How does improving your playing actually "work"?

[kittenyarn]

Hii! This might seem like a weird question but I like to ponder this sort of thing When we work on our playing, and we improve and get better, how does it actually "work"? What are we improving? I'm quite in the beginning stages but I notice that I can do some things faster now than I could a year ago. Why is that? The obvious answer is that I practised and my brain made some new connections, but what did I actually improve? I can't go back and check but surely I could move my fingers fast a year ago? So why is it now easier at the piano than before? Are there ways you can optimize how fast you improve? Is it just playing a ton of pieces many hours a day that counts?

[ranjit]

I have thought quite a lot about this.

Based on what I've read, from a neurological perspective, there are certain changes that occur. One is the development of a generalized motor schema (I think it's called). It is similar to what happens when you learn a sport, and you learn a new class of interrelated movements. This then makes it easier for you to learn newer movements when they relate to that.

Another is development of the understanding of structure, which allows you to keep more music in your mind at the same time, and artificially "boosts" your working memory. Essentially, what happens is that you acquire an intuitive understanding of a musical form, say, theme and variations (this is grossly oversimplified) -- then, your mind has this structure internalized, and whenever you listen to or learn a new piece of music, it is "filling in the blanks" rather than starting from scratch. This is what happens in other fields such as chess which require exceptional memory as well.

There is pretty much improvement in sound processing in general. It looks like this varies by the age at which you start out, but I have certainly felt the difference even though I started out as a late teenager. For example, I think it was demonstrated that musicians are better at distinguishing phonemes such as "pa" vs "ba", as well as at learning foreign languages. I have also clearly observed that I can now hear music more clearly, and this aids my transcription ability. For example, it took me a long time to actually be able to clearly hear bass notes in music and transcribe them accurately, which I can now do. I can also hear textures on the piano clearer and it almost feels like I can hear every single note, whereas initially, while I could hear the melody, a lot of the accompaniment felt more "smudged", and again I remember this quite clearly as I started out as a college student.

At the high end, it has been demonstrated that the pianists pretty much become ambidextrous from a mental standpoint when it comes to use of the hands for the piano -- it's almost as if the brain forgets about natural handedness when it comes to the piano.

As to what you're improving, everything really -- the ability to memorize music, the ability to perceive fine differences in sound, the ability to multitask, creating that generalized motor schema for playing the piano and the related coordinations, and so on.

From the sample of pianists that I have seen, a few things have struck out to me -- an unusual facility with language which often extends to proficiency in multiple languages as well, high working memory which manifests itself in a bunch of ways including being slightly quicker to pick up on a number of things, perfectionism,

I think there are certainly ways you can optimize how you can improve your rate of progress -- you should not settle for learning slowly by any means. Read some of the posts on here by bernhard, lostinidlewonder, etc. -- they have a lot of good ideas. Also, there are a number of Youtube channels which go into these topics.

Here's a recent discussion which was very similar:
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=67482.0

[roncesvalles]

There are a lot of dimensions to piano playing.  On the physical side, many of us could always move our fingers fast, but being able to control them and move them fast together and against each other takes much practice.  For example, from doing exercises I can now raise and tap with any combination of fingers while leaving the other fingers relaxed--sometimes when I'm bored I do it on tabletops or desks.  Friends who have never played the piano have tried to do it but couldn't--their fingers shake and twitch and jump, or it takes an ungainly amount of exertion to do it.   And one of the goals of mastery is relaxation--where difficult things don't require the same exertion they would to someone who is not an expert at them.  So part of progress is not just being able to play something, but to play it without tension.  As you progress you'll probably revisit works you've learned before, and sometimes it is astonishing to come to a work that once seemed to demand everything from you, and now suddenly you can play it with grace and ease.  Speed isn't just being able to move parts of your body fast, it's really about coordination and being able to align that with what you want the music to be.

