Why does this method help?

[coke]

**Only 04:42 - 04:56**

I know the video is talking about violins, but my teacher taught me this method when I was a kid too. I guess everyone uses this no matter what instruments they play.

But what is the mechanism? Why does it help us to achieve difficult phrases? I repeated the same phrase many times but feel nothing.

Thanks a lot!

[Bob]

I'd say I'm...

7.  Only practice technique

12. The Thinker




For the methodical one, you're getting more reps in and varying them a bit.  It also increases the speed between two notes, but different notes for the way that guy's staggering it.

[ted]

I hardly do any practice so none of them apply, but then I'm probably not a musician. I do spend a few minutes a day on the Virgil Practice Clavier but that doesn't seem to fit in anywhere, technique perhaps.

[coke]

For the methodical one, you're getting more reps in and varying them a bit.  It also increases the speed between two notes, but different notes for the way that guy's staggering it.

Thank you so much. What do you think of those staccato - legato exercise?

[coke]

I hardly do any practice so none of them apply, but then I'm probably not a musician. I do spend a few minutes a day on the Virgil Practice Clavier but that doesn't seem to fit in anywhere, technique perhaps.

Please forgive my ignorance. May I ask what is Virgil Practice Clavier?
I googled it and find this video

But still have no idea...

[ted]

Yes, that’s it. It is a full keyboard, silent, which allows you to vary the key resistance. Mine goes up to 20 ounces but I use it on around eight ounces at the most. The idea, fairly obviously, is to strengthen the hands and fingers to a point beyond that required for the heaviest piano action. They are decidedly unfashionable these days in musical circles, with most pianists never having heard of them. My teacher in my youth, a skilled cabinetmaker, rebuilt one and sold it to me in 1968.

Admittedly, thoughtless use of one can do more harm than good, and it takes quite a while to work out exactly how to play it to maximum benefit. I have used mine for a few minutes a day most of my life and I am sure I would not be playing the sort of stuff I do at seventy-one without it. Although I do have a small repertoire, I am primarily an improviser and, once at the instrument, all is music. So it is true that, aside from technique on the Virgil, I do virtually no practice in the usual sense of that word.

I do not suggest they are right for everybody, but mine has proved invaluable for me.

[keypeg]

Thank you so much. What do you think of those staccato - legato exercise?

I'm assuming that you're talking about the ones in the video?  I think it's for bow control / facility in the bow hand / coordinating the two hands.  When I had violin lessons a primary book of etudes was Wohlfahrt, and a couple of the first etudes had a series of notes, and then a whole bunch of bowing variants the combined slurs and detache or staccato in different ways.  I don't know if that can apply to piano, though.  That said, I've heard of things getting played in different rhythms in piano in order to get a new control of the hands.