Technical exercises

[rchmnnffbelle]

DO technical exercises help? If they do, which ones help the most? How long should you practice them? Which ones would help the most with my song (below)? thnks
 (I'm having trouble with Rach Prelude Op.23 no.5. If anyone can help, please check out my post in the sudents corner.)

[Bob]

Yes.

Daily, or whatever regular practice routine works for you.

Do whatever works for you for exercises.  Make up your own.  You know what they're for and they're just at your level.  Then publish them, like the others have.

Keep in mind, technical practice gives you technical results.  If you can, keep them based on actual pieces of music.

[gyzzzmo]

Technical exercises help yes, as long as you realise that you're training your brains and not your muscles. This means that endles repeating stuff doesnt help and may even have a bad result. So if you do an exersise, play it with your brains and give them time to get used to the movement you're training.
Also before doing an exersise, figure out what your weaknes is and find an exersise wich that weaknes, thats the most effective way.

good luck,
gyzzzmo

[mike_lang]

DO technical exercises help? If they do, which ones help the most? How long should you practice them? Which ones would help the most with my song (below)? thnks
 (I'm having trouble with Rach Prelude Op.23 no.5. If anyone can help, please check out my post in the sudents corner.)

Adding to what Bob said, it might help you to make exercises out of your piece, à la Cortot (or not, as you please).  For example, I am playing Fauré violin sonata in recital tomorrow and made thumb-passing exercises out of various passages in order to master this particular difficulty by isolating and intensifying it. 

For inspiration, you might have a look at Cortot's edition of the Chopin études (n.b.: when studying the études, it is best to use Cortot's introductions in conjunction with the urtext, as his texts are often full of mistakes.)

In general, I find that it is much easier to devise a simple exercise out of existing music, rather than to try and find just the right matching étude from Czerny, Moskowski, etc.  What part of the prélude troubles you?

Best,

ML

[rchmnnffbelle]

as long as you realise that you're training your brains and not your muscles. This means that endles repeating stuff doesnt help and may even have a bad result. So if you do an exersise, play it with your brains and give them time to get used to the movement you're training.
Also before doing an exersise, figure out what your weaknes is and find an exersise wich that weaknes, thats the most effective way.
good luck,
gyzzzmo

How do you play with your brains, and not your muscles?

[rchmnnffbelle]

Adding to what Bob said, it might help you to make exercises out of your piece, à la Cortot (or not, as you please).  For example, I am playing Fauré violin sonata in recital tomorrow and made thumb-passing exercises out of various passages in order to master this particular difficulty by isolating and intensifying it. 

For inspiration, you might have a look at Cortot's edition of the Chopin études (n.b.: when studying the études, it is best to use Cortot's introductions in conjunction with the urtext, as his texts are often full of mistakes.)

In general, I find that it is much easier to devise a simple exercise out of existing music, rather than to try and find just the right matching étude from Czerny, Moskowski, etc.  What part of the prélude troubles you?
Best,
ML

Mainly measures 17-20, and 72-79. I'm supossed to bring it up to speed but if I try to speed it up it hurts my hands/wrists. I've tried to take it in little sections and then put it together but I'm not getting very far. thanks for your help.
P.S. The fingering I'm using on measures 17-20 is as follows
measure 17: 1,4; 1,5; 1,5; 1,5
   ''        18: 1,4; 5; 1,4; 5; 1,4
   ''        19: 1,4; 5; 1,4; 5; 1,4
   ''        20: 1,4; 5; 1,4; 5; 1,4
what exercise would work for this?

[guendola]

How do you play with your brains, and not your muscles?

You play with neither alone. But the brain controls it, and that's what he meant. Train your brain for better control. There is no need to build up your muscles with special training. It will come automatically. But dexterity, speed and accuracy exclusively depend on your neural system, which is basically the brain.

[Bob]

The body does need to be in shape, and the mind does need to have those connections to the body.  

It doesn't train the mind to interprete music, or necessarily to read music, and it's not actually learning lit.

If it's "bad" then you're doing something wrong.  It's something effective enough to produce a result though (although a bad result).  Just tweak it or ease off and get good results.


Playing with you're brain means thinking, playing actual literature, interpreting and feeling the music.


I'm thinking more along the lines of just pushing your speed ability to play a scale.  If you can't play a scale at a certain speed, you still won't be able to play it in an actual piece of music, and with actual music you have lots of other things to think about rather than plain technique.


I don't see anything wrong with either way, whatever your goals are and whatever you can stand.  I don't really like "weak" etudes, the ones by "lesser" composers that you never hear much about.  What's the point of drilling yourself on someone else's lesser material?  I like tech exercises that are more plain than etudes anyway.  More focused things.  A lot drier than any etude I've seen, but still more efficient at producing results.  At least for me.



I don't know what that piece is exactly and I'm not going to go check it out.


I wouldn't bother writing anything out if you just want the physical technique.

Just break it up in chunks.  Identify what technique it is.  Transposing exercises to all 12 keys (at least 12 on the keyboard) is an easy way to expand things.


If it's scalar, practice scales and finger patterns to get your fingers moving faster and better over scale patterns.  

If it's leaping, practice leaping.  Make larger leaps.  Whatever you want.


Alhtough, this is a very global approach.  I consider it stamping out that problem for that piece and any other situation in a piece like that.  

And it takes a lot of effort and time.  Careful pushing and backing off and easing things.  Daily over weeks.  And then seeing results in a couple weeks and really solid results after six months or so.  It depends how well you push and can recover and restart everything.



And it's possible you're just using the wrong technique or playing to tense or something.  If you've got a fingering that makes it really difficult, than pushing self like I described above might not help much.  Not if you can just use another technique and get it.


