already forgot what was in the beginning, so I run through the piece again, exactly the same way.
The third time is the last one--I know the piece from memory, and that's where the whole work on the piece starts.

I don't have an exceptional memory and I am pretty lazy, so I don't learn very fast, but usually this way it takes me about a week at the most, to learn a very hard and lengthy piece (something like Liszt Sonata, for example).
The longest I remember was Rachmaninov 3rd Concerto 2nd and 3rd movements. It took me exactly two weeks to bring it to the first lesson playing from memory.
I was practicing 9 hours a day every day.

 
The quickest I remember was before a competition, when my teacher called me at 2 PM, asking to bring a complete Schumann Concerto TOMORROW. Needless to say, I never saw even one note of it before.
And you know, in Russia if the teacher tells you to bring a piece, it means it should be from memory, in tempo, with teacher's accompaniment, and so on.  

I remember getting a full bag of sandwiches and practicing from 3PM till 6AM straight. And what do you think, next day at 4pm--my lesson time--I was playing entire Schumann concerto from memory.
I stil remember after the lesson my teacher told me: "Good for you, but you know... on a second thought the Tchaikowsky 1st probably would be a better fit for you"

Since then I never even opened Schumann Concerto score

[tds]

me only a simple, forgiven human being. my learning style is the usual repetition of "focus- tired-focus-tired" cyclic progression. thank you. tds

[m]

me only a simple, forgiven human being. my learning style is the usual repetition of "focus- tired-focus-tired" cyclic progression. thank you. tds

Ooops, was I little over the top?

[tds]

Ooops, was I little over the top?

honestly, i havent read it all, but it surely is inspiring, like many of your achievements, marik.

btw, what do you think of my usual repetition of "focus- tired-focus-tired" cyclic progression? can i improve on that?

cheers, tds

[mycrabface]

It all boils down to a common human limitation: you can't be conscious of two things at the same time.

Men...

[danny elfboy]

Men...

Men?

[ail]

Seems to be common nowadays to say that one advantage of women over men is that they can 'do' two things at the same time. I've heard quite a few of them bragging about that.

Alex

[danny elfboy]

Seems to be common nowadays to say that one advantage of women over men is that they can 'do' two things at the same time. I've heard quite a few of them bragging about that.

Alex

But I didn't say you can't do two things at the same time.
In fact you can do many things at the same time.
But we can do many things at the same time because only one remains conscious the others are done at a subconscious level.

You can play a piece on the piano and chat with a friend in the meantime but it means that the piano playing has become automatic and fingers are moving by memory.

If you have headache and you focus on chatting or watching a movie, as long as you can make the other action conscious, the headache becomes unconscious and you don't feel it. If someone is listening to dark metal at load volume and from the street comes an unbereable noise of drills and diggers, providing you can make the action of reading a book conscious you won't absolutely be conscious of the noises anymore.

Now if suddenly you become aware of the noises and focus on the noises your eyes keep reading but automatically and subconsciously, when you restore conscious control on reading you notice you've proceed on reading but didn't really understand or assimilated what you read.

Playing is made of many things: pedaling, fingering, reading (sometimes), coordination, expressivity and there's no way around it they can be all conscious at the same time.
It means that no matter what some of them will be automatically ingrained and will work without our conscious.

We know what happens when the conscious is on the basic motions and coordination and slip off from music. On the other other basic coordination and motions can become automatic so that the conscious focus is on the music, on the quality of the sound, on the dynamics and expressivity.