FOR THE INTERMEDIATE PIANIST...PIANO PRACTICE PRINCIPLES

Introduction

Please note that these are not The One and Only True and Correct Way to Practise the Piano. Rather, it is a collection of ideas and techniques that I have personally found useful in my little years of piano practice. Take what you like and leave the rest.

And if you have an idea for practicing the piano or a specific practice technique you do like better, please add it here.

Remember...Noting Else Makes Perfect Except Practice

PIANO PRACTICE PRINCIPLES:

1. Listen! Everything else in practicing depends on you listening to yourself.

2. Do it right from the very first. Always aim for perfection in notes, sound, and musical expression. YOU CAN DO IT! If you work to get it right from the very first, it's easy. Once you've practiced it a hundred times the wrong way, though, it's very difficult to play it perfect. Remember: doing it one time right is better than doing it a thousand times wrong.

Psychologists say: A stimulus enters long-term memory (that is, it is "learned") after it has been attentively observed 7 times. But if an "incorrect" stimulus is first learned, it then takes an average of 35 repetitions to learn the "corrected" stimulus. Learning it right the first time is five times easier than re-learning after learning it incorrectly.

3. Try to understand the music. Apply the things you have learned in your theory classes and everything you know about music to the songs you play. Look for the key, scales, chords, patterns, repeated sections, the form, phrases, accompaniment patterns, rhythmic patterns--everything you can find. If you understand the music, you will learn it faster, remember it better, and play it more musically. Keep a pencil by the piano and write these things in the music as you find them.

Psychologists who study learning say: Analyzing the meaning of something helps you remember it longer.

4. Write things down. It helps you remember things better if you write them down. When you see it a day, two days, and a week later, it refreshes your memory and helps make it a part of your permanent memory. If you write things down, this process will happen automatically. If you don't write them down, you probably won't think of them again, and you will forget them.

Things you should write down:

- Things your teacher says. We pay so much for piano lessons, yet the minute we walk out the piano teacher's door, we forget 90% of what the piano teacher has said. It's just like throwing away 90% of the money we pay for piano lessons. The piano teacher tries to write things down for you but just can't write down everything. You should go home, play through your pieces, and right there in the music or in a notebook write down everything you can remember about your lesson. This doesn’t have to be complete sentences—just notes and phrases that you understand and which will jog your memory. If you do this, you will be amazed at how much more you remember and how much less the piano teacher has to repeat the same thing.

- Things you figure out about the music. If you figure out a piece is in the key of D major, write down: "D major." If you find an F major chord, write it down. Figuring these things out once and then forgetting them does no good.

Psychologists who study long-term memory say: The key to making a particular stimulus a permanent part of your long-term memory is to review it repeatedly over a long period of time. Memories that are not reviewed in this way become gradually weaker with time. Writing things down allows you to review them over a period of time and so make them part of your long-term, permanent memory.

5. Be your own teacher. Don't wait for your teacher to tell you every thing to do; figure it out for yourself. Often you can figure out the problem and solve it just as well as the teacher can, so why wait?

In the end, you teach yourself how to play the piano even faster, with some help from others.

6. Look at practising as problem solving. Don't look at practising as putting in a certain amount of time at the piano, or as repeating your pieces a certain number of times. Look at practising as finding and solving problems in the songs that you play.

There are three steps in this process:

IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM. Know what that song should sound like, and recognise the difference between the way it should sound and the way it does sound.

FIGURE OUT WHAT CAUSES THE PROBLEM. Is the problem caused by weak technique? Bad fingering? An awkward stretch or jump in the music? An unclear mental picture of the music in your mind? Whatever it is, you have to figure out the cause of the problem before you can fix it.

FIX THE PROBLEM. This might mean using some of the practice methods outlined below, changing the fingering, analyzing the music so you understand it better, or (as a last resort!) just practicing the spot over and over until it is comfortable to play. Problems you can’t solve yourself, ask your teacher or fellow students for help.

Looking at what you are doing is often a great help in creating a greater awareness of your muscular sensations and feelings. The muscular sensations are often very subtle; your eyes can help you tune into what you are feeling. Observing yourself in a mirror or via videotape is often very helpful.

Students often pay attention to sound only. On the piano, it is very possible to get a perfectly correct and even a beautiful and musical sound, while at the same time misusing your body in quite a terrible way. You may be able to play like this for a year or even ten years—but eventually it will catch up with you.

(I will be talking about posture in soon).