Technique practicing

[marikah]

Hi, I just got accepted into the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden, and I need some help on how to improve my technique skills! I appreciate any advice.

[pianisten1989]

Oh, gratz I live in sweden aswell Uhm.. Czerny, Hanon and Brahms kind of covers it. Who's your teacher? S/he probably knows what you need

[pianisten1989]

Oh, and scales. Even touch and tempi.

[marikah]

hehe you speak swedish?

blir lite lättare att prata då kanske!

[pianisten1989]

I wrote you a personal message.. You can read that

[mazeppa]

[Some of these things were mentioned]

Scales, scales, scales! Arpeggios are great too. The simplest exercises are often the best. Just make sure you play close attention to your pace, tempo and consistency of tone.

Some exercises that are great are the Brahms and the Liszt exercises, however they're extremely advanced.

And the best way to play cleaner is to practice your pieces like exercises, paying "close attention" to those same things I talk about before. Best of luck!

[pianoamit]

Why practise technique in isolation? There isn't really any gain. My teacher always talks of how someone should publish a compendium of technically difficult passages from the core piano repertoire, divided into sections by the technical demands it poses. For example, the section on octaves would have the octave passages from the Tchaikovsky Concerto and Brahms 1, and from the Liszt Sonata, and the Glissando section could have the awful 3rds glissandi from Alborada and the octave glissandi from Waldstein... Anyway - you get the gist. Why don't you select an area that you want to work on, and start working on passages from important works - even if you don't intend on learning those works just yet. Ultimately, when you do come to learn those works, it will only make them much more manageable if you can already play those passages, no?

[jesc]

I agree with the direct attack on techniques required by actual pieces. From the POV of my case though since classical piano is only a hobby of mine so it's a matter of how I efficiently manage each time I spend on the piano.

IIRC there is also a trend of thought from professional pianists that promote such an approach.

[ramseytheii]

Why practise technique in isolation? There isn't really any gain. My teacher always talks of how someone should publish a compendium of technically difficult passages from the core piano repertoire, divided into sections by the technical demands it poses. For example, the section on octaves would have the octave passages from the Tchaikovsky Concerto and Brahms 1, and from the Liszt Sonata, and the Glissando section could have the awful 3rds glissandi from Alborada and the octave glissandi from Waldstein... Anyway - you get the gist. Why don't you select an area that you want to work on, and start working on passages from important works - even if you don't intend on learning those works just yet. Ultimately, when you do come to learn those works, it will only make them much more manageable if you can already play those passages, no?

I think a lot of people have undertaken that project at various times, and it never comes off.  The idea of making a pianist's "excerpt" book like orchestral musicians have is somehow more attractive than pragmatic.

That said I think the best way to improve your technique is to constantly sight read new music, and expose yourself to different demands.  So much of the way we play piano is mental; if you are studying a piece which is the hardest you have ever played, you should sight read a piece that is harder.

Another way to put this is, technique is a form of discovery, and if you aren't constantly mentally curious and exploring new things, it won't develop.

Walter Ramsey

[sashaco]

That said I think the best way to improve your technique is to constantly sight read new music, and expose yourself to different demands.  So much of the way we play piano is mental; if you are studying a piece which is the hardest you have ever played, you should sight read a piece that is harder.

Walter Ramsey

I have an odd instance of this sort of practice, that was, for me, quite astonishing.  I was struggling with some octave passages combined with chordal leaps in Chopin.  I had found an old book of pop hits when I took a stack of sheet music out of an attic.  The pieces were arranged by Ferrante and Teicher, and they were in a sort of cocktail piano style.   One day I sight-read them for fun for 40 minutes or so, having run out of patience with myself on the Chopin- everything in octaves, lots of playing of chords in different inversions.  I decided to take a last whack at the Chopin passage, and suddenly it was, if not easy, playable.  I won't say the pop bits were harder than the Chopin, but they required some very similar moves, and I sight-read them without the tension I might have felt playing something more "serious".

[gyzzzmo]

Copy-Paste from another thread:

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Instead you should now 'learn how to learn most effectively', wich means recognizing your technical weaknesses and focus on training those abit every day. Btw wich are one of the few things excersises like Hanon and Brahms are useful for as long as you dont over-use them.

It often helps to have a 'target piece' wich is slightly harder than your current level, but wich you really want to learn to play the RIGHT way (so no more 'decent' anymore). Use that piece to recognize those technical flaws of yours and start learning etudes that will improve that flaw.

And remember, gaining technique takes time for your brains to learn. There is no point in spending an hour on a particular flaw each day, it might actually hurt you. Better scatter it.

Good luck,

Gyzzzmo