[HN Gopher] How I Practice Piano
___________________________________________________________________
How I Practice Piano
Author : yarapavan
Score : 429 points
Date : 2021-05-08 10:55 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (frogurncitadel.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (frogurncitadel.wordpress.com)
| vergessenmir wrote:
| Some comments have mentioned memorising the piece which helps a
| great deal. One major difference I employ in my practice is this:
|
| Instead of speeding up, I speed down. I play the section of notes
| as chords (which is the fastest you can go). Then I gradually
| slow down by rotation of my hand as I'm discovering the fingering
| dynamics. I find this to be considerably faster for me. I find it
| hard to speed up and never do so enough when starting slow.
|
| I'm by no means an expert but this has helped me
| afterwalk wrote:
| I've always been taught to spend >50% time practice hand separate
| first, increase tempo one hand at a time, and only combine after
| much practice, which seems to differ than the post. Does anyone
| have a view on how soon to jump into two hands when learning a
| new piece?
| Hackbraten wrote:
| I never practice with separate hands. My experience is that
| muscle memory kind of resets anyway once the other hand joins.
| So why bother?
|
| I prefer practicing in a super slow tempo but with both hands
| right from the start.
| jb1991 wrote:
| > My experience is that muscle memory kind of resets anyway
| once the other hand joins.
|
| I've never heard anyone suggest that before, and it is
| certainly not my experience.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| It's highly subjective but it's also certainly not just me.
|
| From [1]:
|
| > Your experience is quite typical. Playing two hands at
| the same time is completely different than playing both
| separately.
|
| But the point of learning parts separately is NOT about
| making it easier to play both hands together. It's about
| learning all the "other" stuff (like correct hand position,
| articulation etc.) without having the distraction of the
| second hand.
|
| From [1] but another person:
|
| > Put another way, instrument playing is a conscious
| action, controlled by our executive function, and we only
| have one area of the brain that controls the executive
| function. Thus, homo sapiens's conscious control is, for
| better or worse, unitary, and we cannot do two independent
| tasks at once.
|
| > The same is true for the piano.
|
| From [2]:
|
| > Hands separate practices the aural knowledge, or aural
| memory; and the intellectual. It practices physical on a
| smaller level, because you aren't practicing the
| coordination between two hands, but rather the security of
| one hand alone. But I think the amount it gives to physical
| knowledge is small enough that it doesn't really count as a
| method for improving that knowledge.
|
| [1] https://music.stackexchange.com/q/53699/ [2]
| https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=28007.0
| jb1991 wrote:
| Sorry, I'm just unconvinced. There is no doubt that
| learning, for example, a Chopin Etude with the busiest
| hand alone is going to be a natural step before adding
| the second hand. Think about the reverse, would you
| expect someone who can play both hands together well to
| also be able to play them separately? Muscle memory does
| not disappear just because you add a second hand. The
| coordination does have some differences, but it's hardly
| a totally separated phenomenon.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| > There is no doubt that learning, for example, a Chopin
| Etude with the busiest hand alone is going to be a
| natural step before adding the second hand.
|
| To me, the phrases "There is no doubt that" and "natural"
| come across as if a certain amount of debate might be
| warranted.
|
| > would you expect someone who can play both hands
| together well to also be able to play them separately?
|
| Some may be able to, some not so easily. Think of a Bach
| fugue whose middle voice sometimes alternates across both
| hands. I'd say it heavily depends on the player and the
| piece.
|
| > Muscle memory does not disappear just because you add a
| second hand.
|
| Good point. I think my choice of words was poor when I
| claimed muscle memory would reset. What I do claim is
| that some people, myself included, experience friction in
| their muscle memory when they move between practicing
| both hands and a single hand.
| jb1991 wrote:
| > Think of a Bach fugue whose middle voice sometimes
| alternates across both hands. I'd say it heavily depends
| on the player and the piece.
|
| It's ironic as I was actually thinking of my own
| experiences learning Bach fugues and how, when I learned
| the hands separately, it seemed to help a lot. Especially
| since finger technique with Bach is so technical and how
| you choose your fingering is critical, it's hard to
| master that for both hands simultaneously. After all, you
| are still using the same fingers when you add the two
| hands together, so giving yourself a chance to focus on
| just one hand seemed to always help me a lot -- not just
| help me, but actually was a requirement to getting it
| learned. I don't think I could have ever learned some of
| those intricate fugues if I'd done both hands together.
| Or at least, it would have taken longer. For example,
| which is easier, sight reading music with both hands, or
| sight reading each hand separately?
| Hackbraten wrote:
| > For example, which is easier, sight reading music with
| both hands, or sight reading each hand separately?
|
| That highly depends on the performer and the musical
| properties of the work.
|
| Sight reading a single voice can be harder than with both
| hands because the voice of one hand may not always give
| you a complete picture: what the tonal center and
| functions are, how a theme or sequence develops, and how
| the voices relate to each other.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I mean, from a technical level, it's hard to argue that
| playing a single voice, or single hand, requires less
| effort than sight reading multiple voices or two hands
| simultaneously.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| From a technical level, you're obviously right.
|
| But when sight reading, there's a lot more going on than
| just technical skill. Depending on the person who is
| sight reading and which piece, playing both voices at the
| same time can, on an intellectual level, help
| tremendously with comprehension that it more than offsets
| the additional technical burden.
| jancsika wrote:
| > If it's too easy to memorize, choose a bigger section.
|
| This doesn't work with fast passages where the pianist must feel
| how to use the momentum to their advantage. Better path-- choose
| a small enough section that may be played _immediately_ at the
| preferred tempo.
|
| > Practice the section slowly enough, at first, to avoid making
| mistakes.
|
| By playing a bite-sized segment of music at the preferred
| performance tempo _from the outset_ , the pianist can greatly
| simplify the entire section in the author's step 2 here.
|
| Example of the problem:
|
| 1. Pianist breaks up a difficult passage in the development
| section of the 3rd movement of Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata
| and applies a comfortable, sensible fingering.
|
| 2. Pianist ramps up the tempo.
|
| 3. Eventually, pianist hits a critical tempo where the fingering
| turns out to work against the momentum of their hand.
|
| 4. Pianist realizes that the new momentum of the faster tempo
| opens up a _new possibility_ for a fingering-- e.g., just throw
| the thumb at a new position and let the torque from the forearm
| land it correctly. If the rest of the arm /shoulder stays loose
| that torque is a strong and reliable way to reposition the hand.
|
| 5. Pianist now has learned _two_ fingerings that compete in their
| muscle memory-- one for the _wrong_ tempo, which they learned
| first and methodically ratcheted up, and one for the _right_
| tempo which is newer and must be drilled more than the old
| fingering.
|
| 6. Pianist drills away at new fingering alone in a practice room.
|
| 7. New fingering becomes comfortable and seemingly secure.
|
| 8. Pianist goes plays at a different location, in front of _other
| people_ , and that _wrong_ fingering stabs at their brain like a
| black magic spell.
|
| This is all avoided by a) practicing small segments of music at
| the preferred tempo b) joining them together to divide and
| conquer the piece.
|
| Anyway, this is a common problem for a few reasons:
|
| 1. Pianists have a general reluctance to choose _very small_
| segments of music to practice.
|
| 2. Pianists have a propensity to choose pieces that are too
| difficult for their current skill level. This means they won't
| come armed with general-purpose fingerings for virtuosic
| passages, making them likely to choose _wrong_ fingerings when
| starting to learn virtuosic passages at slow tempos.
|
| 3. Music cognition is an early science. Most amateur pianists
| know the feeling of playing something wrong even once and then
| feeling how their body somehow memorizes that mistake and haunts
| their entire practice. But even professional pianists don't have
| a shortcut for turning that experience on its head-- i.e.,
| there's no way to play a thing correctly _once_ and have one 's
| body memorize that feeling as solidly as it memorizes a single
| mistake!
| spekcular wrote:
| I assume when he mentions the Piano Street forums, he's talking
| about people like Bernhard. The guy was a legend. Some of his
| posts are collected here by topic:
| https://pianoselfteached.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/contents/. But,
| the information density is rather low, so besides the repertoire
| suggestions I recommend skipping it. This blog does a great
| service by distilling all his ideas into a short post.
|
| For a book-length treatment along the same lines, there's Chuan
| C. Chang's _Fundamentals of Piano Practice_ :
| http://www.pianopractice.org/. His daughters won state piano
| competitions using these practice techniques. Beware, though,
| that there are a few crazy tidbits sprinkled in (for example, his
| claim that if you practice piano while sick, you might cause
| brain damage). But most of it is useful.
| toolslive wrote:
| > If you only play the piece fast, the piece will deteriorate as
| mistakes inevitably get introduced and never get fixed.
|
| I know this and I experienced it first hand (pun intended) but I
| don't understand why it happens.
| tgbugs wrote:
| The underlying motor sequence is learned and probabilistic
| based on prior sequences that you actually played. Therefore if
| you introduce a mistake early it will be one of the set of
| motor sequences that can occur following the start of the
| sequence. The faster you go the less time you have to
| anticipate and correct an upcoming mistake. This can happen at
| even fairly low speeds as soon as you cross the threshold where
| you can no longer consciously determine what motor movement
| happens next in the sequence.
|
| An extremely overly simplistic model would be something like,
| let's say you play a sequence 10 times and make a single
| mistake. You now have a 10% chance on any future run of making
| that mistake. However if you do, then you probability of making
| that mistake goes up in the future. Assume that you can reduce
| that 10% slighly by applying top down (conscious) attention if
| you play at some reasonable pace. Playing faster means that you
| can't use any top down feedback to reduce the probability of
| the incorrect sequence from occurring.
|
| Under stress (e.g. during a competition) you may not be able to
| dedicate enough attention to keep the incorrect sequences in
| check, so the mistakes reappear at the worst possible time.
| This also happens if you get angry because you made a mistake.
|
| The best way to avoid this is to never make a mistake in the
| first place.
| jbaber wrote:
| This is a surprisingly simple idea for learning pieces higher
| than my current level.
