Why am I suddenly able to play well sometimes?

[ranjit]

Once or twice a month, for a few minutes, I find that my fingers just fly across the keys. However, I'm usually not able to replicate it later on. I managed to record my playing in that kind of state a while back. I wouldn't normally be able to play the scales as fast as I do in the video, for example. When I get into that state, however, my fingers just suddenly feel more agile and I'm able to do things I wouldn't be able to otherwise.

I'm trying to figure out what causes this, and if I can use it to my advantage. Any help would be really appreciated!

[ted]

Inconsistency of perception regarding technique and musical quality is common to us all isn’t it ? Would not the removal of surprise and serendipity be a two-edged sword ? Either way, once or twice a month for a few minutes seems unacceptably meagre. If it is just physical dexterity which is elusive then it might be a matter of taking the time, immediately after a successful session, to carefully analyse exactly why things went so well. It has always struck me as odd that players spend countless hours brooding over perceived shortcomings. Then when an unimaginable positive occurs they accept it with so much relief and gratitude that the rational faculty disappears altogether.

[lostinidlewonder]

Improvement after practicing (which some people call post practice improvement) is certainly something that occurs. Once information is absorbed somehow within our subconscious it causes improvements overall later on without us realizing it, almost as if what we had previously learned downloaded the data and then afterwards it installed more of the information over time. Perhaps it is neurons which made new connections within our brains during a practice session that is requiring time to consolidate?

What you describe however is a spontaneous improvement while playing which is evasive to consciously control. This of course is a problem since what we do at the piano must be controlled and anything which is done on a whim or by blindly running across a tightrope will of course leave us with inconsistency and something we really cannot make practical use of. There is something fun you can do when you have mastered a piece, you can play it with melodramatic expression and really overdo everything, this can sometimes produce spontaneously wild seemingly uncontrolled energy which can actualy be rather awesome and produce real unique musical experiences. I strongly suspect that some of the great pianists of the golden age of piano did such things as this. Ultimately however this kind of wild energy still requires to be contained, a controlled demolition.

Perhaps in this improvisation you have posted you are doing patterns which fit your hand really easily and thus increases the % control you have over the procedure. When you try to do it with composed material or other scale runs of a different shape there are subtle differences which impact upon your control. If you slow down your recording you can hear the inequality of your scale runs so it is not necessarily as controlled and crisp as you suspect unless that's the effect you aimed for.

[ranjit]

Either way, once or twice a month for a few minutes seems unacceptably meagre. If it is just physical dexterity which is elusive then it might be a matter of taking the time, immediately after a successful session, to carefully analyse exactly why things went so well. It has always struck me as odd that players spend countless hours brooding over perceived shortcomings. Then when an unimaginable positive occurs they accept it with so much relief and gratitude that the rational faculty disappears altogether.

I've tried several times to replicate exactly what I managed to do during those moments. Though that kind of analysis does lead to incremental improvement over time, I've not found that state where my mind simply seems to be working at a higher clock rate to be within my conscious control. I can induce it somewhat by playing technically demanding stuff and really "trying" for hours, and by watching players with insane technical skills (mostly Cziffra comes to mind) and imagining "channeling" their playing (this particular process needs to be talked about more!). But beyond that, I've found that it's not in my control. My physical dexterity has been improving gradually, but I get these moments (such as in the video) where I just surpass my expectations, and then wonder if I've been learning inefficiently all along.

It is annoying, because I can physically feel the difference in technique. I believe I do discover efficient hand movements, but they don't "stick" well enough for me to perform consistently! I end up wondering if this whole thing is tangential to learning, and the actual learning of technique takes place through exercises and practice over a period of months or years (which I've never really done, consciously at least).

Perhaps in this improvisation you have posted you are doing patterns which fit your hand really easily and thus increases the % control you have over the procedure. When you try to do it with composed material or other scale runs of a different shape there are subtle differences which impact upon your control. If you slow down your recording you can hear the inequality of your scale runs so it is not necessarily as controlled and crisp as you suspect unless that's the effect you aimed for.

