The most useful suggestionI obtained in this forum

[Daniel_piano]

The most useful suggestion I got from this forum has been "repeat the same exact practice every day and let the piece be learned by your conscious while you're sleeping and day after day youll see your fingers know where to go"

Very few students use this instinctive method unfortunately
Before reading about with wichever method I decided to try or use I literally struggle at the piano as I thought I was supposed to learn perfectly my practice piece at the very end of the practice session
Because of this I never repeated the same bars again I just practice on 12 bars one day and the 12 next bar the next day
I was very nervous as I always ended up with a poor performace after my practice session and I always thought it was my fault (I thought it was beause I wasn't concentrating enough or I wasn't practicing hard enough)
The next day I'd practiced something new believing that I was supposed to ave it learned perfectly at the end of the practice session
I was so nervous and stressed because I thoughtmy practice sessions were all wrong
Then I read about the thery that you have to practice the same bars everyday and that they're learned while you sleep at night
It reminded me of the fact that after a workour session you don't see your muscles growing as they grow while you rest and sleep days after the workour
It made a lot of sense, first you have an exortation but you only see the results of this exortation during the rest period when the exortation information are metabolized

I tried this method and god it did made a difference
I tried it firstly with a schubert impromptu I was problems with
That  time instead of practicing 3 bars Sunday, 3 next bars Monday, 3 next bars Tuesday, 3 next bars Wednesday and so on for a week I instead practiced the same 12 bars every day for a week
At the end of the first practice session I remembered nothing and it was like I had never studies that bars
The next morning after a long night (sleeping more at night does help a lot too) I seated at the piano believing that I could not remember anything but surprise if it took 2 hours to practice those 21 bars the previous day I needed only 1 hour this time as my fingers knew where to go and the keyboard and my eyes knew where to go on the sheet
The third day it was even more better as it took only 20 minutes to reach the point where I was playing it pefectly and my fingers knew exactly where to go
After 5 days those 21 bars where perfect and I stopped practicig them for a week
After a week I came back to those 21 bars and second surprise this time was even more perfect and the hands moved much faster and the tone had improved a lot
So it seemed that even if I hadn't praticed those 21 bars for some time they keep improving by themselves on my unconscious at night
I became really interested in how the unconscious works and now I'm even able to wake up without a clock alarm at the time I want to as every night I keep repeating for 10 minutes aload the exact time I want to wake up and the stimulus is perfectly unserstood and metabolized by my unconscious mind

Oh well... thanks a lot for this wonderful suggestion
I've to say that I found that practcing always at full tempo and never atslow speed is not for me as it didnt work but I'm using this method where I always change the practice speed from very slow to very fast or where I use slow speed for learning the note and undertad the piece structure and fast practice for hands movement...this method works wonderful for me and I'm after 5 days able to play the practiced piece at whatever speed I want (whereas before I only could perform it at the practiced speed and was in trouble when I had to perform it slower or faster for my teacher)

Our mind rocks !!
I'm thriled by the idea of learning everything about the potential of our mind and what we can do by using stimulus for our unconscious

Any thought? Comment?


Cheers
Daniel

[mound]

Chang refers to this as "Post Practice Learning (PPL)" and goes to great length to explain it in his book (find the URL at the bottom of any of his posts.)

That's something I had realized early on and came to take advantage of it very quickly, I was delighted to read more about it in his book.  (It's actually something I had noticed when I was playing bass, but it still applies of course.) If this sort of thing interests you, definitely give his book a read! It's fascinating.  (by the way, Chang is user "CC" on this forum)

-Paul

[super_ardua]

The most useful suggestion for me is "There is no secret"

[mound]

"There is no secret"

Nice one super_ardua. I wonder why it is that so many folks think there is some kind of secret to playing piano (or any instrument for that matter)? I mean it's easy enough to say it's because they just haven't taken the time to learn it, but, it's gotta go beyond that. Ask the same "lay people" about Chemistry or Astro Physics (to be purely arbitrary) and they would never consider there to be a "secret to it" - it's obvious, go get schooled and study. Why is music perceived so fundamentally different I wonder?  (Again, I can't help but think of Chang and his presentation of Art as analagous to Science)

-Paul