Speed Learning

[pmz310]

I have a bad habit of taking too much time for learning pieces(e.g. 6 months)  any advice on how to speed up progress?

[viking]

Sit at the piano all day and dont get up.

[amelialw]

seriously, you won't get into any trouble with your teacher? lol
if I took so long, my teacher would'nt be teaching me by now

Sit at the piano all day and dont get up.

that will make you hate the piano instead

[viking]

that will make you hate the piano instead

Instead, one may not like the piano enough in the first place to be able to sit there all day.  In my experience, those who do not learn quickly do not practise enough.

[rc]

6 months is too long.

My first thought:  you're tackling a piece too far above your level if it takes 6 months.

Second thought:  In the past, there've been times where I've learned a piece that was very tough for me in a short time, it was because I was loved the piece to obsession at the time and could hardly prevent myself from practicing...  Because I was so into the piece I spent a lot of time on it and the time was also very focused.

[richard black]

Depends how many pieces you're learning at once, of course. I gather from USSR-trained musicians (including my wife) that you were expected to learn pieces slowly - and thoroughly - but also to learn several in parallel.

[Kassaa]

Depends how many pieces you're learning at once, of course. I gather from USSR-trained musicians (including my wife) that you were expected to learn pieces slowly - and thoroughly - but also to learn several in parallel.

On the other hand, my teacher had to learn Davidsbundertanze completely memorized in a week when she studied in the USSR.

[pmz310]

Depends how many pieces you're learning at once, of course. I gather from USSR-trained musicians (including my wife) that you were expected to learn pieces slowly - and thoroughly - but also to learn several in parallel.

that is correct, my teacher doesnt worrt about getting things done fast, just getting them perfect

[pianochick93]

It depends on how long you practice per day, I would think.

I practice maybe for an hour a day if I'm lucky, less if my family is evil, and I have been working on prelude in C# minor by Rachmaninoff for at least 6 months. I havn't really focused on it either, or just learnt that piece and not others, which could be a reason for not learning it as fast as I could.

[pmz310]

   I'm sorry I didnt mention this a while ago, but its because of school and homework, that I don't get alot of practice in.  I need advice on how to learn pieces with the limited time you got, and not take 6 months on it.  Again, sorry I didn't mention that earlier.

[Bob]

Maybe do easier pieces, more of them.  Or do shorter, tough pieces?

[paulpiano]

I gather from USSR-trained musicians (including my wife) that you were expected to learn pieces slowly - and thoroughly - but also to learn several in parallel.

I posted a topic on slow playing. Can you describe the process of their slow playing?

[paulpiano]

Instead, one may not like the piano enough in the first place to be able to sit there all day.  In my experience, those who do not learn quickly do not practise enough.

I really don't agree!

[richard black]

Well, I'm currently polishing a piece I've been working at (off and on, admittedly) for about 20 years!

[paulpiano]

Well, I'm currently polishing a piece I've been working at (off and on, admittedly) for about 20 years!

My question is how do you practice slow playing?

[richard black]

My question is how do you practice slow playing?

Eh? Do you mean:

1) Playing the piano slowly, i.e. as in slow pieces;

2) Slow practice, i.e. practising a fast piece slower;

3) Learning a piece slowly, i.e. taking a long time to learn it?

[general disarray]

I have a bad habit of taking too much time for learning pieces(e.g. 6 months)  any advice on how to speed up progress?

IMO, there are only two ways to speed up your progress:  practice more hours (which you say you can't do right now) or practice VERY SLOWLY when you do practice. 

Practice at a tempo slow enough that you can get through a piece without one, lousy, miserable mistake and without overlooking even one musical aspect to the notes.  If you can't do that, then you are practicing too fast.

Paradoxically, you'll get the piece into your hands and mind much faster by practicing much slower and probably you'll find that you are memorizing as you go along.

However, check out tricky passages first with an idea as to how fast they ultimately will go, before you begin the slow practicing.  Some passages you finger at a slow pace won't work at a fast pace.  So, keep this in mind.  Get all the fingerings laid out with the ultimate tempo in mind.

Then.  Practice S-L-O-W-L-Y.  This should maximize your limited practice time. 

[paulpiano]

2) Slow practice, i.e. practising a fast piece slower;

Yes, that's my question.

[richard black]

OK, well, first let me say that I had no intention of implying that students in the USSR were necessarily expected to indulge in slow practice - when I said 'learn pieces slowly' I meant 'take many weeks/months to absorb a piece fully' kind of thing.

And as someone who almost never does 'slow practice' I wouldn't know how to advise on it. Doesn't one, er, just play the same notes but at a slower rate?

