Week 4: Share It

Peter William I’m going to leave it to the teachers on the forum to comment on your pedagogical method.

I feel something is lacking but I cannot quite put my finger on what. Like I told you, I am not a teacher.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding, or should I say, playing.

Perhaps Dustin Anderson can comment.

Larry K said:
I don’t think I can achieve memorization on long difficult pieces but perhaps it is possible on short less difficult pieces.

A key piece of my unfrozen advice was to do this with a piece "that is realistically within [your] reach", in other words, dare I say it, a piece that is actually relatively EASY for you to play  -- so then you can invest more of your work into the memorization and analysis than into overcoming the technical hurdles.  It sounds like maybe one of your Bergmüller pieces might qualify.  And no, I am not familiar with these and have never played them, a consequence of my own peculiar and non-standard pathway through the repertoire.  But I'm certainly aware of them, and in fact there have been some postings and Community Concert performances by ToneBase players of some very beautiful pieces from this collection. 

You are blessed to have No. 1 fan right there in the house, and it gives the lie somewhat to your own description of your playing.  For virtually every one of us, our own playing is probably much more enjoyable to listen to than we would ever describe it ourselves. I for one have always enjoyed listening to student and amateur performances [as I've mentioned in many other posts] because I always marvel and love to hear how the music sings through all the flaws and errors and imperfections in our techniques/performances, and enables us to render something beautiful.

Peter William Hi Peter, in my Unfrozen opinion, your steps are very sound, especially one that we tend to assume more than we ever state:  the LISTENING.  absolutely.  Based on what I heard at the Watch Party, it sounds like the  C Minor Prelude is well within your reach and would really repay the obsessive investment of energy and attention needed for you to memorize it and trying to perfect it.

ToneBase has a page for posting Practice Diaries, and you might want to checkout Michelle R 's 'Diary of a Beginning Pianist' wherein she generously shares her progress as a rank beginner (in terms of technique and facility anyway -- as she is actually a very experienced and learned musician). And if you're in a generous mood you might consider doing the same.  I've thought aboout it myself but so far have been too disorganized to put together meaningful posts and too long-winded by nature (as you can see) to limit my comments enough to prevent them from consuming too much precious practice time.  

Peter Golemme Thank you Sir you are a gentleman, a scholar and fine pianist - all rolled into one. :-).  Your first para - states exactly what I was thinking - C minor prelude. ( wink wink.. I took a huge piece the concerto and tossed it and turned it many many different ways to study it -listening to some of the greatest piano players alive today ..you know who they are - now that project is closed - 2.5 years of learning was good on just that one.)

Para 2.. Michelle R 's diary that I saw last Saturday is what led me to the C minor prelude - and  I will be posting on my diary - at a torrential pace I hope of my endeavors to play even a few lines of the pieces mentioned.   Thank you again!

Also the typing of ideas is very quick for me ( less than 3 mins) but I will now start self limiting and practise more :-) . 

Larry K It is just to get started and continue. There are wonderful teachers who can completely circumvent all of 1-5 and have students acheive results in 1/10th the time it would take me. 

Peter Golemme I agree that our playing is probably more enjoyable than we believe but I will say that I think that only applies to pieces that are easily within our reach and are not a difficult struggle.

I have tried to resist the siren call of pieces that are too difficult for me. I have not always been successful.

I too find beauty in instrumental practice at any level. I listened to many children’s recitals and practice sessions on the violin. I just smile to hear it.

Larry K Peter William 

Larry K said:
Perhaps Dustin Anderson can comment.

 So many things have been touched on in this discussion I am not sure what to comment on precisely! 

I will say that there are some useful approaches mentioned, some that are perhaps rather simplified and some that are, in my opinion, misguided. I think the role of a teacher is definitely a bit mischaracterized when described as someone that will let you circumvent practice paths. A good teacher shows effective paths and provides a level of oversight and accountability for a student. The student must do deliberate practice if they want to progress in their skill and presentation, regardless of the quality of the teacher. A teacher cannot bestow powers, just guide!

