It takes me too long to warm up (1 to 2 hours)

[yadeehoo]

I got this problem where it take me a good hour to get back my level from previous session, an hour and half till the magic starts happening, and like past the 2 hours marks before I can learn anything new at practice. Makes it impossible for me to perform tough pieces live.

Is that normal, any tips?

[michael_sayers]

I got this problem where it take me a good hour to get back my level from previous session, an hour and half till the magic starts happening, and like past the 2 hours marks before I can learn anything new at practice. Makes it impossible for me to perform tough pieces live.

Is that normal, any tips?

Hi yadeehoo,

I had some issue with this when I was quite young.  It wasn't as severe, and usually several minutes were needed to get played in reliably.  When I started doing athletic training the issue went away and permanently so.

Please don't consider this medical advice or advice to begin athletic training, which it isn't.  I am just relaying what I experienced.

I hope this helps!


Mvh,
Michael

[louispodesta]

I got this problem where it take me a good hour to get back my level from previous session, an hour and half till the magic starts happening, and like past the 2 hours marks before I can learn anything new at practice. Makes it impossible for me to perform tough pieces live.

Is that normal, any tips?

And, Michael has thin spindly finger like I do.  Therefore, there is a PROBLEM with your basic technique approach.  I refuse to use the word "like" in a sentence, and I also do not use the word "issue."

Therefore, for a couple of decades, I used to play stupid exercises, stupid scales, stupid broken chords, and stupid arpeggios before I began each practice session.  I no longer do that, and I am ready to play after about 30 seconds to a minute.

"Impossible" (the French) you say.  However, there was a great lady by the name of Dorothy Taubman.  Her CD's are available from your local library, for free, or you can spend an enormous amount of money purchasing them from the Golandsky foundation (www.golandskyinstitute.org).

Further, you can get from my coach, Dr. Thomas Mark (www.pianomap.com), his book "What Every Pianist Needs To Know About The Body," which is in the library of most every University Piano Department Chair.  Accordingly, my end result is that since going to Thomas for personal lessons, I would not even think of "warming up," like I used to.

Further, with my psoriatic arthritis, I still do daily whole body strength exercises/training (age 63), and that is how I maintain my muscle ability at the piano.

One of the first things you learn from the Taubman and Mark approach is that you don't have muscles in your fingers.  There are only small interossei muscles in your hand which allow you manipulate your hand to pick up objects, turn a door handle, and yes effectuate a trill at the piano.

Absent that, you play a key on a piano with the muscles in your lower forearm.  Next, which you will learn from Thomas' book, is that you articulate all of this from the sternovanicular joint that attaches your collar bone to your sternum.  This is all done with the natural body weight of your entire arm and shoulder.

I hope this helps, and if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me by private message.  Oh, and what you now experience has happened to "millions" of pianists before you, as well as now.

[yadeehoo]

Thx for reassuring me about the body approach.

The worst thing tho really is entering a state of learning. I've notice muscle memory doesn't kick in until my fingers are extremely warmed up.

Any more experience sharing about that guys?

[iansinclair]

You need to be very sure that your fingers... the fingers! ... are doing the striking, not the wrist.  You can allow some wrist action -- you may need it -- but the actual action needs to be in the fingers.  That section is a very good exercise for finger independence!  I might add that later on, the chords in the right hand also need to have that independence; the G sharp needs to be just barely heard, but the other three notes of the chords need to sing clearly (though not too loud, please).  There it is 2 or 3 (I use 2, because my 3 doesn't work all that well any more) which needs to be independently soft, and 1 4 5 louder.

[yadeehoo]

What is that 'section' you're talking about, is it an exercise ?

[stevensk]

Warm up? Have I missed something here? Whats that for? -I never warm up.

[bronnestam]

I warm up mentally. The advantage is that you can do that while you are busy doing other tasks as well - routine housekeeping, walking, even lying in your bed ... I need to think about my forthcoming practice for a while, and I usually wait until I am very impatient to go to the piano and play for real. If I don't do this, I can feel absent-minded when I start to play, and then the result will be accordingly to this.

You don't need to warm up physcially at the piano, you can do it elsewhere. Just move your fingers, rub your hands and do some gentle stretching.

I think you can train your ability to focus quickly instead of needing hours of warming up. The risk of having such long warm up times is that it becomes a habit as such.
My opinion is that you don't HAVE TO do this. After all, a car driver who claims the same thing would be dead quite soon, because you cannot start the car and say "oh, and within an hour or two I will remember how to drive". You have to be alert from the moment you turn the key, no matter how much time you THINK you need. And most people are, actually!
Besides I am impressed by everybody who has the time to sit at the piano for hours and hours in a row. Are you retired from work and do you have servants doing the household tasks, or how do you manage this? 

[stevensk]

...Besides I am impressed by everybody who has the time to sit at the piano for hours and hours in a row. Are you retired from work and do you have servants doing the household tasks, or how do you manage this? 

-Well, what are ordinary people doing in the evening? -Exactly, wathing crappy Tv serials, cookery programs, sports, playing computor games. For hours! Every day!

[bronnestam]

Obviously I am not ordinary then. Yes, I am at the computer. It's my job to be here. But gaming, no. TV, no.

[compline]

I don't have a telly!   Who needs their heads filled with trash!   

[compline]

A note to yadeehoo. if it helps.

  According to the advice given by ABRSM in their - Improve your scales book - it is beneficial to drink a glass of water  before practising scales, etc.  as this helps get the brain working.   

Well, I drink plenty of water anyway, so wouldn't know much difference.   

 

[yadeehoo]

You guys are being pretty creative in your answers, it makes my day.

I guess i'll just figure things out on my journey. Everybody's experience is different huh

[rmbarbosa]

A glass og water, Compline?
years ago, I was trying to play one Nocturne of Chopin but it didnt work... one night, when I was talking witn one of my sons, I took 3 whiskies... and I played that Nocturne very very very well. So,perhaps whisky may be more efficient than water, I think... 

[michael_sayers]

I don't have a telly!   Who needs their heads filled with trash!   

I, too, don't have a telly.  I enjoyed watching some British comedies as a kid, and Horowitz in Moscow in 1986 . . . this is 2015, though, and Horowitz won't be performing a live telecast out of Moscow this year.


Mvh,
Michael

[compline]

A glass og water, Compline?
years ago, I was trying to play one Nocturne of Chopin but it didnt work... one night, when I was talking witn one of my sons, I took 3 whiskies... and I played that Nocturne very very very well. So,perhaps whisky may be more efficient than water, I think... 

I might just give that a try!   

[michael_sayers]

-Well, what are ordinary people doing in the evening? -Exactly, wathing crappy Tv serials, cookery programs, sports, playing computor games. For hours! Every day!

Hi Stevensk,

That is what "ordinary" persons do.

Extraordinary persons spend a lot of time in the evenings at Piano Street.


Mvh,
Michael