Practise quality and routine

[katefarquharson]

Hello!

So I've gone back to piano lessons after an 18 month break (I'm 18) with a new teacher in South Africa. I've been with him for about 3 1/2 months and haven't really completed anything ... Well nothing that's absolutely polished etc.

He knows this and I think he is getting frustrated with me, partly because I'm quite irritating and can't concentrate for very long, have a TOTAL butterfly brain! He has said that the quality of my practise is not good, I do practise everyday but I am not looking at things in depth. I kind of know what I have to do now.

I'm the sort of person that needs clear structure if I'm going to get something done. So I'm thinking of having a little poster I keep by my piano that says all the things I must look at eg, fingering, phrasing, articulation, note placement, pedalling, transitions etc.

When you sit down for a practise session, working on a sonata lets say, what goes through your mind when you are working on it? Do you ask yourself questions? Do you do a similar thing each practise session?

I really need to sort this all out, or he will probably disown me!!! 
Also I am applying to do music as a major at the university where I take lessons. He is a senior  lecturer there so is on the audition panel and has said I need to sort out my practising or it's a no go for me 

Also for my own sake, I'd like to get back to the point where I can finish things, and hopefully start competitions and performances...

Help please!!!!

[brogers70]

Hi Kate,

Not a lot of answers yet, so I'll put in my two cents. I'm older, 54, and definitely an amateur, not an ambitious 18 year old, but I do think about practice routines and the quality of my practice. You already have some good ideas.

Keeping a practice journal is helpful; don't get too obsessive about it, but I find it helpful to keep track of the time I spend on each exercise or piece each day, and I write the specific goals for each piece for each session. So, for example, I'm working on the Brahms C#minor Intermezzo 117/3, and I might set aside 15-20 minutes to experiment how to voice and phrase the opening triple octaves; then I just work on that for the designated time and then move on to the next thing. So the next thing might be 15 minutes to work on keeping the wrist relaxed for the first inverted entry of the subject in the G major Fugue from WTC I. You can obviously experiment with the length of sessions you spend on each piece and how big a problem you want to tackle each session. The important thing is to have a specific goal realistic enough that within 15-20 minutes you'll see some real improvement. You might need 20-30 distinct goals along the way to get a longish piece in shape, but if you break it down like that, you'll feel the progress. What you should NOT do, is just play the piece through as best you can a few times each day; you'll probably improve a bit if you approach it that way, but progress will be much slower.

There was a fellow named Bernhard who used to post here. He had a lot of helpful tips about practice routines (and much else). A list of some of his best posts is here:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,5767.0.html

Good luck. Glad to hear from an African; I lived in Ghana for four years, and even visited Jo'burg once.

Bill

[sucom]

Hi Kate

I don't think you need a practice routine.  Instead, I think you should play through your piece/s but ask yourself frequently - "Did I just fluff that section?"  If you do, be honest with yourself and say "Can I make that section better?"  And go back and redo it until you are no longer fluffing any notes or not playing them cleanly/with expression/dynamic control...etc.

If you know that certain aspects of your technique are lacking in certain areas or certain sections of a piece, don't pass over them each time, hoping they will get better each time you play them.  Take them out separately and work on them.  Start practice with an intention to open the page on a section of a piece that you know is not up to scratch.

It's so easy to continue a piece even when you know there are areas that could do with some extra work.  Somewhere inside you, you have to find the self discipline to stop, go back and repeat, repeat, repeat carefully until you see some improvement.

I can guarantee that if you are fluffing areas they will remain like that no matter how many times you practice a piece, until you stop and work on that particular area.  You can do it!

[keypeg]

Sucom, two things.  One is:

Instead, I think you should play through your piece/s but ask yourself frequently - "Did I just fluff that section?"  

It's the "play through".

I do believe in a practice routine, and the first part is how you approach a new piece and develop it.  I've learned that this is best done in small sections, starting with the hardest part - but in fact what many people do is they start at the beginning, "play through", and when they get stuck they go back to the beginning.  You don't advocate that: you say to find where your problems are and to work on those things.  I agree with this part.

