Mental practice

[eldergeek]

A bit of background:
I have recently, at age 62, started teaching myself to play piano after many years of playing classical guitar, and in recent years becoming a bit disillusioned by the classical guitar repertoire. I know I ought to get a teacher, but that is not really possible, unfortunately. My main guiding principles so far have been: does it sound good? (I reckon I am a pretty critical listener even when listening to myself) and do I experience any stress anywhere while playing?.

I am aiming to get to grips with some Bach eventually, but was initially horrified to discover that his 2-part inventions are actually hideously hard at my stage so far, so at present I am working through Bartok's Mikrokosmos (book 2 is mostly OK, so far, but I am not in a hurry to get to book 3) - very enjoyable stuff, and has taught me a lot about various technical issues such as hand-independence.

My question (eventually) is: does anyone have any experience or thoughts about the very brief book "Music in your Head" (Mental Practice, how to memorize piano music)?

Seems an interesting read, but I am curious to hear what seasoned pros really think of it, before I actually invest any time and effort into his ideas.

[indianajo]

I'm not a pro, but an advanced amateur.
I never had any coaching on memorization, it just happens if you practice enough.  
I wouldn't waste a dime on this.  
That is mistake free practice, which was my teacher's method. If you make mistakes you are going too fast for your skill level.  Mistakes made more than twice get memorized, too, don't ever make mistakes more than once.  Mark the book, use red pencil if you have too, slow down and play it right and in rhythm.  If you do that, your cerebellum and medula learn the piece, you don't have to think about it with your cortex.  Only repeated patterns with slight variations require memoriztion tricks involving the cortex (conciousness).  IMHO.
At this level, what you are missing is flexibility and hand tricks training.  In the USA, we use Edna Mae Berman exercise books.  I understand Europeans like Hanon, but I don't know how advanced this is.  Czerny exercises are too advanced for the beginner, for example.  I progressed from Ms Berman to Czerny about year 5.  I was practicing about an hour a day, I was not the most intense student.  I did the G. Schirmer Schmitt exercises the first year, which are intensely boring but great for learning control of each finger, especially fingers 4 and 5.  Perhaps as a guitarist you have control of 4 and 5, but perhaps not as much on  the pick or strum hand.  
With the possiblity of injuring yourself with incorrect posture, I would suggest a couple of lessons near the beginning from a pro are very useful.  For example, I'm learning organ now after years of piano, and two lessons taught me a lot about organ posture (different than piano with the feet elevated), which hand/foot does what, how to notate which hand or foot to remind yourself of what you chose to do, etc.  $90 well spent.  
If you insist on no lessons, get an ergonomics textbook and look up proper posture for typing etc.  Arched hands, straight wrist, forearm droop, straight neck and sight line etc, are exactly the same.  Something like a too low music rack can cause a popped neck disk. Something like sagged wrists can cause carpal tunnel or arthritis, as well as unnecessary tendon and muscle pain.  
Have a good time.  I tried to learn guitar, but I couldn't graduate to wire strings because my skin doesn't grow callusses.  It was good training for learning to play off of lead sheets on piano, though, the guitar world is built around chord structure as the classical piano world is not.  

[pianoplunker]

A bit of background:
I have recently, at age 62, started teaching myself to play piano after many years of playing classical guitar, and in recent years becoming a bit disillusioned by the classical guitar repertoire. I know I ought to get a teacher, but that is not really possible, unfortunately. My main guiding principles so far have been: does it sound good? (I reckon I am a pretty critical listener even when listening to myself) and do I experience any stress anywhere while playing?.

I am aiming to get to grips with some Bach eventually, but was initially horrified to discover that his 2-part inventions are actually hideously hard at my stage so far, so at present I am working through Bartok's Mikrokosmos (book 2 is mostly OK, so far, but I am not in a hurry to get to book 3) - very enjoyable stuff, and has taught me a lot about various technical issues such as hand-independence.

My question (eventually) is: does anyone have any experience or thoughts about the very brief book "Music in your Head" (Mental Practice, how to memorize piano music)?

Seems an interesting read, but I am curious to hear what seasoned pros really think of it, before I actually invest any time and effort into his ideas.

It looks like you understand when you are trying something too difficult. and I think your choice of Bartok is good but would be so much better with a teacher.  Is memorizing piano music different than memorizing guitar music ? Or memorizing phone numbers ? I dont look at memorizing a piece but learning a piece. How you learn a piece is far more important.

[eldergeek]

Thanks for both (very useful) responses.

I am not actually insisting on no lessons, and would love to be able to get some, whatever the cost, but I have been totally unable to find a suitable teacher here, unfortunately. Best I found was a couple of young guys who teach "keyboard", but they seem to have no interest (or knowledge) of serious piano playing, and had never heard of Bartok

I don't think that memorising piano music is that much different from memorising guitar music, but I was particularly intrigued by the author's (Francois L. Richard) claim that it is possible to improve your playing as well as memorisation by "practicing" pieces away from the keyboard, and whether anyone here has ever tried such a "practice method".

