What I learned during my lesson

[candlelightpiano]

Hi guys:

Just a short introduction:  

I started the Fantasie Impromptu and Consolation No 3 projects, both of which are ongoing.  

After a 19 year hiatus from classical piano, I decided to begin lessons again last week.  I had my second lesson today and I thought it would be a good idea for us to share what we learn during our lessons so we can all benefit.  We don't have to share everything, especially if it's piece specific, but maybe just one or two things that we think may benefit everyone else.  Or maybe we just want to share it just because.  It doesn't have to be anything serious.  It can be funny, too.  

Choo

[candlelightpiano]

For my lesson today,  I played the entire Fantasie Impromptu with tons and tons of mistakes.  My memory and nerves weren't helping me out and I lost track of where I was and had to backtrack and even had to start again.

My teacher asked how I usually began my practice sessions.  I said I usually warmed up with a scale and if I made a mistake in my piece, I'd start again - and again - and again!  He said I needed to think of my practice as a performance because I could be called upon to perform for anyone at anytime, including himself, of course.  So he wants me to play through my piece from a cold start with no warm ups.  And to do it at least twice a day.  If I make a mistake, I should continue however I can and complete the piece without starting again or backtracking. 

So that's the most important thing I learned today. 

[ajspiano]

Cool idea choo - I don't know that I can contribute as I don't take lessons anymore..

I plan to give myself a lesson in better use of upper structure chord voicings some day soon though! - see if you can figure out what that means

[candlelightpiano]

I knew you'd find me!  It's not as easy to do as it sounds.  I have to concentrate and I'm not good at that!  Upper structure chord voicings - is that where you want to emphasize the top note of chords because they're part of the melody?  If that's not correct, maybe I'll find out when I go through my theory/ harmony book! 

[ajspiano]

Upper structure chord voicings - is that where you want to emphasize the top note of chords because they're part of the melody?

not quite - its a particular way to voice a chord - a little way ahead of you yet.

As an example

played together -   LH: E - Bb      ||     RH: D - F# - A

The chord in this case would be C7#11 - which a jazzy, complex sounding chord which belongs to melodic minor type harmony. You might use an upper structure if you were part of the rhythm section in a jazz ensemble, as it doesn't sound that nice in isolation (atleast I don't think so)

[zoecalgary]

Hi Choo I found you again. You have some of
the best ideas for thread topics.

Some of my best lessons have been after spending the week going up to the piano and playing a piece cold as many times as I can. Just walk up pick a piece to play and play it. In one week I must have had 50 cold starts. It's just that I find it hard to maintain this practice. I usually do scales, exercises, etc in regular practice too to warm up. But with your teacher's suggestion I should try thus again this week and report back after my next lesson.  Doing one take recordings is the same idea and helps me too.

[zoecalgary]

In the last few weeks I have been learning about different touch and dynamics. Coming from playing organ as a kid this never mattered. Now I have really come to see that this makes or breaks a piece. And I find that as I am learning little things it is throwing my entire little piece into chaos for awhile until I can bring it back under control after a day or so. But then I notice it in my playing that it is making a difference a little bit at a time. My LH is the biggest Challenge because it seems I get one if two things too loud or notes that do not sound.

This week my homework is to slow down and focus On touch and Dynamics. Slow and controlled.   

[candlelightpiano]

Great, Zoe,and thanks!  I have a problem controlling my LH too.  You can hear it in the Consolation I just posted.  Can't hear some notes.  Some are too loud!  Need to control my touch, slowly, just as you said.  I practice hands separately but when I play HT, I'm all out of whack again!

Another thing I learned today:  Bring a digital recorder!  I can't remember half the things he said!  I bought a recorder after my lesson and will bring it in future.  Lots more to share but I'll do it on the Fantasie Impromptu thread as it's piece specific.

[alfrunner440]

Some where in my wanderings over the years, I read that the worst thing that someone can do is to learn each hand seperately and then put them together. The reason was that you are learning the piece three times. Once for the left, once for the right, and then putting both hands together. It is true that if you are having a problem with a particular passage, it is best to isolate what is giving you the problem and then work on the technique. However, it is the connection of both sides of your brain that allow you to play the piano with both hands, not always doing the same thing. Without establishing the connecting quickly, you have to struggle to get the nurons to cooperate. Have you ever learn to play a piece with both hands, and then practice a difficult passage with only the left and then find that the right had is twitching. It is like it wants to get in the game. Playing the piano is a two handed activity, and should always be done as such, except for the reasons stated above.

