How can I play evenly?

[kilini]

My teacher said I play unevenly and that exercises (including hanon) would fix it. Is there some way that I can play more evenly without the exercises? And can the exercises really help me play evenly?

[Derek]

The exercises I've been given, from Isidor Phillip's complete course of piano technic (or something like that), have definitely helped me with evenness. 

A little thing you could do when you're just sitting around, in class, or whatever is to drum your fingers (roll them back and forth).  When you're rolling your (right hand) to the right such that your smaller fingers start to go down, try to emphasize them and make them press harder on the desk. When you roll the other direction, don't exert as much effort in your index finger and especially your thumb.   

This is something I just came up with on my own, and I'll bet it has had some effect on my ability to play fast passages evenly.

But do the exercises you have been given, and pay close attention to your teacher when they help you play them during a lesson.  Just watching a more experienced pianist, I think, is very helpful.

I wouldn't spend THAT much time working on exercises though, maybe 15 minutes every other day.  I don't even do that...I have a very weird way of practicing technique that is almost never reccommended to piano students.

[xvimbi]

My teacher said I play unevenly and that exercises (including hanon) would fix it. Is there some way that I can play more evenly without the exercises? And can the exercises really help me play evenly?

In my opinion, you do not need technical exercises for practicing evenness. Any piece of music will do. What is required is a good ear to detect when you become uneven in the first place. Simply play the pieces that you are working on in a monotonous, i.e. even way. That should be practice enough. Technical exercises are really aimed at learning and improving motion patterns. Eveneness doesn't really fall into that category.

[mound]

try working on scales in 3rds, 6ths and 10ths. Play them 2, 3 or 4 octaves and do them in all sorts of rhythms (dotted notes, or whole, half, quarter, sixteenths.)

Scales in general, if you do them mindfully, can really help with evenness, but I've found (as others have as well I'm sure) that doing them in 3rds or 6ths, or 10ths (or whatever you want) really makes the uneveness "stick out" and easier to recognize and fix.

[eins]

would a metronome possibly help?

[xvimbi]

Before I go on to present some more thoughts, I'd like to ask what type of evenness we are talking about: dynamic or rhythmic? I assumed we were talking about dynamic evenness, but Eins' post indicates that this might not be the case.

[asyncopated]

Hi,

I've recently worked on trying to play more evenly at fast speeds - circa 130-150.  And here is what I find helps.  I suppose you mean rhythmic evenness.  I find dynamics much easier to control at this stage. 

I don't think doing technique books will help if you don't know what you are doing.  In fact, isolating a moment like passing your thumb under as in hannon might even be bad if you have the wrong technique to start off with.  I'm going on the presumption that repeating something wrong is unlikely to make it right.  First you have to discover what is right, and then repeat it to ingrain the correct movement. 

So my first suggestion is don't do hannon, or phillips or any technique book for that matter, especially exercises like passing your thumb under literally hundreds and hundreds of times until you understand the movement that will enable you to do so fluidly. 

Instead I suggest experimenting with movement.

I was learning to play Mozart’s sonata facile (K545).  I've only used that (1st movement) to learn evenness.  No technique books involved.   Also, this is a good piece to learn evenness.  I think that if you solve the problem with scales and arpeggios, most other figures should not pose a problem.  So I suppose that a lesson to take away from technique books is that if you want to learn evenness in general, start with scales and arpeggios.

Here are a few tips on what has helped me. 

1.  Make sure that your body is as relaxed as possible.  Tensing your shoulders, forearm and wrist does not help.

2. I use a different motion for scales going up with that for scales going down.  I find that ascending scales on the right hand (and similarly descending on the left) is a more complicated motion.  Descending scales on the right hand (and similarly ascending scales on the left) is much easier.  So I will only describe the action that I find works for ascending scales on the right (or descending on the left hand).

3. The motion that I think works for me is a rolling motion, a pinch (when you pass your thumb under and back to rolling motion.

By rolling I mean like when you tap your fingers on the table, but make sure your wrist and forearm rotate as well. 

