The Hump: It always gets hardest the closer you reach to the summit

[d_b_christopher]

Hello Pianostreet!

I hope you are all enjoying the new year; January is almost over, and I know many newcomers have started lessons.  I have for the first time in a few months taken on a small number myself.

Below is an article I have written outlining the process I have found new students take on the path to musical success.  It features heavily what not to do, via some key markers I have experienced as a teacher.

Remember, there are no shortcuts.  Learning takes time; enjoy the process.

I hope you find this helpful!

https://dacapoacademy.co.uk/articles/the_hump/

PS:

I will be making a submission to the *** January Scale Challenge *** shortly, I would encourage you all to do so also; don’t be afraid of failure or criticism.

You can also enter non-competitively!

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=64687.0

[keypeg]

On this part

I will be making a submission to the *** January Scale Challenge *** shortly, I would encourage you all to do so also; don’t be afraid of failure or criticism.

You can also enter non-competitively!

The criteria in that thread are:
a) speed
b) rhythm
c) evenness
d) clarity
I assume that by speed, the faster the better, and what I hear over there sounds fast.  I worked on scales before I had a teacher, and I came close to injury.  I stopped when one hand got numb by the pinky.  I stopped scales for several years.  On resuming, we are gradually working to get the motions correct, especially the part sometimes called "thumb under" - i.e. where the hand moves.  The way I'm working is to first work with one hand, possibly pause before crossing, move the whole hand over without doing anything with the thumb which was hyper-active and jerking under in a tense way, and then play the remaining notes. Add the subtle motions, keep wrist loose. So if I play as I need to at this stage, it will not be fast, and with the pauses, it is only even between sections.

I have just played a scale.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ofu5hfkb8wu4w0m/zscale.mp3?dl=0
It may be even and the rest as far as I can tell.  But will any listener see the amount of tension that came into my hands in order to produce those results?  As a teacher you might surmise it's possible, but will a pianist or fellow student in that thread know?

..... don’t be afraid of failure or criticism.

No, the reason I am not participating is because of everything that is in your article.  It goes into working toward end results rather than the process.  For example, if I aim for an even sound, I can force that even sound and put a fair amount of tension into my body and hands in doing so.  That is my natural tendency.  If I were a young hothead I'd try to play as fast as everyone in the thread has.  I might even manage, at a cost to technique and relaxation.  What does that achieve?

Now, if I were to submit a video, then someone might pick up on some of the technical problems.  If they are not a teacher, they might mis-advise me.  They might actually advise me correctly, but tbh, I have a teacher whom I trust for that.  I'm not sure that this is actually such a good idea for a student, depending on where the student is at.

[d_b_christopher]

Your scale is splendid.  Even, clear, and well played.  Speed is relative.

I see no problem with it; why don't we create a "Casual Scale Challenge" with different requirements.

Would others enter if there was less of a focus on 'Competitive Speed'?

[keypeg]

Your scale is splendid.  Even, clear, and well played.  Speed is relative.

I see no problem with it;

Thank you.

I'm writing the rest as a student, and it also reinforces what you have written in that blog entry.

You actually hear no problem; since it's an audio there is nothing for you to see, and this is important.  My strength has always been in hearing a desired sound in my head and listening for it as I play.  So I can make things sound good.  My sense of body use is poor, so I am likely to produce that nice sound through awkward physical "technique", and I won't even recognize that it's not comfortable because I'm used to how it feels.  I could afford to do that scale just a couple of times, just enough to make that audio, because I was already feeling everything become tight.  Working toward a final result in sound, instead of developing a skill in stages, is a variant of everything that you wrote in your blog!  When the goal is only final sound results, I can get in trouble.

The first time I ever had lessons on another instrument, the teacher once said, when I played vibrato on one finger (the only I could do it on), "When I close my eyes, I could be jealous."  Had he opened his eyes, or not let his ears hold sway, he would have seen the physical struggle.  In general, because I could go after a musical sound with such tenacity, I'd be advanced rather quickly, and the physical-technical training fell far behind.  I got in serious trouble with that instrument starting second year, when the whole playing mechanism collapsed on me.  I struggled for several years after that, sort of "recovering", but the floor that house was sitting on was compromised.  When I went back to piano after that, as soon as my hand went numb with scales, I stopped, until I could get a teacher.