[zoecalgary]

So today I learned two things at my lesson:

1. Practicing a difficult section with different rhythms helps to iron out problems with timing. I don't know how or why this works but the more I use it, the more it seems to work. It seems so counter intuitive that I don't understand it. I keep wanting to ask my teacher why this is so but keep forgetting!  If anybody cares to explain this, I would be very interested in knowing why.

2. To get speed you have to use a light touch. To not go into the keys as much. Of course this makes sense and should be intuitive but just hearing that made me really think about it and ta-da it works!  Now I just need to get the same thing with my LH which wants to dig into the keys and be lazy!

[zoecalgary]

Interesting to read the comment on playing hands separate and hands together. I'm still at a level that doing hands one at a time generally works better for me. But, of course there are some pieces that just don't make sense like this so you have to do them hands together right off the start. I think it is piece dependent then. If the piece 'demands' it do hands together, otherwise for me one hand at a time seems to work best. Maybe it's just the way I think though. Maybe I'm just not at the level to have too much going on at once. Any other comments on this?

[j_menz]

I never practice hands separate. I may go over a bit that is giving me particular trouble just to make sure I get the best fingering, but only ever that bit and only ever for that purpose. I've never seen the point of HS otherwise.

[zezhyrule]

Another thing I learned today:  Bring a digital recorder!  I can't remember half the things he said!  I bought a recorder after my lesson and will bring it in future.

This is a great idea! I always find myself forgetting things my teacher said, just as you mentioned. I'm going to bring one to my next lesson, so long as my teacher's okay with it.
^{Of course, I could always just hide it in my pocket... >:3}

[candlelightpiano]

Zoe, interesting what you said about practicing a difficult section with different rhythms to iron out problems with timing.  Could you possibly demonstrate in a video?  Thanks. 

[costicina]

Zoe is right, rhythm variations are a wonderful tool to iron difficult  passages, especially fast ones, where evennes is required. The basic idea is, instead of giving the notes their value, you play them as if they are dotted: long-short, long-short; it's essentiaòl doing always the reverse, too: short-long, short-long, etc. You can play them in triplets, too. In this way:


 Here is a very simple pattern example:

If it's not clear, using the search botton you'll find many exhaustive and very useful explanations here in the forum.

[zoecalgary]

Costicina thanks for posting that for Choo. I'm sure you explained it better than I could have. Like I said I'm not sure why this works but for some reason it does. I've used it not so much to iron out timing issues but to smoothen out groups of sixteenth notes that don't sound even. Even in the RH, uneven in the LH. But working them with different timing helps even them out so they all sound the same. 

It also helps to solidify the correct notes under your hands. I think because you are changing the timing and you aren't just relying on muscle memory. Also as I've seen in various videos here it's similar to blocking the chords first and then playing them broken.

[mcdiddy1]

Some where in my wanderings over the years, I read that the worst thing that someone can do is to learn each hand separately and then put them together. The reason was that you are learning the piece three times. Once for the left, once for the right, and then putting both hands together. It is true that if you are having a problem with a particular passage, it is best to isolate what is giving you the problem and then work on the technique. However, it is the connection of both sides of your brain that allow you to play the piano with both hands, not always doing the same thing. Without establishing the connecting quickly, you have to struggle to get the nurons to cooperate. Have you ever learn to play a piece with both hands, and then practice a difficult passage with only the left and then find that the right had is twitching. It is like it wants to get in the game. Playing the piano is a two handed activity, and should always be done as such, except for the reasons stated above.

I disagree with whoever said hands separate is the worst thing you can do when learning a new piece. First it depends on what your skill level is. For example if you are an experience pianist who is capable of playing Beethoven sonatas and Chopin Mazurkas then you should have the capability to sight read simple, Bach preludes hands together and start practicing from there. If you are a beginner and are having difficulty determining where Middle C is then it is wise to learn most pieces hands separately. It just depends on the difficulty of the piece compared to your skill level.

Since where has learning a piece in three different way a bad thing? It is better to know the piece inside and out especially if you plan on performing the piece. I have never had a student who could not play a piece because they learned hand separate but I have seen students with incorrect timing, notes and coordination problems due to putting hands together too early.

While it is true that playing hands together is much more complex than hands separate but that does not make it less complex to try and solve two complex problems at the same time. By practicing hand separate you can solve note, rhythms,phrasing, and fingering issues much more efficiently and effectively than doing both at the same time. Having problems with hands together coordination issues can be solved easily by slowing down the tempo, stopping and starting where hands play together etc... If you are able to play the piece hands separate easily and musically then it is important to play hands together soon but hands separate is an invaluable tool to learning piece above your skill level and certainly not the "worst" thing you can do. Unnecessary in some situation, probably but worst, no.

