Re: (No subject)
« Sent to: pianodannn on: November 02, 2021, 11:07:32 AM »ReplyQuoteDelete
Quote from: pianodannn on November 01, 2021, 09:42:06 PM
Going back to what you said about I should be much further a head after all this practice, well i'm not sure of this.I mean, really even 3 hours a day are less that what a lot of high level performers practice. Some are anywhere up to 10 hours per day. And although my level is still substantially below expert level, it really is coming to a stage where the human body is under extreme duress to perform at this level.It is really testing the limits of the reflexes etc. and i can't see that 3 hours a day is excessive when you are talking about something so difficult.And it really is genuinely terribly difficult to perform even at my level. I can't even imagine any tips or guidance to take the sheer difficulty away from it. I still think the natural talent is much to do with it, and im sure you would have noticed that with students, that some have much lower limits than others.Is this not the case?
RESPONSE: So you have to be careful not to trap yourself in situation where you "DONT KNOW YOU DONT KNOW". For example I say you should be a lot further along down the track if you have had all your piano studying priorities kept in efficient order. I give the example of sight reading study, if you did 1 hour every day for 10 years you would have a very large repertoire now and could learn your music very quickly. This unavoidably will improve your technique, Liszt said something along the lines of "Fingering is technique", which means not only using the correct fingers but being able to react with the correct fingers naturally and without much thought.
I don't understand why people measure study based on time, all the high level pianists I deal with measure their study based on workload completed. The problem with measuring everything in time is that it is just a very poor indicator of efficient study and we instead should look at what work are we completing in our practice sessions. If workload is not clearly set out and completed each practice session you can set yourself up for a lot of floundering about. With strong practice method it becomes very clear the difference between playing and practicing.
10 hours a day is certainly not something anyone does for long periods of time. When I studied with Roger Woodward there were times were I was doing 9 hours a day but this is when studying piano as a professional music student (I studied all 24 Chopin etudes in around a month). People cannot remain in this area forever and I really don't know one single professional pianist who would actually choose a life that followed this. Maybe people who have so much money they don't need to work can live a life like this but it is just not normal at all and I would love to pick the brain of anyone who can effectively study the piano for 10 hours a day with high efficiency.
Piano technique should feel effortless and relaxed, any time you feel tense or pushed to your physical limit then there is a problem with your playing. Playing the piano seems easy to start with but the difference between right and wrong can be small and thus trap a lot of people as the difficulty level increases. The "technical tightrope" becomes narrower as you get to more challenging levels, what you can get away with with easier works you cannot as you progress. Many people approach studying works slowly and then creeping up up the tempo, this also sets you up for traps. When playing something slowly you need to preserve movements which relate to faster playing, this can be very evasive for developing pianists. The idea of playing slow but preserve fast movements is the subtle point with slow tempo practice which a lot of people don't understand. This can be found in the controlled pausing and then fast immediate movements to new chord positions without calculations in air as described in your post. We need to preserve fast movements so our hand and brain can appreciate them, we need to avoid movements which actually have no place in more technically demanding piano playing. This can be difficult to catch on your own and why piano stumps a lot once they reach certain levels.
I wrote a thread about the thinking types which might interest you if you are not already aware of it. It is good to be aware about the generalize way in which we learn subjects.
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=41550.msg459197Talent certainly plays a role. I have no idea where you came from on the piano so your progress could be amazing. I have taught people who are very uncoordinated or cannot see patterns very clearly, even with years of study they make small ground. Then I teach people who are highly coordinated and have strong mental capabilities. For example I taught 2 friends in their 70s, one was a dentist and the other a businessman. The dentist naturally can "feel" movements at the piano since his job required a lot of fine motor skills and memorization of technical movements. The businessman however struggles a lot more with his coordination at the piano but studies a lot more, he is a highly disciplined beast. They both have studied with me around 3 years now and the dentist is slighly ahead even with the less amount of study he puts in (maybe 30 mins each day). The businessman does a solid 2-3 hours each day and is slightly behind. They play maybe at an AMEB grade 2 low 3 level but more comfortably at a high grade 1 low 2.
