Negativity on neglecting "junior" technique

[Spatula]

As you might already know, I'm in the beginning stages of preparing for the long term project of do my grade 10 exam with the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM)...

But what I just relized that totally devestated my ability of a full encompassing view of technique is the INABILITY to do both SOLID and BROKEN trials or three note chords.

This is devastating simply because the RCM is stupid by putting WAY too much emphasis on the 4 note chords starting at grade 7 or 8.

They totally neglect for the student to practice TRIADS for at least 3 WHOLE GRADES, and now my fingers have lost finger memory of how to even do a BASIC C chord triad with inversions!

How sad is this?

Have any of you experienced this?

Can you do both triads and 4 note chords well?

PLEASE TELL ME!   :-/ :-/ :-/

[mound]

I'd think that if you took a week or even a few days and spent some time running through your triads and their inversions in every key, it'd all come back to you pretty quickly..  unless you never practiced it.. but if you can do  4 note chords, I'd think you can re-learn triads pretty easilly.

good luck!
-Paul

[squinchy]

Oo-I have the most adowibble little piece for relearning three note triads, their inversions, broken, blocked--and it's terribly easy to transpose into any key you want. I loved that piece, and it drilled chord basics into my fingers (though I didn't know it at the time).

Links to them: [Slower browser beware: I couldn't figure out how to make the images smaller and I don't have resources to make it a PDF file, so the images are huge.]

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/origami_princess/BlackForestPolka2.jpg

and

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/origami_princess/BlackForestPolka2.jpg

If you prefer, I could email them as attatchments.

Squinchy

[bernhard]

Thank you Squinchy for the scoer above.

However, both links are the same (second page).

Can we have the first page? Pleeease?

Best wishes.
Bernhard

[squinchy]

Oh-sure! I'll go edit it. Nevermind-I'll just post them here.

Page 1:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/origami_princess/BlackForestPolka1.jpg

Page 2:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/origami_princess/BlackForestPolka2.jpg

Now you have the beginning too! Yay! ^^

[bernhard]

Thanks a lot!

(I liked the picture of the dancing trees. )

[Spatula]

well er I hope this works.

Bernie, has this ever happened to you? neglecting some form of technique for like over 3 years and all assudden...BAM! you suck at triads....that's awful.  

[bernhard]

well er I hope this works.

Bernie, has this ever happened to you? neglecting some form of technique for like over 3 years and all assudden...BAM! you suck at triads....that's awful.  

Yes it happens all the time. Over the years I have learned a huge number of pieces of all levels. There is simply no way to keep them all at top performance level. Some times I cannot even play  properly an old grade 1 piece to show a new student what it sounds like.

However, I have enough experience now to be able to make the following distinction, which most “juniors” (term used in an affectionate way – I want to make a difference here between a “beginner” who knows little about piano and an “advanced inexperienced” who may already know quite a lot and play an advanced repertory but has not been sufficiently exposed to certain difficulties) do not make.

And this is the distinction:

When I first learn a piece for which I have not yet acquired the technique/musical understanding. It seems and feels completely impossible. It is truly disheartening to experience such utter inability (so I really sympathise with beginners). However – and I know that by now – by careful and appropriate practice that piece can be mastered in a relatively short time, say 10 days, to a high standard of performance.

So now, when I face such a piece, I just say to myself, “here we go again” and just get on with the job instead of pussyfooting around.

Now I have learned this piece to a high degree of mastery, and for one reason or another (including me getting sick of it) it gets neglected for a couple of years. Then I decide to play it again.

And I cannot. All those feelings of complete impossibility come back. It is as if I have never seen the piece before. Everything is clumsy, fingering is all wrong, notes and rhythm are forgotten and so on and so forth. You get that feeling of utter dismay at the realisation that all the work you put into it has been wasted and now you must start from scratch (which you actually must).

Most “juniors” – because of lack of experience – drop the piece at this point and never go back to it, and come to pianoforum to ask what they can do to avoid this type of situation (the truth is that you cannot).

However, although both situations (facing a piece you have never seen before, and facing a piece you once mastered, neglected and forgot) feel exactly the same in regards to impossibility, this “feeling” is completely misleading.

The moment you sit at the piano and start relearning the neglected piece from scratch not skipping any step (and the temptation will be huge) and not cutting any corners, it will all come back to you in a fraction of the time it took you the first time around. So if the first time it took you ten days, the second time may well take you 30 minutes. And if happens again, the third time around will probably take you 10 minutes, and usually after going through the process 3 or 4 times you will find that even after 30 years of neglect you can still play it perfectly.

I found this out by chance, simply because of my personal situation as a teacher: I do not have the time to keep everything in shape, students are always requiring new pieces to learn, so I have to neglect old pieces in order to learn new ones. I used to despair of this situation (“I will never have any repertory in shape”). But sometimes a student would come with a request to learn one of the old neglected pieces, so I had to relearn it. And because I was doing it with the student, I had to do it step by step, not cutting any corners. Suddenly I was aware of the distinction above, and of the fact that by teaching/learning a neglected piece 3 – 4 times, I got to the stage where I could not possibly ever forget it.

The moment I realised that, I started doing on purpose the process which up to then had been mostly imposed on me from outside circumstances.

This led to many interesting changes in the way I teach, which benefitted greatly not only the student, but me as well. In fact, if hard pressed I would have to say that I never practise. However I actually practise over 8 hours a day simply because I teach over 8 hours a day. But to an external observer with fixed ideas about what practice is, it might not look as practice at all.  

Does this answer your question? Then get on with it!

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Spatula]

W00T!

TRANSFORM! I AM ENERGIZED! (runs to the piano in a dashing and daring fashion)

psst..don't feel bad about not being able to do some grade one pieces for your students, I even have to go slowly to sight-read a grade one piece, that's how I am.  I'd rather sight-read a simple piece (like that dancing trees) than poorly perform a moderatly-difficult piece.

Thanks bernie, you saved the piano world again.
GOOD JOB!