Help a conductor out!

[knoxville]

Hey all! First post! Mighty fine site.

Masters student in conducting here, originally a violist.  Aaaaand I kind of suck at piano. I need to improve my technique, but since the majority of my time is eaten up by studying, conducting, and, of course, f**king up auditions, I'll never really have time for a proper piano teacher.

So I need your guidance! My profession doesn't really require super polished or precise piano technique, just functional technique. For example, I'd like to feel more secure coaching my singers from the piano like my fav crazy hair maestro, Jimmy Levine:

If ya get what I mean. I don't need to be anything close to a virtuoso. In fact it's best for all of us if I leave the liszt to you pros.

So what's a good way for me to further my functional piano playing, develop a decent technique focused mainly on sightreading and accompanying, rather than learning repertoire and flashy virtuoso stuff?

Thank you, pianist buddies!

[j_menz]

Levine is actually a highly proficient pianist. His first concert was (soloist in) the Mendelssohn 2nd PC - he was 10.

It's not clear from the vid whether he's reading off a piano reduction, or whether he's creating his own off of the full score.  Either way, he has to follow not only his own work, but that of the Soprano. To sightread while doing that requires considerable skill, and significantly more skill  than just sightreading the score alone.

In other words, to do what you are looking to do, you're going to have to buckle down and do some serious piano work. You can never have enough, of course, but the "functional technique" you are looking for is actually reasonably high level.  I'd strongly advise getting some coaching in person - not necessarily a full time teacher - from someone who understands what you are trying to achieve. Either that or get used to working with a repetiteur.

[knoxville]

Thanks for the reply, man!

I already knew that Jimmy was a fantastic pianist, I've actually met him a couple times!  He's sightreading from a vocal score, which has a piano reduction and the vocal parts on it. Of course, he's also extremely familiar with the full score already, so it isn't a "cold" reading.

I already work with a repetiteur, but I feel like a chump sometimes sitting in a room with two fantastic artists, just waving my hands and bossing people around... So I've been practicing accompanying by sightreading easy lieder with my vocalist friend...

I know the technical level and skill that I need to get to, but I was hoping you could give me some tips on how to practice better!  I've never had a piano teacher, so I've been kind of on my own.. My current routine consists mainly of running through scales and arpeggios and sightreading Bach chorales.

But you're probably right... I should get a teacher. But I'm so busy all the time, it makes scheduling difficult...

[j_menz]

Some suggestions then:

Get a copy of Bartok's Mikrocosmos, and work your way through it from the beginning. Don't strive so much for absolute perfection at each stage, but rather move onto the next piece when you've got the current one at speed and comfortable.

Get a series of graded pieces and sightread as much and whenever you can. Don't try for difficult pieces, go for ones at about a level you can read at tempo or close to.

Not usually a fan, but for your purpose Czerny Opp 481, 139, 453 and 261 might also be useful to work your way through.

The Czerny, and plenty of pieces for the sightreading are available on IMSLP, and you might find the collection available to gold members here on PianoStreet useful too.

Oh, and keep practicing with your singer friend - that's invaluable.

[knoxville]

Thanks so much, man. Great to have a real pianist's perspective on the matter. I really appreciate it!