Question for teachers - Learning difficult pieces

[dmc]

My nephew is about 11 or 12 and has been getting lessons for about 3 years or so.  He's got some ability which I hope he'll develop.  He' wants to learn the Chopin Heroic Polonaise (in A flat - Op 63 I think ?).  He's nowhere near that level yet but that hasn't stopped him from DL'ing the sheet music and fiddling with the piece.  I don't know what his teacher thinks about it.  Anyways I don't want to discourage him but at the same time when I was his age, I recall my teacher kind of scolding me for working on it before I was ready.  She wanted me to develop good sound habits before tackling that piece and felt it would be detrimental to try too soon. 

My question for the teachers here is this - what kind of pitfalls would a student be risking by working on a piece like this (or another one equally tough) at a very young age ?  I'd like to know this for the next time my nephew brings this up and communicate it to his parents (who will presumably discuss it with his teacher).  Thanks !

[pianistimo]

i'd see no reason to discuss it with anyone.  not his parents and not the teacher.  in fact, i'd consider it good sightreading experience if nothing else.  the fact he is motivated and interested in piano is much more advantageous than beating it out of him.  basically, piano will not kill you.  encourage it.

i'd just give him some of your own advice when you hear him practicing.  ask him how long the teacher wants him to play his assigned pieces and suggest that he always practice those first - and then what he likes.  and, to keep a journal of what the teacher has suggested to practice ON.  sometimes students get lazy and forget exactly what they were supposed to do.  when they have to tell someone (like parents or you) what they are supposed to work on - it forces them to verbalize what the teacher said.  and, hopefully think about it and practice it for the full practice time agreed upon.

then dessert. 

[dmc]

I agree with you.

I don't see how working on any difficult piece can be bad thing as long as its not being forced on the student and the expectations are realistic and fun.   I was just applying my own experience to his and  wondering as well what my teacher may have thinking when I got scolded for it.   Looking back I can't see what the problem would have been.  But having never been a teacher myself, I wondered if maybe there were dangers involved to a student's development or something.  Guess not.

Thanks !

[pianistimo]

in the past, i think too much force was exerted into the piano.  nowdays - we seem to pretty much agree that you're not going to get 'real' sound by forcing anything.  therefore - to hurt yourself at a piano would take an awful lot of pounding.  say - if you took the tempest sonata and went through it three times - breaking your fingers on those bass notes.  even then - he's a boy.  it would probably do nothing but make him feel invincible.  piano always did that for me - and i am a girl.  well, woman now - but you know what i mean.

the waldstein was never a suggestion by a teacher for me.  i just sat down and learned it.  then, people were amazed i could play it all the way through.  granted - it was a year and a half (or two) - but it wasn't out of my league.  there is nothing really out of anyone's league.  and, you may obtain great joy and satisfaction from various pieces. 

however, a teacher usually goes step-by-step and wouldn't introduce a harder technique before an easier one.  having a lot of sightread repertoire ahead of time will just mean that when it is introduced by the teacher - he'll already be familiar with it.

that's my opinion.  i'm sure that wasting time could be another factor - if one doesn't practice their lesson and only plays what they like.  that's where parents and close friends or relative come in.  you just ask questions about what they are learning and playing and stay on top of it.  and, ask the teacher once in a while how they are progressing.  usually teachers are quite blunt and honest.

 

[amelialw]

I think you should leave the decision to your nephew's teacher, just don't get involve in something like that.

personally, I really would'nt reccomend the Heroic Polonaise after 3 years.

[dmc]

I think you should leave the decision to your nephew's teacher, just don't get involve in something like that.

I'm not trying to insert myself into it.  I agree thats between him and his teacher.  He's just approached me looking for guidance/encouragement etc.   I've just told him its a challenging piece and that with hard work & dedication I'm sure he'll be playing it some day.

[penguinlover]

I agree with Pianistimo.  There is really nothing too hard for anyone, as long as they really want to learn it, and aren't concerned about how long it takes to learn it.  I think it is great he is interested in a difficult piece, and motivated enough to get the music and begin working on it.  Encourage him.  Let him go for it!  If HE decides it is too hard right now, he will stop for a while, and pick it up later.

[shingo]

Although not a teacher, I feel I can add a little advice on this matter having gone through similar situations. It is indeed a great chance for improving sight reading and I found it very beneficial myself when trying things sufficiently harder than my level. I also agree with others who say that nothing is impossible, as long as time is not a problem and dedication is constant. It is also incredibly rewarding to finally play something that was above you, and in my experience really helped me move up a rung on the ladder so to speak as I had actually learned quite a lot through the course of the piece and the satisfaction gained has perpetuated my love and ability ever since in all piano related goals.
      On the other hand, I had also 'failed' such pieces before my break through, before I really wasn't ready to do them. Although nothing is impossible, depending what level you are at,  some things will require an amazing amount of time and dilligence, which in the end for took the fun out of playin/practicing it. This not only kind of spoilt the piece for me (thankfuly it wasn't anything great ) it also had the reverse effect on self confidence etc and general motivation. In the end though it didn't hold me back as I like to believe I have come a long way since.
      In summary I feel it would be best to let him do as he wishes, as long as he also practices his teachers work as well otherwise progress will kind of plato out.

