Two questions from newly serious adult student

[bernadette60614]

First, thanks for the reply to my earlier question.  I'm the adult student who has just begun taking "serious" lessons with a teacher trained at the Moscow Conservatory.

Second, two questions:

.  How "enjoyable" should practice be?  Previously I had played what I wanted focusing on early Beethoven, Bach Two Part Inventions and easier Chopin etudes and some "big" pieces, e.g.,  piano arrangements of operas.  My teacher has me focusing on perfecting one piece:  Mozart's Rondo Ala Turka.  I can see improvements in my technique, but I know longer look forward to my time at the piano.  I know my work is rewarding, but I know that whatever I do during the week will not be "perfect" enough for my teacher.

.  What is the best way to make practicing a habit? Do serious pianists practice at the same time daily?  I previously played an hour before bedtime to relax, but now I find that my hour is anything but relaxing.  Is it better to play earlier?

My husband tells me I'm taking my lessons far too seriously, but I do want to develop into a serious student.

Thanks!

[nocturnetr]

 Imagine yourself playing your favourite virtuoso piece while playing and have a picture of your favourite composer staring at me. Rachmaninoff stares at me while I'm practicing and, I don't know how, the fact that Rachmaninoff looks realy scary makes me practice harder 

 Your practice should always be enjoyable, but PIANO ARRANGEMENTS OF OPERAS? You say that you have just begun. You won't be playing those pieces in the next few years, take it easy. A pianist does not simply practice Rach 3 if he has just entered the conservatory. And practicing the pieces you have mentioned won't be really enjoyable. I have practiced Chopin as soon as I have bought the piano and I nearly stopped playing.

 Professional pianists practice !at least! 4 hours a day. L. Nikolaev says that you must practice 4 hours a day to make a significant improvement. You have to be a pianistic genius to play a piano arrangement of opera if you practice 1 hour a day. Valentina Lisitsa practices 10+ hours a day and streams them sometimes.

 I don't know what kind of seriousness(?) you are talking about. You will be able to play some really hard pieces, but, you have to practice definetely more than an hour.

[brogers70]

Practice should be very enjoyable, I think. It's the high point of my day, every day. I'm also an adult student. If you are tired of working on the Mozart, tell your teacher. Adult students should be driving their own lessons. So negotiate a set of pieces to work on that you will enjoy more and that will help your technique. Once you enjoy practice, the issue will not be making it a habit, the issue will be avoiding its becoming an addiction.

Note: There are been some fraudulent posters misrepresenting themselves and wasting people's time over the past couple of years here. Your post is a bit odd in that it is strange for someone to list Bach Two Part Inventions and "easier" Chopin Etudes in the same sentence as an example of stuff they are working on. And if someone had been playing even the "easier" of the Chopin Etudes, then Rondo alla Turca should be pretty quick and painless to learn. So if someone treats you with skepticism it's not that we're all a bunch of cynical grouches, just that there have been some dodgy posters lately.

[bernadette60614]

I appreciate your reply.

I was a self-directed in my choices and I can't say that I played two part inventions well or Chopin Etudes well. 

According to my teacher, my strengths (and weaknesses) are that I have 1) flexible "fast" fingers and hands 2) I'm a great sight reader.  My definite weaknesses are that my fingering is "smudgy", I tend to play everything legato (I have very large hands and an octave strength is easy for me), and I'm not completely accurate.

My teacher, whom I really respect, warns me that she doesn't want me to "play like an amateur". She is correcting my hand position (I tend to play flat fingered), wrist position (my wrists drape), arms (stick out too much to one side), "sputters" between sections.

My opera arrangements aren't Liszt of Wagner, they are intermediate pieces in an anthology I picked up at Barnes and Noble.

[j_menz]

If I read correctly, you basically used to play what you liked and in the process developed some bad habits. Your teacher is now trying to correct those habits.

This stage of your learning will not be as much fun as what you have been doing. It is, however, extremely important if you are to go on to actually do pieces you like, at which point it will again be more enjoyable.

You're old enough to know that sometimes we have to do things that are not so much fun in order to do the things we want to do. So, suck it up for a bit. It won't be that unpleasant, and will have you in a much better position to have more fun with your practice later.

[bernadette60614]

Thank you!

As an adult beginner it is humbling but I'm going to stick with it.

Regarding the structuring of my practice.  I have one piece which I think is my teacher's way of focusing on my various bad habits. How should I approach working on this one piece?

In my prior "pedal to the floor, fast and loud" days I did hands alone very slowly, hands alone twice as fast as the tempo marked, then hands together slowly, hands together twice as fast.  I took three measures at a time and "built" a piece this way.  I'd start each practice session with the sections which were least fluid. 

Is this the right methodology given my new goals of accurate, proper hand position, precise adherence to the notes and dynamics?

[j_menz]

Regarding the structuring of my practice.  I have one piece which I think is my teacher's way of focusing on my various bad habits. How should I approach working on this one piece?

Why don't you have a discussion about this with your teacher? S/he will have a better idea what needs to be done, and how to go about doing it than we will - s/he has the advantage of seeing you play.

