Building speed for self-taught beginner

[tekime]

Hi folks,

I have a few questions and thoughts which I wanted to throw out there. Any help would be superb!

Without giving you my life history, I'm 32 and have been playing a few hours per week for a couple years now. I have no past experience, no direction, questionable talent, and little free time. But I love playing piano like nothing else! In the past I've spent most of my time just aimlessly pressing keys, making up silly ditties for my daughter, and devising overly dramatic but technically primitive impromptu pieces for fun. Eventually I sat down and forced myself to learn Fur Elise. It was challenging to decipher the sheet music at first, but eventually learned it. I know everyone and their grandmother plays Fur Elise, but the exhilaration of actually being able to play it was indescribable for me!

So now, I'm determined to learn more, and trying to work on my discipline a little. I learned the first half of Mozart's Turkish Rondo, and about 2/3 the way through Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2. I'm mostly focusing on the Chopin piece now and determined to finish it! I'm getting comfortable except the glissando section (if that's the right word). Similarly, Turkish Rondo simply gets too fast for me.

Are there some exercises you can recommend to help with my speed? One thing I did was print out the major scales and using a metronome trying to work my way up in speed. I believe with enough practice I'll eventually be able to play these pieces better, but I don't have much time to practice and would really like to make the most of it.

The biggest challenge for me is playing quickly when the notes start to jump around. I basically just work the fingering out on my own and probably not doing it the "right" way, if there is such a thing. For example, I learned the first few bars of Chopin Op. 10 No. 4 and can play it pretty darn fast... but then I trudged through the first page of Chopin Op. 25 No. 4 and I can barely come close to playing it fast enough... the left hand is just too much, and obviously that piece is a little out of my league for the time being...

Sorry for the long-winded post, any thoughts or advice would be great!

[starstruck5]

It's a big leap from the Fur Elise to the Chopin Studies -Well done on playing the former though.

Just bear in mind that pieces we can play easily and well, are going to give us much more pleasure than pieces we struggle a lot with.  There is no harm in taking on something which is a little beyond you now and then - because we need to feel challenged sometimes and it feels great to overcome them - but if we assume that Fur Elise is Grade 4 (UK) then you should be looking to play more Grade 4 pieces for a while.  Working within a Grade system is a good structured way to learn actually.  It might even be a good idea to find a teacher and cover Grade1 - you should progress quite quickly.

Yes, practice scales and arpeggios/broken chords - when you have mastered those move on to octaves/then thirds and sixths even. - slowly at first and then build up your speed - even when you become advanced, you should always begin slowly and increase tempo - using a metronome is not a bad idea if you are comfortable with it -

Speed generally comes from the mind and hands being comfortable with the technical demands you make upon them - Backhaus said that he played everything slowly, even when he could play it fast - the speed was there when he needed it. That is soooo important.

[tekime]

Hi starstruck5, thank you so much for the reply. It sounds like a good idea to start devoting a little of my practice time to working on scales - I have noticed some improvement just practicing the major scales with a metronome.

I'll also start looking for a few pieces that are a little less challenging, just for the practice. I think my biggest personal problem in practicing is that I get bored really quickly if there isn't a big challenge. So far Op 9 No 2 has been extremely fun to practice for me, and I absolutely love the piece... but definitely not something I could learn in 1-2 weeks.

Thanks again!

[phil821]

Speed exercises can be found online, and there quite easy to make up yourself

One thing that is important to remember, at least in my opinion, is to stay close to your comfort zone, or you can start damaging your technique.

  When I used to practice and couldnt match a speed I would repeatedly play it until I got it even if it was way faster than my max. I realized now that I wasn't actually truely getting faster; I was just rearranging my technique and making it worse to be able to complete one task while everything else suffered. (Scales may have gotten better, but arpeggio and jumps suffered greatly)

  *** The fastest thing you consider yourself to be able to play should be completely comfortable to your ability. If you can't play it comfortably, you can't (and shouldnt) play it.

Always Stay In Control, And Never Sacrifice Technique. If you find yourself doing this, be realistic and just slow down.


---------Too long didnt read; don't rush, baby steps, baby steps, and more baby steps.

[jtguru]

I figure nearly every post in this thread is going to be one telling you that you should wait years before taking on the etudes, etc., so I'm not going to bother expressing that as my own view. Instead I'll just address the actual issue of speed.

