how do you practice?

[dongsang153]

everybody have different practice techinques.  some may work for an individual, others may not.  i was just wondering what are your techniques in practicing:

longs runs really fast

big chords and not stopping to look for every one

sight-reading

just reading music in general

plus anything else you might want to add.

[zalmanesd]

I personally have very bad practice habits  .
for the long runs i learn all the notes first then I play AFAP ()
for big chords I have no idea...usually it comes naturally for me.
Sight-reading, I wouldn't call it a practice technique, but it also comes naturally
I think you should just learn the notes first (that would solve all your problems).

[Nana_Ama]

Play the entire piece first, hands seperately and put a mark where you have trouble.  Learn each part with proper fingering (it's really important).
Divide the music into little sections, and practice them until you have mastered them,
then connect each of the sections, and eventually you will have played the entire piece.  Do keep in mind that getting it right just once sometimes isn't enough.  When I practice in little sections, I have smaller subdivisions within each section, and practice the little trouble spots... I just keep repeating those measures with a short pause in between each repeat.  If it is a fast running section, I gradually increase the speed, but I always start off slow because it causes less problems in the long run...I'm sleepy ... I hope this helped...

[steinwayguy]

Play the entire piece first, hands seperately and put a mark where you have trouble. Learn each part with proper fingering (it's really important).

I can't say I agree with that at all....

I have a different practice technique for just about every phrase of every piece I'm playing. It's completely situational- I figure out the difficulties in a passage, and I either come up with "technical"  exercises (definitely NOT your average Czerny)  for them or experiment with different musical ideas.

[lostinidlewonder]

I work by a Bar per day quota which I set myself every night. Before i even start those i usually just warm up at the keyboard for 10 mins or so, play random stuff, mixture of chord, arpeggios, bits of pieces. Then I'll do some of the quota for the day, when my brain is full(around 1 hour of memorising) ill take a break or practice pieces already memorised. After 10 mins of practicing pieces i know ill move back to the stuff i was trying to memorise, see if its still there, patch up anything lost then move on to the next part of the daily quota. Continue process until its done.

How I actually tackle the music is always with both hands straight away. I was told that there is a nerve in the hands (somewhere running inbetween the thumb and index apparently) which acts as a memory agent to the the brain. If you do something enough times the brain remembers the exact hand movement. If I practice Single hands then I'm wasting the brains memory by forcing the memorisation of 3 different things instead of 1. Right hand, Left hand and then Both hands, each one feels different. So to give the brain a break and let it work efficiently I strive to find the feeling of playing a piece both hands as soon as possible without wasting time on single hand practice.

[Nana_Ama]

I can't say I agree with that at all....

I have a different practice technique for just about every phrase of every piece I'm playing. It's completely situational-

well, what I meant was that you'll have to practice the sections that you have problems with more than you would other sections.  And as for fingering, it's important to kep it consistent because if it isn't it can get very confusing.

I figure out the difficulties in a passage, and I either come up with "technical"  exercises (definitely NOT your average Czerny)  for them or experiment with different musical ideas.

um, that's what I meant...(especially since I do the same thing) but wouldn't a teacher help you with that though???
Everyone's different.

[steinwayguy]

well, what I meant was that you'll have to practice the sections that you have problems with more than you would other sections. And as for fingering, it's important to kep it consistent because if it isn't it can get very confusing.


 
um, that's what I meant...(especially since I do the same thing) but wouldn't a teacher help you with that though???
Everyone's different.

My teacher is one of those terribly-old-school-technique-is-bullshit types of guys, so- no.

[Nana_Ama]

My teacher is one of those terribly-old-school-technique-is-bullshit types of guys, so- no.

  That's not what I meant either but nevermind....

[chopinisque]

How I actually tackle the music is always with both hands straight away. I was told that there is a nerve in the hands (somewhere running inbetween the thumb and index apparently) which acts as a memory agent to the the brain. If you do something enough times the brain remembers the exact hand movement. If I practice Single hands then I'm wasting the brains memory by forcing the memorisation of 3 different things instead of 1. Right hand, Left hand and then Both hands, each one feels different. So to give the brain a break and let it work efficiently I strive to find the feeling of playing a piece both hands as soon as possible without wasting time on single hand practice.

