What do you need to improve on, and what should you spend more time practicing?

[leemond2008]

Hi all

As we are all at different levels of our piano lives I was wondering what people feel they need to improve on, after all no matter how good you are you are alweays learning and improving.

I've not been playing long and I'm going to be moving onto grade 3 pieces shortly, I can play more advanced pieces but it takes me an age to learn them so I'm really trying to pace myself and not run before I can walk.

Anyway, the main areas that let me down are with my rythm, I know how I should play a piece but I often need my teacher to beat crotchets and quavers into me, I seem to get really sloppy with them (I think I play them better when I am practicing alone)

Also rests and pauses, I play the piano like an adrenaline junky, I struggle to pause for more than one beat, I just end up powering through which makes the piece sound really rushed, my teacher often laughs and says things along the lines of 'you just cant stand silence, there must be noise at all times' and she's right, its something really simple that I am finding really difficult to master.

I think that once I work the sloppiness out of my timing and rythm and when I can take a breath and use the pauses and rests as they should be then I'll start progressing a hell of a lot faster.

so what about you lot then, what level are you at with your playing and what do you think your own personal areas of development are.

[adodd81802]

Hi Leemond, have you considered practicing with a metronome? Will help you for rhythm.

I probably struggle with slow practice and note accuracy. I think it's one that causes the other, i'm using a metronome to keep my speed slower when practicing and engaging my brain more for the motion involved in the distance between notes.

[lostinidlewonder]

I'm constantly improving my sight reading skills, I want to get as close to the point of being able to sight read anything as possible. I read a lot every day with my personal practice and unavoidably get reading practice through teaching my students every week. I've played piano for a little over 30 years now. I love the empowering feeling you get from puttng a piece you have never seen before and playing it with expression and control immediately. Reading skills have opened repertoire a whole lot more for me, I can happily read through an entire books and expose myself to music I have paid little or no listening attention to. I like gong to imslp.org and hitting random page until I find a piano piece and then just attempt to read it. It makes things more alive than selecting a piece and then working extended time on it to force into memory (although I still do this with technical beasts or marathon long pieces.)

[chopinlover01]

Technical skills I need to work on:
Everything

[outin]

I should just spend more time on practicing. Time I don't have unfortunately

[bernadette60614]

I'm sloppy.

I've been told by each teacher than I am an excellent sight reader.  I have big (think easy stretch to a 10th) hands and quick fingers. 

However, I don't "listen" to my playing. I seem to be in some unproductive race with myself to learn great big chunks of music before each lesson, but to learn them in a superficial way.  I suspect that some of this comes from being an adult who always has a to do list which I try to churn through with the greatest efficiency, and that means finding "hacks" to get through every task quickly.

Consequently, my playing lacks that kind of rich tone that I hear in a professional's playing.  It is all kind of cascade of bland notes played in a way with no affect.

How I'm approaching this is to limit the amount of music I learn each week, and to really listen for the "story" of each piece. Right now, I'm working on the 3rd Mozart piano sonata, which I can wail through like a bullet train.  But, who would want to listen to a bullet train or find the sound of a bullet train beautiful.  I'm working on weaving a "story" between the treble and bass voices so that it sounds more like a Mozart duet than a monkey on meth!

[bernadette60614]

Adding:

I am now working with a new teacher to whom I stated that goal that I wanted to become a pianist, not just someone who can play the piano. So, instead of my expanding my own ego by playing big pieces, we are going backwards to simple pieces so I can develop tone and a singing style.