Please Help!!

[olivialeonie]

Hi!
I have played the piano since 7 years but I think I am still not very good at it.  I want to improve but I don’t know how. I haven’t been very interested in playing the piano for about 3 of these 7 years, and my teacher that I had 6 years was not good either, she just gave me a sheet and played it for me, then on  my next lesson she would give me a new sheet and so one.  My teacher now is a bit better but still not really interested in getting me to improve!
My question now is: how do I improve? just by playing different pieces?  I wanted to try hanon but I read that it is bad for piano players because it will only teach you technique and you will only play stiff…
The last piece that I played was: Sonatina 1 by m. Clementi op 36 nr 1
And now I am struggling with: Mozart’s theme and variations of “ah, vous dirai-je, maman”
But I really want to improve and maybe try a little jazz too (I have only played classical pieces).
I would like to know what kind of exercise I can do and how to improve!
I am actually really bad at holding tempo too, I have tried to play with an metronome but I always kind of delete the sound of the metronome in  my head and just play as usual  getting slowly faster and faster maybe you have some advises how I can improve holding the tempo?
And if you have some good book I would super happy if you could recommend them too!
And how many hours should I practice daily?
I would be super happy if you could help me! (and sorry for my incredible bad English!!)

[cliffy]

Hello Olivia,

Seven years playing and never touched Hanon before?  How old are you? I'm reminded of the time a student sent Josef Hofmann a letter seeking advice on a Beethoven sonata, because his edition lacked metronome markings and he wanted to know what tempo he should play the first movement at. Hofmann replied that if the student was so fortunate to have an edition of Beethoven sans metronome markings (a rarity in those days), he wouldn't dream of meddling with it by supplying any.

The most important thing to remember is that one does not improve just by playing repertoire. Similarly, the improvement one gets by playing exercises is suboptimal for our overall goal of playing music. In order to improve as quickly and fully as possible we must find repertoire we enjoy greatly, then work on it.

Everybody gets the best results by practicing a little differently from the average. The whole journey of learning an instrument is in large part learning how to practice to improve. Once this is learned, you could go from a beginner to a virtuoso in a matter of a few years with ease, but learning this will likely take decades of hard work and experimentation. This is why we have teachers: we assume when we hire them that they know how to handle a larger number of specific problems than we do, and can tailor each solution to match our physical and mental profile.

The reason not to do Hanon has never been that it will hurt you as a player (unless you were to take his instructions literally, which would virtually guarantee an injury after a time), but that it's an inefficient use of our very limited lifetime that could be better used elsewhere. The reason for this is that the acquisition of specific technical skills is very simple if you know how; in fact, it's arguably the quickest thing about learning the piano. What takes a long time is the coordination of specific technical patterns and establishing fluid connection of them, which is what happens in the acquisition of repertoire. From this we can get a general rule, to never do specific technical exercises unless you have a specific reason to do so. If you aren't learning now or plan to ever in the future learn a piece of music with thirds (that'd be some trick, I must say) in it, you should just never practice thirds and instead practice things you will use. However, it's very limiting to choose your pieces based on fear of specific problems. Rather you should endeavor to become able to solve any pianistic issue with maximum efficiency, then solve them as they come, fearlessly. The first two books of Hanon are unnecessary because if you know how you can always write exercises on your own which will give you greater benefits than they will in the same amount of time. The third book contains things which are terribly important, vital even, but they aren't Hanon's so much as every piano teacher's. Here is the basic case against Hanon: they are useless, not because they hurt or even because they don't work, but because they frivolously waste the commodity of time, the single most essential and precious thing musicians have, while offering no special benefits for it. For a small investment of time in the present learning how to bypass Hanon, you could save yourself huge amounts of time in the future.

Why do we practice, say, scales then? Because practically every piece of music of music benefits from having good working ability in the scale of the key it's in as well as the chromatic scale, and because a badly played scale is painful while a well-played one is glorious. As such, the situation where you cannot derive any benefit whatsoever from working on scales would be when you're a total master of them all. That is your goal. Once you're a master of them like Hofmann you need only give them the smallest amount of time every now and again to keep them fresh at your fingertips, and the necessity of even that little bit of maintenance work is debatable.

So, how do we improve? By finding problems and solving them. If you cannot play a piece of music, ask yourself why. If the problem is a single technical one, such as a run of legato thirds, get out the exercises and do them, or even better, produce your own exercises which involve exactly the same conditions as the piece and will give better results quicker. You needn't even write anything new to do this. Sometimes just playing it in small enough chunks, getting all the motions right, then putting the chunks together is enough.

The most important thing of all is to know in advance exactly, down to the smallest detail, how you want a passage to sound, then find a way to make it sound like that.

You say that you're having trouble with the variations K265/300e. That piece contains a goodly number of things which might challenge someone, from the left hand and ornaments of the second variation to the scale runs of the seventh to the musical and rhythmic issues of the eleventh. If you want help with the piece, it would be best to tell us what specific parts of the specific variations are giving you issue. I use the word specific all the time because the more specific your questions, the more specific and helpful answers people will be able to give you.