[zoecalgary]

Mcdiddy1 - I tend to agree with you. I think it does depend on your current level and the level/complexity of the piece you're trying to learn. I don't feel hands separate makes me take 3 times as long to learn a piece.  If anything it gives me a 'kick start' as I can give all my attention to each hand and take it from there. Yes it is different when the 2 hands come together but the more solid each hand is on it's own the easier it is to do do hands together.   I can see that as I (hopefully) advance and get better at sight reading and more comfortable with more complex music that bringing hands together from the start or sooner than now may just be possible.

[costicina]

HT versus  HS: Bernhard in this forum gave the most convincing and soundly argumented opinion on this highly debated issue. Please, please, read his posts!!!! m1469 ordered them by topics, so it's easy to find the relevant ones.... 

[j_menz]

Horses for courses, I guess. If you find HS a useful tool, then by all means use it. I never did find it useful, so I didn't use it.

[candlelightpiano]

Thanks, Marg, for the video!  I'll use it to help me in a couple of difficult measures in FI that I've been struggling with.  Thanks, Zoe, for sharing that with us.  I now recall doing this a long time ago (maybe 20 years ago!).  I know I sound really old when I say this but I'm not THAT old, really!    

Regarding practicing HS, I found it useful for the polyrhythms in FI and also in the middle section, when my LH was tense, for whatever reason.  Actually, I found it useful for the entire FI and in the 4 in 3 polyrhythms in Consolation.  But I don't always practice HS.  It depends on the piece. 

[candlelightpiano]

This is what I learned during my lesson today while working on Liszt Consolation No 3 and Fantasie Impromptu:

1.  Dig deep into the keys to make the melody stand out and sound more beautiful.  Push all the way into the keys, sink into the bottom of the keys.

2.  To make the LH accompaniment soft, keep your fingers touching the keys the whole time.  Your fingers are hardly moving, they're glued to the keys.  Roll your hand slightly back and forth, putting weight on different keys.

3.  When you have a chord or an octave, the top notes must be louder.  With the octaves in Consolation, making the top notes louder gives them a bell like quality.

[zoecalgary]

Choo what do you mean by dig deep into the keys? Is this the same as pressing harder? I thought once the hammer was in motion you couldn't change then tone/sound of that key?? Can you play fast and slow and still dig deep into the keys?

As for your comment of playing legato I have to try that.

 

[zoecalgary]

The top note in a chord to be played louder. Yes my teacher told me that too. Last lesson I'm trying to end a piece from 3 note chord to 2 notes in RH with a slur. I get the notes but when I really focus on legato I end up messing up the last 2 notes by

- not Sounding top note
- sounding bottom note way too loud!
- or not slurring the notes

She said she would rather I miss the bottom note than the top note. The
Top note is important.

[candlelightpiano]

Choo what do you mean by dig deep into the keys? Is this the same as pressing harder? I thought once the hammer was in motion you couldn't change then tone/sound of that key?? Can you play fast and slow and still dig deep into the keys?

I don't think you would dig deep into the keys if you're playing a fast passage.  You can't.  (at least, I don't see how you could).  Digging deep brings out the melody and makes it sound more beautiful.  You push the key all the way in, like to the bottom of the floor.  My teacher demonstrated by digging her finger into my thigh so try doing that to get the feeling of digging deep.  You push the key hard but it's not going to be loud.  You drop your hand into each note.  I have to work on this for both pieces.  AJ mentioned that Birba was doing this for the middle section of FI, when I asked how he created such beautiful tones. 

I don't understand the hammer action of the piano so perhaps AJ can help us out with that. 

[zoecalgary]

Hmm interesting. I'll have to try that to see if I can get different sounds. I always thought I always push deep into the keys (well to the bottom of the keybed) but maybe I'm not. I'll have to pay attention to this next time I'm at the piano.  And you're right...what a silly question I had I don't think you could do this when playing fast. A light touch for fast is required (that's what my teacher told me a couple of weeks ago anyway).

[candlelightpiano]

Agreed.  My teacher also told me that a very light touch for fast passages is required.  Your fingers are round or you play on your fingertips for fast and for slow, you can play on the flat of your fingers and stick to the keys.  I'm not doing that well with playing deep into the keys.  I think it will take a lot of practice to do without it sounding harsh.  I record my playing on the DP and sometimes it sounds harsh so I'm working on it but I have a feeling it's going to take a long while to learn to do comfortably and sound good.  Meanwhile, due to all these new things I'm learning, I'm not posting any videos.  I get so messed up now.