Learning pieces in short spaces of time.

[thorn]

I've been set the interesting task of preparing the Ravel Sonatine (all 3 mvts) to the best of my ability and given a month in which to do this.

I played through the thing and it's a lot more straightforward than the stuff I've tackled over the past year, so I'm not asking technical questions.

It's the time frame that's giving me doubts- how do people go about preparing new repertoire to deadline? It's obviously possible and pianists more efficient in their practice will be reading this thinking "a month?! what's all the fuss about"- I'd be really grateful if such people could share some tips 

[awesom_o]

I'm more of a lifeline man than a deadline man myself.

I've always found the quicker I learned a piece, the easier I forget it.

You have one month to play it in public by memory?

[thorn]

"In public" meaning in a class where there will be the audience of other people in the class who have had different things to prepare under the same circumstances. In terms of "proper" public performance, that's not until February.

"The best of my ability" means that there is some flexibility- I probably won't have it all from memory and I'm doubting the final movement will be entirely up to speed. There's still the idea that I'll be working on it in more detail between November and February.

Breaking it down into the three movements, the first two are completely achievable in that time. Over the past couple of days, the middle movement is already in a passable sight reading state. I'm more concerned about the final movement than anything else- it's definitely shaping up to be a "tackle a few pages and then forget them" sort of piece...

[awesom_o]

I would definitely prioritize the 3rd movement. It's technically trickier than the first two... and just contains way more notes overall.

There is some stuff in the first movement that is written-out very awkwardly in the part-some slight redistribution made it quite a bit easier, if I recall correctly.

Work on being able to hear the piece in its entirety away from the piano. In my experience, if I can play it in my head, hearing the music just the way I want it to sound, then it usually isn't very far behind on the piano.

At the piano itself, I would focus on practicing always with the score.

 I like to go through the piece from beginning to end, under tempo, but with extremely precise rhythm and dynamics.

I think it's important not to practice a difficult passage over and over again trying to get it up to tempo.... but to instead get comfortable with playing that passage slightly under tempo in its proper musical context.

[iansinclair]

 I like to go through the piece from beginning to end, under tempo, but with extremely precise rhythm and dynamics.

I think it's important not to practice a difficult passage over and over again trying to get it up to tempo.... but to instead get comfortable with playing that passage slightly under tempo in its proper musical context.

Quite agree.  In fact, as I said in another thread around here somewhere, if I am working through a piece and hit a bad patch, I do work on it -- and the surrounding phrase -- at a tempo at which I can make it right.  There's no use practicing mistakes.  And try to bring it more up to tempo.  But -- and a very important part -- I always finish working on a particular piece on a particular day by playing the whole thing through at what I hope is a manageable tempo (holding that correctly) to be sure that I am keeping the overall arc and phrasing of the piece in my head.  And in that final for the day run through, I keep going (unless I get absolutely hopelessly tangled...) and simply note the patches which will need work -- tomorrow.

[gvans]

This sort of thing comes up for me all the time. We set a rehearsal date for a chamber group, and I do my best to get my part down...sometimes I make it, sometimes not. The key is the tempo. I would suggest about a week before, decide on the tempo that enables you to play it best. If it's slightly below what other consider "standard" tempo, so what? Play it your way.

[dima_76557]

It's the time frame that's giving me doubts- how do people go about preparing new repertoire to deadline?

The deadline is today, not in 30 days. That is my approach, always. The deadlines I have to meet are usually about 1 week or less, so you are forced to get the max out of yourself, and not put pieces on the back burner. If I can't do the raw notes at least acceptably well on that same day in a tempo that is close to the required one, I'd rather drop the piece and do something else because it is apparently not my level. Although this seems horrendously difficult, it becomes a habit and it is actually psychologically convenient, because on the remaining days, you can then work slowly on the artistic image without having to worry about not meeting the deadline.

Ravel is always about hand choreography. Most of it can be taken into convenient blocks if you have an eye and a feel for that. That's why, instead of attacking this (truly difficult!) piece right away at the instrument, make yourself a hot drink and look at it on the sofa as if you don't have to play it yourself, but as if you have to determine a fingering for somebody else. This really helps. Try the "chunking" approach I mentioned, and as soon as you have fluency in that, play it rhytmically as written. Tempo will then no longer be a problem.

Ravel seems to have been obsessed with thumb technique. The trick I found useful to be able to play his works was to never bend the thumbs' nail joint.

EDIT: "Memorizing" pieces should be the natural result of work on the artistic image. I find all other tricks to be useless. They can lead to memory lapses.

[dima_76557]

The deadlines I have to meet are usually about 1 week or less, so you are forced to get the max out of yourself, and not put pieces on the back burner.