Strangely, I never found hand-independence to be a problem with the guitar, probably since the two hands have completely different jobs to do, but I was staggered to find that a seemingly simple thing on a piano like playing staccato with one hand and legato with the other, or forte with one hand and piano with the other, seemed much tougher than anything I had tackled on a guitar. Bartok has some wonderful exercises on both of these in Mikrokosmos book 2

[indianajo]

I don't think that memorising piano music is that much different from memorising guitar music, but I was particularly intrigued by the author's (Francois L. Richard) claim that it is possible to improve your playing as well as memorisation by "practicing" pieces away from the keyboard, and whether anyone here has ever tried such a "practice method".

Strangely, I never found hand-independence to be a problem with the guitar, probably since the two hands have completely different jobs to do, but I was staggered to find that a seemingly simple thing on a piano like playing staccato with one hand and legato with the other, or forte with one hand and piano with the other, seemed much tougher than anything I had tackled on a guitar. Bartok has some wonderful exercises on both of these in Mikrokosmos book 2

The kinesthetic feedback of intended finger position versus actual finger position is corrected in actual piano practice, by the detection of the ear of wrong notes.  I'm pretty sure "mental practice" has no such feedback mechanism for incorrect movements.  This is particularly important at my age, 64, because intended versus actual muscle movement is so variable in the aged.  That is why they have senior PGA golf tournements, IMHO, because senior muscle movements change from day to day in a way that muscles in their prime, do not.  I'm having to keep my hands in peripheral vision for multi-note jumps, for visual feedback.  This is something I never had to do when I was 8-16; I was able to play accurately then with my head turned away from the piano. 
Your exercises of staccato one hand, legato one hand, or forte one hand piano other hand, are interesting exercises, but IMHO are way too advanced for a first year student.  Certainly nothing like that was attempted in the John Schaum method I learned from.  Perhaps this is why millions of middle Americans learned piano from copyrighted John Schaum, instead of the public domain Bartok method.  We certainly used public domain Schmitt and Czerny exercise books where appropriate.
The old-time practice of the teacher in hearing the student, and pointing out the differences between the student's performance and the desired one, is slightly obsolete in the age of the internet.  Other than the lessons in copyrighted method books, you can hear nearly any track on an internet download, and aurally compare your performance to the "standard".  
I'm not sure where you live, but my Mother found me a competent teacher by asking around the PTA meetings at the grade school.  (parent teacher association).  Another method is attending services various churches, and asking the pianist that sounds competent, who they recommend.  The latter is more likely to yield a teacher with communications skill lack or emotional problems, than the former, however. The last method, taking from the piano store "pro", is fairly obsolete, as piano stores no longer exist.  The APG, american piano guild, operates in the USA most places, but they do not sort by communication skills, only by degree attained.  The teachers with the highest degree do not always have the best teaching skills, to go by some horror stories from conservatories and colleges I have heard.  
Electric keyboard has the same spacing as a wood piano, but not the same force requirements and dynamic response.  Also, 88 keys is rather rare with electric devices, as is the proper sit down position.  Electrics are mostly played standing up, which is great for an audience, but not for turning pages through a book on the stand.  So leaving out the youth who offered to teach you may have been for the best.
Good luck in your quest.  I really enjoy re-focusing on piano in my retirement, and taking up electric organ as an additional skill made possiblt by the recent collapse in the price of old organs (needing restoration).  Piano has the advantage that there is a vast repretoire of pieces meant for entertainment at home alone, before radio, television, and the internet took over that task with less skill required by the recipient. For example, I do several Scott Joplin pieces for strength training daily as well as routine entertainment, besides my mountain peak art pieces.  

[hardy_practice]

As far as I'm concerned you're only as good as your mental imagery.  If there's a good book about it I'd like to know though I wonder what there could be to reveal?

[eldergeek]

I'm pretty sure indianajo is spot on with the point about " kinesthetic feedback of intended finger position versus actual finger position" - it must surely be far too easy with mental practice to convince oneself that you are "playing" the right notes at the right time, but only by playing it on a real keyboard can one be certain.

Glad to hear you think staccato versus legato is too hard for me at the moment - makes me feel better about not being able to do it easily! I did notice, however that Bartok does something similar in his pieces entitled "First Term at the Piano". Makes me wonder if they have extremely long terms in Hungarian music schools

On the subject of mental practice, I have found another author who puts some emphasis on it: Chuan C. Chang's online book "Fundamentals of Piano Practice" viewable at https://www.pianofundamentals.com/book/en/chapter_1. Again, as a newbie both here, and to the piano in general, I have no idea if his ideas are well-received by the community!

[hardy_practice]

Funny, today I just happened to pick up The Physiopathology and Treatment of Functional Disorders from my desk.  From the book, this is why I believe in mental practice:

'...Representation also plays a role in the production of voluntary acts.  A voluntary or volitional act is always preceded and activated by a representation of the act to be performed...'

If it's going to happen anyway I think it should be practiced.

[eldergeek]

So ... the ability to visualise playing the right notes a split second before actually playing them is a skill worth cultivating, I guess?

[hardy_practice]

So ... the ability to visualise playing the right notes a split second before actually playing them is a skill worth cultivating, I guess?

Yes, I've felt for some years now that a representation happens a split second before.  It also answers the mind/body problem - how does the mind get the body to do?  Answer - the mind imagines what the the body then carries out.