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| probably not the most efficient way to learn pieces, but
| sometimes i like to just read through one to two pages a couple
| times, every day. after about a week that section is mostly
| memorized, depending on the density of the music. then i can sit
| with it and let the fingerings i like naturally evolve. im a
| guitarist, so i think fingerings are a little more complicated
| and contextual sometimes. the constraints of the left hand, and
| the multiple positions to play a single note _really_ up the
| possibilities. all the things mentioned in the article are good
| and in my experience mostly correct, except the fingerings, but
| that probably varies by person. i have two additional pieces of
| advice for fast passages, if you keep messing them up:
|
| - make sure you can subdivide the bar in a couple different
| rhythms. often ill realize there is some kind of rhythmic
| discomfort i havent fully smoothed out. for starters, make sure
| you can tap your foot on the quarters. if you feel _any_
| hesitation or discomfort, then there 's your problem.
|
| - refinger something. its sometimes hard to know if a fingering
| is going to work at fast tempos, so just try a different one if
| the current one you are using isnt gelling. for a phrase maybe a
| bar long, id give it 3 days and if it isnt improving, id start to
| think about reworking it.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Some tricks that have worked for me with other instruments.
|
| * Learn how to make random note sequences sound good. With the
| right timing and fingering it's usually possible.
|
| * Spend time jamming to develop improvisation skills and
| musicality.
|
| * Focus on the parts of the music that are hard rather than
| trying to play through.
| criddell wrote:
| I think your first bullet points out an undervalued skill. So
| much time is spent on rote learning when I think improvisation
| should be encouraged once the very basics have been learned.
| cyberscientist wrote:
| Thanks for this post, I've been struggling to learn how to play
| piano for few years now.
| JabavuAdams wrote:
| Sweet! This is basically the same as my method. I studied piano
| up to about Grade 5 RCM, but then was married to a very good
| pianist for ~15 years and got to listen to her play and practice.
| Have spent the last few years just doing Hanon's piano exercises
| as meditation. Finally starting to learn pieces again, with a
| method very similar to this article. Was going to write an
| article, but now I don't have to, plus I get validation.
|
| My upstairs neighbour is a more advanced pianist, but plays the
| same stuff again and again way past the point of diminishing
| returns IMHO. Don't bang your head against a wall. Do some short,
| efficient practice, then sleep on it. You will automagically be
| better the next day.
|
| The point about not repeating mistakes is key. It's much slower
| to unlearn than to not have learned the glitches in the first
| place. Your brain doesn't know the difference between repetition
| and training. Anything you repeat is training.
|
| Also, the point about playing faster resonates with me. I just
| love playing exercises faster and faster for no particular
| reason. That said you could compare it to a test-pilot expanding
| the flight envelope. By pushing past cruising speed, you increase
| your natural cruising speed. Your error rate will go up, so it's
| important not to spend too long pushing it, but when you slow
| back down, you'll feel like you have more time, and be less
| stressed -- feeling less like you're barely holding on and about
| to crash.
|
| EDIT> Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent.
| Mindful, efficient practice is key.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Should young children be "forced" to learn piano?
|
| That verb "forced" invites an answer in the negative, but music
| is a wonderful gift that brings so much joy and social
| opportunity.
|
| Music is best learned young. But what if a child says no to
| lessons?
|
| I didn't say yes and I see now that I cost myself a lot of joy.
| ioseph wrote:
| As someone who was "forced" to learn classical piano while
| young I think I will do the same for my kids.
|
| At age 12 I asked to learn violin instead and did, now playing
| folk music as a hobby is how I met my wife and the basis of my
| social life now (playing in two bands).
|
| That being said, I look to my friends who played team sports
| from an early age and get great joy playing in a football team
| and feel like I missed out on that part of our culture.
| analog31 wrote:
| I took classical cello lessons as a kid. Today, I'm a jazz
| bassist and I perform regularly but it's not my career. I would
| not be able to function on the bandstand without that
| background. Both of my kids took classical lessons, both are
| quite accomplished and enjoy playing.
|
| I believe it's comes down to all families, and kids, being
| different. My own view is that parents should be perceptive to
| their kids preferences, and whether they are really enjoying
| something or not. But some kids need to be "forced" to
| experience new things, and some need to be "forced" to keep
| working on something, even when it's something that they
| genuinely enjoy. Whether it can be done in a beneficial or
| harmful way depends on the way that each family functions.
|
| I kept up with music lessons through high school, but my other
| activity was figure skating, which I didn't enjoy. My mom let
| me drop out of figure skating, so it's clear that the "forcing"
| had its limits, and was only occurring within reason.
|
| Do you like classical music? And, do you know what it's like to
| be a musician? Because if your kids study classical music,
| you'll be hearing a lot of it. If you have visceral "yuck"
| response to classical music, it might not be right for your
| family.
|
| And of course there are infinitely many ways to approach music,
| that are not classical music. For instance, the instruments of
| popular music tend to be easier to learn by older kids and
| adults, and can be learned with or without lessons.
|
| There is something about the neuroplasticity of children that
| lends itself to some kinds of learning, but I think we're
| discovering that there aren't even any hard rules about that.
| lovelyviking wrote:
| Or perhaps you have managed to keep the joy and music related.
| I've seen people who learned piano in music school and as soon
| as they have passed theier final exams they forgot about it and
| never came back to piano because they learned to hate it during
| their "education". Contrary to that I said "no" to a bad
| teacher and enjoy plaing music to this day. I do not have a
| perfect training but still enjoy to learn and play when I can.
|
| I believe though such "hard" choice should be avoided if
| possible. One should have a _good_ teacher and with a good
| teacher you do not need to "force" anything because it is a
| joy to learn.
|
| Unfortunately I didn't have access to such teacher so I had to
| learn by myself and it's not easy because when you stuck you
| have to figure out how to move forward. It happens from time to
| time and right now for instance I am really puzzled about what
| to learn next and I do not know where to get a good advice that
| is "workable" in my current situation.
| oriolid wrote:
| Classical piano training is a great way to take joy away from
| music.
| criddell wrote:
| > Music is best learned young.
|
| In what way? When I was a kid, I would have been a horrible
| music student. I was interested in 500 things and music wasn't
| one of them.
|
| I eventually bought a guitar when I was around 25 and took
| lessons. When it's something you want to do and you have songs
| you want to play, it's a much different experience.
|
| I don't think I would want to trade the thousands of hours I
| spent playing with legos, swimming, riding my bike or doing any
| of the other things I did as a kid (including more passive
| things like reading books and playing video games).
|
| So to answer your initial question, no I don't think kids
| should be forced to play any instrument with a few exceptions.
| Childhood is too short.
| BugWatch wrote:
| Oh hai! This is your daily site's cookie/privacy pop-up analysis:
|
| (-) site does "legitimate interest" toggle shenanigans which are
| defaulted to ON and there is no disable/disagree to all for them.
|
| (+) the "non-legitimate" interests have a disagree to all.
|
| These are things I will not stand for, ergo I care not to read
| the website, since it is disrespecting my time and expects me to
| show each and every "vendor" to checked whether it has
| "legitimate interest" toggle, and to manually turn it off. No.
| I'm sick of it. To hell with your website.
|
| Signed,
|
| -- frustrated now-not-user/reader
| jefftk wrote:
| This article does a good job of describing an approach which is
| useful if you have lots of willpower, limited time, and want to
| learn to play a complicated piece exactly as written.
|
| I'm occasionally in that situation, in which case I use this
| approach, but at least for me this is a small portion of my
| practicing. Instead, I try to make sure I sit down at the piano
| at least once a day, and play whatever I want. The goal is to
| have fun, and let my fingers learn how to play by giving them a
| lot of time. If I have more willpower, I'll try harder things,
| occasionally stopping and slowly working through something that
| feels just a little bit too hard for me, but even when I just
| play I'm building familiarity and fluidity.