Some may think that this is a fairy tale, but it is actually the norm in top musical institutions virtually all over the world. The principle is, of course, that you want to do something that is as close as possible to your sight reading level and that you have a good enough technical background, so you don't have to struggle with material things like "tempo".

In this interview clip (at 5:40), Cyprien Katsaris talks about how one of his teachers, Monique de la Bruchollerie - a great pianist in her own right -, required him to learn:

1. Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue - Bach
2. Sonata opus 110 - Beethoven
3. Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody

within ONE week! If you are not really ready for it, then 18 hours a day every day will not even be enough to get that ready. Of course, he was ready, because he could already play the Tchaikovsky.

P.S.: He also talks about the technical regime of scales and octaves he had to go through every day, and the interview is overall very useful to watch. For example, he requires students to solve all kinds of problems in his presence, right on the spot and without delay, which I think is a fantastic approach, especially since (judging from his master classes) he NEVER humiliates the student; always gives them time and space to do so.

EDIT: It's simply amazing and rather funny how hard and how long many people (including myself before I was taught to see the light) are prepared to work to avoid a couple of minutes of discipline to do things the right way.

[thorn]

Thank you all for your input. I feel like I have a better idea of how to go about this now.

I have spent the majority of my weekend on trains, which has meant very little time at the instrument but a lot of chance to sit with the score and a handful of different recordings. I found this very productive; I understand the piece better and can hear it in my head and when I did finally get home and sit at the piano, I already played the whole thing with more confidence and I think "better" than I left it.

[Bob]

For a few people I've heard... They spend a lot of extra time on it, maybe more than normal with a more relaxed practice schedule.  Enough also that it sounds mentally painful.  More time, more attention, more energy put into it than normal.  And they're not always happy with the performance.  Some things might have to get changed to make it work quickly.

I haven't thought about it in a while... I'm thinking those people didn't have any issues with technique at all.

[jknott]

Dima - I found your post really interesting and have a question.  I wasn't sure if you are saying we should only play pieces we can sight-read fairly easily?  If so, how do we advance?  I used to do this when I was young, but having gone back to piano after a long gap, I feel I've progressed in the last year precisely by playing pieces I can't sight-read easily, and by sticking with them.

But perhaps you were only advocating this for learning pieces quickly when there's a tight deadline.

спасибо

[dima_76557]

I wasn't sure if you are saying we should only play pieces we can sight-read fairly easily?

 
Yes, that would be ideal. Not necessarily a tempo, but most certainly with both hands without hesitation. We should at least play pieces that are not too far away from that level. Sitting months and months to learn the notes is simply abusing a work of art that was never intended to be used like that.

If so, how do we advance?

The details of how to train for that are discussed in this topic:
Sight Reading tips please

The essence is the following:

1) Good decoding skills (you can develop those on the sofa, including the counting part). Pattern recognition is crucial, so you don't have to process all elements deliberately.
2) Perfect independence of the hands and an ability to move without the brain interfering, a.k.a. "technique";
3) An excellent feel for the topography of your instrument (also part of "technique"), so you can use your eyes for reading only.
4) Retrieval from the memory banks of already learned technical and musical formulas (scales, chords, arpeggios, etc.)

P.S.: Improvising, using the technical and musical elements you have learned already will also help to develop, especially if you can do that in the style of the composer whose work you are planning to learn.

[jknott]

Thanks Dima.  So essentially you're saying that in order to progress by this method I have to improve my sight-reading.  I can understand that - but my issue is this.  I have generally felt my sight-reading ability to be quite good for my level of playing - they haven't hindered me significantly in picking up new material.  But what I notice in my progress since starting back at piano and having lessons is that I've been prepared to tackle more difficult material that I can't immediately sight-read well, and I can really see the fruits of practice - so I'm a bit reluctant to think this is somehow wrong. 

I think what I'm really talking about here is passages that I would find PHYSICALLY difficult to play at first sight - for example passages of semi-quavers that are tiring and uneven at first but can be played with relative ease after practice (and I'm not talking about months, just weeks).  The sight-reading limitation isn't so much a cognitive one as a physical one, which can be overcome with a little patience and hard work.

I've found this quite liberating, as it has allowed me to lift my ambitions.  Are you really saying this is wrong/abusing the works?

спасибо опять

[awesom_o]

 
Yes, that would be ideal. Not necessarily a tempo, but most certainly with both hands without hesitation. We should at least play pieces that are not too far away from that level. Sitting months and months to learn the notes is simply abusing a work of art that was never intended to be used like that.

100% correct, and rather well said in my opinion.