By pinch, imagine the action of twinkle twinkle little stars that kids do, where all your fingers are clasped together.   Also the pinch should be, as far as possible, angled in the most natural position with respect to your forearm.  I.e. around 30 degrees with respect to the keys.  I think this is similar to the thumb over technique that Bernhard and xvimbi describes.

4.  The next two points I find are crucial to succeeding.  Play using your whole hand, not your fingers.  Your forearm should be kept away from your body, about one  fist from your rib cage, so that I has room to move.  Your arm should feel free to move where ever it wants to.  If find that If I don't do this, I don't achieve an even tone.   

5. You have to lead with your whole arm and not your fingers.  When you play scales (right hand, ascending) it’s not you fingers that are moving your hand to the right, it's your whole arm and wrist moving your fingers along.

6.  The angle of your hand should change across the keyboard.  If you are playing ascending scales with your right hand, the angle between your keys should be about 50 degrees when you reach to the left of the keyboard and changes to be about 90 degrees, i.e. perpendicular, when you play the high notes at the right of the keyboard.

7.  The biggest problem with evenness is with the thumb over/under action.  This is what I find helps.  Say you are playing c d e f, and the thumb and to move from c to f.   Just after your thumb plays the first not c, as you are rolling your hand off the other note, imagine your thumb doing a semi-circle or oval to get to f.  Like a little crescent moon kick.  Also I find that if you think of your hand as a horse galloping, and observe the motion on a table top  and not at the keyboard,  that seems to help get a fluid motion.

8. Practice at all speeds.  You can't learn to play allegro without actually playing fast but you don't want to ingrain the wrong action, which means that you also have to go slow to get the action right.  I find that if you practice fast, start off with very short phrases (1/2 bar)  and increase the as you get more comfortable with the action.  Play the whole section slowly many times with the correct action (the one you use for fast speeds).  You should find that at slow speeds, many more motions are possible, but at fast speeds, if you don't get everything aligned, your playing will not be even.  If all else fails, use Bernhard's repeated note groups (with the correct action). 

9. Practice similar patterns in other keys.  The action that you develop for c major (say) will have to be modified.  You might have to use a slightly flatter position for some keys and the general position of the hand should be slightly more into the keyboard.  Also you will have to pay some attention to rise and fall as your hand moves up and down black keys.  If you play proper repetoir, it is like you will have to do this automatically -- the composer will probably use similar figures in different keys/modes.

10. Remember to play with your whole body.  Getting one hand even is one thing, lining up the notes of the right hand with that of the left hand is another challenge.  I find that that best way to do so, so far, is to imagine that both arms are controlled/coordinated from your center -- solar plexus.  If you also imagine that this is where the music flows from, I find that I get better control of the dynamics.  I don’t know why this works, but it seems to?!   I think there is much more to say on this but I will leave it at that.   


Hope this helps, and all the best.

al.

P.S. 11. Listen to xvimbi -- whatever he says (if it contradicts what I say) takes precedence.


 
 

[xvimbi]

P.s. Listen to xvimbi, and whatever he says (if it contradicts what I say) takes precedence.

Wow, I'm flattered. However, I have to say that I'll pass this on to Bernhard. Please keep contradicting what I have to say. I might be entirely wrong (wouldn't be the first time).

I liked your suggestions a lot. I shall obey them

[asyncopated]

Hi xvimbi,

My technique has improved tremendously in the past six months and is still improving.  I use to fear that as an adult beginner you can only get so far with piano playing (as the sigma suggests).  Now, I am convinced that if I learn in the correct way -- listen to my own playing (and others), try to understand what I am doing and continuously solve problems with choreography/action on the piano (technique), I can improve at a rate fast enough to eventually allow me to play any repertoire I choose.   

Apart from my teacher's influence, I think you and Bernhard played a huge role in shaping my ideas and will continue to do so.  I am but a beginner, whereas both of you are accomplished musicians and teachers. The best i can do is relate my experiences. If you and others do take it apart, I learn even more.

al.