In general, when your goal for a practice session is to increase the speed of a passage, you should do that work hands separate (unless the passage in question is very easy for you, in which case hands separate work would be a waste of time, but if you were working on something easy you would not have made this thread in the first place!). Most of the time, in any given passage, one hand's part will be more difficult than the other hand's. Regardless of which hand has the more difficult work, hands together work trying to increase the speed of a passage will be a generally terrible use of time. Say you are trying to increase the speed of Op. 25 No. 4 while practicing hands together. As you repeat a passage over and over again, your left hand will become fatigued by all the constant leaping, while your right hand will be having a (relatively!) comfortable time. However, although the right hand isn't getting nearly as punished, it isn't 100% trivial, and so you still have to put some focus into it. Simply put, you just can't have sufficient awareness of the movements you are making with both hands simultaneously. You won't be sure that you are using the correct movements, and you will probably end up ingraining in your memory movements that you really shouldn't be using without even being aware that you are doing something wrong (at a slower speed, it is too easy to get away with movements that just won't work at full tempo).
When you are working hands separate, you want to aim to be able to play each hand's part at a tempo faster than your hands together goal. This will make mastering HT much less time consuming, because the inevitable drop in speed you experience when coordinating the hands will actually land you right at goal tempo.

Are there some exercises you can recommend to help with my speed? One thing I did was print out the major scales and using a metronome trying to work my way up in speed.

Starting something from scratch simply by playing it at a slow speed and gradually working up the metronome is one of the worst things one can do. When you play something at a slow speed, you can get away with using movements that simply will not work when trying to play the same thing at a fast speed. Using the scales as an example: if you are playing a scale at a slow speed, chances are you will be using the thumb-under technique. Assuming a scale that uses normal 123-1234 fingering, after the first three, you bend the thumb underneath your third finger so as to continue the scale in a smooth legato. If you try to play it in any other way, at that slow speed the scale will sound choppy at that 3-1 transition, so you continue to use "thumb-under."

To put it simply, you will never be able to play that scale at high speeds while still completely using thumb-under. By practicing thumb-under at slow speeds, you are setting yourself up to hit a speed-wall. As you increase the metronome speed so gradually, you will continue to use those same motions that you were getting away with at the slow speed where you started, and you will eventually reach a speed that you can't comfortably handle with those motions. You will be stuck. Contrary to what I hear people say all the time, a speed wall is not a psychological problem. It is a physical one that the pianist in question sets up himself by practicing incorrectly.

A fast (and I mean fast) scale requires a different way of making that 3-1 transition (or whatever specific finger it is for the given scale). Movements are hard to describe in words, but here is an attempt: You pivot the hand slightly around the third finger, and at the same time move the whole hand laterally, to make it so that you can play the next thumb note without actually bending the thumb under the hand at all. At a slow speed, this technique will probably sound somewhat choppy, which is why people go for thumb-under at slow speeds (and hence set up a speed wall if they try to make that passage faster), but this is the best movement to achieve high speeds at a scale.

As far as 'exercises to help you with your speed,' I cannot (or rather, will not) suggest any specific set of technical exercises. Different types of passages (fast stepwise motion, fast arpeggios, fast octaves, etc.) require different specific approaches, and even the same technical difficulty in two different musical settings will need to be approached differently, so I find pure technical exercises to be a fair waste of time. Instead of trying to practice a bunch of technical exercises to improve yourself in general (which really will not work as well as you may expect it to), just deal with each piece of music as you get to it, and you will find that the experience you gain by just working on actual repertoire will do a fine job of 'preparing you for anything,' not in the sense that you can pick up anything and already have the technique to play it well, but in the sense that you will know how to go about gaining that technique efficiently.

I will outline the type of approach to take to begin to master the left hand of Op. 25 No. 4, and you should be able to see how the same type of idea can be applied to many kinds of passages.

Let's take the first full measure of the etude. First of all, before you begin to actually put the practice into mastering something, you have to make absolutely certain that you know what fingering you want to use. Different people will prefer different fingerings in the same situation, so just find something that works for you. If necessary, experiment with numerous different fingerings for the same passage before deciding (you will get better at choosing a fingering with experience). For this bar, I would personally play the left hand with this fingering (keep in mind that hand size is a huge determining factor in what a comfortable fingering is for a passage like this): 5 - 31 - 5 - 21 - 5 - 31 - 21