What happens when you need to play one hand only?  Or when you need to play with hands independant?  As you said, HS and HT feels different.  Also, don't you find it hard to concentrate on getting your technique right with so many things going on at once (with both hands doing their own thing)?

[asyncopated]

Just wondering how long it take for people to learn pieces?

It's difficult to define a yard stick, but say a piece at your grade (technically challenging but one can manage) that is about 10 pages long?  E.g. All moments of a sonata.

al.

[lostinidlewonder]

What happens when you need to play one hand only? Or when you need to play with hands independant? As you said, HS and HT feels different. Also, don't you find it hard to concentrate on getting your technique right with so many things going on at once (with both hands doing their own thing)?

Hands together slowly shouldn't ever feel hard, it does if you are still working out co-ordination at the piano. If it feels hard when you play hands together slowly then you will just never be able to achieve an "ease of touch" with that peice, move on. 

Passages with one hand of course only one hand, but the point was not to practice pieces which require two hands with one. I find that wastes time and disregards the real point which is found with both hands only.

Just wondering how long it take for people to learn pieces?

It's difficult to define a yard stick, but say a piece at your grade (technically challenging but one can manage) that is about 10 pages long? E.g. All moments of a sonata.

I can usually memorise about 40-50 bars a day, easy stuff i can memorise the entire piece almost right after sight reading it three times or so (and i do a whole load of that for students  ). Although sometimes you get stuck on parts which test memory, like some Liszt fancy sections for instance take time more to memorise completely but they don't slow down the memory rate, you just keep it aside and make sure you put it on the "to improve" list.

[asyncopated]

I can usually memorise about 40-50 bars a day, easy stuff i can memorise the entire piece almost right after sight reading it three times or so (and i do a whole load of that for students  Angry). Although sometimes you get stuck on parts which test memory, like some Liszt fancy sections for instance take time more to memorise completely but they don't slow down the memory rate, you just keep it aside and make sure you put it on the "to improve" list.

*Dropped jaw* 

al.

[thierry13]

*Dropped jaw*

al.

Why that??

[galonia]

longs runs really fast

Using rhythms, staccato, backwards, anything different I can think of so that my mind is forced to concentrate on the notes rather than just let my hands run over them.

big chords and not stopping to look for every one

Ooh, this one's hard for me, coz I have small hands, so just playing a chord in the first place is hard enough, then jumping from one to the other - I usually practise just the top notes of two consecutive chords (e.g. in the RH, I practise moving, say 5-5), then the bottom note of the two chords (e.g. 1-1), then I practise the jump using different combinations of notes from the chords.  This gets my hand used to moving to the right notes of the chords, and I can then play the two consecutive big chords with no problems.

sight-reading

just reading music in general

errr... I don't see a difference in that - I just sight-read all my music that's brand new until I have memorised it, which doesn't take that long, generally.

plus anything else you might want to add.

easy stuff i can memorise the entire piece almost right after sight reading it three times or so (and i do a whole load of that for students ).

Agreed - this was why I stopped teaching - some children practise so little, or so poorly (I wasn't interested enough in teaching to bother figuring out which - probably both!) - that their lessons were like practise sessions.  By the time they left, I could sit down and perform their repertoire from memory myself, without ever having played it before.  That frustrated me - I mean, if after half an hour of directing their practice I could play it, surely an entire week of doing proper practice means they should be able to play a little of their set works?

[asyncopated]

*Dropped jaw* Shocked Shocked Shocked

Why that??

Put it this way, I'm currently learning Mozart's sonata facile(K545).  And have been at it for slightly more than two weeks.  I can see how it can be quite an easy piece, if you already have the technical ability, but I don't.   Right now, I can just about play 3/4 of the frist movement (up to the recapitulation) and 1/2 of the second at tempo, and I am still experimenting with touch, dynamics, phrasing etc. 

