Blog for piano students

[debmel]

Hi,
A new piano blog is up, for adult piano students and for parents of piano students who would like to support their kids.
www.pianoways.com
Hope you like it!

[keypeg]

I just read your new entry on "free play" and it seems wise - esp. when you discover that what appears to be random notes may actually be discovery of patterns.
I first had a keyboard: a little electronic organ, then a piano - when I was a child.  I had no lessons, and in that sense missed out.  But I did explore.  With the organ I was given a little book meant for adult learners I now realize.  When it introduced intervals, I played around with intervals, finding what I loved and hated.  The organ had a kind of vibrato through its reeds and for some reason it produced the sweetest M6.  I got different instruments - a mouth organ, a descant recorder - and I would explore sensations, sounds, and invent music which later I found out actually had classical structure.  It was the sandbox metaphor.  For 35 years I had no piano, and I was nearly 50 before I had my first lessons on any instrument.  When I finally asked for music theory, the intervals I had explored as a child, mostly nameless, had meaning and emotion for me - they were not just numbers to be memorized.

[debmel]

Thank you Keypeg, I am glad you like it

[debmel]

This week's post on www.pianoways.com is the first in a series about performing. The First one is about class recitals in general. I thought it would be an appropriate topic since so many performances are scheduled for the time between now and mid December, so hopefully these posts will help.

[debmel]

This week's post on www.pianoways.com is called The Secret of Slow Practice. A bit like with the hare and the tortoise, going slowly can save you a lot of time!

[bronnestam]

Good and simple advice!

[huaidongxi]

in conjunction with slow practice, one of my sight reading exercises is building measures from their last note, maintaining the normal sequence(left to right) of notes but adding them incrementally in reverse.  still making o.k. progress without an instructor after eight months.

[keypeg]

in conjunction with slow practice, one of my sight reading exercises is building measures from their last note, maintaining the normal sequence(left to right) of notes but adding them incrementally in reverse.  still making o.k. progress without an instructor after eight months.

I was taught to do something like this by a teacher, so you're in good company.  In this way you are always working toward the familiar, rather than your playing becoming weaker and weaker as it goes on.

[bronnestam]

Thank you for reminding me of the good ol' backwards chaining trick! It is SO good when it comes to learning.

Two little back sides of this, though: 1. It is not fun to take such a piece to lesson when you know it "half way". But you can always explain your method to the teacher and start playing in the middle, of course.
2. This is for pure mechanical learning. In order to get a good musical flow, you need to take it from the beginning ... so when you have "learned" the piece back to bar 1, you are in fact just in the beginning of learning it for real. But you have laid a very good foundation, of course.

[bronnestam]

I was taught to do something like this by a teacher, so you're in good company.  In this way you are always working toward the familiar, rather than your playing becoming weaker and weaker as it goes on.

Another terrific advantage is that you avoid all those "um, where do I go now?"-stops that can be so darn annoying ...

[louispodesta]

Hi,
A new piano blog is up, for adult piano students and for parents of piano students who would like to support their kids.
www.pianoways.com
Hope you like it!

Here he comes!  And, as such I am a most vocal/print advocate of modern pedagogy.  That is when it is just that, modern!

This OP is not, as exemplified by the section on slow practice.

As "dcstudio" can tell you, her mentor, and my teacher harped on slow practice when I was a student in 1971, and with her ten years later.  And trust me, he learned it from his piano teacher 20 years earlier.

Specific to the OP's "strategically marketed select lesson," I re-state the following:

I have often posted about a Middle "C" five finger very slow soft staccato regimen, in terms of actual keyboard feel.  This was taught to me by my late teacher Robert Weaver.

Please peruse my extensive posts on this, or contact me by PM if you cannot.

And unlike the OP, I have never charged directly or indirectly a fee for my advice.

[keypeg]

Louis, I don't think the OP was trying to write anything earth shattering, or modern, or old fashioned.  It seems to be a kind of newsletter written for the average parent who enrolls their child for a few years of piano lessons, and a handful might get serious along the way.  There will be little knowledge among most of them, and unless told otherwise, the kids might be tempted to play a piece fast over and over, the parent might want it to sound wonderful and even discourage slow practice as boring.  So a few basic tidbits have been offered.

If you take an item such "slow practice" a lot more could be said about, and it could be looked at a lot more deeply.  For example, going slowly is useless unless you also know what you are working toward.  In fact, slow practice without a good goal could even lead to a wandering mind which is worse than no practice. I'm sure there are a lot more things that could be said.

[vaniii]

If you take an item such "slow practice" a lot more could be said about, and it could be looked at a lot more deeply.  For example, going slowly is useless unless you also know what you are working toward.  In fact, slow practice without a good goal could even lead to a wandering mind which is worse than no practice. I'm sure there are a lot more things that could be said.

Agree; despite the connotation slow practice is an advanced technique.

It takes discipline and stamina; two traits juvenile musicians lack (juvenile in age or ability).

[keypeg]

Agree; despite the connotation slow practice is an advanced technique.

It takes discipline and stamina; two traits juvenile musicians lack (juvenile in age or ability).

That part has me puzzled.  The teacher I am with includes slow practice - or what ends up being slow practice - from the beginning, and that includes young students.

[bernadette60614]

An excellent blog. Thank you!

I like the approach which is to help the reader understand...not to demonstrate the author's exceptionalism.

[richardb]

I liked the 7 great reasons for learning the piano.

Always had thoughts like that in the back of my mind, but it's nice to see them clearly articulated.  Helps me to stay motivated.

[debmel]

Hello,

There is an introduction post on www.pianoways.com leading up to the interview with  Dr. Andrzej Szpilman, Wladyslaw Szpilman's son, that will be published next week. Wladyslaw Szpilman is known as "The Pianist"  in the Roman Polanski threefold Oskar prize winning film from 2002.

I wrote the introduction after a very interesting conversation with Dr. Andrzej Szpilman and with his approval and thought some pianostreet readers will find it interesting too.