[lostinidlewonder]

Spending 6 months on a piece is perfectly alright depending on how you actually spend that time and also how large the piece you study actually is.

If you are spending time simply grinding away trying to memorize notes that are not "getting into your head" then there is a conscious observation of your music you are missing. Too many people simply try to attain muscular memory of their music without first understanding what is required of them in logical terms (analysis of the score, pattern recognition, relating to past experience etc), that is they mindlessly repeat a phrase until it becomes absorbed.  This can waste a lot of time. Likewise some people labor mindlessly trying to achieve a desired sound without properly exploring the choices we must make to produce those sounds.

Slow practice might not even improve your rate of learning, however it is one technique you may use to practice your phrases with more accuracy. If you practice fast you can have many subtle technical flaws (or note errors) which are hard to appreciate and/or act against when practicing fast. But still if you practice slowly without the correct conscious observation of your score you simply with repeat over and over again mindlessly. Also practicing slowly correctly is quite tough since with slow speeds we can make more subtle wrong movements without it feeling bad, but when we increase speed we find the technical rope we must walk on becomes thinner. So your practice in slow tempo for fast sections must walk the technical tight rope of the faster tempo. This is something most students miss out. They practice slowly simply to get the notes instead of observing the technical movements required to produce it. That is people have a different technique when playing slow as they do to playing fast. Most people will agree there is a difference, I do not agree with this when we are practicing fast sections slowly and it is the point where most musical students go wrong, they simply do not know how to practice fast motions slowly because they observe two different technical motions instead of a singular one which can be appreciated both at fast tempo and slow.

To practice in a focused fashion you want to relate your new music to what you already know (in previous mastered pieces or musical theory). You must also consciously understand your music, that is be able to say words to describe what you must do with particular phrases. Points in the score which causes more troubles than others usually are put into this conscious observation spotlight, where things which are obvious we do not have to focus on, rather absorb with the muscular memory of past experiences.

As already mentioned in other posts if you study pieces too hard for yourself you will find you are thinking about many parts of the music without being able to relate it to past playing experience. Many people then fall into traps of mindlessly repeating difficult phrases in hope to acquire the associated muscular memory. Many times they do succeed but always with a time inefficiency. There are some people who enjoy learning this way, if they stick to this approach in many years to come things will become easier. Not everything at the keyboard is unique, everything can be related to something else, so eventually you see pretty much every motion you can come across. The time you spent getting there is much longer and the mindless repetitions can be mind numbing for most.

Some people are too scared to move in their music when they have sufficiently practiced a phrase of music. Knowing when to move on and start learning other parts is an important lesson and many people have to burn their security blankets. Try to move on even though you might not have completely understood everything, so long more than half is there (technically and musically) and the notes are close to 100% memoried. Then when you come back you find you can practice with more intelligence and aquire mastery faster than if you labored on a small section until genius hit you.
      To move on when you might not have completely mastered something requires that you take stock of what you learn before moving on. If you simply move on without taking note of what you learnt and what challenge(s) still remain then you might indeed forget about it and have to determine it all again. So write on  your score to highlight ways to act against your difficulties then move on, its much more efficient than staying on one part until you completely master it then move on.

[general disarray]

Slow practice might not even improve your rate of learning, however it is one technique you may use to practice your phrases with more accuracy. If you practice fast you can have many subtle technical flaws (or note errors) which are hard to appreciate and/or act against when practicing fast. But still if you practice slowly without the correct conscious observation of your score you simply with repeat over and over again mindlessly. Also practicing slowly correctly is quite tough since with slow speeds we can make more subtle wrong movements without it feeling bad, but when we increase speed we find the technical rope we must walk on becomes thinner. So your practice in slow tempo for fast sections must walk the technical tight rope of the faster tempo.

This bears repeating.
 
"Slow practice" should not be confused with "mindless practice," i.e. practice that is only about endless repetitions to pound notes into muscular memory.  That's a waste of time.  Slow practice should be intensely concentrated, so that nothing in the score escapes you.

And, yes, once notes are gotten sufficiently into the hands so that a passage can be played flawlessly at a reasonable tempo, then the time comes to see if that passage at tempo works with the initial fingerings and gestures practiced at a slow tempo.  It may or it may not.  So. you make the necessary mid-course corrections.

Chopin's "Revolutionary" Etude is a good example of how slow practicing can potentially sabotage a pianist.  Those left hand flourishes have to be gestural, ultimately, and not "fingery" or the piece is unplayable.  But, you can't determine how to handle them until you obviously can play the correct notes.  This is where slow practice comes in.  It's the beginning and the foundation.