I don't know how extreme my case is; the musical sounds I prehear and can aim for are out of sync with the physical actions that I can do in an effective manner, aka technique.  I suspect that it will be out of sync for a lot of adults, because those who have played other instruments will not have the physical motions for piano established in their bodies; those who have listened to music a lot will have a sophisticated sound-picture in their heads, but again the technique part is not there.  If one part is allowed to race ahead of the other, it goes out of balance we we're in trouble. Clumsy things may work at a slow tempo, because then "anything works", but it falls apart a bit faster - and it may always feel tight and uncomfortable even at the slow tempo.  Here teachers can get fooled as well; I'm lucky to have worked with two very observant teachers who could sort sound from sight (which I have not given you, for you to be able to sort out - I only provided audio).

Does what I wrote tie in to what is in your last blog entry, as I think it might?

[keypeg]

...why don't we create a "Casual Scale Challenge" with different requirements.

Would others enter if there was less of a focus on 'Competitive Speed'?

For me, I'd be aiming toward the wrong goals.  For example, if it is important for me to pause before moving the hand to its new position, and first not activate the thumb at all as an intermediary step, I won't be producing an even rhythm.  What happened to me with scales is that before I could get a teacher I thought it was safe to do scales on my own, and I used an old fashioned book which modeled the "still hand" (which I already had while self-taught decades before), where the main action came from the thumb which was supposed to "shoot under rapidly".  This became a trained reflex which put huge strain into my hand, locking the wrist and more.  The thumb has a huge muscle that affects everything if mis-used.  These trained habits allow me to play a scale that is even etc., while at the same time causing injury.  (I've come a long way since then, but I've only restarted working on scales.)

I did enter an event on PianoStreet once, which was created by a teacher.  That event had a teaching purpose, rather than end results purpose, and that was in sync with where I'm at as a learner.  The teaching goal was to get students to look more deeply into the pieces they were doing, examining the piece, developing it through what they saw, and also examining the physical motions to get there.  The teacher submitted a couple of videos to give us an idea of some things he considered, to get us going.  We also discussed among each other the things we were discovering, how we were going about it, etc.  The whole thing supported the idea of how to gradually develop a piece and your own skills.

If there were a "scales playing" thing for a lower level, similar to the one that is going now, I could submit the type of playing I just did, but it would be pointless for me.  And if a student were told his playing was not even enough, or some other thing, would that student get guided as to how to fix it - or fix it him/herself the right way - or would the student just strain to get the right results?  If a student thumps the the thumb louder than the other notes, and that gets noted by others in the event - if that student aims not to thump the thumb and ends up improving his technique, that would be a positive thing.

That's where my thoughts go.  When the other event was announced, I asked its purpose.

[clouseau]

d_b_Christopher very interesting article. Sometimes correcting attitude is more important than correcting
the playing. The psychological aspects of piano playing are certainly not discussed enough.

Keypeg:
this event can work as a conversation starter in matters of technique. That it can't substitute a teacher is self-evident, nothing can. But I am not sure why
you have this negative view of it. I see you and d_b_christopher possibly don't quite like
the competitive nature of it, but in my view, this is exactly what makes it more fun and makes
people try their best. You say its focused on end-result but I disagree. The process of listening
carefully and evaluating, discussing and helping one another improve is much more important than
who is first or second. So there is not one focus or one "purpose", the focus is where one chooses to put it on.

[d_b_christopher]

d_b_Christopher very interesting article. Sometimes correcting attitude is more important than correcting
the playing. The psychological aspects of piano playing are certainly not discussed enough.

I am glad that you see this.

Many students and teachers simply undervalue the mind of their student and believe in the orthodoxy that "practice makes better", which it does not on its own.  Thinking is superior to brute force; analogous to mashing one's face against a door, rather than inspecting the surface and finding the handle.

Once with thought beats many times without in every encounter.