From what you say, you will probably master it in about 2 days. Well, maybe it's not a fair comparison!

Agreed - this was why I stopped teaching - some children practise so little, or so poorly (I wasn't interested enough in teaching to bother figuring out which - probably both!) - that their lessons were like practise sessions.  By the time they left, I could sit down and perform their repertoire from memory myself, without ever having played it before.  That frustrated me - I mean, if after half an hour of directing their practice I could play it, surely an entire week of doing proper practice means they should be able to play a little of their set works?

ATM I do practice quite a lot (i think) at least 2 hours a day, sometimes up to 5.  I still can't play the sonata after only a week!  Although, I'm sure you will be about to play that sonata fluently after a couple of hours.  I give myself about 1 1/2 months to play fluently and at least 1/2 a year to get it performable!

I think with children things get a little complicated.  It's not so much about the rigours of teaching technique as it is about make things fun.  If a child sees it as a chore (work) s/he will not want to do it.  If s/he thinks it's a game, they will go on for hours on end.  Teaching children is as much about psychology as it is about instruction.  Unfortunately the former is indispensable.  And then there are parents to contend with!



Ok, so I'll give myself another 5 years.   Maybe I can memorize 40-50 bars a day by then! (Haha)

al.

[puma]

    For classical pieces, I work very slowly, sometimes just one bar a day, until I get all the notes.  Sometimes I can do a page (20 bars or so, depending) a day.  If it is a popular piece that is not too difficult, I can usually memorize the entire piece right away, othertimes I will approach it like a classical piece especially if it contains solos and runs that are not one-two-three easy chord progressions.  I guess it really depends upon the music, and my desire to learn the piece.  If I like the piece, that is a huge bonus and I'll usually learn the basic technical stuff right away, focusing on the harder stuff for later.

[galonia]

I think with children things get a little complicated. It's not so much about the rigours of teaching technique as it is about make things fun. If a child sees it as a chore (work) s/he will not want to do it. If s/he thinks it's a game, they will go on for hours on end. Teaching children is as much about psychology as it is about instruction. Unfortunately the former is indispensable. And then there are parents to contend with!

Definitely!  One of my teachers said I was good at it - but that doesn't make me interested in them.  I have very little interest in children, but I think I was good at teaching them coz I still behave like a child (my bf aims to prove the Riemann hypothesis during his lifetime, I aim to visit all Disneylands on the face of the earth).

But it's because I have so little interest in them that their lack of progress frustrated me.  Which is why it's a great idea that I stopped teaching.

[asyncopated]

my bf aims to prove the Riemann hypothesis during his lifetime, I aim to visit all Disneylands on the face of the earth

I'm not too happy with Riemann zeta functions either, have enough trouble with gamma functions (incomplete), so even though I still think that walt disney is a facist and that the disney enterprise has messed with the heads a too many children already, I'll still go with your life's aim. 

Disneyland (for better or worse) here we come!

al.

[lostinidlewonder]

Agreed - this was why I stopped teaching - some children practise so little, or so poorly that their lessons were like practise sessions.  By the time they left, I could sit down and perform their repertoire from memory myself, without ever having played it before.  That frustrated me - I mean, if after half an hour of directing their practice I could play it, surely an entire week of doing proper practice means they should be able to play a little of their set works?

Yeah, sometimes i have to keep telling myself that learning piano is hard. Because i grew up with the piano I forget how much time i really did spend with it. A huge amount! Then i compare it to how much these kids actually put in, it is miniscule. I played because i loved it to death and made all the time in the world to play, these kids play for 1 hour a day. So it doesn't really bother me when I see slow progress because I can see the amount of time that was actually put in. If I go to a student and see they got no where, or even are in a worse situation than they where last week, i take half the fee and leave lol. Only had to do that once in my life so far though, so they all know the rules ehehhe.

