Practicing efficiently

[leemond2008]

Over the last week I've been getting really frustrated with my practice, the pieces I'm learning are not especially hard butI felt as though I wasn't picking them up anywhere near as fast as what I should.

I have a major problem of obsessing over one specific section of music and I find myself going over that one section over and over and playing the piece from the beginning up until the troublesome part.

Just today I have decided to start keeping notes on my practice sessions, I am going to start noting down how long I am practicing each piece, what section I am practicing and how I am finding it, and just keeping general notes.

I'm hoping this will stop me from obsessing over certain parts and it will also help me to keep track of how I'm progressing and how long I am practicing in general.

Do the peeps on here think this is a good idea or do you have any other idea's that I could try?

p.s. I've decided to try and spend no longer than 20/30 minutes a time on each piece that I'm learning

[ulymoon]

Hi,
About wenty-five years ago I was learning Oud, I used to do what you're doing (obsession with a certain section)... Now, I've been learning the piano for some time; I never do it more than a few times (jut to see how hard it really is) because I know how much time and energy it will waste; it will be much easier to deal with it when you're almost done with the piece. BUT...

When you finish the piece, you can go back to the troublesome part. You'll find it easier; and you'll take shorter time mastering it; shorter than the time you'd spend to master it before finishing the piece.

Just deal with the hard section as any other one; BUT when you're done with the piece; go back and nail the bad guy down, even if you need to do so for 100 times (unless the piece is not any near your current level of performance). If the piece is not at or near your level; I recommend not doing it at all; its time will come to you...

Example: I was practicing and memorizing J. S. Bach's minuet in D minor; the second section was a problem; I tried to nail it down when I had just started; it was a nightmare; I ignored it and just practiced it the way I practiced the easier measures. A few days later; I don't know why it seemed easier, a few times of trying to play it perfect, I could play it fairly well and in more than one way (different fingering; different hand-over...etc). Then I could also use the damper ...etc.

It's a great idea to jot down notes; I usually have a record of start and finish date.

That's not an expert advice; it's just how things went along with me. I've been convinced that

[pianoplunker]

Over the last week I've been getting really frustrated with my practice, the pieces I'm learning are not especially hard butI felt as though I wasn't picking them up anywhere near as fast as what I should.

I have a major problem of obsessing over one specific section of music and I find myself going over that one section over and over and playing the piece from the beginning up until the troublesome part.

Just today I have decided to start keeping notes on my practice sessions, I am going to start noting down how long I am practicing each piece, what section I am practicing and how I am finding it, and just keeping general notes.

I'm hoping this will stop me from obsessing over certain parts and it will also help me to keep track of how I'm progressing and how long I am practicing in general.

Do the peeps on here think this is a good idea or do you have any other idea's that I could try?

p.s. I've decided to try and spend no longer than 20/30 minutes a time on each piece that I'm learning

The 20/30 minutes should be spent on the difficult section until you can figure out the fingering . Hands separate, very slow. Be patient. Do not play from the beginning until crash. Forget about that.

[dogperson]

The 20/30 minutes should be spent on the difficult section until you can figure out the fingering . Hands separate, very slow. Be patient. Do not play from the beginning until crash. Forget about that.

 

[sandracb]

Well I learn a piece in stages.

First time I sight read, I just worry about getting the basic feel of the piece. I've usually listened to some youtube examples (of concert pianists) so I should understand its basic rhythms, melodies, tempos, etc. So first time I'm just trying to muddle along and get the basic feel of it. If there's crazy hard parts I can't even remotely sight read to any comprehension, I will skip those entirely and play through the bits I can sight read with some competence.

Then, I play the piece just to get the feel of it. The next few times I will emphasize just getting the gist, and trying to muddle through the really hard parts. I don't get picky about wrong notes but I do make sure my rhythms are correct, as I find it extremely difficult to undo bad rhythm habits. The hard parts I will play reealllly sloooooowly as I can manage, even hands separate. I might play through at this point and go 'through' the difficult chunks just carrying the main melody to tie the rest together.

After a week or so doing that, THEN I will start to clean it up. I will probably not play the piece in its entirety if it has a lot of 'difficult' sections that need a lot of work. Rather, I will work on these difficult sections a few a day, maybe 30 min at the most, so I don't get sick of the rest of it or waste my time.

When I'm fairly comfortable with the difficult chunks, I will go back to putting the whole thing together, and really start to get picky with polishing/etc. I will still not play the entire piece on the same day I'm wanting to work on the tiny technically difficult sections. It's only when I'm at the final polishing/memorizing stage that I will then get REALLY OCD about insisting on perfect playthroughs, but frankly unless it's for an exam I rarely bother. It just sucks the fun out of enjoying a piece for me and it doesn't matter that much in my life. It's only my exam pieces that need to be *that* perfect.