[outin]

Practice should be very enjoyable, I think. It's the high point of my day, every day. I'm also an adult student. If you are tired of working on the Mozart, tell your teacher. Adult students should be driving their own lessons. So negotiate a set of pieces to work on that you will enjoy more and that will help your technique. Once you enjoy practice, the issue will not be making it a habit, the issue will be avoiding its becoming an addiction.

Practicing cannot always be as enjoyable, but it should be something that one wants to do (and it really can get addictive). Sometimes one needs to momentarily work on things that are difficult or boring. But I agree that if you lose your motivation on a piece completely it's best to move on. This happens to me sometimes and I've tried to stick to it but I always end up wondering whether I should quit the piano because there's no progress no matter how much forced practice. Even my teacher sees it now, she sometimes tells me to drop the piece. I am not one of those people who like almost any kind of music and if I don't care for something I can't make myself be interested in it for long. It's different with music I like, I may hit a wall, but usually come back to it after a while. I don't even think this is an adult thing, because my childhood piano lessons failed also because there was no connection with the "music" and so no interest to practice.

[bernadette60614]

My teacher's instructions are:  slow down.  And, that's been it!

Any other guidance would be appreciated!

[outin]

My teacher's instructions are:  slow down.  And, that's been it!

I don't see how playing slow will help if one is bored or unmotivated... It helps if the problems are purely technical.

I wonder why your teacher has chosen this focus on one piece to help your technique. Mine is different. We work on a lot of pieces to gradually build the technique and we don't perfect the pieces, since I usually get the technique faster than I can solidly memorize. But could be that she realized early on how short my attention span can be...
 
Since you are an adult I think you can decide for yourself. Do you really want to perfect this piece or do you think it can still help you learn better technique? If so, stick to it. If not, take on something else besides it that motivates you. Just tell your teacher you need something to keep you spirits up

[ajspiano]

She is correcting my hand position (I tend to play flat fingered), wrist position (my wrists drape), arms (stick out too much to one side), "sputters" between sections.

My teacher's instructions are:  slow down.  And, that's been it!

Which is it? you get technical help or you don't?

What exactly are you working on with the teacher so far as repertoire now? if you left the etudes and inventions alone? is it the operas?

.........

@outin, playing slowly (extremely slowly) is also a memorisation technique. The idea being to break the muscle memory patterns and test if you actually know what exact note is next.

Also, while slow play does allow you to give more attention to good patterns of movement - I would also argue that slow practice isn't purely technical, it is also a major factor in the effectiveness of your practice day to day. Focused slow play results in better retention of the learned material since if done correctly you get a consistently more accurate performance, meaning you practice what you intend more than if you play full speed. Chang thinks this is a major factor in "away from the piano" brain connection development...  supposedly our brain remembers more effectively the music and technique for it if we always perform a slow accurate rendition to finish a practice session..  He even argues this should be done inbetween different practice sections..  say, practice bars 4-8 of LH slowly to finish before moving on to working on the RH.

[brogers70]

Bernadette,

Sorry if I sounded suspicious in my first answer. Although you may have to work hard, practice should mostly be fun. If your teacher is working with you on posture, wrist and arm position and the sort of thing you mentioned, then there is a lot of room to experiment. When the teacher shows you (or you find on your own) the correct, efficient movement for a particular scale or or particular bit from your Mozart, it should suddenly get a lot easier. It should also feel physically very pleasant.

I am a bit in the same boat as you. I started as an adult and worked my way fairly well on my own, so I knew a bit of music, but a good teacher really helped. After every lesson you should expect to be taking away ideas you can go home and experiment with. I've taken 3-4 days at a time doing nothing but hours of very slow scales focusing on all the mechanical details you mention, because my teacher had shown me something about my wrist flexibility; it can be very interesting, and it makes a big difference when you get back to playing your pieces. But you need a good teacher to be able to make the right sort of thought provoking suggestions. With the right teacher, I think you should feel a real difference within weeks.

On the other hand, training at the Moscow Conservatory does not automatically produce a great teacher, so if you feel bored and frustrated and are not progressing, the problem might be with the teacher, not you.

Bill

[bernadette60614]

Thank you.

I think what I'm looking for is more of the "why" behind some of her instructions.  "Slow down"...is a good command, but what another poster explained about the value of slow playing really helped me to understand the "why" of that instruction.

Thank you all!

[ajspiano]

what another poster explained about the value of slow playing really helped me to understand the "why" of that instruction.

Thank you all!

If you are talking about me, you may like to read these..  The name I mentioned, "chang" .. this is his thoughts on the matter.

https://www.pianofundamentals.com/book/en/1.II.16 - dangers of slow play
https://www.pianofundamentals.com/book/en/1.II.17 - importance of slow play

seem like I've been posting a lot of links to his site lately..  its almost like I'm spamming everyone.

[outin]

@outin, playing slowly (extremely slowly) is also a memorisation technique. The idea being to break the muscle memory patterns and test if you actually know what exact note is next.

True, but I would think if one is not interested and concentrated it just won't work. At least it doesn't with me...