 I can say that even an hour a day to practice is enough to make considerable advances if the practice is focused and one is consistently coming back to the piano each day. 30-60 minutes of deliberate practice wins against 3-4 hours of wandering practice 100% of the time in terms of long term efficacy.

It is good to have a list of pieces you want to someday play though a list of 10 pieces to learn in a year is extremely ambitious if you want to play those pieces well, even if you have a great teacher and many hours in the day available for practice. I would have to know what the pieces are to comment more but, again in general, students typically learn about 5-7 pieces (each of similar difficulty) to a performance level in a year. There is much more to this than just learning notes and working with a metronome. Many teachers would say that once you have notes and rhythms sorted, you are now ready to begin learning the music; pitches, rhythms and fingerings are just the price of admission!

In any case, these are just general comments. At the heart of it all is that we have to be excited about both the piano and the learning process itself in order to move forward reliably. If there are any specific questions though I am certainly happy to give whatever level of response anyone would like =) My intention is just to encourage and advise when asked, not tell anyone what they should or should not do. I myself had a very unusual educational path.

Dustin Anderson Your comments and insights are extremely valuable. For myself - maybe reduce the number of pieces to 3/4 for the year. I will send you my list this evening. There are several other insights in how to practise in what you wrote above. Thanks a lot.  A great teacher that will accept a student at the level they are at is a blessing. I went to grad school for 5 years so know that the acceptance process is rather daunting. In my field Profs. would reject absolutely without hesitation if they found it was a waste of their time - some were polite , others were quite blunt. ( "You should find something else to do" )  :-).  I cannot imagine that in piano music it is any different. 

Dustin Anderson What approaches did you think were misguided?

I have never considered a teacher as a shortcut but as someone who guides me and holds me accountable, as you said.

I know that the daily work is up to me.

A teacher is someone who can listen to my playing and hear and see my failings, and can offer suggestions and demonstrations of how to improve my playing.

I am not a teacher. I do not have the kind of experience that is needed to analyze my own playing. 
 

I am lost without weekly oversight from a teacher. So, now, I am very much lost.

Larry K 

I would caution against the idea of using a metronome while first learning a piece. It is an important tool that should be used to solve specific tempo and rhythmic issues but it doesn't necessarily help read through the music for the first time and can actually distract a person from considering good fingering and technique that will take time to get up to tempo.  

I would also caution against learning a piece by watching a video at 1/2 or 3/4 speed etc.. It is a great idea to listen to performances and even watch performers and observe how they tackle specific moments etc. but watching someone play as a way to learn a piece yourself is a bit like watching martial arts so you can get ready for a fight. 

Also, it is very important to practice in sections but not blindly by lines. Begin by organizing the piece into rhetorically logical sections by observing phrases, cadences, textures and form etc. This also helps one begin to memorize early. Ideally we don't learn a piece and then memorize it; we memorize through the process of learning it.

Dustin Anderson Those are all excellent suggestions. I agree with all of them.

I don’t use a metronome when first learning a piece. I work on seeing how to finger the measures. Time takes a backseat.

When I feel I have worked out the fingering, I will see at what tempo I can navigate some of the measures.

The harder measures become obstacles in maintaining a steady tempo and require more work.

I don’t learn from YouTube. I rarely look at it and I don’t pay for it. Video can consume vast amounts of time.

I can’t accurately grasp hand positions by looking at a video. I discover the hand positions myself by studying the music. It’s a puzzle, but I like puzzles. 
 

On another forum, I read about a man who could not read music, and so, he laboriously memorized the hand movements of the few pieces he wanted to play. 
 

I can read music, although my reading of treble clef is stronger than my reading of bass clef because of twenty years of lessons on violin and classical guitar.
 

I use Blackwing Matte pencils and German erasers. My marks are dark enough to be easily seen and I can confidently erase. I don’t scribble.