So I guess in a nutshell, my methodology is 'outside in'. First get the macro view, the general idea and the fun of playing the whole thing, then I worry about micro parts and fixing all the little bits. I've managed to learn a Chopin Nocturne, Rach Prelude, a few ragtime pieces, Brahms Intermezzo, and a Beethoven Sonata in just the last two weeks following this methodology. Are they concert ready? Not on your life! But I find it the most efficient way of getting entire pieces under my belt even if the process of getting them performance ready is much longer in the making.

[sandracb]

Oh also, the above doesn't apply at all to advanced contrapuntal works, like a Bach P&F. LOL!!! With Bach fugues it's definitely hands separately and much studying of the work to understand its construct and themes!

[bronnestam]

Keeping a journal is very good! Just don't let it be a record of what you have done today, but an evaluation tool. When I keep a practice journal - there are periods when I don't, due to general lack of time - I write very short reflections on what I have done, and then I immediately make plans for the next session. The next session, maybe next day, I start with checking my journal plan, sometimes I print it out as a check list and put it on the piano, and then I play and check the items I have done... and then I evaluate it again, make new plans and/or keep some items I don't feel ready with, and so on.

I use Microsoft OneNote as my journal tool because the word processing is a minimum and you can easily combine the text with images, links and everything you like. But there are plenty of tools, and even plain notebooks will do, of course ...

I can honestly say that I learn far quicker this way.

When you encounter a specific, difficult part of the piece, let's say two bars - don't be lazy, don't just struggle with it over and over and over again (slowly, very slowly, or begin from the beginning and try to pass it like a hurdle - one day I will make it!) but really try to make a pause. Don't play for a moment, just evaluate it in your head, try to figure out EXACTLY where you are going wrong. And what is going wrong. Then you CONCENTRATE your efforts on this very spot (plus one note before and one note after) for a while. Don't allow yourself to "begin from the beginning" once more! Just focus!

Here you certainly have the best use of a good teacher, but maybe you don't have access to one right now. The most common problem is that your fingers are not sure where to go next, or that they are forced to make a movement that is not comfortable. Or may it be a rythm issue, hard to synchronize the hands?

Well, in the first case I suggest that you make a thorough analysis of the harmonies, if you haven't done it before. When you have found them, you may need to invent some exercises for the chord progressions. Play the scales and the inversions.
You can also try to simplify the score for a moment. For example, play just the notes on every beat and skip what is between. Or just the first root note in every bar for the left hand while you outline the melody a bit more in the right hand.

Another good way which I like to use is chord blocks. You have your hand in one certain position, then play all the notes simultaneously in that position, then PLAN your move to the next position, THEN you do the jump or the shift quickly, play. Do it again - first chord block, second chord block, do it up to speed and even faster for a few times. Yes, it may sound horrible. So what, you are learning, not performing!

If you have uncomfortable movements and/or transitions, try to explore a better fingering. Maybe the other hand can "take over" some notes? Find a suitable fingering pattern and exercise it over all octaves. (Yes, changing the fingering is a hard thing to do, so the sooner you can identify issues like these, the better!)
Then you always have the solution of cheating ... Sometimes you need to simplify the music a bit in order to play it at all. If you have a complicated chord where you need to stretch too much and have a hard time making it to the next move, you may skip a note in it. In the old days, performers were almost expected to make their own free versions of a composition, not follow every fly sh*t spot rigorously.

For rythm, you've better count ... maybe away from the piano, maybe dancing while you do it. I had a rythm issue where my teacher suggested me to lift my hand up high between every keystroke. The delay this movement caused, was exactly what I needed to get the rythm right. (I am not, of course, supposed to make this rather ridiculous gesture later on, it is just for now, while I'm learning it.)


All these supporting exercises have the great benefit that you DO NOT just repeat the same thing over and over again, with errors and all, hence practicing mistakes and not the right thing.

Of course you must also restrict the number of repetitions, it has been said before by others here. 

[sandracb]

I agree about taking notes. I play a ridiculous amount (like 6+ hours a day) so I just remember where I left off, but I do keep a notebook next to my piano to jot down things too.

About big difficult chords that aren't easy to read. Sometimes they're harmonic chords you can analyse - like I/IV/VI/V whatever chord, and maybe inverted. Those aren't so bad. But then there are the really huge ones that are just weird with accidentals all over the place that look like a squished pile of ants. Those are hard to sight read! So again for the first little while when I'm in 'general gist' mode, I probably will just either ignore them or take a best guess and come back later. When I'm in 'learning details' mode, then I will stop at those bars and make sure I play them correct - what I do is usually play them 'broken' - so like a big ripple from bottom to top. It trains my fingers to remember the notes and spacing better. I'll do that as much as I need to until I remember the chord. It sounds fancy at least, lol.

And sometimes I just can't read the difficult chords fast enough, or they're full of high or low notes above/below the staffs, so then I write the actual notes on my book. Hence why I could never play difficult music off my tablet!