Take them out separately and work on them.  Start practice with an intention to open the page on a section of a piece that you know is not up to scratch.
 

Agree.

top, go back and repeat, repeat, repeat carefully until you see some improvement.
 

I only agree up to a point, because it can be refined.  If you have a problem area then you have to know why you have a problem.  Then you have to know how to fix the problem.  Then you have to have a strategy for fixing it, and apply that strategy - or a series of strategies in stages.  If you simply "repeat, repeat" then in many situations you have an exercise in futility with a lot of frustration, like when someone's car is stuck in snow and they keep gunning the motor to get out of the hole.

[hfmadopter]

 If you simply "repeat, repeat" then in many situations you have an exercise in futility with a lot of frustration, like when someone's car is stuck in snow and they keep gunning the motor to get out of the hole.

I like this analogy, since eventually you know that something more has to happen, you aren't going on that trip out of state until you address this stuck in the snow situation. Either you get some sand, dig the stuck tires out or get a push. Once the problem is solved you can continue on the trip. Converting that analogy, you get some teacher help ( the push), Figure out the problem for yourself ( get some sand or dig out).

I've gone for weeks not practicing entire pieces but digging out the trouble spot after attempting to play through a few times. Then put it all back together once solved, you already know you can do the rest of the piece anyway. The problem becomes which way to dig out, sometimes you really have to break a section down into it's basic elements. I have no teacher at this stage of my life to help me break down the trouble spots so I have to be my own teacher for now. If I get up to some level beyond where I've played in the past I may have to address that then.

I use no posters or log, I just allocate time to various sections of various pieces. I have the good fortune of recalling how my teacher worked with me so many years ago to get us up to performance level for recitals or to go play out in public.

[sucom]

Hi Keypeg

The chances are that we have similar views about this.  I was talking more about attention to detail rather than a technique which might be used for specific technical problems which may need a teacher’s help to work through.  Far too many students have a tendency to ‘play through’ a piece over and over again, always starting at the beginning and only stopping when the end is reached, always hoping that problem areas will correct themselves by repeating the same errors over and over again.  This is NOT a good method for practice.   If a section is uneven, the chances are that it will remain uneven even after many repeats.  If there is no fingering accuracy in a certain section but the player just passes over it, again hoping that it will correct itself ‘one day’ then I would say this is not a good method of practice.

I agree that one big problem is that students always start at the beginning and fluff the same problem areas over and over again while becoming particularly good at the opening bars.  In any case, starting in different places in the music can be good sight reading practice and can help a student to pick up more easily if a piece goes wrong in a performance or an exam.  Being able to pick up anywhere in the music is a very useful skill and can be incorporated into practice session by working on specific bars or phrases. 

What I do advocate is finding the self discipline to STOP when the player knows an inaccuracy has occurred, instead of passing it by.  In other words, paying attention to detail.  If a group of semiquavers is uneven, repeat them carefully, ensuring they are even.  Repeat this several times and do this every practice session until the area is corrected and the notes are even.  It may be necessary to slow down to achieve this, but as long as the notes are played evenly EVERY time, the semiquavers will gradually speed up over several practice session.  In the same way, with fingering accuracy or any musical expression, repeat the section slowly, ensuring what is required is actually being achieved, and repeat this several times before moving on.

I wasn’t really talking about specific problem areas that the student cannot get through.  In these situations, any specific problems can be worked on in a lesson which the student can and should continue at home.  My original post on this subject was related to the OP’s question about more about attention to detail while practising. 

One other point I would perhaps make is that I often find students playing a wrong note and then correcting it before moving immediately on.  This isn’t always the best method either because the student may be actually training themselves to play the wrong note followed by the correct note.  In this situation, when a wrong note has to be corrected, the whole phrase should be repeated again, several times if necessary, ensuring the wrong note doesn’t appear at all.

[keypeg]

Thanks, Sucom.  I have a feeling there was more to it.   

I came to piano lessons after having had violin lessons as an adult student.  I was very interested in practice approaches and any tools for learning to play, and my piano teacher stresses both of these things.  What I've gotten is an element that comes before what you describe.  The OP's history reminded me of my own: I am musical so I could dash off early music without needing a practice approach so when the music got advanced I didn't have one.

