Best way to improve

[davidjosepha]

I've been playing piano for around 10 years (I'm 17) and only recently have started practicing a significant amount (10-15 hours a week). I am now working on Brahms' 1st Rhapsody, Op 79, and before that, learned the 2nd rhapsody, and Khatchaturian's Toccata in E-flat minor (both since fall of 2010). My piano teacher had remarked that he knew I was extremely gifted musically from a young age, but unfortunately, I wasted a lot of time and talent. For my natural ability and amount of years of piano, I know I should be at a much higher level than I am.

What do I have to do to get to the level I should (obviously, rather subjective) be at? I have been practicing very hard, and can tell I'm making progress, but I still have trouble getting over how much better I could be right now if I had worked harder. I've wanted to ask my teacher this for a while, but I'm afraid I'll just get the bullshit answer of "Everyone goes at their own pace." I want to be able to play better not because I want to show off (most people I know don't even know I play piano, and most of those wouldn't care even if I played as well as Horowitz), but because I want to be able to play difficult pieces and play them well for my own satisfaction. I'm almost out of school for the summer and will have tons of time to practice. I want to end the summer having made some serious improvements. How should I do this?

[fleetfingers]

You should talk to your teacher. If you tell him what you just told us, I would think he'd be excited to put you to work over the summer. Tell him how long you will be practicing every day, and he should be able to give you a routine to use your time most efficiently. Work on several pieces at once, include some Bach, and work on sight reading every day. Listen to recordings of world-class pianists playing the pieces you're working on. Study them, memorize them, learn them well. Move on to new pieces quickly, but continue to work on old ones to polish them as much as possible. Don't practice any passage or piece for longer than you can completely focus on it. Sometimes, that will only be 15 minutes. Sometimes an hour or two. Good luck in accomplishing your goals!

[ongaku_oniko]

One thing I suggest, is not thinking that you are gifted or talented.

I'm not saying you're not; I totally believe you. However, thinking that you're gifted yourself is not a good thing. I mean you shouldn't be all depressed and think you suck; but if you keep thinking you're really talented, it's likely you'll overlook a lot of things and progress slower than if you toned down the arrogance (not saying you're arrogant) and practised like you weren't talented.

I used to think I was talented so I progressed quite... well not slow, but not much faster than normal people. Recently I began to realize that perhaps I'm not so talented, and I've been progressing a lot faster in terms of musicality and understanding.

Like if you're talented, you'll want to put in a "talented amount of effort", so the net result is you're same as everyone else.

But if you're talented and practise as carefully (note carefully; I don't mean as much) as a normal person, you'll surpass them by a lot.

[pianisten1989]

Can you tell us a bit about How you practise? Do you play scales? Any exercises?

And I don't want to seem like a brat, but 10-15 hours? That means you play around 2 hours every day? I don't know anything about you, if you have much to do in school or something, but 2 hours isn't that much.

But basically, what makes me progress is to, a few times a year, take some lessons for an other teacher. No teacher can possibly cover everything you need to know. The other teacher will see what you need to do. Though, don't go to some random half decent teacher, that wont help anything. Find someone that you know is good.

Also, get some recording equips and record yourself. You wont believe how much you can fix yourself, only by listening like that.

Scales and stuff like that also helps a lot, if you do it well. Play scales until they are even. Same amount of air between the notes, and same speed. 

But I recommend you to tell us a bit more about yourself. Cause the truth is - Everyone goes at their own pace, even though it is a lame answer.

[davidjosepha]

@fleetfingers: Thanks for the advice. It was quite helpful.
@ongaku: I don't tend to think of myself that way in general. I mostly only think of that when regretting wasted time, but thabk you for the advice. I'll try to make sure I don't think too highly of myself.

@pianisten:
I usually start out by playing scales, something I recently started doing again after a couple years af neglect (my decision, one that made my teacher happy). Then I'll play through the piece I'm working on and think about what sections need the most work. I'll then go to those sections and practice them slowly and repeatedly, half the time with and half without a metronome. I'll then play through the piece again to see if I've really mastered the changes I've made. If not, I'll go back. If so, I'll do the same with other sections. I'll then play scales again and move on to another piece. Along with the Rhapsody, I'm playing a Mozart duet in C major and a Scarlatti sonata in C minor (don't remember the opus/K).

I know I could and should play more tham I do, but 15 hours a week is about 15 times as much as I used to play. Over the summer, I will have more time to play more. I'll also look into taking lessons from a different teacher for a while.

More about myself: I'm 17 and have played piano for around 10 years. After 6 years, my parents gave me the option to quit (I was required to play before that) but I agreed not to quit if my parents would stop bothering me by telling me to practice (although they were never exacrly taskmasters) as long as I practiced at least 20 minutes a day 3 times a week. The intention was for me to practice much more than that, but I didn't. This fall, I came back to start lessons again with, for whatever reason, a lot more drive to get better and practice. My teacher saw this and gave me a Brahms piece that was much more difficult than anything I had played before. After learning that, I read through the 1st Rhapsody a couple times and liked it, so I asked my teacher to let me play it. He warned me it was difficult but agreed when I said I would make sure to put enough time into it. I have been working on it for a couple of weeks so far and have most of the notes down. And that's about it.

[amie_de_chopin]

The best way to improve: practice, perseverance, passion.  And talent of course...

[jgallag]

I LOVE the first rhapsody and am learning it now. The B section is so beautiful, and the A section so powerful. The best way to improve is to keep doing what you're doing. Although you might, as an experiment, try expanding out your practice mode. Playing through the piece every day is a process I would save until you have a reasonably secure command of the notes and need to just fix up a few spots, but mostly, when you're at the stage of playing it through daily you're working on fine-tuning your interpretation and working on the mental stamina and plan of making it through a performance. That's the stage where you're absorbed in the form and memory cues that will keep you from getting derailed so you can give the best delivery of your musical ideas possible. Ideally, if you still need to learn a lot of notes, you should have the piece divided into sections, and you should know which section you're going to work on before you sit down at the piano.

Also, for where you are (and for your age, you've still got a year of happy childhood to live!), fifteen hours a week is fine. However, please try to practice seven days a week, at the very least six. This is because when you take a day off, your memory of what you did before that rest severely diminishes, which is okay occasionally, but if you take two days off in a row, the practice you did before that (assuming you're still at the learning notes stage, this doesn't apply in the performance practice area) was pretty much fruitless, because the retention in the brain won't last that long. Look up posts by bernhard and do research on memory to get more info on this. Seriously, better to practice every day whenever possible. Yet don't beat yourself up when you don't or can't. You'll get where you want to go, I promise. Are you looking into colleges?

[davidjosepha]

Thanks for the advice. As far as the 7 day thing goes, I do my best. I have school till 3 and two weekdays, I work from 4-9 and am unable to play after I get home since my mother is usually sleeping. However, I try to get in a half hour or 45 minutes either before school or between work and school on those days. The other 5 days I almost never miss a practice.

I'm looking into colleges, but not for music. I hope to pursue piano for the rest of my life, but I have no plans of studying it in college.