Recently I took on one Chinese girl who is 5 years old and have taught her for around 10 lessons. She has already has nearly passed these two older 70 year olds. One extreme example I taught had self learned a number of Liszt pieces and Beethoven sonatas in his first year all through synesthesia videos. My lessons with him were highly unusual studying diploma level with a highly musical autistic child.
So there is a spectrum of "talent" but it can be described with a combination of coordination aptitude and pattern recogition intelligence. All the best fast learners I have dealt with have an elaborate system to learn their music which many cannot explain in words. Everyone can reveal the way in which they learn their music, as a piano pedagogist I encourage them all to connect with it in a verbal manner which they can describe to themselves at least and thus make controlled changes if neccesary. It is really quite fascinating how highly talented musicians learn their music and when teachers can get them to connect to the way they are thinking at the piano interesting learning pathways often open up which can be instructive for teacher as much as the student.
10,000 hours is just a silly ideology. Some people get it much faster and others will never get it. There are some students who just will never get it because they really need daily lessons. In the old days piano was studied every day with a teacher, of course this meant only the richest learned. Today is different, technology has made piano much more accessible to all socio economic brackets. Lessons however have been changed to weekly type meetings. This is fine for the majority of students but some really would benefit from daily lessons especially those who progress slowly. The problem is that when a student is left on their own they fall into habits which they want to use. This is not altogether bad and should be encouraged but at the same time if you are studying with a good teacher you need to follow their practice methods to the t and be very precise about it. Then a synergy of your teacher and your own method can be done as well. So you have three types of approaches, your own, the teachers and then a combination of both. Many students when studying on their own might think they are doing exactly as the teacher described but in fact are making subtle errors they are not aware about. This of course will impact on their progress. With daily lessons a student will constantly be conformed to the teachers advice and thus not waste as much time doing inefficient things. As teachers we however should not totally squash experimentation, we should allow students to experiment with their own ideas but keep them in line so they don't end up wasting a lot of time.
Re: (No subject)
« Sent to: pianodannn on: November 03, 2021, 11:45:08 AM »ReplyQuoteDelete
Quote from: pianodannn on November 02, 2021, 10:33:30 PM
It has ocurred to me that, although there may be some "method" to developing "talent", as you say, it often cannot be verbalised, and thus the method cannot be conveyed from
who have it, to those who do not.
RESPONSE: I think you missed what I meant. I’m sorry I can’t really explain it clearer. As a piano pedagogist I often am aiming to get people to verbally connect with what they do. Keeping it in a realm where it is merely some ethereal thought or feeling is not good. Many high level talents however are unable to verbalise what they do which needs rectification so one can have control over their development.
Speed is not really a difficult issue of piano playing at all. Like I said if something feels uncomfortable you are doing something wrong. Effortless and ease of playing, or as Mozart might put it “honey on the fingers”. If you approach technique from discomfort and merely try to make that more comfortable you are going to waste a great deal of time especially if what is supposed to feel comfortable evades you or only ever can be an estimation in your playing.
Quote from: pianodannn on November 02, 2021, 10:33:30 PM
As far as the quality of practice, again as you stated, two individuals with very similar practice regimes/methods often show drastically different progress, thus the role of practice quality is also shown to have limitations.
RESPONSE: I didn’t say this. Dentist worked much less and had natural coordination talent, business man worked his butt off and has little natural coordination. How you choose to practice when alone is important I mentioned the three ways practice is done. I suggest you reread what I wrote it seems to me you skimmed it and did not digest the deep knowledge. I write with the experience of teaching hundreds of people so I’m not just making up ideas I am speaking from actual experience with the general public.
Quote from: pianodannn on November 02, 2021, 10:33:30 PM
In my case, I seem to be finding that there is a limitation has been reached whereby i can find no way to shift any of the bodily components any faster.Fingers, wrists, shoulders, arms whatever are just too slow, and succumbing to fatigue quite quickly.
RESPONSE: If you are doing something not correct then it is no wonder you face these limitations.
Quote from: pianodannn on November 02, 2021, 10:33:30 PM
I cannot find anybody at all who can describe a practice method that reduces these restrictions.
RESPONSE:The blame however rests with you, it is your failure to follow something exactly as a teacher describes. And no I don’t think asking internet teachers is a good idea you need someone to sit with you. I already pointed out how you were doing controlled pausing and fast movements between chords incorrectly. It is obvious that you also make subtle errors with other pianistic issues.