[lostinidlewonder]

This is a difficult thing to instill in young students - Learn many easy pieces because it will make the harder pieces easier.

I have students who insist they learn particular peices even if it is too hard for them. I must submit to their desire because they are playing for enjoyment not exams.

The thing is that it might take say 3 months to learn a big piece. You could have learnt 5 small peices instead of this 1 big piece. And those 5 pieces would give you new ideas which you can apply in the future. I find the more pieces you memorise the faster you will learn music in the future.

So you can spend the rest of your life playing "difficult" pieces for yourself and at the end of 10 years you have 40 really hard pieces under your belt, or you can spend 10 years learning easier pieces, so you have 200 pieces under your belt and then turn your attention to these harder 40 pieces and eat through them in less than 2 years beacuse of the application of knowledge instead of brute force.

I still believe it is important to always have at least one piece you study which is "hard". It is stupid to play only things you are comfortable with and which require a little through spotted throughout the piece, it is good to have your mount everests always near you it can accelerate your learning curve SO LONG it does not become your major focus.

[shingo]

This is a difficult thing to instill in young students - Learn many easy pieces because it will make the harder pieces easier.

Yes. That is exactly it.

It's so hard because it is a reap what you sow kind of cycle. The more work effort and time devoted now on these pieces, the more you will be rewarded when you finally get on to harder things. I didn't take it on board as well as I should have when I was younger an felt frustrated at the lack of 'reward' for my efforts i.e. not playing harder pieces etc. However when I finally was rewarded I was over the moon and now I can see how true the quoted statement is.

[dmc]

So you can spend the rest of your life playing "difficult" pieces for yourself and at the end of 10 years you have 40 really hard pieces under your belt, or you can spend 10 years learning easier pieces, so you have 200 pieces under your belt and then turn your attention to these harder 40 pieces and eat through them in less than 2 years beacuse of the application of knowledge instead of brute force.

lostinidle - I certainly see the logic from the standpoint of learning more easier pieces quickly vs fewer hard pieces within a certain period.  What I would have a hard time explaining to my nephew is how the application of knowledge from those easy pieces would speed the learning of a tougher work.  I'm not arguing with you.  I'm just not a teacher and I know he'll press me on this (he's a very bright/inquisitive kid).  Can you clarify or give examples of things an easy piece would give that would show up later and be easier to grasp ?  His teacher may tell him the same thing but he's at a bit of a rebellious age.  I think he listens more to me.

[pianochick93]

I don't see a problem with learning difficult pieces at a young age, because even if he doesn't manage to master them, if he decides to give them a go when he is older/more skilled, then as he has already looked at it and given it a go, it will be easier and quicker to learn.

[lostinidlewonder]

.... I certainly see the logic from the standpoint of learning more easier pieces quickly vs fewer hard pieces within a certain period.  What I would have a hard time explaining to my nephew is how the application of knowledge from those easy pieces would speed the learning of a tougher work. 

It is a very difficult task to explain EXACTLY in words how learning easier pieces makes difficult pieces easier. But as Shingo highlighted in the thread, its a reap what you sow concept. Can you really cultivate the most difficult orchid when you haven't even suceeded in growing weeds and keeping them alive? You can spend many many years trying to improve your mistakes of a more difficult piece and you will make progress, but what you produce always will be somewhat substandard and you will feel unsatisfied with the lack of complete control over over what you play and most importantly the large effort it takes you to achieve control.

I don't think we should squash the dreams of piano students who are starting out. I think it is good to have difficult pieces you want to learn as a goal. Many of my younger students who insist to study a difficult piece are forced to learn a few easier pieces which I choose and know will compliment the harder piece they want to learn. The method of my choice of easier pieces is difficult to explain but I look at what techinque(s) the student is lacking, notice which patterns in the hard piece they learn that I infer (from past experience with their difficulties with other pieces) will give them problems.

I don't really like to think that a piece can be completely learnt by studying other pieces. It is not as simple as; go to piece A B and C and you definately will be able to play this hard piece. The exact way in which we learn pieces however does have a constant common process, and many pieces have similar ideas (chords, scales, progression, coordination of the hands etc etc) as others. How do we memorise, how do we play a group of notes without having to think of the individual notes etc. This thought process must be repeated as many times as possible with as many peices as possible. The starting pianists should not confuse their hands with overly difficult technique if they have not good grasp with the way in which they actually memorise/excecute their music! There will be a challenge to produce normal movments at the keyboard with efficient techinque when you start out, let alone work out finer techinque you might find in a Chopin or Liszt Etude for eg.