There are a ton of cello concertos that I am not a good enough cellist to play yet! Rather than waste my time butchering those concertos with insufficient bow control and poor intonation, I work hard on studies to develop my abilities on the instrument. I'll be ready for those concertos when I can sightread through them comfortably and fluidly under tempo.

This is extremely important in piano chamber music. Last night I began working on Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances for Two Pianos. Today will be the first rehearsal with my duo partners. The two piano repertoire has to be played essentially at sight. You don't get six months to learn the part.

[dima_76557]

Thanks Dima.  So essentially you're saying that in order to progress by this method I have to improve my sight-reading.  

 

Yes and no.

What I'm saying is that you should be doing stuff along the lines I mentioned that improve you generally as an alround musician. Instead of learning technique in pieces by drilling the "difficult" passages, you should already have that technique BEFORE you even touch the instrument to play it as an application in a work of art.

You could have determined by reading on the sofa that you would not be able to play that technically. My way would be: do not attempt the piece until you are sure you can do its most difficult passages. Analyse such a passage, not playing but reading, and determine the essence of its content. Then think of an exercise that contains the essence of the difficulty in that passage and work on that, transposing it to all possible keys. Turn it upside down and inside out. First, make it easier, then make it more complicated. Everything with eyes closed, of course, and ALWAYS set yourself artistic goals in training for technique. Emotionless technique will never really fit into a work of art.

[jknott]

But isn't that there a risk that leads to just that - sitting on the sofa, not even attempting pieces which would be within one's grasp with a bit (I'm saying weeks not months) of practice?  I'm not talking about attempting pieces which are far too difficult throughout, but pieces which one can play musically but perhaps have a few tricky patches that need work.  I find that's what motivates me to improve technique.

[dima_76557]

But isn't that there a risk that leads to just that - sitting on the sofa, not even attempting pieces which would be within one's grasp with a bit (I'm saying weeks not months) of practice?  I'm not talking about attempting pieces which are far too difficult throughout, but pieces which one can play musically but perhaps have a few tricky patches that need work.  I find that's what motivates me to improve technique.

I don't think so, unless you are so advanced that you can estimate in advance how long it will take to solve the problems. Sometimes, that is not very obvious. For example, in certain Chopin etudes, it seems as if Chopin trains the "weak" fingers, while he actually requires a perfect thumb to play the work as required. If you don't realize that, it may take you 25 years of wrong training and you will still have poor results in something that seems quite playable.

The material part of music is nothing but idioms, and each composer has his/her own. I dream about books that would be available with all "riffs" and "licks" per composer in all keys that would give access to the language of that composer.

If my English as a Russian is not really good enough to read books by, say, John Grisham, then I have two choices: I can abuse his books and look up all the American slang and idioms every other sentence (this requires very strong determination, because they are rather thick books and there are numerous expressions I haven't seen anywhere else), or I can try to improve my English in general and work on slang and idioms in another context. I'd prefer the second variant, because in the first scenario, I will simply miss the beauty and part of the storyline. Grisham did not write his books to be abused in that way.

[awesom_o]

For example, in certain Chopin etudes, it seems as if Chopin trains the "weak" fingers, while he actually requires a perfect thumb to play the work as required. If you don't realize that, it may take you 25 years of wrong training and you will still have poor results in something that seems quite playable.

This is crucial. Czerny believed that the proper use of the thumb is the main difficulty in piano playing.

[jknott]

I like the Grisham analogy, and it reminds me of my time many years ago struggling through 19th century Russian literature.  But it also made me think that age may make a difference.  In my twenties if I wanted to learn or improve a language, I just spent the time and did it.  Not so in my fifties, and with a more than full-time job - I'm just not going to make the investment. 

So, I think, with my piano playing.  Yes I could spend time improving my technique with exercises (and the kind of exercises you mention might be fun if they existed), but with a limited amount of time at my disposal, and wanting to play for pleasure, I'm not sure I could sustain motivation.  It's much more pleasurable to learn technique on the pieces - though I accept I'm probably abusing works of art in doing so!

 

[dima_76557]

Yes I could spend time improving my technique with exercises (and the kind of exercises you mention might be fun if they existed), but with a limited amount of time at my disposal, and wanting to play for pleasure, I'm not sure I could sustain motivation.

As long as you think of them as dry "exercises", it won't be fun, but there is another approach Ted talked about yesterday that really gives you pleasure for a lifetime:
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=52723.msg571838#msg571838
P.S.: The depth of understanding you get through that kind of "exercises" can be enough to solve certain problems within 5 minutes, while you would otherwise need a month or so.

[amelialw]

According to my russian teacher anything is possible if you start it off right by doing good practice no matter how many hours you have.