Learning new pieces HT - general question

[ggpianogg]

Hi there,

Just a quick overal question, since I'm getting quite different opinions from different sources on this and I'd like to hear your opinions, please.

When learning a new piece, before joinings HT for a new fragment of the piece, should you be able to play that part HS PERFECTLY on each hand, up to tempo? Or is it enough to just be able to paly that part HS around 70% tempo for example (paying attention to proper fingering)? Which option is in your experience more "cost effective" and yields quicker learning?

Also, as a side question: how do you know if a part of a piece you are tackling is too long and that you should shorten it and learn the shorter part first? If, for example, it takes 45 minutes to properly learn to play a selected part of a piece (and not even 100% up to tempo), should I consider this too long? Again, I'm only asking for your personal experience here.

Thanks in advance.

[Bob]

Whatever you think is right.  I remember working on something, perfecting hands separately, but I still had to go back and learn them together from scratch.  

I would probably work both ways -- separate and together just as a way change things up.

And I'd probably be wondering if the piece were too difficult in some way -- either for the hands or for me to read the music.  But if you're making progress on it, I wouldn't worry so much.  If it's stalled and intense work isnt' doing much even after a few weeks, then it's a problem.

[dss62467]

I only do HS until I get the gist of it, and then only if it's tricky.   I tend to start off with a bang... HT right from the start.   Then if I'm having trouble, I break it down HS if I have to.   

[Bob]

Yes, hands together if that works.  I've gone back and polished hands separately or played through each line in the piece, not necessarily hands separate for that.

[timothy42b]

When learning a new piece, before joinings HT for a new fragment of the piece, should you be able to play that part HS PERFECTLY on each hand, up to tempo?

For me it very much depends on the piece.  A Bach invention is impossible for me to work on HT until HS is very good.  But an SATB hymn for church does not seem to improve much if at all from HS, so my time is far better spent working short chunks of HT. 

Also, as a side question: how do you know if a part of a piece you are tackling is too long and that you should shorten it and learn the shorter part

I think the rule of thumb here is twenty minutes.  Do a search for bernhard plus 7 times plus twenty minutes.  He gives a nicely structured approach to this exact problem. 

[ggpianogg]

Thanks for all your replies

Actually, what I'm learning at the moment are Bach Inventions (I thouight it will be a nice way to even out the dexterity of my left and right hand - my left is lacking).

[dss62467]

Thanks for all your replies

Actually, what I'm learning at the moment are Bach Inventions (I thouight it will be a nice way to even out the dexterity of my left and right hand - my left is lacking).

Hey - would you mind elaborating on how your progress is with that and let me know which ones you're doing?  I could always work on my left dexterity too.  I'll need something to practice over the summer break from lessons.

Thanks!

[ggpianogg]

Hey - would you mind elaborating on how your progress is with that and let me know which ones you're doing?  I could always work on my left dexterity too.  I'll need something to practice over the summer break from lessons.

Thanks!

I'm doing the easiest ones (at least they seem so to me), since I'm a beginner (around 3 months since I started playing). Currently I have mastered Invention 4, Invention 1, Invention 8, and am finishing invention 10 right now. I started learning them in that order.

The first invention took me around hmm around 12 days to complete. Most of the time was spent "teaching" the brain how to operate both hands independantly in contrapunctual playing. The next inventions came considerably easier (3-5 days each). 10 Seems the easier to me so far. Next on the list is Invention 6.

[stevebob]

Dang, ggpianogg!  If you've mastered several two-part inventions just three months after beginning to study piano, you're playing pieces that many people would be quite pleased to play reasonably well after three years.

I'm curious how many hours of daily practice you're putting in and what your musical background was prior to starting piano.  In fact, I think a lot of people would be interested to know what the ingredients are for your impressive rate of progress.

[ggpianogg]

Dang, ggpianogg!  If you've mastered several two-part inventions just three months after beginning to study piano, you're playing pieces that many people would be quite pleased to play reasonably well after three years.

I'm curious how many hours of daily practice you're putting in and what your musical background was prior to starting piano.  In fact, I think a lot of people would be interested to know what the ingredients are for your impressive rate of progress.

Hi there,

You might want to check out this topic: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=36002.0

This was my first thread on this forum, and I believe the first 10-15 posts might answer some of your questions

I had no musical background before piano (except 'playing' the acoustic guitar for like 2 weeks about 8 years ago).

Unfortunately I'm still playing on an old digital Yamaha piano with no weighted keys and with 4 octaves, so my choices are very limited when it comes to choosing pieces (that is why I started the inventions in the first place - because a lot of them fits nicely into 4 octaves). I have just bought a Yamaha CLP 340 and am waiting to have it delivered somewhere early next week. This is also when I plan to finally get a teacher.

As for my training; I'm afraid nothing special to give you tips in here. I play around 1,5 hours a day (but I'm very focused during this time, no interruptions). No particular playing plan, I just usually break up the piece into smaller sections and learn them as quickly as I can, not even up to tempo or half tempo at first. I'll give an example of how it goes:

I start Invention 1. I break it down into say 10-15 parts that have some musical sense to me, and start playing. I learn each part so that I can just barely play it at even 30-40% speed, but with proper fingering and keeping the tempo well (even though it's slow). 2-3 days later I start working on Invention 4, doing exactly what I did with Invention 1, but in breaks between learning Invention 4 I play the whole of Invention 1 (which I have now memorized), thereby increasing my speed on it.

Few days later, I'm learning Invention 10, while invention 4 is memorized and is being played in breaks between memorizing Invention 4. Invention 1 at this stage is also played but much less, since my speed is already good. So now I'm just playing Invention 1 mostly for the fun of it and to keep my fingers rolling

This is not a plan or anything that I picked up from somewhere, this is just how I do it and I'm pretty sure there are much better ways to approach this (I'm reading about Bernhard's 20 minutes / 7 times method now, I'll try it out soon).

As for my daily routine it goes like this: 15 minutes warmup (scales mostly), 1,5 hours working on my pieces and around 20 minutes of sight reading exercises. I also practice sightreading while on the bus to and back from work (just recognizing patterns on the staff etc) and read tons of theory anytime I can (usually also on my way to and back from work - mounts up to around 1,5 hours of reading daily). I do this consistently every day.

That's it I think, I hope this helped somehow