I have started using little PostIt arrows to refer to the last section I worked on. I can move them around.
 

Yes, I do work in sections, looking for phrases and repeats, analyzing the form.

I don’t always play from the beginning. I purposely choose sections later in the piece.

When I was studying the classical guitar, I watched a master class with David Russell. 

He memorized in the following way. First, he memorized the last measure, then the one before, then the one before that, on and on to the beginning. In this way, the last measures were played the most.

Clever, no? What do you think of that? I will admit that I have a difficult time memorizing a complete piece.
 

Can I memorize at my age (61) when I have not done this my entire life? Is it worth the time? Should I play more pieces and not struggle to memorize?

Oh, chords. I work on forming my hand in the air and play a lot of left hand alone to be able to confidently play the chords at tempo.

Dustin Anderson I don't understand what you have written above clearly and am sure that it is a higher level perspective ( I know you are a teacher) which I am not understanding  

For my learning purposes

1. I hear a piece ( eg.  Bach C Minor prelude) if I like it. I immediately look for the score and check out 2 world famous artists who have played it.  Then try to follow the score. Then I bring out the metronome and match the rhythm. At tempo I am not able to locate the beats correctly usually. Most often I have to listen at 1/2 speed to track every note first ..then after a few listens go to about 0.8 speed. By then I can actually follow what it should sound like.

2. Once I am able to track it at 0.7 or 0.8 of tempo ( this ensures elimination of distortion to at least hear the notes ) only then do I try the first bar or second bar. The first and second bar usually takes me at least 20 mins to get to a point where ok it is getting close. Then proceed to the line. 

Using this method I was able to read through the whole piece at slow tempo in about 8 rounds . Since i) I noticed every bar had the same 1e&a,2e&a,3e&a pattern with a little trick of the left hand alternating with the rh on the 3rd beat.  

Bumping up the tempo to K Lifschitz's fantastic performance tempo ( of 118 bpm to the quarter ?)  is definitely out of reach.. 

But one sort of gets the essence of the method to continue practising and progressing slowly on a daily basis. It is absolutely not anywhere near performance ready to play with another soul around - for sure. 

But I believe this method has saved me years of learning time. 

Yes I know about a much higher level of seeing the whole piece as musical structure as chord transitions on the left hand  and understanding harmony.

In fact I have used this same method to learn a far more dauting piece - just the first page .. Beethoven Sonata 7  in D major ( 2nd movement) where chord transitions occur from bar 1.. The page was so dense with notes that a few years ago I would just look wistfully at the page and turn it as quickly as possible without even a thought.

 Please let me know if this is unknowingly detrimental to making progress from level 2 to level 3..?  Thank you for any advice or comments, it will be very carefully pondered over and help me introduce corrections.

Best regards

Peter William I am happy to advise but perhaps you can be more specific about what you did not understand. I do not see what I wrote as "higher level perspective" (as you said). In fact, I deliberately kept it free of specialized terminology. If you maybe quote a part that you find confusing and why, I can better clarify!

Since you asked if your process is detrimental to making progress, I will say that I do feel there are far more efficient and effective practice paths and that some of yours are strong examples of "shortcutting" the learning process in a way that may give you some immediate gratification but will not help you learn effectively and holistically. Your impression is that it has saved you years of learning but I am certain (from my own observation and experience of working with students as well as those of many other pedagogues) that it is actually a learning barrier.

In order to better help you, could you give me more details about your music reading ability. You have indirectly indicated that your reading skills may be limited when it comes to rhythm. Why do you feel you need to observe someone playing it to learn it? I ask because, part of the learning process is exploring and inferring based on the score and careful listening. As @Larry K said, it is like a puzzle and working your way through that puzzle is where important skills are cultivated. 

Dustin Anderson Thanks for your note and clarifications.  

To your first question on what I did not understand. 

"I would caution against the idea of using a metronome while first learning a piece. It is an important tool that should be used to solve specific tempo and rhythmic issues but it doesn't necessarily help read through the music for the first time and can actually distract a person from considering good fingering and technique that will take time to get up to tempo. "  - your advice.