Let's number each note / chord from 1 to 8 (just for purposes of explaining this here, there is no need to actually write down these numbers). Start practicing just 1 and 2, and practice this at full tempo since it is only one leap. Do not worry if you are not accurate right away, just keep focusing on where the hand needs to go, and I promise your accuracy and precision will improve. Once you have 1-2 perfected (which does not mean that you get it right once or twice, you must be able to do it perfectly several times in a row at least; in fact you should, relatively quickly, get to the point that you simply can't do it wrong), you can move on to practice 2-3. Do not include 1 at this step! You must master each individual leap by itself before moving onto larger groups. So continue this way: master 23, then 34, 45, 56, 67, and finally 78.
Once you have each group of 2 mastered, then start practicing groups of 3, while making sure you have large overlap (practice 123, then 234, then 345, etc.). Then do this for groups of 4, then 5, then 6, then 7, and finally the entire bar. With the increasingly large overlap between groups, as the groups become larger, they will also become increasingly quick for you to master.
With this approach, you will pretty quickly become able to play that entire bar's left hand part at full speed. It is important to note that if you are going to do this kind of note-group exercise, you must finish it one sitting for you to gain full benefit from it. Always make sure that you don't pick too long a passage to work on at one time, particularly if it is a passage that will require this kind of work.

It is useful to note that for this type of exercise, depending on the piece, you can use, say, 8 groups of 3 or 4 notes, rather than 8 individual notes/chords. But even still, this is a pretty time consuming practice device to use, so you should only use it when something is particularly difficult for you.

An important thing to remember as you move through the piece is that when you choose the next section to work on, it needs to have some overlap with the section you just worked on. If you were to work on one bar each sitting, with no overlap, then when you try to play the whole piece, you will have trouble at the links between each bar.

Sorry for the long-winded post

Likewise.

[simon13]

Indeed, going from für elise to the chopin studies is a big leap, maybe a leap too big. You should know that being able to play something alone is not a good goal. After having read your post, I see that your technique is not good enough for what you intend to play (i.e. you cannot read notes very well, and you are not able to play scales yet that good.) Don't try to rush things!! if you see you are not able to play something at the speed it needs to, don't try to play it any way! maybe it is too difficult for you. also, fur elise isn't the most appropriate composition to start with!!
So, if you want to build more speed, you could start with some easier études, I would recommend burgmüller (for technique), and heller (for performance, so that what you play doesn't sound too mechanic). Don't try to see all pieces as a challenge you have to pass!!!

[tekime]

@jtguru: WOW! Thank you for the in-depth response. I actually printed your post and added it to my folder, and will go over this in more detail during practice this week. Just reading over your advice has already been extremely interesting, and helped me understand a few things that have really been bugging me. Primarily the comments regarding the physical limitations on speed caused by improper technique/poor fingering methods. I think the "thumb under" thing has been holding me back, as it seems ok while at slower speed but then I'm definitely hitting a wall at higher speed with noticeable skipping. In general, when I practice a section enough times I can usually play it pretty fast and comfortably, but this has been a thorn in my side that I will start taking a new approach to!

@simon13: You're correct, I realize now that 25/4 is just out of my league, I might be able to learn it eventually but I'll probably spend the next year on this one piece alone! I'm feeling pretty comfortable with 9/2 though, although the glissando is something I still need to practice quite a bit. Hoping that readjusting my technique a little and practicing with the RH only I will be able to play that section smoothly and comfortably.

For what it's worth, I know that I'm probably not following the typical or even the "right" path for learning piano, but I also don't have any desire or intention to play professionally, or have a massive repertoire, or enter competitions, etc. I play for fun, and the Chopin pieces I selected I did so because I thought they were wonderful - definitely advanced for me, but I've learned sooo much just trying to decipher the sheet music alone. Obviously I don't want to learn a piece just so I can slaughter it... but then if I did that I guess I never really learned the piece at all!

Is there really anything inherently BAD about learning a more advanced piece? Assuming I'm not killing the piece and can play it comfortably and fairly well once I practice enough... do you think I'm robbing myself of something important that comes from the slow, steady progress of a typical student? I guess what I'm asking is... if I start to practice some grade 4/5 pieces regularly, but I still want to pursue a grade 7/8 as well, assuming I can actually do it, is that bad in your opinion?

Anyway, I found a nice list of Chopin works by difficulty and have selected a few easier pieces to start practicing as well. And I will look into the burgmüller as well. I'm going to continue working on 9/2, and add some easier pieces in to balance it out. I think I just fell in love with Chopin Prelude Op 28 No 7! A short little piece but it gives me the chills, and I think my fiance would just die if I played it for her.

One thing I'm glad for is that my hands almost never get tired! Practicing 25/4 started to wear me out a bit though.

Thanks again you don't know how much I appreciate all the advice!!!

[jtguru]

I'm feeling pretty comfortable with 9/2 though, although the glissando is something I still need to practice quite a bit. Hoping that readjusting my technique a little and practicing with the RH only I will be able to play that section smoothly and comfortably.