[kard]

I'm no teacher... but I think you need to find out how you learn best (to paraphrase bernhard)
I myself just realized a few days ago that I haven't been counting. I've been doing this for at least 6 months. I don't know what started that, but I know it has hurt my ability to memorize and understand. Therefore, I have to keep that in mind to help me get the information into my brain.

It's been working well so far, even with things I would normally consider 'technical skills' such as trills/mordants. It's all about knowing yourself.

[lostinidlewonder]

.....a passage can be played flawlessly at a reasonable [slower] tempo, then the time comes to see if that passage at tempo works with the initial fingerings and gestures practiced at a slow tempo.  It may or it may not.  So. you make the necessary mid-course corrections.

When we practice at slower tempos we must know when to play physical movements that correspond to  normal tempo mode. This is to say that correct slow tempo practice is a combination of slow movements but also the faster movements which correspond to normal tempo.

We must always ensure than our actions emulate the normal tempo, so if you are playing something with a lot of arpeggios slowly, you must make sure than when you move to a new group of notes, that the movement is as if you where playing at a normal tempo. The same applies for chord changing, we must change the chords as fast as possible, as if we where playing it at normal tempo, there is no slow lifting and slowly placing fingering onto the notes, then playing them. You must pause as long as you like, then when you know where to move, move there immediately. This might require a fast movement of the hand which seems strange to do if you where playing at a slower even tempo. So you must know when to break the slow tempo motions and make movements which correspond to the normal tempo.

I guess this is a misconception, that slow practice requires slow even tempo in our hands. In musical tempo it will be even, but in our hands we are constantly switching between a slow easy motion and the faster motion of the normal tempo. Perhaps when you are learning notes you can play as slow as you like any way you like, however when you are targeting the technique to control those notes your movements must not follow an even slow tempo, you may only have this slow even movement when your hand does not have to move position. If your hand is constantly moving then you can learn how to break up this movement into its points and know where you can pause between the movement and not destroy the appreciation of the overall muscular memory. There are certainly situations where we cannot properly appreciate the muscular memory association if we play slowly, the opening RH jumps of Liszts La Campanella is one random example.

I'm no teacher... but I think you need to find out how you learn best (to paraphrase bernhard)

I have found through experience that not many students know exactly how they learn best in every single aspect of keyboard study (and it is something that is a challenge for a teacher to diagnose in their individual students and this requires a lot of questioning from both teacher and student constantly.). "Knowing what is best for yourself" is certainly an ability good teachers will instill into their students in many areas, but to ask a student to do so in ALL areas required from the study of music requires an advanced knowledge and a lot of experience. Even if you are autodidact you still need to rebound your ideas off an experienced teacher to test and refine your method.

Memorising music is such a large discipline that to be completely confident that you know all the ins and outs of the process is quite presumptuous. I am always learning something about memory from other people of all abilities of the piano. The way in which people deal with memory is an interesting observation for the teacher. We suggest to the student OUR catalyst towards memorisation, observe how that effects the student and then alter the catalyst so it suits the student.

It is asking a lot of an early beginner or even an intermediate student to understand how to learn their music in the most efficient/effective way. Even advanced students need to have their practice methods scrutinized but of course not as much. We never stop improving our way on learning music just as we never stop improving our ability to play our music. Some cannot constantly monitor their methods, they reach a plateau in improvements they can make, thus having a teacher or someone who has more experience than yourself is helpful to further make progress.

Nothing can be done perfectly, we can never achieve perfection but we can aspire towards it and know when we tend away from it. Everyone can sense when they are tending away or towards improvement but at which rate do you tend towards it? I find some people the curve towards perfection is too gradual, so as a teacher we can bend this curve so it moves faster towards perfection.

[general disarray]

When we practice at slower tempos we must know when to play physical movements that correspond to  normal tempo mode. This is to say that correct slow tempo practice is a combination of slow movements but also the faster movements which correspond to normal tempo.

We must always ensure than our actions emulate the normal tempo, so if you are playing something with a lot of arpeggios slowly, you must make sure than when you move to a new group of notes, that the movement is as if you where playing at a normal tempo. The same applies for chord changing, we must change the chords as fast as possible, as if we where playing it at normal tempo, there is no slow lifting and slowly placing fingering onto the notes, then playing them. You must pause as long as you like, then when you know where to move, move there immediately. This might require a fast movement of the hand which seems strange to do if you where playing at a slower even tempo. So you must know when to break the slow tempo motions and make movements which correspond to the normal tempo.

Thanks for clarifying my earlier post.  You've made me examine slow practice more closely.  You're absolutely correct.  Very helpful post.

[pmz310]

seriously, you won't get into any trouble with your teacher? lol
if I took so long, my teacher would'nt be teaching me by now

amelialw, what conservatory do you go to? I've been looking for one for a while