* Art of Piano as ARTIST? or TECHNICAL ExPerTise is Supreme? * Sheer SightRead?

[pianoplayerstar]

When you sightread a new piece, do you:

(a) play R,L,Both a few times until you feel your brain 'gets it'?

OR

(b) try to ENTER THE MIND of the composer to look for P-a-A-t-t-e-r-n-s?


.... THEN, to perfect a piece and when you go out to PERFORM IN PUBLIC, do you

(a) play a certain # of ___hours__ per day and then quit and rest for the day? (TECHNICALLY MINDED)

OR

(b) Go ALL OUT, and forget the # of hours, AND "just do it" (Nike style). (ARTISTICALLY MINDED)

I'd think Lang Lang and others don't count the # of hours... they're ARTISTS, and they just practice practice practice to make sure they're ready for the public audience.

Your thoughts?
pps

[iansinclair]

Option b to both.  I can program a computer to option a.

[pianoplayerstar]

you see that is the mark of an artist in my opinion. option "a" still works. however talent alone without exceeding the work reqd in option "a" is useless and a shame

[lostinidlewonder]

If I want to sight read a work I will do both hands immediately and play through the whole piece, if it is a piece I want to master while I sight read I will mark out problematic parts and highlight tricky fingerings or patterns which are difficult to read/coordinate. If it is a very difficult piece which can only be read at slow tempo then I will work out what are the factors limiting the tempo and take note of them, separate hand might be used intermittently too if a passage is with too much error just stupid hard to read.

Pattern recognition and observations i like to highlight with colour on my sheet music, and draw brackets, different shaped bubbles around groups of notes etc. I limit these observations to issues which are more important to me, I don't highlight every single pattern though this is often something I do with students when they are learning about using these kind of observations.

It is important to measure how long it will take you to master a piece, I feel it a big trap to simply keep practicing until it's done. A number of students I have taught can't break away from this kind of thinking and it really slows down their progress especially when they choose pieces which are too challenging. Many works I sight read simply can be played at mastery straight off the bat, all the practice has already been done and invested in reading skills to allow that to happen. More demanding works which require memorization and lots of repetition need of course to have a dedicated time every day in your routine. I don't think that an artistically minded person necessary neglects their time management, in fact when I started music professionally I become more pedantic over my time management.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

When I learn a new piece I never remember how I learned it.  So I have absolutely no idea lol.  It's like my memory is black and then BAM I learned it.  Id like to think that if it's straightforward like...  Beethoven, then I'd start by sight reading both hands.  However if it's too hard to sightread I have no idea how I approach it.  It sort of just happens.

As for practice, no I don't count the hours.  I play until I feel like I got a lot of work done.  Or set a goal and play until I feel like I've achieved it.  Or get close enough.  Which is around 2 hours GENERALLY.  And I don't focus on hitting that two hour goal.  If I feel like I accomplished a lot in an hour, then I'm done or I'll move on to something else non repertoire related.  Or sometimes it'll take me three hours to get my work done.  I don't think anyone should count hours.  More hours don't equal more work done. One could practice 15 hours and get less work done than someone who only practiced three hours.

And I don't do it all in one sitting either.  30 minutes to an hour per sitting then I take a break and go at it again later that day.

[pianoplayerstar]

3 hours of droning a piece from A-Z is less effective than 1.5 hours of A-Z (find out your issues)... THEN .. A-B to C-D and working on, say "E" about 12 times.. then moving on towards Z again.

.. but myself included. I'm lazy and I just want to get through A-Z and gloss over "E" and pretend and fake myself saying "WHEW! I WENT THROUGH IT."

There are NO shortcuts, in my opinion.

However, it's like what Rubenstein said of Horowitz (paraphrase): 

"Horowitz is a great and better pianist[technically] ... I'm a better MUSICIAN"

However, many of you will take issue with this, because BOTH were excellent TECHNICIANS 'AND' MUSICIAN ARTISTS

[toughbo]

Title gore!