Another aspect of music is mental.  I remember the first time I heard Liszt's Transcendental Etudes--there was so much going on that I couldn't process the music.  I felt like my attention was a tiny pinpoint in the vast landscape of his music.  I felt something similar with Bach fugues.  And really fast music all sounded to me like an overwhelming blur.   Mentally I just couldn't process what was coming into my ears.   And the same applied to playing--I could only seem to focus on one thing at a time, so when there would be two things that required my attention, I'd get overwhelmed and not be able to do anything.   Over time, you begin to process music differently with experience, both in listening and playing.  Counterpoint is really confusing at first (even in the simplest forms, like contrary motion scales), but it becomes a part of you.  Right now I'm working on left handed etudes, and I can now play 3-4 voices in a hand and not just press down the key but make decisions about what I want the voices to do, how to articulate them, their dynamics and relation.   

Then there's also the technical, which consists of things like scales, chords, arpeggios, thirds, sixths, arpeggios, ornaments, repeated notes, alberti basses, standard accompaniment forms, etc (the list is really endless).  Part of progress at the piano is simply to be able to do these, likely hands separate and then together, as a fundamental source to draw on for your playing.

Likely on a year to year basis progress will touch upon all three of these, although not necessarily in a linear way--efficiency of the playing mechanism, mental aspects of playing and comprehension, and technical elements.

[j_tour]

Another aspect of music is mental.  I remember the first time I heard Liszt's Transcendental Etudes--there was so much going on that I couldn't process the music.  I felt like my attention was a tiny pinpoint in the vast landscape of his music.  I felt something similar with Bach fugues.

I don't have anything to add that is better than roncesvalles and ranjit's erudite, comprehensive summaries.

But this brief portion did resonate, so to speak, with me:  yes, I can still remember even a few short years ago listening to pieces by such-and-such composer.  And, of course, when I was much younger:  I thought any number of pieces, extending beyond classical rep, were just unreal.

There's a notion from ancient Greek philosophy that one usually calls in English "discrimination." 

I don't want to yammer on about esoteric concepts.

However, the ambidextrous coordination is certainly true!  No, I cannot write in my "weak" hand, but when it comes to anything to do with an instrument such as a keyboard instrument, it seems to me pretty obvious that the very concept of "handedness" no longer applies.

And, it applies in my experience in real life:  reflexes are sharp, and either hand can perform gross motor tasks.

My own thumbnail appraisal of what's been improved?  Sharp reflexes, instantaneous recall of minor moments (i.e., working memory), habitude for intense focus for long periods of time.

And, as I just bought an A=440 tuning fork today (no, I've never owned one, although I did have a pitch pipe etc), even discrimination among tones is increased, even for those of us who can eventually "compute" the right tone, compared with people with true absolute pitch.

And, I wouldn't discount some general intangible qualities like just diving right ahead, by sight-reading, no matter what the piece is.

Sort of a heightened form of knowledge of what one is capable of executing. 

Quick evaluation, and adept foreknowledge may be two things one learns at the keyboard.

[lelle]

I don't know much about this topic but as I perceive it, piano playing is built on very precise and relaxed movements, and from a purely technical standpoint you are improving your ability to coordinate these very precise movements very quickly without tensing up. You have to figure out the general movements needed and then get them into your muscle memory/subconscious.

[kittenyarn]

Thank you sooo much for replying!

There are a lot of dimensions to piano playing.  On the physical side, many of us could always move our fingers fast, but being able to control them and move them fast together and against each other takes much practice.  For example, from doing exercises I can now raise and tap with any combination of fingers while leaving the other fingers relaxed--sometimes when I'm bored I do it on tabletops or desks.  Friends who have never played the piano have tried to do it but couldn't--their fingers shake and twitch and jump, or it takes an ungainly amount of exertion to do it.   And one of the goals of mastery is relaxation--where difficult things don't require the same exertion they would to someone who is not an expert at them.  So part of progress is not just being able to play something, but to play it without tension.  As you progress you'll probably revisit works you've learned before, and sometimes it is astonishing to come to a work that once seemed to demand everything from you, and now suddenly you can play it with grace and ease.  Speed isn't just being able to move parts of your body fast, it's really about coordination and being able to align that with what you want the music to be.

Thanks! This makes a lot of sense. I certainly can't tap any combination of fingers fast while leaving the others relaxed - it all just gets tangled up! Will this get better just from playing more music? Or do I need to do something special to improve it? Like, what do I have to do to "master" relaxation, if I can ever do that?