|
| (This isn't specific to piano: it works with any instrument)
| turtlebits wrote:
| While this method sounds effective, it's not very enjoyable.
|
| As a "for fun" piano player, I just like to power through a song
| slowly, as far as I can get (not stopping for minor mistakes or
| even skipping notes). Side effect of this is that it has made my
| sight reading very good.
| lcuff wrote:
| Definitely a 'Your Mileage May Vary' moment here. On guitar, I
| used to 'slog' rather than 'power through' a song. It took
| weeks before it came close to sounding like music. Now I start
| with a couple (tough) bars (think Doc Watson, Deep River Blues)
| and that bit sounds like music in a day or two. Plus, I find
| muscle memory develops much more quickly when I play the same
| bit over in a short time span.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAbrnjdtYw
| danielvinson wrote:
| I agree completely. I play several instruments, and when I
| learned I wouldn't have been able to motivate myself to do it
| if I was just practicing small sections over and over again. I
| might have taken twice as much time to gain the same skill
| level, but in my opinion, finding the motivation to improve is
| harder than actually improving at most skills.
| skybrian wrote:
| Here's a trick I like: start at the end. I practice the ending
| a few times, then once I'm happy with it I go back one measure
| and play from there, and so on.
|
| The result is that playing gets easier as you go.
| pantulis wrote:
| These are great tips from someone who is a great player and has
| experience teaching the piano, but I'd also add that you need to
| also practice the theory behind the piece, specially for modern
| music as this speeds up the process of learning the piece.
|
| Also, we all have very different objectives when approaching
| piano playing. Some will want to perform live with a band, others
| having just some fun at home and some will try and become
| classical concertists. Different goals, different approaches
| IMHO.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I'm a classically trained pianist, and this is good advice.
|
| I'd also suggest doing exercises periodically to improve the
| independence and coordination of your fingers - chord balancing
| (progressing from 3 notes to 5) and Hanon were particularly
| helpful for me. (You can google chord balancing and Hanon if
| you're unfamiliar.)
| kucing wrote:
| Totally agree that exercises are good and sometimes mistakenly
| ignored by people.
|
| Although I'd like to also note that the best practice method is
| what works for one and are actually used by the person.
|
| Especially if someone is not going to be a concert pianist, to
| enjoy practice & playing is invaluable IMO.
| tonystride wrote:
| I really like the analogy of trying to learn to run by speed
| walking faster and faster. It can't be done, you have to
| specifically practice your 'running' form. Sometimes I do this
| way before I'm ready and make tons of mistakes like you
| mentioned, but with the focus of understanding the 'running' form
| as opposed to the speed walking form. This can literally be
| hilarious, I laugh so much at how ridiculous it can sound but it
| is really helpful!
|
| What do you think about accidentally learning too rote like? For
| example I never really understood how to play a lot of classical
| until I was able to feel what it feels like to 'speak' music as a
| jazz pianist. Now I really try to understand what I am saying
| when I play as if it were my own notes. I can still get in the
| habit of relying on reading & memorizing without really getting
| to the heart of the notes and it usually causes me to hit a
| plateau.
|
| For example I've been working on James P Johnson's 'Carolina
| Shout' off of a transcription and hit this plateau without even
| knowing it. I realized it when I heard Ethan Iverson perform it
| and realized he was owning the song so much more than the rote
| attempt I was making. What do you think about moving past the
| rote learning and owning a piece?
|
| https://youtu.be/eM09yob0RFM
| jmcphers wrote:
| My own experience is that I can't really develop the
| appropriate expressiveness and dynamics in a piece until the
| notes and fingering can fly on autopilot. So learning it by
| rote is sort of a necessary first step towards owning it. But
| the exact mechanics of musical memorization and expression are
| different for everyone, so there isn't a lot of one-size-fits-
| all advice out there.
| dominicrose wrote:
| Honestly I don't have strict rules to practice. I'm learning the
| 3rd movement of K310 by just playing it with the sheet from
| beginning to end with both hands. Once I get fast and comfy with
| it I'll start playing it avoiding eye-contact with the sheet as
| best I can until I can drop the sheet completely. Then it starts
| to be really motivating to play the piece again and again and
| I'll experiment with different tempos, with or without the
| metronome, with different numerical sounds and tone
| transpositions. Playing eyes closed is interesting too but I
| rarely think of doing it. I don't want to be strict and write
| down rules to follow, if I don't think about it I don't do it.
|
| I don't really agree with "you are never going to get around to
| "fixing" it later" because I do that all the time, I make lots of
| mistakes all the time and I just don't care because I know I'll
| fix them later. Glenn Gould trained sometimes with background
| noise like TV or radio to avoid hearing his mistakes.
| MrGando wrote:
| Just wanted to add my two cents here. This is great advice for
| classical piano (or any other instrument) practice. It does not
| apply to Jazz Piano playing at all though, in Jazz you should
| avoid falling into the trap of repetition. Playing slowly and
| clean, yes, repetition? Not so much.
| mmcconnell1618 wrote:
| The author's advice is fantastic for learning a specific song,
| note for note as written. @MrGrando is smart to point out that
| Jazz and other forms of music are much more about free
| expression and improvisation. A level above the author's
| practice would be to start understanding the structure of the
| piece from a music theory standpoint. The relationship between
| the notes becomes the important element and you begin to see
| things like a II V I chord progression. By understanding the
| structure, you realize you can improvise on implied scales,
| transpose to other keys and harmonize with new chords to add
| your own creativity.
| MrGando wrote:
| That's exactly it. I have to say that the highest-level
| classical performers reach that level, but through different
| means. Not the improvisational part, but harmonically,
| understanding what the voices are doing in a counterpoint
| Bach passage for example.
|
| In classical you're an interpreter, and that's very
| challenging.
|
| In Jazz, you're an interpreter of an improvisation, which is
| like composing in real-time. I also have to point out that
| the great classical composers did improvise _a lot_ , and
| that trend was lost with time but is documented if you
| research Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin for instance.
| mb_72 wrote:
| I was (initially) forced to learn piano from the age of 5... but,
| by God, was I glad that my parents did this. The article covers
| pretty much exactly what I - and my teachers - worked out over a
| number of years. And the basic approach works for any instrument.
| It's a real boon coming to other instruments - electric bass is
| my main instrument now - with a grounding in not only music
| theory but also the 'how to' learn pieces / parts / songs.
| aasasd wrote:
| This is also pretty much exact same advice as one should use for
| learning touch typing. I was stuck on some lesson because I was
| trying to go too quickly and kept mistyping. It's said in many
| places that you should go slow enough to not make mistakes. Once
| I did that, I went ahead just fine.
|
| By the way, touch typing took about a month to learn, twenty
| minutes a day--though of course a few more months to get used to
| it, in practice. (As for playing music, however--never managed
| that.)
| stevage wrote:
| I think this is an effective method, but too boring for most
| amateurs, including myself. I have used something like this for
| Bach, because there's basically no way to fudge your way through
| full counterpoint like that, but otherwise...no thanks.
| XCSme wrote:
| I am a casual piano player and use the Simply Piano app (which is
| amazing btw, way beyond my expectations) and I do hate playing
| slow. Lately I try to play any piece at first sight at the
| original tempo, even though I make many mistakes, I started doing
| this for more complex songs/pieces and I realized that my sight-
| reading improved by a lot and that when I go back to easier songs
| I can play them without any mistake in the first try. I am not
| saying this is the way to go if you want to become a great
| classical pianist, but for the casual player that just wants to
| learn fast to be able to play some songs, I find that trying to
| force your brain into quickly recognizing patterns and quickly
| making the correct movements works pretty well.
| dota_fanatic wrote:
| I've been listening to the Huberman Lab podcast[0] recently, and
| in one of the earlier episodes he talks a lot about how to create
| the environment for neuroplasticity in the adult brain. I've only
| listened to most episodes once so I hope I'm not misrepresenting
| him, and this is simplified, but a critical component of causing
| the release of the chemical bath which allows for robust
| neuroplasticity is _making errors_ , an experience which should
| feel a bit uncomfortable. "Errors are the basis of
| neuroplasticity." Without that focused set of attempts and
| discomfort of trying to do something and failing, the brain isn't
| getting the high quality signal that it needs to do some rewiring
| because the current networks simply aren't making the cut.
|
| This is at odds with a quote from OP's second point:
|
| _> If you keep making mistakes when practicing then you are just
| going to get good at making them, so it's best to avoid them in
| the first place._
|
| That aside, the article seems like great advice. With Huberman's
| account of encouraging adult neuroplasticity in mind, my thinking
| would be to amend this method towards going just fast enough to
| be able to do the chunk of music but not so slow that the
| attempts are free of errors. And probably the errors should be of
| one type at a time? Instead of erring in dynamics and fingering
| and articulation all at once, try to get everything right except
| for one aspect. For that, attempt to surpass your abilities and
| err.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/AndrewHubermanLab/featured
|
| Edit: Said another way, "perfect practice makes perfect," where
| you aim to play perfectly but consistently just barely fall
| short. The correct networks are strengthened while those tiny
| errors get tweaked via neuroplasticity the nights after and
| consistent improvement results.