So here, roughly, is what I've learned for approaching a piece - which has been invaluable for me.  Some of it I came up with:

- Study the piece.  Notice if it has an ABA form, maybe modulating the the Dominant key and back, and generally its shape.  When you work on a section, know what chords you'll be playing.  Have an idea about your piece before starting it.

- Divide the piece into smaller sections, and those sections into even smaller bits.  Say you have a section of 10 measures, a small bit might be a measure more or less.  Think of the hardest section as "number 1" (to be practised first).

- Work out fingering.  Check with your teacher about the fingering.  Or have your teacher propose fingering.  If something isn't working, suspect the fingering and check with your teacher again if needed.  Stick with that fingering from then on.

- Now take your "section 1" (the hardest part of the music) and start with the last measure.  Get the fingering into your hands, and the motion.  You might start with the last beat of the last measure if it's hard, and you might ignoring counting at this point, if it's hard in any way.  You're going for the right notes with comfortable hands.  Say you've done measure 40.  Now work with measure 39 and do the same thing.  Do an overlap - m. 39 into part of 40, maybe starting with the last beat of m. 38.  Then join m. 39 and 40 together.  You will always be playing toward what is familiar which you've practised for "correct notes/fingering".  Keep going until you've done the whole section.  Then work on another section for "basic notes" in the same way.

This is the first "layer" --- working toward the right notes and fingering with good basic hand motion.  You should end up not having wrong notes happen.

- Add a layer to this: maybe fine tuning timing if you had to work ultra-basically only on "right notes/fingering" if a section was hard --- not a tempo --- eventually a tempo.  If you lose the notes, go back to this where they get lost.

-- Add the next layer: dynamics, rubato if it fits, whatever to make it expressive.

Here you are building the piece from the ground up in small sections and in layers.  The principle is that we can only concentrate on one new thing at a time.  For a professional musician, many of these things are instant and might happen in one practice session.  We students are creating practice habits for the first time.  If we are given this as beginners, then it's part of us as we get to advanced music.  If we begin as adults there is a great danger that it will be missed, and we're in a muddle of trying to "do it all" at the same time.  Even if we work on a small section, trying to get right notes, expression, timing, both hands ---- all in one shot --- while we also don't have good technique as part of us yet --- stay stuck and we can't refine the piece.

I have found these things to be very powerful.  It seems a very slow way of working in the first stages, but eventually the piece comes together much faster.  At least that's been my experience.

[keypeg]

Before I started studying with my piano teacher, I had an experience as a violin student.  There was a piece where I always got stuck on say "measure 9".  In lessons I'd play the piece, get to measure 9, and got stuck there. We never got past that measure.  Then while practicing one night I thought, "Why not see why I'm stuck there?"  My fingers wouldn't lift - but why.  So I spent maybe an hour doing things with my hand and fingers until I could lift off "4,3,2,1" releasing each finger.  Of course that is one thing you do in music:  If there is a problem, get at the root of the problem, find a solution and then apply it.  Then I could actually practice this "measure 9".

Then I thought, "What if I found every instant in this music that went like "measure 9", even if the notes are different, were I have to do this "4,3,2,1" lift-off?"  I knew there were a bunch.  So I found and circled those.  I knew they would all be hard the same way.  I practised only the circled measures - a weird practising that sounded unmusical - something like "m. 9, m. 26, m. 41, m. 53" - random.

The final thing was to take the easy measures that I could play fluidly and weld them into that measure 9.  The last note of measure 8 into measure 9, without losing the feeling.  Then the previous notes, until I was playing all of m. 8 and continuing smoothly into the dread m. 9 - and then 1 - 9.  Then the same for those other measures.

I got further in a few days than I had in weeks in practising.  I thought I had invented a really "weird" way of practising.  I started adding other things like, "What if I concentrate on bowing this session / the first 20 minutes?"  Apparently these are things that musicians actually do, and they are similar to what I'm being taught.  Had I known from the beginning, a great deal of struggle would have been prevented.