You say that your teachers are not interested very much in seeing you improve. I doubt that, but for curiosity's sake could you describe how lessons with your current teacher go? Perhaps someone would then be able to tell you a good way to get the maximum benefit out of them.

When you say your last piece was a Clementi Sonatina, how highly polished did you make it? Did your teacher tell you that you had utterly mastered it? Are you happy with how you play it? Is it easy?

About the Mozart piece you're currently learning: why are you learning this piece? Did you pick it out or did your teacher? Do you like it? What's your favorite part, and your favorite recording? What edition do you use? Have you played Mozart before? Will this be a recital piece?

Now, the other questions: there are many good books about all of this, but rather than give you a big list I wonder: What things do you want the book to tell about? Practicing strategies? Anatomical information and technique? Sight reading? Theory?

If you want to play Jazz, first what kind of Jazz? I assume you mean improvisatory instead of learning Jazz pieces. Do you want to play in ensemble or solo? What Jazz musicians do you admire now? Any YouTube videos you could link to of things you like? What kind of knowledge of Harmonic theory do you have? No matter what, the most important thing to become able to play Jazz, or anything else, is to listen to tons of it.

There are many ways of improving with a metronome. The best way would be to learn playing from a fake book and then playing with a band that has a good drummer, I think, but that would take both time and opportunity. Instead, try this: start up the metronome at any given pace and clap along with it. Dance to it. Try to make some physical motion in sync with the metronome without the added worry of notes. If you want to make this more fun, listen to some Latin or African music and find the underlying 1-2-3-4. Clap on each beat, then clap on the 1 and 3, then clap on the 2 and 4, then clap on the ethnic rhythm. If possible, take dancing lessons to further enrich your human experience. However, do realize that there is not a single piece of music you will ever play without some tempo changes. It would sound unnatural. The underlying pulse of a piece of music is constantly changing based on the emotional effect its content has on the performer and sometimes the audience. The point is not to play things dead even, but to play them beautifully. Slavery to the metronome is as much a curse as bad rubato playing, or even moreso.

As for an actual at the piano metronome exercise you can do right now, play a scale, any scale, with the index finger of one hand, one note to each tic of the metronome, at a variety of speeds.  Every time you sit down at the piano, start the metronome and find something different you can't play along with the metronome, something that presents no challenge technically, then work at it. It should only take a few minutes for pretty much anything once you get the hang of it, and eventually you will play perfectly with the metronome whenever you want to.

About how many hours to practice, that depends on what you want to achieve. If you want to merely be a competent amateur, an hour or so a day will be enough if spent wisely. If you want to be a virtuoso, 3 to 6 hours a day, spent wisely, will get you there in a reasonable amount of time. if you want a career, still 3 to 6 hours for the most part, but you also need to deal with loads of stuff that has nothing to do with piano per se, but rather market forces; thus even if you become a truly fantastic player you are still unlikely to become famous. However, unless you have a good teacher or spend a heck of a lot of effort hunting down how to practice wisely, you'll probably not know how to spend practice time well, so overestimate your needed practice time and learn practicing techniques. A person in the know can accomplish more in a couple hours than a person doing random things will in a month. More important than the actual time is consistency, working at a passage every single day without fail until it becomes easy, and taking frequent breaks during your practice sessions.

I imagine that you will come away from reading this with many more questions than answers, but that is good. You'll be taking your first steps towards a better musical experience.

All the best,
CLF

[faa2010]

Hello Olivia,

Your worries reminded me about mine. In my case I have played for more than 10 years, and to be honest, and contrary to the expectations, I don't have the level that I should have according to the time I have played (the last teachers I visited told me that I am still in a "intermediate" level).

It doesn't matter if you are an amateur or professional pianist as long as you want to improve, because at some point, both can use and share the same improving methods (except Susuki method, unless you are a child), the only difference between both could be that time management is stricter with professionals than amateurs.

One of my teachers has showed me that I can mix both technique exercises like Hanon, Czerny, scales and/or arpeggios with my repertoire. Even with just the repertoire one can learn the technique (in case the teacher finds a chance at some part of the piece).

I guess that you come to the understanding that playing piano is not only of playing the right notes (C D E F G A B) in their right value (whole, half, quarter, octave), that you need to understand things further, and also train your ear further.

If you have chance, take solfeggio classes, singing or chorale classes, those are very helpful. Also if you can see methods for ear training it will be awesome.

Also meeting other teachers is helpful. This doesn't mean that you have to quit your current teacher if you don't want, but getting different points of view of people who knows and different personality types can guide you to one which you can find suitable for your goals and to improve your learning and training method.

And, like some people told me before, you can record your playing and post it here in the forums so you can get the advice you need.

The only thing which has to be on one's own in the end is your time management: how many hours per day are you thinking for practicing?