Practice routine - advanced pieces

[softbn]

Hi there. I’m having a big problem I can’t seem to fix. It’s my practice routine. I’ll try to describe my practice and I’d be so grateful if you could give me any tips.

I don’t really have a practice routine to start with. I’ve been playing the piano for 3 years now - I played for 2 years in the past. My main instrument was trombone when I was a kid. I’m 33 now and I’m a student (of musicology)

I’m so fed up with practicing. Right now I’m practicing eg fantaisie impromptu and other pieces (I should but FI takes all my time )

 
https://we.tl/t-1klWus2JUZ - I played it this morning, now in the afternoon I just can’t though I haven’t played a lot today.

I can’t seem to want to practice at a slow tempo. I’ve been practicing for half of the year now and I have no idea for how long I should practice that. I also do a quick c major scale warm up or hanon - 1st ex. At a quick tempo.

I practice the whole 1 part of FI. When it comes to other pieces I don’t know how to practice them. I mean I learn them by heart quickly automatically and get to the point I know them and want to speed up but somehow I make mistakes and stuff. How many times do I have to practice one section like / pages long for. How do you tackle hard pieces when you know them by heart and can play them moderately and want to speed up?
What is your practice routine? I hate practicing now - I play with loads of mistakes though I know I should slow it down there’s always this temptation to play fast.

[brogers70]

Two possibilities - one is that you are choosing pieces that are too hard for your level. In that case, just pick easier pieces and concentrate on playing them comfortably and musically. Don't think of it as a penance or a ticket you have to punch to get to "real pieces." Just learn to enjoy squeezing all the music you can out of a less difficult piece.

Second possibility - you really need more slow practice, so you have to make it interesting. Don't think of it as a grind. Concentrate on how everything feels, exactly what your movements are like. Listen to the sound you make, enjoy every bit of the harmony, the intervals, the passing dissonances, etc. Each time you play something slowly, concentrate on a different aspect of it, how your wrist has to move, how a given inner voice sounds, etc. It can become very interesting and meditative. Also, it really does help you get rid of mistakes.

I know where you are coming from. I played classical guitar up through my 30's. At 40 I switched to piano without any prior experience. Because I loved classical music, there were tons of pieces I wanted to play which were too hard for me, and as a result I wasted years and years trying to play stuff I wasn't ready for. At 54 I essentially started from scratch with a good teacher who fixed all the tension that had accumulated as a result of working on "real pieces." Even a few years after that when my technique was better but I still had a lot of stage fright, I took a year and just played super simple pieces. At 65, I'm playing and performing for friends and in low pressure venues, some of the less difficult Beethoven sonatas, late Brahms, a bunch of Bach Well Tempered Clavier and French Suites and Partitas, a few Chopin Nocturnes, Schubert Impromptus, etc. It took a lot of slow work, but it has definitely been worth it. You've got many years to learn and play. Be patient and enjoy the process.

[brogers70]

To add a specific example to my previous reply, here's how I use slow practice to increase speed. It's definitely not by starting slow, playing the piece every every day with a metronome and increasing the speed notch by notch every few days.

I was learning Schubert's Impromptu in Eb, Opus 90 #2. The A section is mostly scalar passages in triplets at a tempo that's equivalent to doing 16th note scales at 144 bpm to the quarter note - ie, not hard for a pro, but a bit of a challenge for an amateur. So I played the whole section slowly at first just to learn the notes and work out the fingerings. Once that was done (and that took a week or so), I'd do little bits, 1-3 measures, ending on the first note of the subsequent measure, as fast as I could; I'd drill each little bit until it felt relaxed and comfortable at speed, and then started hooking them up. After a week or so doing that, I could play through the whole section at tempo, but I didn't like the sound, some notes clumped up, it wasn't perfectly smooth and even, and the control of dynamics wasn't great. So then I went back and did very slow practice, maybe at 50-75% of performance tempo. While I did that, I made myself imagine the sound of each note just before playing it, and imagined perfectly even strings of notes and well-shaped dynamics. At the slow tempo, that's not hard. After doing that just a couple of times, I could go back to full tempo and the evenness and control were much improved, I think because I had trained my brain to produce a mental image of the sound I wanted quickly. I usually find that it's the brain that is the thing that limits tempo rather than the fingers, and slow practice can help the brain imagine the sounds it wants in real time while you are playing. Whenever I feel that something I've learned is degrading, in spite of my playing it often, I go back and do that kind of slow practice and it recovers the piece pretty quickly.

[softbn]

Thank you for your reply. I really appreciate it.
Any advice is good so if anyone else wants to share their practice routine I’d be thankful.

[lelle]

My first teacher always said that if you make a mistake, you have to practice the place where it happened five times, slowly, without any mistakes before you can move on. If you make a mistake, the count resets, and you might have to work at it slower still. It doesn't answer your larger question but it gives a useful "rule" for what to do if you mess something up during practice.

Generally, you should be practice at a tempo where you get everything right and can feel comfortable and relaxed. If you feel stressed, it's too fast. Speed will come at its own pace with this approach, assuming you have a solid technical foundation. It's easy to want an answer like "you should practice it 20 times and then its good", but with piano, you need a more process oriented approach. I e practice slowly and mindfully and trust results will arrive in their own time. It does benefit a lot to have a competent teacher who can monitor your progress and give you pieces of difficulty that aligns with your skillset, so you are not stuck for months or years working on the same thing. Pieces that are of appropriate level you should be able to play in tempo within a month.

[bryfarr]

Hi there. I’m having a big problem I can’t seem to fix. It’s my practice routine.
Right now I’m practicing eg fantaisie impromptu and other pieces
I can’t seem to want to practice at a slow tempo.
What is your practice routine?
I hate practicing now - I play with loads of mistakes though I know I should slow it down there’s always this temptation to play fast.

Chopin Fantasy Impromptu is a tough piece to play slowly, it wants to go fast, most students are subconsciously focused on an aural image of the piece at full tempo played by a concert pianist and they subconsciously strive for this in their practicing - it sounds so amazing at full tempo, played well.
It takes Discipline to practice slowly.
The Metronome really really really helps - can download one on to your phone.  Use it.
Work on metronome-friendly pieces before you practice FI - maybe some Bach - something that lends itself to sounding ok at different tempi.  Practice the Bach piece with a metronome before FI, this will get you in the correct practice mode...
Reject the impulse to play it like the recording .. treat it like an exercise:  hands separately no pedal with the metronome set a slow tempo that is do-able without mistakes.

- no charge for this piano lesson 

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I'm currently practicing Wilde Jagd, and I have somewhat of a odd practice routine. I usually sightread the piece first, to get the feel of the piece. Then, if I have some spots I'm having trouble with, I will try to practice it slowly, making sure to use the fingering suggested and then gradually make the spot to tempo. I would also like to note that when I am sightreading/practicing, I always try to play as musically as possible, paying attention to phrasing and markings on the page. I tend to not use the metronome much, since I think it restricts me a little, but if it is necessary, I will use it from time to time. I also would make sure to not think of getting immediate results at first, because learning a piece takes time and dedication, and you should just be enjoying the process.

[yqxpiano]

Just so you know, FI is already great for 3 years you might be picking something too hard.
If a piece is too hard, you may not be able to learn it fast, and that time may not be spent efficiently.
Make sure you are making real progress.
Here’s a tip that has worked for ME (on different pieces) FI has a lot of fast right hand passages, try breaking it up, like playing four notes, holding the fourth one and stopping, then playing it fast again. It allows you to go fast, in managable chunks. Over time, four can turn in to six, eight, and then no pauses