P.s. 12.  The same goes for Benhard --  whatever he says (if it contradicts what I say) takes precedence

[kilini]

Hi. Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try them the next time I'm at the piano. Your posts have made me realize that I don't really know that much about my evenness problem, and so I'll ask my teachers more questions. I'm unsure if it's a purely dynamic or rhythmic problem. I'm playing Invention no.1, Moonlight (first mov.), and Raindrop Prelude. She told me that when I play the Invention, I make certain notes louder without noticing and thus disrupt the evenness and rhythm, and that I need to make the left hand more even when playing Raindrop (why I need to she didn't say).

This is embarrassing, but I've never done scales, arpeggios, etc. My teacher probably  meant these too when she said I needed exercises. Also, I have a digital. My teacher says my evenness problems come from that and I need to get an acoustic for these.

I've played the K545 first movement before, but didn't do very well, esp. with the speed.

[xvimbi]

I am but a beginner, whereas both of you are accomplished musicians and teachers. The best i can do is relate my experiences. If you and others do take it apart, I learn even more.

Thanks again for your kind words. However, I am not accomplished at all (I don't give concerts, and I don't publish on piano, if that is what "accomplished" means). I play for fun, and I like to look into things; therefore, I do consider myself a beginner as well, and will always stay one.

What you said is very important, namely that these discussions have led you to critically evaluate what you are doing. It doesn't matter whether it is correct what anyone says, an open and critical mind and the ability to think for oneself and sort things out is is what is really important.

Cheers!

[xvimbi]

Hi. Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try them the next time I'm at the piano. Your posts have made me realize that I don't really know that much about my evenness problem, and so I'll ask my teachers more questions. I'm unsure if it's a purely dynamic or rhythmic problem.

Here is the problem, and your earlier statement gave it away:

My teacher said I play unevenly and that exercises (including hanon) would fix it

I am referring to the first part of the statement. Does this mean that you yourself are unable to detect unevenness? If so what is the reason? I’ll give you a couple of options:

a) You are so preoccupied with hitting the right notes and moving around that you can’t listen to yourself. If that is true, don’t be ashamed, because it is really tough to carefully listen to oneself play. However, this ability is absolutely indispensable for making progress. Making music is an audible activity. Everything is judged by how the ear perceives it. So, you must make an effort to get to a stage where you can actually listen to yourself play. How can that be done? In my experience, not knowing the music is the most prevalent reason. Only if you don’t have to spend resources on figuring out what notes are next can you concentrate on other things. Not having worked out the correct motions is another problem. Early on in the learning process, with the help of your teacher, solve all technical problems. You need to know what the correct motions are, before starting to ingrain anything. Once you have the motions down and the music thoroughly memorized (unless you are a perfect sight-reader), you can concentrate on all the other aspects, such as dynamic and rhythmic correctness.

b) you are able to listen to yourself, and you think you play evenly, but your teacher or a recording of yourself tell otherwise. Now that’s a serious problem. This is not a technical problem, but rather a mental problem. Eartraining might help for dynamic evenness, and focussing on correct rhythm as explained in numerous threads my help you as well. But keep in mind that the issue is not so much in your fingers, but in your head.

c) you can tell when you are uneven, but your fingers just won’t listen to you. This is finally a technical issue that can be tackled by working on your motions. It may also be related to not knowing the music well enough (see under a)

I'm playing Invention no.1, Moonlight (first mov.), and Raindrop Prelude. She told me that when I play the Invention, I make certain notes louder without noticing and thus disrupt the evenness and rhythm, and that I need to make the left hand more even when playing Raindrop (why I need to she didn't say)

Dynamic evenness is not a problem in itself, but part of a bigger issue: control over the dynamic of every note, whether even or not. The goal is to be able to play every note with the same loudness, or generating a smooth crescendo/decrescendo, or making a perfect transition from p to f, etc. Full control over dynamics is a skill that only very advanced pianists have, so don’t despair. In order to develop this skill, one, again, has to be able to carefully listen to one's own playing. If you can’t detect unevenness yourself, you can’t tackle it. No exercise will help you here, because you can’t control dynamics just by controlling the force that goes through your fingertips into the keys. Instant feedback is necessary so that adjustments can be made on the fly. This is only possible if the ear works closely, and in real time with the rest of the playing apparatus.