Sorry, didn't catch this in your first post. You've got a couple terms mixed up. I think the term you are looking for is "cadenza." A glissando is a slide from one pitch to another. On the piano, the most common type of glissando is sliding up or down across the white keys, though black-key glissandi and chromatic glissandi (white and black keys at the same time to ideally create the effect of a hyper-fast chromatic scale) do exist.

For what it's worth, I know that I'm probably not following the typical or even the "right" path for learning piano

Oh, you're certainly not following the typical path, but I don't think anyone has the authority to say what the "right" path is.

but I also don't have any desire or intention to play professionally, or have a massive repertoire, or enter competitions, etc. I play for fun, and the Chopin pieces I selected I did so because I thought they were wonderful

I am the same way as far as not intending to be a professional; I play because I enjoy music and I enjoy playing it, no other reason. As for the issue of "massive repertoire," you would be surprised at how easy it is to learn large numbers of pieces, assuming you find enough that you want to learn. It is definitely very good to only find things to play that you like (and that applies whether you intend to be a professional or not!). There is far too much music out there to waste time playing stuff that you don't enjoy, and if you search around enough, you will certainly be able to find pieces that you like at any difficulty level.

Is there really anything inherently BAD about learning a more advanced piece? Assuming I'm not killing the piece and can play it comfortably and fairly well once I practice enough... do you think I'm robbing myself of something important that comes from the slow, steady progress of a typical student? I guess what I'm asking is... if I start to practice some grade 4/5 pieces regularly, but I still want to pursue a grade 7/8 as well, assuming I can actually do it, is that bad in your opinion?

It is perfectly fine to work on a more advanced piece, as long as you go about it properly, i.e. don't try to learn large chunks at a time, be organized and systematic with how you practice it, don't learn the entire piece at half tempo and then expect to be able to increase it with the metronome, etc. Most beginners that are eager to be able to play a difficult piece have trouble being disciplined about these things, they rush into and through the piece too quickly, and the result is less than pleasant. If you can accept that progress may seem very slow, especially at first, then you can learn virtually anything you like at any time.

That being said, the less time you wait before starting to learn a more difficult piece, the longer it will take to actually learn it. Even though you really could learn Chopin 25/4 right now if you wanted to, I think you made the right decision to put it away for awhile. The mental work required to properly learn something that is incredibly difficult for you is enough to wear you out, never mind the physical difficulty of playing it.

[starstruck5]

I had a feeling someone would mention what is often referred to as the 'thumb over' technique for playing fast scales.  I would rather use the term experience! No pianist gets advanced , and to the best of my knowledge doesn't do this automatically.  I think eveness and clarity should be your goal for a while in any case - and not worry about speed too much. Playing scales blurringly fast is not much use if you don't develop good articulation, dynamics and musicianship.

I just wanted to add something to my previous post though - Major and Minor scales use the fourth finger only once. A good exercise is to begin the scale on the fourth finger - either ascending or descending. Also to play the first 4 notes- with the usual fingering 1-2-3-1 -ascending -or in the left hand descending.  Also - 1-3-2-1 ascending beginning on the 5th note of the scale.

Make sure you keep your wrist supple and responisve at all times -Above all, learn to think.

Also when you get to the point where you can play all the scales and aprpeggios well  - there is no reason why you can't learn the first 16 bars or so, of all the Chopin studies - OP 12 NO 2 is especially useful to strengthen those weaker fingers.  You don't have to play them like Agerich or Yuja Wang either to get some benefit from them - Many of the Alkan studies, similarly.

[cas70]

There's no "glissando" section in Chopin opus 9 no. 2 - not sure what you're talking about here.  Speed comes from a lot of repetition and some people are just faster than others.  Unless you're very, very, very good you can't possibly expect to play a Chopin etude up to speed without many months of hard work.  Also, some fingerings that work at slower speeds will not work at faster speeds, and you'll have to adjust.

[jtguru]

There's no "glissando" section in Chopin opus 9 no. 2 - not sure what you're talking about here. 

Sorry, didn't catch this in your first post. You've got a couple terms mixed up. I think the term you are looking for is "cadenza."

 

[johnmar78]

Hey Jiku, I have done op9/2, and I think where you are talking about,,,the ending section...I learn each bar at slower tempo that is a balance between mental relaxzation and muscle control. Each person has there own "slow tempo". When you start to learn at slower finger stroke, your brain-or so called muscle memory will learn the correct pattern. This is how I memorise 2 bars(approx) a day for all my work. Speed will come as long as there is no apparent pain or strain in your wrist and arm. There is always some tensions. Eventually, you may icrease your speed using 1) metronome 2) natural way.  I hope this helps..I am going to dig into memetronome for my op10-4 for a while.
I hope this helps...