Piece analysis? [Bob project]

[Bob]

How much do you analyze the piece you're working on?

How much can you "see" just by looking at the piece?  For example, while sight-reading are you able to name all the chords/inversions?

[bernhard]

Exhaustively.

These days I delay going to the piano a lot (I was not always like that). This means that I will work on the score far more time than actually at the piano. By the time I actually get to play a piece, it is often memorised (not always though).

Yes, I can name all the chords, progressions, intervals,  etc. When I first started doing this it took a while, but now it is second nature. It followed the smae kind of progression as learning a second language. Now I am quite fluent on it all.

I often liken the process to making a film. Just like the actual filming is usually quick, so should the learning of piece at the piano be. In a film, the director will do a lot of planning, all the scenes will be done in story boards first, etc. The scenes will be filmed not in sequence but according to production constraints. So careful planning is mandatory.

I consider analysis the planning stage. If you do it right, learning/practising the piece at the piano will be quick and enjoyable.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Daevren]

I have to try hard but I can do a(n) (awkward) Schenkerian analysis.

 

[glamfolk]

yes, exhaustively.  When i was 18, I took a few years off from reading music and toured around with rock and blues bands.  (Contrary to the mythology surrounding what happens on a band bus, we mostly sat around talking about music theory, history, and polyrhythms, and once in a while playing chess.  Weird?  Probably.) When I got off the road and decided to try teaching full time, I was floored to find out that I could sightread 10 times better than when I was a student, and much of the mystery behind those "stuffy, complicated" classical pieces was gone, after years of not even looking at a piece of written music.    That was the secret!  Now I make a complete chart of all the chord changes in each new piece I (and my students, too) try.  I think it's indespensible, and it cuts the learning time of a piece by quite a bit.  

Has anyone seen those classical fake books?

[Bob]

What do you think about when you see a piece of music?

Are you seeing or hearing chords, individual notes?  Are you focusing on your hand position or relaxing to make it easier?  Are you focusing on keeping up with the metronome if the tempo is beyond your capabilities? etc etc etc...

What do you focus on while playing?

And, what should you focus on?  If you've drilled the notes into your hands so you can play without any attention, should you still be thinking about individual notes and chords (on that level)?

[bernhard]

What do you think about when you see a piece of music?

Are you seeing or hearing chords, individual notes?  Are you focusing on your hand position or relaxing to make it easier?  Are you focusing on keeping up with the metronome if the tempo is beyond your capabilities? etc etc etc...

What do you focus on while playing?

And, what should you focus on?  If you've drilled the notes into your hands so you can play without any attention, should you still be thinking about individual notes and chords (on that level)?

It will depend on the piece, and on the stage you are at, if it is the first time you see the piece or if you know it well and have already performed it a number of times.

There is no end of study for a really great piece. Such pieces will have many levels and you may well explore it for the rest of your life. Most of the works of the great composers fall into this category (which is why they are referred to as “great”).

So all that you mentioned will be in focus, but in different stages. In the very beginning individual notes and chords will be paramount. Then you go through a process I call “clustering” where your chunks of information – which in the beginning were single notes – become bars, then passages, and finally the whole piece.

Once you can play the piece well, you will focus not on the notes and chords anymore (these should be played with your unconscious). Your conscious mind will be directed towards “shaping” the music. I like the idea of “sculpting sound”. You will be considering the architecture of the piece, the way it is built, the phrasing, the balance between the several parts, voices. Individual notes at this stage must of course be perfect, but their individuality has been completely transcended. Think of a cake: The milk, eggs, butter sugar must of course be there and be of the greatest quality. But once it comes out of the oven, it is the cake that matters, the individual ingredients will not be recognisable anymore.

Best wishes
Bernhard.