This is embarrassing, but I've never done scales, arpeggios, etc. My teacher probably  meant these too when she said I needed exercises.

As said, they may or may not work. Just make sure you diagnose the problem first, then pick an appropriate way to solve it.

Also, I have a digital. My teacher says my evenness problems come from that and I need to get an acoustic for these.

Now, this, IMHO, is absolute bogus and almost reason enough, IMHO, to boot the teacher.

There is no reason one wouldn’t be able to tackle these problems with a (decent) digital piano. Granted, you won’t be able to make progress beyond a certain stage, but one can acquire a lot of pianistic skills before one has to move on to an acoustic. In case you are asking at what moment you need a new instrument: it’s the moment where you can imagine sounds in your head that you would like to produce, but that your current instrument is unable to produce.

Have fun and enjoy!

[eins]

WOW, that's a very thorough (and impressive) analysis and it offers solid solutions. I like your approach, xvimbi.

[bsonnen]

Based on your posts, I would assume that your uneven playing is due to a rhythmic problem and that you are probably having trouble perceiving it.  If so, I would like to offer a tip that has made a big difference for me.

First, to play evenly, every note must be struck AND released with metronomic precision.  Most students know to use a metronome to make sure that each note is  struck properly; however, they often overlook the release. 

For a quick illustration, take a simple 5 finger exercise.  First play the thumb then, as you play the second finger, feel your thumb lift, as you play the third, feel your second finger lift - and so on.   As you do this, shift your focus to the finger releasing rather than the finger playing.  If necessary, exaggerate the lifting motion a little to help draw your attention.  Use a metronome and feel your fingers lifting with each tick - make a conscious effort to coordinate this release with the metronome.  Then, as you apply this to fast finger technique, feel each finger lifting with the same metronomic precision that the keys are being struck.  This awareness alone will greatly improve your ability to play evenly.

I am not advocating a "finger-only" technique, just shifting your attention to the release of each note; how this is accomplished is irrelevant.  I was amazed at the difference this one suggestion made in my own playing.

Hope this helps.  Best of luck to you.
       

[sonatainfsharp]

Practice slowly for a long time.

Then practice fast.

Use a metronome and do this: play at a tempo, move it up two clicks, then down one click, then up two clicks, then down one, etc.

You can start and stop on different notes within a group, too.

[kilini]

Thanks for the thorough analysis, xvimbi. I'm definitely asking my teacher more questions about my evenness and recording my playing. Also, my teacher said that I'm already past my (decent) digital. How she knew that, I've no clue. I don't think I hear sounds that could not be reproduced on the digital, but that' probably just my memory.

I'll be trying the release exercise and the metronome ones. They sound really helpful, esp. the release one. I think my teacher might have mentioned something about the release, too.

[Glyptodont]

I wonder if evenness and "flow" can be similar?

This is one of the last things that seem to come to me when learning a new piece.  First is just hitting all the notes, then getting up to speed.  Then, when I really KNOW the piece, I start to really concentrate on evenness.

I have listened to two different recordings of the Myra Hess "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."  As one listens carefully a number of times, it is clear that there's a kind of pulse.  In each measure, it seems as though the first chord gets a slightly greater emphasis.  It is hard to rationally analyze this, but one can hear it.  That's why professionals get such a wonderful sense of flow.

It is tricky to really grasp what is happening, because things are happening so fast in the piece.

I do try hard to capture this.  In fact, that's my greatest goal with the piece at this time.

Whether or not I'm describing this accurately, I swear I can hear this in the recordings.  Pace figures in also-- retards and acceleration.   We begin to appreciate how well some of the professionals really can play, and how well they really understand what they play.