And take everything I say with a grain of salt.  My playing is probably only solidly intermediate.  Not method book intermediate, but intermediate/early college level.  I wasn't making much technical progress with lit, so I started doing tech exercises because they worked.  Solved a lot of problem and worked a lot better than lit, but it meant I was playing lit though either.  It's a toss up.



I still don't know what to think about "things just happen."  They didn't for me.  I got better results getting the body working on easy-to-understand material.  I don't know what child prodigies are doing, maybe just born with better dexterity otherwise everyone would do that.  I have seen plenty of pianists with heavy forearm muscles hanging down and pianists with golfball size pinkie muscles -- the muscle on the hand that moves the entire pinkie finger down toward the palm.  Literally the size of a golf ball.  I can't believe that didn't take some stress and recover to develop or that it magically appeared because the mind understood the music, or that having a developed muscle wasn't either very nice or very necessary to play difficult works. 

[rchmnnffbelle]

Thanks for the help everyone, it was very helpful 
I just have one more question, could someone please
help me on my Rach. song. I haven't gotten any advice yet
Thanks!

[Bob]

What do you need help with?

Just break it up into pieces.  Work on the pieces and put it back together again.

If you're unsure about the fingerings, see if there are any others that might work.  Pick the one that is best for you.

If it's Rach and the handspan is big, some things might work better at a faster tempo.  More of a wrist flip than something you can pound away at at a slower tempo.  I didn't understand the fingering part in your post.  I don't have the piece.  Maybe you can post a screen pic of that part?

[rchmnnffbelle]

What do you need help with?

Just break it up into pieces.  Work on the pieces and put it back together again.

If you're unsure about the fingerings, see if there are any others that might work.  Pick the one that is best for you.

If it's Rach and the handspan is big, some things might work better at a faster tempo.  More of a wrist flip than something you can pound away at at a slower tempo.  I didn't understand the fingering part in your post.  I don't have the piece.  Maybe you can post a screen pic of that part?

I've got the fingering under control. I practice it in pieces, I don't just sit down and play through it every time and call that practice!! If I practice it with a faster tempo  it makes my wrist hurt, I' m almost afraid to practice it because I don't want to damage my hands. Thats why I was asking about technique, because I wanted to know if there was anything that would help the tension. I posted the fingering to find out if that was making it worse. The handspan is just octave chords, but fairly fast ones, at least for me. I've tried to post a screen pic. of my song, but I can't figure out how to do it. 

[guendola]

If I practice it with a faster tempo  it makes my wrist hurt, I' m almost afraid to practice it because I don't want to damage my hands. Thats why I was asking about technique, because I wanted to know if there was anything that would help the tension.

And you were perfectly right to worry! This is the moment where a good teacher should come in and give you some exercises to help you relax while playing physically demanding music.

One suggestion though: Examine the music and find out where you have stress in your wrists, fingers etc. Watch how you play and how this happens. A tiny little change here and there might help a lot - and look for moments where you can actively relax. I am planning to play the allegro barbaro from Alkans 12 studies in major keys. It constists mostly of octaves at a nasty tempo, spiced with thirds and fourths in between. Without good technical advice I wouldn't even dare!

[rchmnnffbelle]

Thanks! Has anyone ever heard of Russian Technique?

[mike_lang]

Thanks! Has anyone ever heard of Russian Technique?

You'd better PM Marik.

[guendola]

One thing I forgot to mention: You don't do technical exercises "just because". But if you want to improve appreggios, you do exercises to improve appreggios, if you want to have better dexterity, you look for exercises that help there etc. Doing exercises just like that reminds me of drug abuse: Addictives do drugs because using drugs makes them want to use more drugs etc.

[alhimia]

Thanks! Has anyone ever heard of Russian Technique?

Yes, many times, but it actually doesn't exist, since technique is very personal.

[franzliszt2]

Russians have a very solid training from an early age if they go to central music school, or Gnessin institute. They form the techniques from a very early age...and look at the repertopire they all play...Rachmaninoff etudes, concerto's, Scriabin etc....so the techniques tend to have formed around these pieces..which obviously demand a specific technique. So thats how they all have these HUGE techniques that can do anything.

[rchmnnffbelle]

so the techniques tend to have formed around these pieces..which obviously demand a specific technique. So thats how they all have these HUGE techniques that can do anything.

Sooo, there's no book of Russian technique? Someone told me there was.

[alhimia]

Sooo, there's no book of Russian technique? Someone told me there was.

The art of piano playing - written by Heinrich Neuhaus gives some information about 'technique', which is actually related to Godowsky, Neuhaus' beloved teacher. If there is any secret regarding 'technique' in general, it is that everything depends on the ability to listen to oneself and the ability to adapt the sound to your own aesthetic concept.

[guendola]

Sooo, there's no book of Russian technique? Someone told me there was.

There is something called (bad translation) "Russian Piano School". It is a series of books for beginners. But from what I have heard so far, it is rather a marketing title than a genuine Russian way of playing piano. Of course the pieces are by Russian composers.

[franzliszt2]

Russian technique cannot be developed, unless you are taught in the russian way from the start. I have a lot of Russian friends who went through Gnessin and Moscow conservatoire, and obviously I have sat and discussed technique with them because mine is totally different. I can't do the things they do, the way they do it, but they can't do things the way I do. It's just different. It's on a very high level though, it's nothing major, it's just the way they view things and produce sound etc...They have a very different view of music in general, it's very interesting to talk to them....becasue my education has been so different.

I don't think it is a "russian" technique, it's just the way they play the piano. It's like asian's have similar techniques, but we don't have an "asian" school....or do we?