| dbcurtis wrote:
| Eh, I am not so sure. After watching my kid go through Suzuki
| Method violin through Volume 10 (a Mozart concerto) -- my
| observation is that it is incredibly important to not practice-
| in mistakes. The typical Suzuki Method attack is to identify
| "special spots" (you don't tell a 4-year old that it is a
| "difficult section") and for those special spots, identify
| drills that work that spot. The spot is probably 1 or 2
| measures long. There are a lot of different technique-builder
| drills, but one example: In La Folia there is a challenging
| run, at performance tempo it is very fast, and the timing is a
| 7-tuple, if I recall. One drill is to play that scale run
| forwards and backwards, slowly, concentrating on perfect
| intonation, even timing, and percussive finger landings. Only
| when that drill is perfect, is that integrated into the piece.
|
| So, no. Don't allow yourself to make mistakes. Take the
| challenging section, come up with a drill for just that
| section, and work that section until it is perfect at the same
| tempo where you can play the rest of the piece. The first rule
| of time-efficient practice is to spend your time on the
| sections that need perfecting! Just playing the piece through
| over-and-over is not a good use of practice time.
|
| Another thing that I found a bit mind-bending, given my own
| music education, is that our teacher had the philosophy that
| first you memorize the piece, and only after the piece is
| completely memorized without intonation and tempo mistakes, is
| it possible to start really working on perfecting it. That is
| the point where she really started teaching the piece. Maybe
| that is a violinist thing where there is a culture of
| memorization, but it was a bit of a new concept for me.
|
| Another teacher at a violin camp used to say: "After you first
| succeed, try, try again." Meaning, don't stop after you get it
| right! After you get it right, you need to play it correctly at
| least as many times as you played it incorrectly, just to reach
| net-zero learning. Only then can you play it correctly many
| more times in order to perfect it.
| dota_fanatic wrote:
| Ah, well, I've poorly portrayed the idea that Huberman shared
| on his podcast regarding neuroplasticity. I think we may even
| be in agreement. Lemme give this one more shot.
|
| _> Don 't allow yourself to make mistakes. Take the
| challenging section, come up with a drill for just that
| section, and work that section until it is perfect at the
| same tempo where you can play the rest of the piece._
|
| Work that section until it is perfect implies that when you
| start it's not perfect, i.e. mistakes are made. You can't
| just be perfect with everything all of the time. How would
| you even know where to start such as to "make no mistakes"?
| Finding perfection is the process I tried to describe above,
| you aim to play perfectly and get as close as possible.
| Nevertheless, errors are inevitable. Embrace their necessity
| for they are the stuff of learning.
|
| _> One drill is to play that scale run forwards and
| backwards, slowly, concentrating on perfect intonation, even
| timing, and percussive finger landings._
|
| Reiterating, doing 50 reps of the above is bound to have some
| errors. You notice them, your brain notices them. If you only
| ever played things that you can currently do perfectly, or
| said differently, vacant of any mistakes, how would you ever
| get better or play new things which are bound to have things
| you can't already perfectly do?
|
| I think what I failed to portray is that yes, don't "allow
| yourself to make mistakes." Care about trying to be perfect.
| You'll still make mistakes and that's a good thing. As you
| constantly improve and take on more and more challenging
| tasks, you're also baking in countless reps that are
| strengthening the "right" networks in the brain and pruning
| out the ones that aren't right.
|
| I recommend checking out the podcast because I'm definitely
| not doing a good job of replicating his lessons / sharing of
| what the latest in neuroscientific literature shows.
| darkerside wrote:
| Have you considered that you might be wrong? It's OK to be
| wrong (in the spirit of your post!).
|
| I don't know what your background is with musical
| instruments, but there is a mental wall to break through
| when it comes to how "acceptable" errors should be.
| yomly wrote:
| Failure should be a part of learning and we should learn to
| embrace failure.
|
| My poster child example of this is tracking falling down when
| ice skating / skiing.
|
| Not falling is a poor metric of success as you see many people
| not fall but are also clearly not ice skating. Falling is to
| some extent a metric of how hard you are pushing yourself.
|
| With instruments, practising mistakes can be costly because
| establishing muscle memory is habit formation and baking in
| mistakes is essentially inefficient in your time spent
| learning.
|
| As my teacher would say "practise like you are up on the stage
| in front of thousands. Perform like you are alone at home in
| your pyjamas."
|
| Don't be afraid to make mistakes, but always practise smart.
| (FWIW I spent the best part of 15+ years NOT practising smart)
| nostoc wrote:
| Learning a piano piece is simply building up muscle memory,
| through repetitions.
|
| If you practice and make mistakes, you are building up muscle
| memories for the wrong notes.
|
| As a piano player, what OP says wrings very true. It's tempting
| to just "play the piece" to practice it, but this is very
| inneficient, for the reason stated above. focused repetitions
| is order of magnitudes faster.
| analog31 wrote:
| My beloved middle school band teacher used to say: It's not
| "practice makes perfect," but rather, "practice makes
| permanent."
|
| Granted I'm not a pianist, but a jazz bassist. So I see it in
| light of the technical problems of the bass, which include
| intonation and tone formation. My approach is, if I'm
| struggling with a passage, I don't just keep playing it over
| and over. Rather, I stop and try to analyze what's hard about
| it, and what I'm doing wrong with my technique. Then I work
| on correcting those problems.
|
| This is also what my kids' teachers do during lessons. Part
| of the reason for lessons is to learn a better approach to
| practicing.
|
| A lot depends on what kind of music you're playing, but I
| often don't know what I'll be playing until I find out at the
| performance. The bassist is often the one who's expected to
| roll with whatever the rest of the band chooses. So the
| mastery of specific pieces can't just be an end unto itself,
| but it also has to pay off in improving my ability to
| approach the next piece. This requires making real progress
| on technique.
| holri wrote:
| Muscle memory is only one aspect of it. Muscle memory fails
| badly in stress or performance situations. There also has to
| be a solid intellectual knowledge of the piece. Mental
| practice can help with this.
| darkerside wrote:
| But the goal isn't neuroplasticity, it's to play a single song.
| If you're looking to compose or improvise, then sure.
| Otherwise, learn to play without mistakes. I spent many years
| accepting errors in my playing and now wish I'd been more
| intentional in my practice habits.
| singingfish wrote:
| My sax teacher has me play the leading notes of the next bar
| after what I'm actually practicing. It makes a big difference.
|
| On the piano I'm currently learning how to put a walking bass on
| the left hand side with a melody on the right. It's really
| challenging. One problem with playing it slowly is that it
| produces clashing notes that sound wrong but will disappear once
| being played at the correct speed.
| markvdb wrote:
| In some cases, practicing some things slowly is more exhausting
| and less efficient than starting at at least medium speed from
| the very beginning. The slow tempo loses you mental oversight of
| what you are trying to play.
|
| You'll learn when this is through experience. If you can't wrap
| your head around the super slow practicing, try to practice it at
| a much higher tempo. Still need to be super accurate about
| fingerings though!
| cuddlecake wrote:
| > The slow tempo loses you mental oversight of what you are
| trying to play.
|
| When I was a drummer, I used to think that too, but it turned
| out to be false most of the time. If I really wanted to make
| something sound good in a fast tempo, I had to make it sound
| perfect in a slower tempo.
|
| My teacher used to say "if you can play it fast, make sure you
| can also play it slow"
|
| But, as always, it depends.
| markvdb wrote:
| The original article spoke of piano. I should have mentioned
| that the advice I gave is more tailored to polyphonic
| instruments like the guitar, the piano and the accordion.
| Even on these instruments, the best advice in most cases
| usually is to practice slowly at first. Just not always.
| That's what 20 years of teaching the guitar has taught me.
| PianoGym wrote:
| If anyone is looking for a digital tool to practice Piano I have
| made a FREE website called Piano Gym!
|
| https://pianogym.com
|
| It's flash cards but for Piano, and works with MIDI Piano
| connected to your computer.
|
| We use spaced repetition to schedule the flash cards and all you
| have to do is show up every day and do your reps! The big goal is
| to remove friction from learning and allow anyone to make their
| own content if they want to.
|
| I'm hoping in a few weeks to make a show hacker news post, but
| right now I'm bug fixing and working on getting our curriculum
| loaded up. Once that's done everything is ready to go! So come
| check it out if you're looking for a new approach to Piano
| practice and learning!
|
| And if you're really into this idea, we're on Patreon and
| appreciate any help making the dream come true!