I agree that the scale runs aren't that controlled, and I'm sure professionals manage to play scales at similar speeds which are perfectly controlled. For me however, even physically being able to play like that is not an everyday occurrence. I simply cannot play at anything approaching those speeds with my left hand yet, for example (although I'm making progress).

Some people like to argue that most people can play fast when they start out, but playing fast and controlled is the hard part. I disagree -- "just" playing fast is a daunting challenge in itself, even for intermediate-advanced pianists imo. It requires a certain looseness yet firmness of the hand, very good use of arm weight, etc., which has been really hard to do in my experience. I feel that I just manage to play well sometimes, and find it really hard to reproduce that on a normal day.

I'm not just talking about speed -- I just find that my hand motions at that point are plainly more efficient than they usually are, and I can go on for longer periods of time playing "demanding" stuff without really feeling strain of any kind in my hands.

[brogers70]

It is annoying, because I can physically feel the difference in technique. I believe I do discover efficient hand movements, but they don't "stick" well enough for me to perform consistently! I end up wondering if this whole thing is tangential to learning, and the actual learning of technique takes place through exercises and practice over a period of months or years (which I've never really done, consciously at least).

Why not try working on technique consciously for a few months and seeing what happens? I forget whether you have a teacher; if not, Josh Wright and Graham Fitch both have excellent, free videos on youtube about scale technique. Half an hour a day working on technique for a couple of months might give you some useful information

[ranjit]

Why not try working on technique consciously for a few months and seeing what happens? I forget whether you have a teacher; if not, Josh Wright and Graham Fitch both have excellent, free videos on youtube about scale technique. Half an hour a day working on technique for a couple of months might give you some useful information

I have watched most of Graham Fitch's and Josh Wright's videos, and I have used them extensively while trying to teach myself technique. However, I just don't fundamentally understand how to spend time working on technique. How would I structure that practice time? I've always learned by observing and critiquing my own movements, and that is rather "instantaneous" because you either observe what you're doing inefficiently or you don't.

I have no idea as to how to structure practice time. I've personally found the standard advice to grind it out with a metronome (which is the only way I can imagine spending long chunks of time practicing technique) to be rather useless. Or maybe I'm missing something here? How would you advise regularly practicing a certain technical ability?

[brogers70]

I think you are right not to want to turn on a metronome an just "crank it out." I think that's not very useful.

When I work on technique, it's sort of meditative; I decide on one thing to focus on and they pay very careful attention to it. So maybe doing scales I decide I need to work on relaxing the finger as soon as possible (not lifting it from the key, just releasing all the downward force I used to strike the key) so I play the scales paying attention to the sensations of downward force in my fingers and to the upward force of the key's rebound when I relax the finger. I keep doing the scale while I pay attention as carefully as possible to the sensations and listen to the sounds I'm making and try to get a feedback loop between sounds I like and comfortable sensations in the fingers, wrist, arm, etc.

Working on speed and evenness for scales I do all the rhythm things that Josh recommends; long-short, short long, short-short-long, up to six or seven fast notes, then a long one, and I do those starting on each successive note until the pattern recurs. That way I train the reflexes to go fast, but stop and relax completely between each burst. Because the bursts are short; it's easy to focus on exactly what's going right and wrong during each little burst of speed, evenness of timing and volume, hand position, alignment of the active fingers with the keys, etc, so for me, anyway, it's easier to pick out where a finger is late or where exactly the two hands aren't precisely in synch than if I just run through all the scales round the circle of fifths at full speed.

The thing I like about technical exercises is that I can focus completely on whatever detail of the mechanics, sensation, sound, relaxation, without having to think about the complicated details of an actual piece. I wouldn't spend too big a fraction of time practice time doing just technique though - out of 3-4 hours a day total I spend maybe 40 minutes on different technical things.