Quote from: pianodannn on November 02, 2021, 10:33:30 PM
In fact, its at a point now that i will just abandon my pursuit of speed and just accept that in the short to medium term at least, it will not be possible to play very fast music.
RESPONSE:The problem is you choose pieces not appropriate for your technical capabilities. Prioritising doing works you can manage is important and shows long term benefits.
Quote from: pianodannn on November 02, 2021, 10:33:30 PM
It could well take numerous years further to develop whatever it is that allows this speed. For the time being it is proving futile to pursue it, as i can't find any method of practice which produces results. Certainly not within a reasonable span of time.
RESPONSE:If you trap yourself with inappropriate repertoire then it should be no surprise this is the outcome.
Quote from: pianodannn on November 02, 2021, 10:33:30 PM
Sight reading although valuable, wont adress the physical shortcomings which are limiting speed.Especially since nobody other than the very best pianist can sight read very fast music. Sightreading focusses the cognitive aspect of the mind, but the cognitive mind is not really involved in playing very fast music, since it has to be firmly entrenched in memory to play at such speed.There is much more subconcious mind involved with fast playing.Sight reading forces you to slow down and think, so presumably the qualities used in fast play would atrophy during extensive sight reading?
RESPONSE: ... I would ask you why do you think you know what sight reading will give? You absolutely don’t realise there are issues where YOU DONT KNOW YOU DONT KNOW, you really need to meditate upon that one. No one can help you at all if you think you know it all. You must submit you don’t know you don’t know. I find it sad you make wrong assumptions with sight reading, it makes it clearer to me why you have been stuck for years on end with all these thinking you know. What one KNOWS and what one THINKS are two different things.
Sent to: pianodannn on: November 03, 2021, 08:39:06 PM »ReplyQuoteDelete
Quote from: pianodannn on November 03, 2021, 07:53:23 PM
I'm not sure what you meant to imply when you told me the harder working and more disciplined businessman was practicing 4 - 6 times as long as the less disciplined dentist, but was still slightly behind. Or that you had a 5 year old with 10 lessons under his/her belt that had surpassed both mature aged adults. The best takeaway I can garner from this information, is that neither quality or quantity of practice are major factors in determining ability, since you describe 3 students, all with very high quality tuition (by you), all presumably doing their utmost to fulfill your practice requirements, yet all 3 differing by a factor of 10 in their rate of progress? Unless perhaps you are with the businessman everyday sitting by his side for 3 hours to correct him, a practically impossible scenario, it would seem there is no way to bring any 2 different students to the same standard. So I didn't mean to imply that tuition is not important, just that there are other factors that are very important, other than being hard working or dedicated, or willing to follow instructions.
RESPONSE: I brought up the two older students and compared them to demonstrate time invested difference vs progress. Then one girl example who has got to near their level in a much shorter time and then the autistic self taught student I worked with who was off the charts in terms of natural capability.
The limiting factor is the way in which students learn, some resolve adding better methods to their skill set faster than others who may require much more time testing and seeing what works and what doesn’t.
Natural coordination capability at the piano is a factor that plays a role in people’s development. The dentist who had decades of technical muscular memory skills and analysis of using those skills in different situations had an easier time connecting to music than the businessman who needed to invest a lot to make the same results. Age can play a factor which is why you may see young children fly through levels faster than adults. Many children still have a lot of brain connections waiting to learn new coordination type movements. This is not to say you cannot experience this as you age but at the upper age limits there is certainly a limiting factor to coordination development.
If the struggling student tries lesser methods they will waste a lot of time. Practice method is a key foundation to the entire learning experience. Although my older students might not play at a high level they can think and solve their works in a more direct manner and can control what they are learning. They are not in a realm where they just don’t know when something is going to be completed. There lies a difference in how music is approached. I would say a pianist who can play 100 grade 1 pieces is much better musician than one who plays a single high grade piece. Someone who plays 100 slow pieces has much more speed capability than a person who can play only one fast pierce.
