Week 2: Status Update and one NEW improvement!

Alexander Weymann I'm looking forward to hearing your hands together recording, and I appreciate your concrete goals. Have you read "Practicing for Artistic Success" by Burton Kaplan? He has some interesting approaches to practicing and goal setting and how to observe and interpret whether or not you are reaching your goal (or if it is even an appropriate goal). I'm finding the book quite interesting, and though I think some of it is a bit overly 'concrete,' he seems to be on to something! 

Michelle R thank you - I don't think I had ever heard of that book. It sounds very interesting and potentially quite helpful, and maybe even applicable more broadly than "just" for learning piano pieces (as important as those certainly are to us)! I will be sure to check it out. 

Alexander Weymann I admire your discipline to practice hands separately so much! Do you also memorize hands separately too? And is this your typical process for learning/relearning pieces? I'm so curious about what approach you all find work well, especially for learning in such a compressed time frame

Michelle R I've read David Kish's "Practicing with Purpose" after a friend recommended it, but I haven't heard of Kaplan's book - will have to check it out! 

Judy Kuan great question! Let me try to give a short-ish answer to an interesting topic - and I hope that others will chime in, too. 

In my early years as a piano student (age 6-12), I was always told (by my rather old-fashioned father, who was my first piano teacher and remained it for many years) to learn and practice each hand separately for every new piece. As I progressed, this was not emphasized as much anymore; my later teachers mostly encouraged learning both hands together because so much about studying a new piece is really about hearing and understanding the music in its entirety -  and in much of the more advanced literature, both hands often contribute to the musical substance fairly equally. As a result, I gradually got out of the habit of practicing each hand separately - with a fair number of notable exceptions, for example when each hand is given very different musical material and presents unique technical challenges (Chopin Prélude Op. 28 No. 16; Rachmaninov Moment Musical Op. 16 No. 4 etc.). In those cases, I think most of us will spend a lot of time practicing left hand and right hand separately. 

Also, I almost never memorize each hand separately. (Again, there are exceptions: in Chopin's Berceuse Op. 57, I find the left hand part infuriatingly difficult to memorize because each bar is similar, and many are the same, but the patterns of how they alternate constantly change and are (for me) hard to understand and remember. So I first memorize the left hand by itself and then connect it to the music in the right hand.  It's a bit crazy, but it works for me.)

However, we just finished a wonderful Two Week Intensive with Jarred Dunn on Chopin's Mazurkas. (I don't know if you took part in it or not.). Jarred asked us in the first week to learn the left hand of the piece we had chosen, and in the second week to learn the right hand. This is something I would not usually have done anymore when learning a piece such as a Chopin mazurka (where the left hand and right hand parts are often so closely interconnected and interwoven in their musical substance), but it was surprisingly revealing and instructive and helpful. Coming fresh from that experience and faced with the daunting task to "finish my business" of learning a tricky Rachmaninov etude, I simply decided that working on each hand separately would be the quickest and most brutally honest way of uncovering every spot in which I either didn't really know the notes (and rests) yet, or couldn't play them accurately and fluently, or both, and then to solve those problems as efficiently as possible.

Alexander Weymann What a detailed and useful background.  Thank you!  I'm also trying to learn each hand separately now, after trying it during Jarred's 2 week intensive.

Alexander Weymann This is really helpful perspective, thank you! No, I didn't take the Mazurka intensive, but I noticed Gail Starr had posted a LH practice video on her Youtube channel and I was curious about that.

The first piano teacher I worked with on the Grand Polonaise warned me that the left hand was actually the most challenging to play well - I didn't really take her seriously at the time, but now I understand what she means. I've been working on practicing hands separately in the past week, but when I put the hands back together, the old habits come back...maybe I'm just not putting them together slowly enough. So I was curious for future new repertoire, if it's more effective to start off with learning hands separately. 

I've found that if I'm going to perform from memory (which I almost never do because of nerves), I do need to memorize each hand separately (e.g., Brahms 79-1, parts of Schumann Op 12) to be absolutely sure I'm not just relying on muscle memory or my ear, and actually know the music. And honestly, I can probably do it for the Grand Polonaise since I started working on it so long ago, and the LH/RH parts are pretty separate voices. But I am not sure it's possible (for me at least) to memorize at all - much less hands separately - in a couple of new pieces I'm learning (Berg Piano Sonata and Beethoven 110 - the fugue sections in particular for the latter) so I'm looking for alternative approaches.

Judy Kuan can’t wait to hear you, Judy! Just for fun, maybe post the LH?

Gail Starr That's a good idea, without the RH acting as makeup to cover it up

Alexander Weymann Yes!  I have been practicing the hands separately with the Debussy Sunken Cathedral, and it has really brought out some things that I totally missed the first time I worked on this.  I’m a fan of practicing hands separately and really listening to what is going on.

Alexander Weymann Great work, Weymann! Of course it's a very good exercise in all senses with this wonderful piece. Looking forward to hear it when you have the piece in your hands.

Judy Kuan For goodness' sake, please give yourself permission to use the sheet music when performing the Berg Sonata! That piece is notoriously difficult to memorize. Don't torture yourself. 

Alexander Weymann When performing, definitely yes! I just have to memorize everything even if I'm planning to perform with the score... Overpreparing helps with my performance anxiety :)

Judy Kuan that's a great approach! You're a better person than I am... 

Priya Viseskul A great challenge. Last week I have practiced all voices separately- bass, melody and middle cords. That works for me. Can’t wait to hear you. I hope at the end you play the whole piece.

Priya Viseskul Sometimes it's the main work to do, reduce tension in the most passionate passages. This Nocturne is like a small Ballade, it has everything.

Judy Kuan tons of really lovely things happening here - you mostly keep the rhythmic flow even through spots that are still insecure; the ornaments and filigree passages are delicate and charming; double notes interspersed in fast groups and phrases are precisely together; in the C minor section, the melody comes beautifully to the fore while you manage to keep the rather tricky left hand accompaniment super soft and gentle. I agree with you that making sure every note is played deliberately and sounds clearly is probably the best next step to bring the piece to a higher level. But very impressive already! Thank you for sharing.

Judy Kuan there are so many sections which transported me to a beautiful place! I don't know enough to say anything other than I really enjoyed watching and listening to your playing, and I see/hear so much potential in what you are already doing. Thanks for sharing. I look forward to hearing more.

Judy Kuan What an amazing practice session you had! I love how deliberate your practice was- keeping the tempo and dynamics while working through the difficult spots. The beauty of Chopin is coming through!