How do you practice difficult sections?

[liszmaninopin]

Generally, when I practice a particularly difficult section I just break it into the smallest chunks that I can play acceptably, practice them, and then work on combining all the little chunks.  If its really hard, then I do it with separate hands.

Do you have any suggestions?  It is always good to learn from others' experiences.

[BuyBuy]

That's also the way I do it, buddy... With the metronome to control my speed progression. I haven't found a better method in 12 years.

[Stral]

"How do you practice difficult sections?"

...Very carefully.

Seriously though, I tend to break them up into smaller mini-phrases, working on them hands seperately until I can play them at or above speed.  If I am unable to get them up to speed, then I develop little 'mini excercises' for myself involving the mini-phrase and work on the phrase that way.  Once I'm playing the segment at or above speed, I bring the hands together and go from there.

[BoliverAllmon]

I work slowly hands seperately until I learn the notes and the basic rhythmn. I have found out thought that once you get this done the hardest thing for me to do is commit to playing the piece. I get so nervous about messing up that I will play slower, harsher and really not show my true ability to the piece. To fix this, I have begun to turn the metronome off and say 1,2,3, here we go. I just begin the piece and no matter how many mistakes I make I just continue the piece. It is really eye-opening how few mistakes I make and how much better the piece is tonally.

BoliverAllmon

[Franz_Liszt]

1. HS until double speed
2. HT at about 90-110% ( alternating ) in small chunks.
3. Connect small chunks

[Diabolos]

Practise them slowly, legato, loud and powerful - and memorize them. Then use different rhythms to get comfortable with every move; afteron, just speed up - if the rhythms work with 125 % of actual speed, the section shouldn't be a problem anymore. And, of course, break it ito chunks at the beginning.

Regards,

[BoliverAllmon]

Here is a trick that I have just begun. You use the technique after you have a basic idea of the piece.

1. divide the piece into sections

2. number the sections with 1 being the last section of the piece. 2 being the second from last and so on.

3. play the first section, then the 2nd section all the way to the end of the piece. Then the 3rd to the end of the piece and so on until you finish by playing the entire piece.

This helps alot. The problem with many pianists is they start the piece good, but loose momentum toward the end of the piece. This helps to make the end more of your strong point (where the climax tends to be anyway) and gives you a goal of what you need to do during the practice section. My gf started doing this and it works so well that she doesn't even attempt to play the piece without dividing into sections.

BoliverAllmon

[88keys]

Sometimes, repeatedly practicing a troublesome section becomes either too boring or too frustrating (or both). When this happens, you might want to try to vary a single aspect of the music - play all the notes staccato, for example.

Here is an extreme implementation of this trick I've used when practicing Chopin's Etude Op. 10, No. 4:

I play the entire etude (or just the difficult sections) at 1/3 tempo, playing each 1/16 note TWICE (as 2 1/32 notes) in staccato.

In addition to being a refreshing variation, this excercise turned out being a very efficient one (I'm not quite sure why), resulting in much faster progress than when I practiced the traditional way.

Another thing I've discovered when practicing this etude:

Memorizing the piece you're working on will do wonders to all those difficult sections you're struggling with. Even partial memorization can be of great help in conquering the "difficult spots" of a piece.