So practice method holds the burden of a lot of our piano development. I’ve dealt with very poorly coordinated people and those who are highly coordinated to an extreme level. This certainly plays a role in ones development but it is not as important as appropriate study approach of the subject itself. This cannot be written in some generalised manner, it is very much like a doctor diagnosing a patient. The teacher must test their students in many ways to get to understand how they think and how well their body coordinates. Not everyone is created equal in this department and some people are simply more natural pianists than others there is absolutely no doubt about that. There is also not enough years in many peoples lives to master the piano, this is just an absolute truth. Sure if someone could live say 500 years perhaps we could say everyone could master the piano. But studying the piano ultimately should not be about wanting to become a master at it. There must be a greater power that binds one to music than that.
Quote from: pianodannn on November 03, 2021, 07:53:23 PM
I can continue to learn pieces by sight reading, but that means not studying other aspects of piano, as sight reading is very time consuming to learn, and 1 hour a day, even for 10 years still wont make an average person what I would describe as a good sight reader.
RESPONSE: Maybe it is your use of words but I can’t see how you can even guess what ten years one hour a day of appropriate sight reading training would do. In fact if you truly understood it you would abandon almost all else to focus on reading/memory synergy. I’m not kidding that repertoire expands logarithmically as your reading becomes stronger.
Quote from: pianodannn on November 03, 2021, 07:53:23 PM
Now given that no 2 teachers will recommend the same pieces to learn, which ones shall I learn? How many shall I learn? 5, 6, 25, 800 or 1500 pieces? Will that take 5, 10, 15 or 40 years to learn all those pieces. Do I have to stop practicing scales, arpeggios, brushing up on old repertoire, in order to sight read all these new songs? How will I work on the plethora of other things I need time to work on, if I am devoting all my mental energy to absorbing information on a piece of paper, rather than analysing what my hands are actually doing? How will my technique get better, by taking all attention away from my hands, and diverting all of that attention to deciphering printed information, leaving no mental energy to actually understand what the hands are doing? Sounds a bit weird to me. But if you think it's best, i can spend another 2000 hours on sight reading, over and above the 2000 hours I already spent learning songs of all different levels by sight reading.
With the creeping thing, when would you expect to see some improvement, after taking up exercises designed to stop creeping, you know, as you described with the pausing, calculating and jumping. Because I've been doing that, but im not getting any faster, and maintaining the speed is not getting any easier.
RESPONSE:I mean this all would take many pages to cover which is simply impractical. Briefly, there is not one pathway through repertoire which expands ones skills in an efficient manner. The most ideal choice is something the student actually likes and which will expand their skills appropriately. I actually give my students a large choice of pieces to study it doesn’t matter which one they choose in most cases.
To give you some idea many of my sight reading students cycle through 100+ pieces a month several times. There are many different approaches to sight reading training which a lot has to do with highlighting pattering in the score. Precisely what patterns has to conform with the students mental capabilities but there are watered down ideas which still lay foundation for higher level skills later on down the track.
Then there is fingering calculations how well you can do it on the fly and how well you can recover if you make errors. Fingering is what stumps the vast majority when it comes to sight reading. If one reads something always with the correct fingers the whole process is many times easier.
There are many more issues but again even listing them all out is just going beyond the scope of a private message.
Regarding your use of controlled pause there are simply too many factors which could be stopping you. It is a very useful skill and it needs to be fully appreciated. Like I said the situation is like a doctor trying to diagnose a patient, I simply cannot tell you exactly what is up and what you must do that will help you on your way. If it were possible to write a book which helps everyone it would be great. I tried writing how someone would learn a piece with all different mind types at the piano. I came up with some 20+ ways one might learn a single easy piece. That is not even all there is I still come across people who think in some manner I have not seen before. Then add the various permutations of how people think in different situations and it becomes a confusing mess to write about. Piano educators thus need to learn how to diagnose their students needs, unfortunately as you would know music teachers is not a regulated business and there are plenty who know nothing much at all.
In any case I think any teacher you learn with you should bombard them with specific questions that you have and see real progress. If there is no change in a couple months it’s utterly useless.
15 days have passed and you have disengaged in our discussion. In the small interaction we have had it is obvious that you have it in your mind one ideology without observing that there is another reality out there as well. You easily waved away the benefits of sight reading without ever having taken appropriate studies in it. You even gave reasons why it will not be effective for you. This kind of thinking is just trapping yourself, no one can help you if you think in this manner.
Topic: Is there a time you accept you cannot advance to a higher level