- I have been using the metronome to help reading right away. So I clearly didn't understand. But I am going to think a lot more about what you said - regarding not using it. In my particular case without the metronome intially I tend to play without proper allocation of time measure. But this may be an artifact of not being musical and specific to me but not for others who may be able to comprehend music holistically. 

To your question.. My reading ability is rather limited to grade 2 maybe is my assessment. 

I prefer to not try to interpret music when I know so little about harmony, chord sequences, modulation to different scales, switching from a major to minor with a transition chord and the enormous complexity that is generally understood as composition - this is what I  have heard . Hence I prefer to hear a great master play it , then follow it with the score and metronome as a guide to tempo and rythym and hopefully it helps me to learn the score a bit (actually a lot !)

But I totally understand that as a pedagogue of piano this may just be sort of getting through some immediate barriers to playing some music and may not lead to long term musicianship -or playing for others. I sort of got reconciled to that a long time ago .i.e. not playing for others but am able to get a little further in my journey over the past 2.5 years - largely due to TB and looking for helper material on YT. I consider a lot of the learning channels on YT ( about 50 piano channels )as my teachers also. 

Most importantly it is my firm belief that there absolutely no short cuts in piano playing. It takes a lot of time and practice, practice, practice is the only think to hang one's hat on leading to very small changes over a period of time. I should know a little about the difficulty of playing piano - I have played almost every day for the past 2 years..

Larry K 

Larry K said:
I use Blackwing Matte pencils and German erasers

Which brand of "German erasers?" 

Maria I actually use two brands of German eraser,

Faber-Castell, dust free,

[Pack of 4] Faber-Castell LARGE... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y2CWLB5?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

and Staedtler plastic vinyl erasers,

STAEDTLER Mars Plastic Vinyl... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006IFAN?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

The Blackwings have erasers but I like these erasers better. The Matte Blackwings have a soft graphite that makes darker lines than other models,

https://blackwing602.com/products/blackwing-set-of-12?_gl=1*164juw2*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3ODEwMjIzOTguQ2p3S0NBanc4NTdSQmhBZ0Vpd0FJLTF5S0w4UW9BTVlMSjV1V3p4TkExLWVFSUlhY2lJUzNDSmFiWlZpS3lHYzVrUnFCNFYyTVIyLWZ4b0NKR2tRQXZEX0J3RQ..*_gcl_au*NTUxMDY0MTA4LjE3ODEwMjIzOTg.*_ga*MjM0ODYyMDc5LjE3ODEwMjIzOTg.*_ga_TQKZZEL5RQ*czE3ODEwMjIzOTgkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODEwMjIzOTgkajYwJGwwJGgw

I try to limit distractions from my phone by using a mechanical metronome and a big timer. I use a Japanese clicker device to count 30 minute practice sessions. It is my take on the Pomodoro study method for piano practice, lol.

Larry K I also use a mechanical metronome. I don't use any main brand of pencils, but I have the Henle composer pencil set and erasable pens, among other things. I like the erasable pens because they are heat-sensitive, so they can be completely erased from a page with a hair dryer. 

Maria Oh, interesting! If only I owned a hair dryer, haha.

 Peter William Practicing in logical sections doesn't really require a knowledge of harmony, sequences, modulation etc (though those can help!).  You can just use your ear, observe phrase marks, observe how rests may delineate sections or where the figuration noticeably changes. These are all things you can do without any theory knowledge that will allow you to organize your practice more effectively than just practicing a line / system at a time =)

I do have to admit a certain confusion in your responses. You seem to simultaneously be fine with using strategies that will not develop long-term musicianship skills (you said you have reconciled this long ago) but then also say there are no shortcuts in piano playing!

I am little unsure how to advise since I'm not sure what your goal is. If you are happy with your strategies and you are getting all the satisfaction you are looking for out of your playing then that is great and you should do what brings you musical happiness! If you are looking for a change though, there are many things we can do without a knowledge of theory. 