Once you have a good grasp of how your brain learns music and you actively can improve your efficiency in this area, then you can start investing time learning "more difficult" technical procedure at the keyboard. You will have a method to tackle your difficulties and this method was worked out by yourself through tackling the difficulties you faced in easier pieces. It doesn't matter so much exactly what techinques you expose yourself to early on, so long it is within your hands control for now. What is important is that you start understanding the process of learning music. This process most teacher leave their students in the dark over, but this is a completely different discussion. 

If you are stuck looking at music on a note by note level, you are simply wasting your time. Many students who play pieces too difficult for themselves get find themselves getting overly interested on individual notes, or very small groups of notes, instead of being able to understand an entire phrase of music and see it as a whole immediately. As you learn more and more music, new music you begin to read becomes almost immediately appreciated and you can often guess what needs to be done at your hands without actually putting yoru hands on the keyboard. You will find that when you pick up music that seems hard, it is not hard at all, it simply asks that little bit more than what you are used to, but you are seeing its difficulty in terms of the easier music you have studied and comparing it to the easier procedures you have played many times. So although what you need to learn might seem completely different, it can be solved by considering it in terms of what you have done before. You see how confusing this can be in words

It is important to expalin in your own words what the process you go through when you learn your music. When I ask students this question most of the answers tend towards constant mindless repetition.  How each teacher explains to a students how to go through three types of memory (Conscious, Muscle and Sound) with a piece is always different depending on the teacher, and some teachers don't even bother teachning their students to sense how their brain memorises the music.

When I start teaching a pure beginner (someone who never has played the piano) I immediately highlight the fact that there is shape to the keyboard. The pattern in which the black and white notes make can create all sorts of shapes. Like C Eb G could be seen as a triangle, or D FG could be imagined as D with a squashed part to it. I draw these shapes all over their music. I get them to immediately observe these shapes and patterns and learn how to see new patterns etc. I personally teach piano in a very visual way, my words to students never correct directly but rather highlight a pattern or logic which the student can think about and then say, oh yes now I know how to play this group of notes. I wil say funny things like "black outsides white middle triangle with the squashy, no the squash a little closer." instead of saying, 5th on this note, 4th here, etc which I think is useless unless there is only very minor mistakes in the phrase. A teacher must know what the student is thinking so you can make chances to their conscious memory of the music. Too many teachers rely on muscular memory through constant drilling of a phrase of music until its done right without focusing on the conscious memory as a catalyst to the student finding their muscular memory to the phrase.

So you must see learning music very visually if you want to increase the rate in which you learn music and improve your ability to tackle "difficult" pieces. This can only be trained by practice and the best way is to do easier pieces so that you can repeat again and again the process of learning. This is the only place in music where I think you should mindless repeat, that is to constantly learn easy music, music that your hands can manage without great difficulty.

I would have to lie to you if I said when I was young I studied pieces which where easy for me and never did harder stuff.  It was quite the opposite for me and I definately know what bad comes from it! It took me many years to remove a lot of wrong immature piano ideas which was hard because I defended how I played with my life, it was almost like killing my children! But it did teach a great importance of learning more difficult pieces. While I was constantly playing more difficult pieces, it was like I was swinging 3 baseball bats at the same time. When I had to play pieces for my musical exams it felt like I was swinging with 1 bat, very easy. But getting used to playing pieces too difficult for yourself definately slows down your progress, you simply cannot learn it with the efficiency of application of musical knowledge (nor can compare it with anything you have learnt before) because you are first learning about particular movements in this hard piece!

[jinfiesto]

While it's true that there's nothing really too hard for anyone, he's a 12 year old boy, and thus he has physical limitations. It's also likely that his practice habits aren't developed enough yet to tackle something like that. I would be reticent to tackle the heroic "just for fun", and I've been teaching and playing for a long time. At any rate, if he tries too hard at it, he could hurt himself. I tried to learn the Liszt transcription of the Erlkonig in middle school, and broke all the tendons in my right wrist doing it. Now I have to watch it when I do anything, so I don't aggravate my wrist. I don't think the Heroic polonaise is quite as physically extreme as the liszt Erlkonig, but all the same, it's probably too difficult.

Technical difficulties aside, assuming he can tackle the notes, he probably doesn't have the musical know how to play it well, and if he learns it poorly the first time, it'll be a major pain in the ass to undo later, if he ever wants to perform it seriously. In my experience, if you learn something bad the first time, you cripple it forever. My recommendation is to try to talk him out of it if you can. Going to his teacher may cause some tension between you, so I would just try to talk him out of it.