| https://patreon.com/PianoGym
| schemescape wrote:
| Sounds interesting, but the interactive demo for sheet music
| doesn't work for me in Chrome. There are many CORS errors and
| then an error in: sheet_music_display_controller.tsx:187 ERROR
| PianoGym wrote:
| Drats! Like I said, I'm working on bugs and curriculum stuff
| before I go for a grand reveal. Thank you for the heads up.
|
| If you have the time and are interested send an image of your
| bug or steps to reproduce to support@pianogym.com!
|
| Otherwise stay tuned and check it out! I'll make sure to fix
| this :)
| j7ake wrote:
| Did some classical training when younger and I would maybe add
| one thing about broader strategies of being a musician in
| general:
|
| Spend up to 1/3 of time with fundamentals (eg scales)
|
| Spend at least 1/3 of time with learning pieces (like this
| article describes)
|
| Finally spend the rest of the time with just playing and
| improvising on the piano.
| pferdone wrote:
| I started playing piano in February/March and since 'real'
| lessons are out of the question right now, I wanted to learn it
| the right way. I looked around and I didn't wanted it to be a
| party trick, where I can play 3 songs by heart and that's it. I
| found pianote and to me it's one of the best teaching sites about
| a particular subject I've ever seen. They take so much time to
| teach you the fundamentals and their progression path with 'The
| Method' makes learning fun and challenging. If you're looking for
| a good online course, I think there's no better one out there.
| Even a friend of mine, who plays drums in a band heard of it and
| said he only heard good things about it. I practice almost
| everyday and pianote is the best investment in myself I did in a
| long time.
|
| edit: ah well, the HN downvote army comming in for voicing my
| experience on the subject discussed, what can you do...
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| thrwaway987692 wrote:
| I'm a mobile dev at Pianote, glad you enjoyed the experience!
| Do checkout the mobile app
| pferdone wrote:
| Hey man, I really like the mobile app but I also bought an
| iPad specifically for learning, cause the mobile screen is
| just to small for me to practice comfortably. Is there an
| iPad app in the works? Best regards to your whole team. You
| do an amazing job!
| thrwaway987692 wrote:
| hey thank you! the mobile app should work all the same on
| iPad as well, it is cross platform :) rare that i hear from
| a user directly so that's pretty cool
| pferdone wrote:
| Strange...just installed it on my iPad. Don't know why I
| didn't find it earlier. :) It's also a total surprise to
| me that you saw my post, I still consider HN niche among
| my frontend dev peers. Anyway so far everything, the app,
| the website and ofc the courses themself have been a joy
| to learn with. And again great work and best wishes to
| the whole team!
| kungito wrote:
| This sounds like a fake review. They cost 200$ yearly to get
| the books or 30$ per month for online material. I guess the
| pricing may be ok for the US but for eastern Europe you can get
| learning materials for way less
| thrwaway987692 wrote:
| While I do not speak on behalf of Pianote, there is
| definitely no paid shilling going on, it may be the case that
| the OP is a non-native english speaker, and in that way the
| tone comes across differently. As for the cost, I would
| definitely say Pianote's goal is to be a pianote lesson
| replacement, and in that way the content is cheaper,
| hopefully for a better/different experience than what you'd
| get taking sit down lessons
| pferdone wrote:
| Haha, I knew my post had the potential to be taken the wrong
| way...and its not $200 for 'books' but for hours upon hours
| of video learning material, live sessions with teachers,
| backing tracks for your practice songs, PDFs with practices
| for your particular lesson and so on. I'm just really a fan
| of the site and wanted to share my experience, and no I
| haven't been paid to write this text on my 5yrs old account
| with 100 karma. :)
|
| p.s yes I'm not a native speaker
| kucing wrote:
| Slightly OOT. It is refreshing to see how common an article about
| piano appears at the front page of HN. I have been struggling
| with the stereotypes / pre-assumption that most software
| engineers' hobbies (esp fresh grads) seems to be always around
| tech / electronics.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| I'm in my mid twenties, and having never touched a piano
| before, I got a Roland FP-10 two months ago.
|
| I'm slowly clawing my way through a music theory book, but I've
| already learned some tiny pieces of music on the side (like the
| beginning of Strobe by Deadmau5) and it's stunning how fast one
| can get from "absolutely clueless" to "hey that sounds like
| music".
|
| It's enchanting and wonderful. Sure, music theory can be
| annoying there are many weird and semi-arbitrary rules about
| how things are called and there's lots of historical baggage
| attached to everything, but as soon as you touch the keys,
| everything just fades away. Man, you can pour so much emotion
| into that thing.
|
| So if you find yourself (like I often did) thinking about how
| cool it would be to play the piano, but it's probably hard and
| it's too late and there's no time and you wouldn't even be a
| good player... Do it. It's easier than you think and YOU CAN do
| it.
| shoshino wrote:
| >Strobe by Deadmau5
|
| I'm sure you've already seen it but in case you haven't, Evan
| Duffy's rendition of this on YouTube is inspiring. Also check
| out The Veldt.
|
| https://youtu.be/mTwoMGCtPT8
| adkadskhj wrote:
| > It's enchanting and wonderful. Sure, music theory can be
| annoying there are many weird and semi-arbitrary rules about
| how things are called and there's lots of historical baggage
| attached to everything
|
| I'm in the same boat as you _(almost identical, different FP
| though)_ , but i'm actually fascinated by the music theory.
|
| In the way that some games touch the "software engineer" side
| of my brain (Satisfactory, Factorio) but is tiring, music
| theory weirdly gives me similar vibes without being tiring.
| Maybe it will be when i know more, but currently music theory
| just feels like patterns and patterns and patterns. It's
| remarkable how much you can learn with a handful of patterns.
| While you're learning one thing you'll often noticed patterns
| for another.. it's really interesting to me.
|
| I also am a novice guitarist and i find piano much more
| interesting from the music theory standpoint. The patterns on
| the guitar are dynamic (based on tuning) and it feels like
| the guitar makes music theory more difficult. I've enjoyed
| piano much more for this reason.
|
| I agree, piano is good fun to learn at any age. I highly
| recommend it.
| ronyeh wrote:
| But why bother with alternate tunings for the guitar? Just
| learn the standard EADGBe tuning and all the scale shapes
| and chords will make sense eventually. Piano is also a
| stringed instrument, with one common tuning that most of us
| westerners play in.
| adkadskhj wrote:
| Because the voicings change quite a bit with what you're
| able to reach in different tunings.
|
| I'm not saying alternate tunings are mandatory, just that
| you can't learn a single tuning with guitar and expect to
| only ever know just that. It's _Very_ common to change
| tunings in guitar. Not so in Piano, that i 've seen yet
| at least.
|
| > Piano is also a stringed instrument, with one common
| tuning that most of us westerners play in.
|
| _Are_ there different tunings for Pianos? I 'm not even
| sure what different tunings would look like, non-
| sequential pitch ordering? C next to G or something?
|
| The only Piano "tuning" i'm familiar with is temperament,
| however that's functionally different than what we're
| talking about with Guitar.
| strogonoff wrote:
| In a somewhat recent A16z podcast episode[0] the CEO of Twilio
| dropped that more than half of the developers they surveyed
| played a musical instrument and 3/4 or so "did some sort of
| artistic thing on the side".
|
| I feel like I'm unlucky since the vast majority of the devs I
| accidentally cross paths with IRL somehow do not have such
| interests.
|
| [0] https://a16z.com/2021/01/12/rise-of-developers-creative-
| clas...
| Gehinnn wrote:
| I have heard the same but also made the same observations.
| Something seems to be off.
| throwamon wrote:
| Hmm, I agree that having different interests is cool, but I
| don't know if I agree that this isn't the confirmation of a
| stereotype. In fact the subjects here are surprisingly
| predictable. Music? Jazz, piano, rock. Other hobbies?
| Woodworking, cooking, gaming, watching anime. Misc knowledge?
| Physics, animal behavior, Atlas Obscura. Philosophy? Stoicism,
| existentialism, analytical philosophy, random best-seller self-
| help gurus. Health? Life extension, gut microbiome, depression,
| mindfulness, neuroscience, magic mushrooms.
|
| I'm not necessarily judging this, there's only so much one can
| focus on and I also find most of these subjects fascinating,
| but it's pretty clear a tiny subset of what's out there is what
| consistently gets to the frontpage.
| esrauch wrote:
| I feel like it's also a stereotype that mathy nerds play piano
| and violin when they're younger.