[bernhard]

What happens when you need to play one hand only?  Or when you need to play with hands independant?  As you said, HS and HT feels different.  Also, don't you find it hard to concentrate on getting your technique right with so many things going on at once (with both hands doing their own thing)?

I think you are right.

However, the original question was “How do you practise?”, not “How should I practise?”.

So Lostinidlewonder described his way, which happens to go straight to hands together. Please note that he is a concert pianist with many years experience, so he can get away with it. A beginner struggling with basic motions will not get away with it. If you have not figured out the “technique” hands separate first is a must.

At the same time “practice” is not a rigid procedure. It depends on the passage, it depends on the player, it depends on your mood that day, and maybe even on the weather outside Pretty much what Steinwayguy said in reply #3. Therefore you do not do hands separate as a religious observance, but on an as-needed basis. For a total beginner, the whole piece may have to be learned with separate hands before he joins them. For an intermediate student, many passages of a piece will be tackled with hands together straightaway and just a few will need to be addressed with separate hands. An advanced, accomplished student (of pianist) may be able to forego hands separate altogether.

A huge mistake many beginners make is to try to emulate the practising ways of the great pianists as they currently practise, rather than enquiring how they started and eventually ended up practising the way they do now.

If  I tell you that accomplished readers do not join letters into syllables and syllables into words, but rather “recognise” full words by their pattern, this does not mean that an illiterate person wanting to learn to read can skip the phase where s/he recognises (and memorises) the letters, learns to join them into syllables and so on. It is part of the process, a ladder so to speak, that will get you to the next level, and that can be discarded only after you reached the next level (I have been reading too much Wittgenstein). So hands separate is a very necessary ladder, but by all means discard it the moment you do not need it anymore. However, if you do need it, then going straight to hands together is going to be a major disaster. You can read more about this here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3085.msg44855.html#msg44855
(Hands together – dropping notes – when to learn HT and when to learn HS)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4123.msg37829.html#msg37829
(several ideas are re-explained and reinforced in this thread – How to investigate the best movement pattern: Example Scarlatti sonata K70 – How to work out the best fingering. Example: CPE Bach Allegro in A – Slow x slow motion practice – HS x HT – practising for only 5 – 10 minutes)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3085.msg27140.html#msg27140
(Hands together: when and how – dropping notes)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2802.msg24467.html#msg24467
(When to join hands – Bernhard explains it all)


Now to answer the original question:

1.longs runs really fast – Combine repeated note-groups with chord attack.

2. big chords and not stopping to look for every one. Start by looking and use a rotation movement of the forearm combined with hand shift guided by the arm. Ignore the notes completely (it does not matter if you make mistakes), and instead practise the movement. Now fine tune the movement so that it becomes completely accurate and you are always hitting the right notes. Rotation is the basis for accuracy, and as such is even more important than the hand shift. Difficult to describe, easy to show. The movement should be circular (or elliptical) on the horizontal plane, and arch-like on the vertical plane, so that when combined it is like a diagonal circle. As you can see, the notes and reaching for them – which is what most people practise – is not really the focus here. Once you get the hang of the movement by looking, start putting your attention and awareness in how it feels internally, that is the physical sensations needed to always land you in the right place. Then stop looking (or use peripheral vision) and use your ears to get you to the right place. Finally do it with eyes closed.

3. sight-reading – Accompany people. Play duets (even if you are a terrible sight reader, you can do it if you choose a repertory easy enough, e.g. John Pitt’s recorder books for children which has very simplistic piano accompaniments). By the way, this is what I do, not necessarily the way for anyone else to do it.

4. just reading music in general – Just read music in general. I have a huge stack of sheet music of different levels, and I am always reading through it in search of hidden gems (especially if they are easy and sound difficult ).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[vajdi]

 Hi! 
 
How do i practice fingerings on runs??? My fingerin example on a C major scale I-IX tune is  1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-5.  Is  1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4.... is good for all scales when runin on tunes???  I DONT KNOW THIS sure, please help me, im learnin jazz, and on improvisation this is important, i think.... 

                    Thank so:  vajdi