hee hee... well, what a mess. Poor alb-d, I wonder what informations s/he can use out of this thread ?
No, if you read upward amelialw is suggesting that alb-d use a similar "method" as you are suggesting, and s/he is agreeing with you 
.
Along those lines, I will say that kevin, I can understand what you say, to some degree, about feeling like you have "missed out" on developing a technical foundation when you were first starting out; I did, too. So, to "remedy" the situation, in preparation for my first concert, I decided to spend the months before it in literally *at least* 2-3 hours a day in purely excercises and so on. I got really, fantastically good, actually -- at playing scales and certain exercises 
.
I still had big problems in my technique that I hadn't been able to solve until just recently, and I still had major gaps in my overall conceptualization about the piano that I also have not been able to get to the root at until just recently. Sometimes I could play quickly back then, but it was always hap-hazard and caused a lot of tension in my body. Basically I was a complete mess despite my time in the beloved exercises and, honestly, despite the fact that I had been unequivocally inspired during the years before that point, I got *completely* burned out ... go figure ? What a rip off !! 
Unfortunately, I think that being divorced from the literature CAUSES technique to be seen as an obstacle to musical expression. I am freaking out a little bit now because, well, I have never done Hanon and never intend to and also, I am never again going to spend hours in a week on mere exercises like Czerny and Brahms (unless I like the musical value 
) -- I am just realizing at this very moment that because of not spending the time in exercises that you are mentioning, I am obviously never going to reach my full musical potential since I just won't have the technique 
. I guess I will just have to settle for teaching instead 
.
And you boiled all of my thoughts down to :
Are you actually even reading my posts 
Anyway, I guess we'll just both have to find a way to get over it, eh ?
So, I think there is actually some merit to this statement above, IF that is what the individual needs at the precise time in order to mentally and physically cope with a given passage (I can think of one of my current challenges that I might benefit from this kind of thinking). But, to tell a person that they ought to spend the next ___ years studying scales and excerises for ___ amount of time everyday before they will be able to express themselves musically is just plain blind belief (been there, done that) and artistic murder as far as I am concerned. Personally, I am generally more motivated by the music.
Earlier you took the liberty of graciously letting us all know that there are not any good teachers in the world who would teach lit practice over exercise practice. That brought to mind a pannel discussion I once observed with Julliard, St. Petersburg and Moscow conservatory trained masters (all of whom have *definitely* gone the whole scales and exercises routines), answering questions on practice-methods. These guys hold teaching positions in University and well-known conservatory, and they balance their teaching out with performing careers as well. Their closing advice was as follows :
(I will paraphrase)
"And, kids, do yourselves a big favor and instead of spending hours in technical exercises, take the sections from your music and from pieces that you would like to play, that are particularly challenging, and use those as exercises."
I think that's interesting in light of your words of wisdom regarding how silly and wrong all teachers who think this way are. I am also quite curious as to how many people actually took their advice ? I am betting that most of them were too scared to divorce themselves from whatever regime they had set up with their teachers (and, I can understand this, too).
I appreciate your thoughts, kevin, because they have helped me to become more clear on mine. I guess eventually we will all just get over our bluddy selves since we are all going to die anyway ... LOL.
Cheers !
Seems like you've been personally offended by my posts. I'm sorry. When I said that there's no greater transgression against art, yaddah yaddah, I was thinking about my own years of experience in looking at pieces of music from a technical execution standpoint instead of an emotional standpoint--although I can see my statement was easily interpreted as an indictment of your approach. I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention.
IN all, it's hard for me to see what you're arguing against, since you seem to agree that it's important to have good scale technique, and scales are a good way to go about this. IF anything, it seems to me that we're approaching this discussion with opposite kinds of baggage: I am embittered by my lack of technical foundation, so I rail against the technique-through-the-rep philosophy... and it sounds like you found technique studies to be a force of burn-out in your musical life.
As for me, technical studies have been my savior. I thought for a long time that there would be some things that I would just never be able to do on the piano--some kinds of hand movements that I would never be able to execute, which would keep me from playing the music that I love. It is a terrible, tragic feeling. I've spent hours crying bitter tears over this sense of inadequacy--it didn't seem fair that some sort of logistic problem of moving my hands around should keep me from singing what I feel in my soul.
For the last year, I've been exploring tons of technical exercises. I've gone through the Hanon book entirely, I've practiced scales each day in a variety of forms, I've fiddled with Dochnanyi and a bunch of others that I can't think of off the top of my head. I found that the repetitive nature of the Hanon exercises helped me to concentrate on releasing tension everywhere in my body while I practiced... but most recently, I've abandoned following the books, because my understanding of the nature of how my body works to create the sounds I want is so much greater as a result of undertaking these studies, that I now make up all my own exercises. I can target exactly what my weaknesses are with the exercises I make up, and they are much more expedient than the technique books.
In the process of all this, my technique has dramatically improved. Now, if I find a technical obstacle in a piece of music, I have most often already explored it in-depth, and so I know exactly how to practice it because of my new-found knowledge about piano technique, which I gained only in this last year through all my exercise explorations.
Neither you nor I are advocates of mindless, blind and deaf piano practice, in exercises or anywhere! I have not stressed adequately enough in my posts that it is the interest and determination to explore technical exercises that made them so profitable for me.
It almost brings tears to my eyes to think about what the improvement I made means to me now--it means that I KNOW there are no obstacles I cannot overcome, there is NO MUSIC IN THE WORLD THAT I CANNOT LEARN TO PLAY--my musical imagination and my emotional investment is now the only question, NOT my hands. I feel that this is not at all because I am a talented pianist--on the contrary, I was a late starter and I'm a rather clumsy fellow--but I know that this is true for EVERYONE, and I feel it is a personal mission to help people who feel constrained by technical limitations to break those bonds.
Those bonds are too often reinforced by the innumerable voices that criticise technical study. I had teachers in college who advocated against technical study--and I trusted them because they were such technical gods--you know, the type that went to Curtis and played the Waldstein when they were 12 years old, that sort of thing. Well, I've come to realize that many of these phenomenal players probably never faced--or don't remember facing--the sort of challenges that I did, as a late starter. Perhaps they were just more naturally adept, as well. But it was only when I found a great artist-teacher that had been a late starter himself, that I learned that technical study was what unlocked his technical abilities--and it was only at this point--after college (and before grad school, thank goodness) that I began to look differently at technical studies.
It is excellent advice to study technically challenging passages from the literature--but if in order to accomplish them, you must work on abstractions--such as a scale, or a run, or a rotational figure--you've just moved back into technical exercise territory. Do whatever is most expedient! And I can only advise based on my own experience, which is that exploring technical studies and finding out what all the "hubbub" is about, is the way I found out what worked and what didn't--and why!
Nobody should ever feel like they won't ever have enough technique to be a great artist.
Topic: Building speed.. scales... etc.