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| I find that there is a huge cross-over between programming and
| music. IIRC, someone told me years ago, that the most common
| non-CS degree among programmers was music. I can't verify it,
| but my experience does not belie it either.
| golemarms wrote:
| Most common non-STEM degree maybe. I'm sure there are a lot
| more EE/ physics/ math grads working as programmers than
| music grads.
| dpwm wrote:
| One of the more surprising combos at university was Physics
| and Music. That was the degree, and the numbers were
| similar to those doing Computational Physics.
| golemarms wrote:
| Imperial College actually used to offer a BSc Physics and
| Music Performance course[1] (it was suspended recently).
| This is notable because dual majors, even between
| similar/adjacent academic fields, are rare for UK
| undergraduate degrees.
|
| [1] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/ug/courses/physics-
| departme...
| mettamage wrote:
| I haven't seen that in The Netherlands, where I studied. But
| I did meet some fellow guitar players during my degree :)
|
| Music and programming have a couple of things in common. The
| most important thing being: the act of creating something.
| Anyone who's a creator at heart will be interested by many
| endeavours that allow you to create. For example, I wouldn't
| be surprised if there's also a disproportionate amount of
| woodworkers among software engineers (as opposed to among
| laywers, for example).
|
| The thing is, not every programmer is a programmer because
| he/she wants to create. There are other aspects to
| programming that might be interesting to some.
| kucing wrote:
| Your point about the commonality is "the act of creating
| something" is really touching. I really value the character
| to being "brave" to get creative, and also knowing that you
| can do/make/change things to the way you want / make it
| better.
|
| I can see how it relates to various "creation" activities
| like cooking, painting, electronics/arduino,film-making, or
| even open-discussion/forum in general (creating community
| through participation).
| zweinz wrote:
| This is good, standard advice (if you can play it slowly...)
|
| Once this is done and the notes are under your fingers, though,
| most pianists would probably say you have about 80% of the work
| on a piece left. The next most important thing next is to train
| your ears to get yourself to the next level. I highly recommend
| recording yourself in small ~30 second chunks and identifying
| what you want to change. At this point most progress will be made
| from listening and analysis, not from fingers on keys.
|
| Of course, this is hard work and requires proper motivation and
| training, for which a good teacher has no substitute.
| gbajson wrote:
| What do you think about applications like Simply Piano? I am 40+
| yo, and never played any instrument before. After 3 years of
| practicing with Simply Piano I am able to read and play some
| sheet music, but I'd like to know which areas need improvements.
|
| Do you know any applications which can record performance of a
| song and evaluate it?
| djaychela wrote:
| I don't think this is a solved problem yet, in terms of
| technique. You may well be pressing the keys in the right
| order, at the right time, and with the right dynamics, but
| there's a lot to playing technique that is about your hand
| position and movement which isn't detectable via MIDI capture.
|
| I've been a guitar teacher for 20 years, and I've seen people
| who are incredible players with terrible technique. Yes, that
| means it's possible to play well by doing so badly, but with
| the right technique (which is still being developed in some
| areas), there's a whole lot of improvement that could happen,
| or the player in question could play for longer (both in the
| short term, and longer term because of injury).
|
| Only complex video / 3D capture of your hand position and
| movement would solve this, and as far as I'm aware this doesn't
| exist yet.
|
| Find a good teacher, even if it's just for the occasional
| lesson. With the right teacher (and this is horses for
| courses), you'll make much more progress, even if you still use
| the app.
|
| (All IMO, of course!)
| honkycat wrote:
| I've been learning guitar and ive been amazed at how bad lessons
| and education is for adult students. The apps i have used barely
| work and are extremely unambitious.
|
| Classes are so disorganized and i am constantly wading through
| material that is a mile wide but a foot deep.
|
| Yes i have seen Justin Guitar I'm not a huge fan. I dont want to
| have to wade through content to find the exercises that are
| relevant to me. I think Duolingo has an interesting approach to
| this, where has you re-visit concepts every day and it tells you
| what to practice to reduce decision fatigue.
|
| I want a dashboard that is keeping track of my goals and progress
| akd has an opinionated way for me to measure my skill, and to
| direct my effort.
| kubb wrote:
| Regarding Duolingo: I thought it was a fun way to learn the
| basics of a language, but I quickly found it to be extremely
| inefficient.
|
| I've been ignoring Anki for many years, thinking it was overly
| complicated and being disappointed that I had to create my own
| sets.
|
| I finally came around last year, I automated the set generation
| based on a frequency list and currently I'm on a 450 day streak
| for my language of choice having learned ~6200 words.
| thelazyoxymoron wrote:
| Can you please share either the frequency list or the method
| you used to automate the deck generation? I've been looking
| to do something like this, perhaps with genanki.
| kubb wrote:
| I'm learning Italian, so I found this list:
|
| https://www.internazionale.it/opinione/tullio-de-
| mauro/2016/...
|
| It's based on the most frequent words in a collection of
| texts, with additional manual curation. The words have
| grammatical classification, but no translations.
|
| I basically wrote a node.js script using some npm
| libraries, one that can parse PDFs and another one that can
| drive a headless Chrome.
|
| I parsed the words from the list, and then looked up each
| one in an online dictionary using the chrome driver. Then I
| retrieved the translation from the DOM, making sure that I
| get the right part of speech for each word in the list
| (sometimes the same word can be an adjective and a noun for
| example).
|
| The dictionary that I used also has example sentences,
| grammatical gender for nouns, a description of the meaning
| of the word in Italian, and very importantly, a phonetic
| transcription in IPA. I grabbed those as well.
|
| Then I just dumped the whole thing to a CSV file and
| imported it into Anki, and I created a custom card template
| to show all this information. I also added text to speech
| which is wrong a lot of the time so I don't rely on it.
|
| I only use Italian to English cards. I make sure that I
| know the pronunciation and the grammatical gender for nouns
| and not just the spelling.
|
| The whole thing took maybe a weekend to write (I don't even
| regularly use javascript). The learning was the hard part
| (I spent at least an hour per day all of these days). It
| was only possible because I'm working from home.
|
| The cards are perfect in most cases, but some require
| manual fixes (I'd say 5%).
| dv35z wrote:
| I am actually building an iOS app based off of this concept.
| If you're interested in trying out an early release and
| providing feedback, it would be seriously helpful! My email
| is in my HN profile.
| chris_st wrote:
| I bought a bass recently, which came with three free months of
| Fender Play [0]. I'm happy with it -- yeah, I've skipped stuff
| since I already know note values, scales, etc., but I like
| their progression.
|
| They have a number of different styles of guitar (rock, blues,
| fingerpicking, etc.) with a 7-day free trial.
|
| Their Facebook group is fantastic, really supportive, with
| "office hours" live videos taking questions every week.
|
| [0] https://www.fender.com/play
| honkycat wrote:
| I'll give fender play a try.
| hashkb wrote:
| Have you thought about taking lessons from a teacher?
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I was just mulling this over in my head compared to my guitar
| playing experience.
|
| I am self-taught (some friends helped) and have played for just
| over 20 years.
|
| I'm assuming here that you are not trying to learn classical
| guitar, if you are I think you should find a real teacher. I
| urge you to learn rock music by playing songs. I was an indie
| rock fan, and started off strumming the chords to my favourite
| songs. It is relatively easy to do, and the rewards come
| quickly. The trick is to find a song you like that uses simple
| open chords, and not too many of them! My first tune was 'Live
| Forever by Oasis' as an example (cringe). For something more
| tasteful try 'knocking on heaven's door' by Dylan. It is easy
| to read chord diagrams. Get a few thin picks and go for it.
| Really just go for it, the changes will speed up by themselves
| and the strumming patterns will too, by listening to the song
| and imitating. Now pick another song with some of the sme
| chords. A month of evenings can get you reasonably proficient.
| If you have a friend who is a bit further along then play with
| them Whenever you can. This is about as far as lots of famous
| musicians ever got. Remember that!
|
| Alongside this you can try out some riffs. 'Smoke on the water'
| is the classic, but go with what you enjoy. Tab for these is
| free online and easy to read. Find a riff you like, if you have
| a friend who can play the chords while you riff that is fun.
| You learn riffs like the guy in the article, note by note.
|
| Learning to solo is harder. I used to buy tab books and copy
| solos I liked. Eventually I realised that I needed to
| understand some very basic theory, like 'Keys' and 'scales'. I
| read this in a book but you can google. This is easy on a
| guitar because you only have to learn a scale shape once and
| you can change key by playing it in different places on the
| neck. If you like blues and rock and roll then you only need to
| learn the minor pentatonic scale to begin with. These 5 notes
| made many a solo. By running through those 5 notes you start to
| form licks and phrases you can use. The best way to learn this
| is to learn to play a basic 12 bar blues shuffle, and play with
| a friend, taking it in turns to solo. The second best way is a
| looper or backing track.
|
| I then wanted to play folk fingerstyle. I found the tab for
| Nick Drake's 'Cello Song' in a magazine and spent a year
| repeating the first main phrase over and over, a few times most
| days. The rest of the song came exactly like the op and quite
| quickly. Afterwards I could pick up other fingerstlye songs
| quite quickly.
|
| I don't know how to play Jazz.
|
| I think the cap this way of learning places on you is that you
| don't learn much theory, which makes it hard to arrange songs,
| compose, etc. Just remember that a lot of the people you are
| listening to are in the same boat...
| smackeyacky wrote:
| This is good advice. Knockin on heavens door is the perfect
| beginner song, although at ultimate guitar I think the most
| popular version uses a capo, just ignore that and play the
| chords.