Dustin Anderson I am absolutely delighted with the way I am progressing at the moment and experience 0 frustration!. I would only change it if someone told me I was about to fall off a cliff and did not know it. So thank you! I will be sure to ask you if I need any help which may happen if I find that my method leaves me stuck in a few months .. lol! ( I dont think that will happen at all ! )

Just to be clear there are plenty of lessons here on TB that can get me a lot and I havent even gotten to the ones on my list ( there are 33 ) I have only gone through a few so far.. So have lots and lots of homework to do before bothering any one.

Larry K You have a number of effective strategies! 

Memorizing sections out of order is definitely useful in many pieces and securing the end first can be particularly good when there is a coda. 

One of the biggest barriers to memorization is that people believe themselves unable to memorize which then looms over every memory effort. I cannot say if it is worth your time but when I have a student that struggles with confidence in their ability to memorize, I will help them select a single page piece that is several levels below their study level and have them work on that with the intention of memorizing it as quickly as possible (with strategies of course!). Memorization stamina is something that can be trained and strengthened just like physical stamina and it is best to build on small successes.

Dustin Anderson Thanks, I’m glad that you find some of my approaches to be effective. 

I don’t believe that I cannot memorize, for I often play passages without reading the notes, but it is the memorization of a long difficult piece that I find so challenging.

Without the oversight of a teacher, as I find myself at the moment, I am going back to simpler pieces that I played years ago, ones I worked on with my teacher.

This way, I am working on pieces that I played fairly well. It is demoralizing to always struggle with music that is outside my grasp, which I seem to be doing lately.

I’ll try to memorize a single page of an easier piece, as you suggest.

I went back to studying the piano because I wanted to play the keyboard works of Bach. 

Now, I see the immense difficulties inherent in playing all those independent voices and want pieces with chords, lol.

 Chords announce themselves as right or wrong. You form the shape, you play the chord, you can hear if it is right, and then you can devote your attention to the melody in the right hand. 

So, I think I will stop torturing myself with Bach and play “easier” pieces with chords. 

I think I can play the opening chords of Chopin’s Op 17 No 4 Mazurka from memory. That section moves me deeply. My teacher gave me that piece to work on. I raised my eyebrows and said, really?

After working hard on it, I couldn’t get it all of it to come together coherently and so I set it aside. Maybe I should pick it up again, I don’t know. 

What are your suggestions for someone who finds themselves without a teacher and not for lacking of trying to have lessons? 

We have a tentative plan to move to Philadelphia in a  year so I don’t want to start with another teacher and then drop them. Yet, I want to keep making progress on the piano and find that difficult without a teacher’s guidance.

Andre Watts said that a good teacher is worth their weight in gold. I believe that deeply. I don’t want to be without a teacher.

Dustin Anderson What do you think of this teacher’s involvement in this young girl’s lessons?

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1HGXThuC4s/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I think she is 5.

The teacher acts as a human metronome. Without the teacher, the girl takes over as the metronome and calls out the rhythm.

I do this myself sometimes, calling out the rhythm.

The girl certainly seems to have made a lot of progress even if she strikes me as a bit heavy handed at the keyboard. That can be changed.

She has decades of lessons ahead of her, if she wants them.

Larry K I don't like her teacher's approach, or the fact that she yells "One-y and a two-y" regardless of time signature. She seems not actually to know how to count. By the way, she is 9, not 5, and has been "6" for 3 years. 6 years ago, her mom posted about her third birthday. 

Maria I hear the teacher counting both  “1 and 2 and,” and “1 y and a 2 y.” I don’t hear a “trip-a-let.” I don’t have the music.

Sorry I got her age mixed up. So, you’ve been following her? 

The results seem pretty good, I have to say. I can’t play Bach with that facility no matter what rhythm the teacher yells in my ear.

The girl also counts out loud to herself when she plays. Does she count wrong?