Returning to playing the Piano - Advice needed

[gusmac]

All,
After a number of years away from playing the piano - I have decided to return to it.  What is below is detail on what I used to be and where I'm at at the moment... with a bundle of questions!! :-)

Previous Standard:
I used to be Grade 4 and could play a number of pieces like Flur Elise and Moonlight Sonata etc well.  However to learn the pieces took a number of months.  It was hard work and lots of effort.  It didn't come quickly and therefore the list of music that I could play was rather short....

Approach to Returning back.
I've done a little research and my approach has really been going back to basics.  Focusing on things that I didn't really master the first time round (a) Theory (b) Rhythm (c) Fingers Exercise (d) Sight Reading

(a) Theory - I have a theory book and working through elements like construction to understand the theory of how music is put together.
(b) Rhythm - two things... when practicing always using a metronome and one my daily commute using an Iphone App "ReadRhythm" to practice
(c) Finger Exercise - before playing I do all the scales on both hands - independently and jointly and then Virtuoso exercises... working through them - at the moment only on C-Major.
(d) Sight Reading - struggling to find something for that...
(e) Learning Book - I'm using - "The Piano Handbook: A Complete Guide for Mastering the Piano" - Carl Humphrises

At the moment... I've not opted to take lessons as I think at this stage it is about learning practice and more practice.

Questions:

I have a number of questions which I would appreciate your guidance on:
1) Views on my overall approach.... does it make sense or I'm I missing something?
2) What finger exercises should I do before playing... i.e. hand stretching / clicking fingers etc.
3) I'm struggling with Rhythm.... especially tapping my foot in time.... how do people do this... e.g. use always the same foot... don't tap at all - my main struggle is nots not on the beats and speed
4) Virtuoso exercises... should I complete exercises in order my key or exercise... e.g. should I complete all C-Major then move to G Major etc?
5) Virtuoso exercises - I'm struggling with the fingering with some keys - e.g. B Major...
6) Any good exercises to learn/master chords?
7) Sight reading - any useful guidance - or just practice helps?

sorry of the mountain of questions.... but any guidance would be useful.
Thanks
Angus

[gyzzzmo]

I think you should take a teacher anyway. You say its all about (learning) practise now, but you better have good guidance when doing. Also, it will -always- be about practise

[bronnestam]

One friendly word on your way, though ...

It is possible that you have endlessly amounts of time and energy. I certainly don't. I have a family, a job, pets, housekeeping and other things to think about, so I am happy if I get as much as two hours of practicing time in a day. Often I don't get that much.
BUT even back in the days of being a school kid, I did not have enough energy for all these technical exercises. I had this idea of starting every practice session by working myself through the whole major quint circle with normal scales, punctuated scales, separate hands ... etcetera. Theoretically, it was a good ambition. Practically, it was disaster, as I got tired and/or interrupted long before I had even finished those scales.

And then what? What happened was that I lost interest, stopped listening at my own playing, and of course never practiced my assignments sufficiently. So I was a failure.

Now, when I have returned to ambitious piano playing after nearly three decades of hibernation, I took another approach. Motivation always comes first! So I skipped those tedious technical exercises, I went straight to what I really wanted to play. Guess what, I often play scales too. But not all of them, not all the time, and definitely not as a warm-up. I play them when I think I need them.

Other might have some other advice for you, but I say: go for what you think is fun and challenging, and then you will find out what technical exercises that will support you for your present projects. For example, I have worked for long with the Sonata Pathétique now, and that lead me to exercise chromatic scales and the c minor scale quite a lot, as well as trills. I also play the G Major sonata (No. 19) as a "support" to this sonata. Lots of scales there. 

I also highly recommend Bach's Inventions, that are excellent technical exercises and also so nice that you can play them at recitals. 

 

[hfmadopter]

There are many approaches, I can only mention what is working for me this time around so far. I was away from my piano for a long time and have been back at it now for about 16 months. You can break it all down into titles and sub titles but at the end of the day the pieces you will work on will be written in a key, each one may have it's own key or  be in the same key. What I do is practice what is relevant to that piece in terms of scales and chords, voicing and accents. Why burden yourself with things not relevant yet ? At least not to do so extensively. Others may argue differently but that's the approach I'm using, which is not so different from how my teacher taught once past the very basics .

My hand stretches consists of about 8 or so repeats of opening and closing both hands fully as if flashing a repeated number 10 at someone on the sidelines at a sporting event. Really nothing more than getting things moving. I may rinse them in warm water in the cold weather. Other than that most everything is at the piano. I may find myself at work at my desk running fingers over an invisible keyboard to practice patterns..

I had to back way up at first, dropping back to level three, four and five work. I had to get the hands and mind working again etc... People can say what they want about not building muscles but the ones we use at piano are not in condition based on every day activities. I did not have the flexibility, especially in the most outward knuckles, when starting back up again. Now I can actually curl my fingers backward a bit without straining. Not that that was a goal but it's been a result of practice that I have noticed happening with my hands. My hands now don't tire at the keyboard and my mind lasts longer per session, much like before I stopped playing. Early on in this return to the piano I thought, my gosh I've lost it ! Those first weeks I was good for about 20 minute doses at a time. As it turns out, I did not lose anything that isn't slowly coming back to me.

One thing has changed. I don't have the burning desire ( more like obsession) to perform super great works. I'm content with very musically interesting sounding pieces now and actually pretty sounding music. Before, I had a different focus, I'm content now to play what ever I do, what ever I pick for music except a for couple of bombs but do it very well vs some huge piece. Not that huge pieces are bad mind you. I  used to like chasing big chords that made lot's of notes sound and lots of volume. Now I like trailing melodies and open structured music more than I did back then. I'm finding there is more to be had out of this style music than I ever previously even considered. Something like that could happen to you ! One never knows.

I'm 63 now, lot's of things in life look different to me than when I was younger.