|
| I like ultimate guitar a lot, there are often simplified
| versions of songs so you can make rewarding progress early.
|
| If you want something simple but need a noisy thrash, the
| next song could be Neil Young "Rockin in the free world",
| easy to make that sound good even if you don't have a great
| singing voice.
| honkycat wrote:
| I pay for an ultimate guitar subscription. I like the
| website okay, but I found that my copy of guitar pro is a
| bit better.
|
| Ultimate guitar would do everything I need if it had a way
| for me to highlight sections and then hit a a shortcut to
| restart the section.
| lovelyviking wrote:
| >The trick is to find a song you like
|
| This is really a trick. Lately It's difficult to find a song
| I like. Most of them became boring or let's say not
| motivating to learn them.
|
| I am really puzzled about what to learn next and I do not
| know where to get a good advice that is "workable" in my
| current situation.
|
| I play by ear and can figure out chords for compositions I
| like and if I can't I may search the internet for the _hard
| parts_ but usually I am too lazy to do it and it 's more
| interesting to figure it out by myself. Also because lately I
| see that internet versions are frequently "worse" or even
| wrong or too primitive ignoring all they beauty of
| complicated chords.
|
| So I am pleased with what I have on the one hand. On the
| other hand I am stuck with question what to learn next? I
| never master pieces to the complete perfection because
| honestly I do not perform for the public and so I find it
| hard to motivate myself with that because who needs another
| _moderate_ piano player these days when there are plenty of
| trained pianists available? How many chances I have to win
| competition with "well trained" people? And who would wish
| to listen unless you are "perfect"? So what is the point? I
| play for myself or my friends but if I wish some piece to
| sound better I find it difficult to achieve even though I
| know that I am more than capable to improve them to a much
| better level. So I can't reasonably motivate myself as a
| "performer/future performer" to sit and train for many hours.
| I've heard that this "many hours training" could also rise my
| level of understanding theory but I do not see a direct
| connection between those.
|
| Perhaps I just do not see it and thus do not know how to
| progress and choose what to learn next to move forward? Any
| advice?
| YZF wrote:
| When you say you've seen Justin Guitar do you mean the web site
| or YouTube? He has a structured program:
| https://www.justinguitar.com/classes/beginner-guitar-course-...
|
| I haven't seen the new site design but it seems ok. When I
| started learning the guitar (~6 years ago) Justin was a huge
| help but I complemented that with in person lessons with some
| teachers and with additional material/random songs. So consider
| me a fan. I also recommend getting in touch with other
| musicians/players, that's gonna push your level way more than
| an app would.
|
| May I ask how long ago you've started learning and what level
| are you at?
|
| I think there is a lot of great material online. But in order
| to grok most of it you need to have some foundation.
|
| I've never used any app (well, I use a metronome app) since I
| haven't seen anything that looked useful. Ear training apps
| could be useful but I haven't been able to stick with it. In
| general "apps" seem a poor fit for teaching the guitar.
| honkycat wrote:
| Honestly I just got really frustrated when I tried to sign up
| for the Justin guitar paid site and it just broke and
| wouldn't let me sign in and pay them.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I'm a guitar noob as well and I've been playing around with
| Rocksmith on PC. I don't think it replaces a real teacher at
| all but if you want something fun as an alternative and a way
| to learn popular pop/rock songs I suggest you check it out.
|
| You can use it to practice like this post's article. You can
| repeat sections and slow the tempo down. I'm not a fan of how
| the game ramps up song difficulty (IMO I think it starts way
| too easy such that the practice is not useful), but you can
| tweak this really easily.
| honkycat wrote:
| I have a review of Rocksmith on my blog actually:
| https://cresten.pizza/blog/2020-01-03-rocksmith-review/
|
| It is nice to play along with songs but the exercises are not
| great.
|
| It has so much potential though! I hope they're planning
| another one.
| Fezzik wrote:
| All those things are helpful but nothing will ever beat one-on-
| one lessons (Covid/finances permitting) with a teacher who is
| proficient in the style of play you're most interested in. Or
| if you have a buddy who will jam with you and show you scales,
| basic chord progressions, and standards. I have been playing
| guitar for 21 years now, and bass for about 7 (4 of those in a
| relatively successful band, as small gigging goes) and every
| time I stop being lazy and signup for lessons again my skills
| accelerate exponential faster than tooling around on my own.
|
| I know Covid makes this difficult, as can cost, but I highly
| recommend it! Even an hour lesson every other week would work
| wonders for you.
|
| Edit, grammar: I got my second Covid shot today and I'm a bit
| groggy.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Do you think some of the advances you make by having a
| teacher is the discipline.
|
| I mean I guess you set up a time every week and have to
| actually go and spend that time. I guess you would feel bad
| if you didn't practice what the teacher told you to?
|
| This is what stops me progressing, I don't have a reason to
| play. I never progressed more quickly than when I was in a
| band.
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| Teachers (good ones) teach and correct technique in ways
| that no apps or self study methods will ever be able to do.
| Unfortunately the most benefit here comes from in-person
| instruction which is hard right now. But in person, they
| can see the way you are holding the instrument, they can
| work directly with your hands, etc.
|
| But yes a skilled teacher is always worth it if you have
| the money. Apps, subscription services, and so on have a
| vested interest in keeping paying customers. Therefore they
| ensure you always feel safe and comfortable. If you feel
| too challenged, your association with the sefvice will turn
| negative and you'll stop paying.
|
| But learning an instrument is not comfortable; it's
| extremely challenging and requires hard work and
| commitment. It doesn't have to be like bootcamp, and of
| course it's really fulfilling to watch yourself improve,
| but there's no hiding how challenging it is, especially if
| it's your first one. Good teachers know this and have the
| pedagogy to help you through it in as efficient a manner as
| possible.
|
| Besides, the good teachers are always in demand so they are
| usually not too concerned about losing a student here or
| there because they decided it was too hard for them.
| honkycat wrote:
| I actually have a teacher so I can speak to this: a teacher
| helps a lot because they police my technique when they
| watch me play and point out errors in my technique.
|
| Additionally I do find it motivating to have someone else
| on my team helping me keep motivated with playing.
| thibaultj wrote:
| Hey honkycat,
|
| I'm currently trying to solve the exact same problem you're
| describing, since I also got frustrated by the current state of
| music teaching.
|
| I'm still in an early stage of development, currently trying to
| fetch proofs of interests and working on a prototype, but I
| should be able to release a MVP by the end of the year.
|
| If you want to have a chat about it, or want to be on the list
| for early access, feel free to reach me.
|
| https://mamie-note.dorik.io/
| whiddershins wrote:
| I think there's some sort of issue happening where learning in
| general is widely misunderstood, and teaching is undertaken by
| people who have little understanding of how humans learn
| things.
|
| I don't know what's going on. Something about the wide access
| of the internet plus a bunch of teaching methods that were
| traditional and terrible resulted in everyone deciding they can
| teach stuff and somehow we almost act as if it doesn't matter
| how something is taught??
|
| I can't explain it but I see it everywhere.
|
| Anyway, perhaps just pay someone to teach you guitar? That's
| how I learned martial arts and music all my life. Nothing beats
| one on one lessons with an expert.
| honkycat wrote:
| I should have included a summary of how I'm learning in my
| post haha.
|
| I take private lessons once a week, and strive for an hour a
| day practice.
|
| I have a good summary on my blog:
| https://cresten.pizza/blog/2020-01-03-rocksmith-review/
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Interesting discussion as a lot of people have their own secret
| sauce. I'll add mine.
|
| . Practice at least five minutes a day. Doing it often is more
| important than rare, longer sessions. OTOH, Paul Desmond claimed
| to never practice because it made him play too fast. Go figure.
|
| . One way to slow down a song for learning is simply to divide
| the speed by two. That keeps the clock more locked in.
|
| . Learning tunes is valuable. Reading is useful but can also be a
| crutch. Playing songs you actually know frees up brain power for
| playing.
|
| . Lessons aren't particularly valuable. Time in harness is.
|
| . Backing tracks make really good metronomes.
|
| . The only use of a computer I would bother with, aside from as a
| playback device, is software that slows down without changing
| pitch. Transcribe! is useful.
|
| . On that note, transcribing will greatly improve your ear.
|
| . Don't get too involved with gear porn websites.
|
| . Playing with other people is a good thing.
|
| . Record yourself. It keeps you honest.
|
| . There are industries out there devoted to selling equipment,
| magic software, instruments, video lessons. Ignore them.
|
| . Time matters more than notes.
|
| . School band programs have limited value. They are mostly setup
| to deal with large numbers simultaneously and to impress parents.
| Use at your peril.
| siraben wrote:
| Classically trained pianist here (since 7 years old), I like the
| article's advice.
|
| > Use the correct fingering, dynamics, articulation, etc. from
| the very beginning; you are never going to get around to "fixing"
| it later.
|
| When I was an impatient kid my piano teachers would keep
| insisting I play sections slow on a first pass, which annoyed me
| (it was like reading a book out loud slowly), but it was only
| until many years later when I played pieces like Un Sospiro[0]
| which are _intractable_ if you do not start practicing at
| something like 16 times slower than performance tempo. If you
| start out correctly, the rest will follow, and IME, sight reading
| greatly improves as well.
|
| > [...] you may reach a point where you can't play any faster, no
| matter how hard you try. What is likely happening is that the
| hand motions you are using--which come naturally at the slower
| tempo you started with--simply will not work at such high speeds.
|
| This is completely true, for instance, in ragtime, the left hand
| makes big, quick jumps and there is often no time to look at
| where it will land (which one likely does when playing slowly),
| so repeating a bar over and over again to incrementally refine
| your distance estimate is crucial.
|
| This applies to things like typing on a keyboard as well, if you
| focus on correct finger placement (and correct use of the 4th and
| 5th fingers), your WPM might take a hit for a few days or a week,
| but in the long term it really helps.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po_a1SmZKLs
| lovelyviking wrote:
| >Use the correct fingering
|
| How to figure out what is "correct" fingering and what is not?
| I asked some pianists that question and I've got 3 versions of
| answers from each of them followed by advice to try out and see
| what works for you. So what is "correct" fingering then?
| mmcnl wrote:
| This is quite subjective, but taking some time to analyze the
| piece and figuring out what works best for you is usually
| better than just doing without thinking.
| siraben wrote:
| I think of it like a dynamic programming type situation. You
| have notes to be assigned fingers to and the metric is
| minimizing uncomfortable/awkward hand movements. So the
| specifics can vary from person to person (and hand to hand),
| but there are generally agreed upon fingerings for things
| like scales or chromatic runs.
| lovelyviking wrote:
| >there are generally agreed upon fingerings for things like
| scales or chromatic runs
|
| Can you point out to such "agreed" fingering somewhere?
| Because as a self learner I perhaps had no chance to know
| which one is it?
| kaichanvong wrote:
| It is for me; both comfortable and clear sound; how I see
| and agree the correct positioning is. Emphasis on seeing
| how people have incorrect positioning can form bad
| habits. Fix these for yourself; and for your audience
| thaunatos wrote:
| Here's an example fingering chart for major scales: https
| ://i.pinimg.com/originals/20/36/98/203698fda995f78e8621..
| .
|
| For the chromatic scale, I was taught to alternate 3 and
| 1, using 2 when there are two white keys in a row.
| gabrielsroka wrote:
| I learned it a little bit differently, for example
|
| https://youtu.be/twc_Yo4LFJI
| lovelyviking wrote:
| As I understand it's not different at all. Diagram shows
| how you play it continiously (not one octave only)
| oplav wrote:
| A more generic rule I heard later on was to not use your
| thumb on black keys (when playing scales). That
| constraint can sometimes help with other fingerings
| falling into place more intuitively.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| I don't think it's a given that there's a single correct
| fingering, but it seems obvious that an incorrect fingering
| is one that's impossible to use at your desired tempo.
|
| People have different sized hands, and different hand
| strengths, so some fingerings may be more damaging to a
| pianist's hands, and some might be more comfortable but break
| down at higher speeds, and some might simply be impractical
| at any speed.
| telesilla wrote:
| Most piano books have fingerings printed, and you'll find of
| course that they vary between editors. In general however
| there will be a fingering that makes the most sense. I'd
| posit those pianists you asked misunderstood the question, I
| hope you keep at it! A friend played me for recently a piece
| she's been learning for a year and is just so happy, and
| proud of her work. It's a beautiful thing, to play music.
| pitspotter wrote:
| After sight-reading through the piece a few times you can
| generally start writing down the fingering on the score. Keep
| a pencil handy.
|
| It's a bad idea to finger on the first play or the first day
| because there's a risk of premature optimisation. It doesn't
| take much analysis apart from one or two specific problems.
| The fingerings I end up with usually vary somewhat from the
| editor's.
|
| But the OP is correct, once you've got a fingering, you have
| to stick to it, even if it's suboptimal in places. It's
| _your_ fingering, and if you change something after 200
| repetitions there 's a danger of slipping back into the old
| pattern and stumbling.
| mcbuilder wrote:
| I'm a classically trained pianist as well, though a couple
| decades out of practice. My 10 year old son has been learning
| to play for the past couple years. As he learned his pieces he
| would fall into just horrible habits of wrong tempo dynamics,
| etc. So he gets to the end of his lesson book, good enough to
| play through the pieces but really only 20% done learning the
| pieces.
|
| So his teacher tells him to memorize the pieces. Good I think,
| so I have him go memorize each piece and give me a concert once
| a day. He's like 40% of the way there now, better but no where
| near close.
|
| So his teacher now says go learn with your eyes closed. _This_
| made the difference. He plays with the correct rhythm, corrects
| any mistaken notes because well mistakes compound, even his
| dynamics sound right now. It's actually beginning to sound like
| actual music!
|
| For him I think closing the eyes got him out of his mentality
| of just rushing the pieces, it put him out of his comfort zone
| and that has made all the difference.
| parkersweb wrote:
| After about 9 years learning piano as a kid I had one year of
| tuition from a concert pianist when I went to University.
|
| He was an excellent teacher - one of the things he majored on
| was 'blind' familiarity with the keyboard. He would get you
| to close your eyes, then ask you to pick out, for example,
| all the Cs on the keyboard going up the octaves. Made a huge
| difference to my confidence in positioning my hands at
| speed...
| notimetorelax wrote:
| This sound amazing, is there any teaching material I can
| buy to start with it on my own?
| zoomablemind wrote:
| Music is another way of storytelling. It does have lot of
| conventions, yet it still needs to have an ability to lead
| and tell.
|
| Each piece could be seen as many stories and as performer you
| can choose your story, then try to tell it. Classical pieces
| obviously have a canonical version which is what most
| audience would expect. Still, when learning such piece the
| story still needs to be there, not just as a sequence of
| prescribed pianos, fortes, and ritenuntos, but as a moving
| flow to capture interest and convey some relatable image.
|
| I guess the classical training also can equip performers with
| such imagery. I have grateful memories of teachers that tried
| to project a story into our kid-minds before delving into
| technical aspects of learning a new piece. Very inspiring
| times.
| spekcular wrote:
| I was this kid, and I think I know exactly what's happening.
| He's playing the piano as if it were Guitar Hero or Dance
| Dance Revolution, as a game where the goal is to hit the
| right keys at the right time. Somehow you have to communicate
| the idea that the goal is to produce something that's
| enjoyable to listen to.
|
| Playing with eyes closed is something that I've never tried,
| but my guess is that it's forcing him to listen and that's
| why it works. (I need to try it myself!) What worked for me
| when I was a bit older is my teacher making me get a little
| handheld recorder (cheap ones were surprisingly good back
| then, and I'm sure the tech has improved). Try having him
| record the song and listen to the recording, and ask what he
| thinks. In particular, does it sound musical? Why or why not?
| My guess is that it'll reveal details he wasn't able to focus
| on while playing, and it will motivate him to fix them.
| endymi0n wrote:
| This resonates with me. One of the best advice from my
| organ teacher was to ,,stop playing the notes and start
| really listening to yourself."
|
| Closing my eyes really helped with removing all stimuli
| that distracted me from actually doing that and it made all
| the difference.
| virtue3 wrote:
| As a competitive partner dancer, I too will close my eyes
| sometimes to shut out distractions and focus on the
| movement more. This is especially useful while practicing
| but I also sometimes do it during social dancing
| (provided there is enough room and I won't be putting my
| partner at risk by crashing into other people or being
| crashed into).
|
| Feel the damn music :/
| colanderman wrote:
| Having started playing music again after a 10 year hiatus,
| I recently came to the same realization about my younger
| self's approach to musicianship. Hitting the right notes is
| _table stakes_. But going beyond that requires developing
| the ability to listen to yourself critically, recognize the
| difference in sound between talented musicians and
| yourself, _caring_ to fix the difference, and taking steps
| to do so.
| ahane wrote:
| This reminds me of the piano teacher (danthecomposer) I am
| following on youtube: he calls his approach a "philosophical
| approach" to learning the piano and to me it seems quite
| influenced by daoism or zen.
|
| he puts heavy emphasis on practicing with your eyes closed
| from the beginning. this becomes possible through visualizing
| scales and chords from the beginning.
|
| other aspects are: getting your ego out of the way, trusting
| in you inherent musicality and allowing you creative source
| to steer your fingers to express your emotions and avoiding
| conscious interference. there is also a lot of simple
| improvisation inside a chord from the beginning.
|
| i cant speak for the long term success of his technique, but
| i like the approach and it makes sense to me with respect to
| other skills i have aquired before.
|
| his youtube channel is a bit hard to navigate but this
| playlist is a good starting point:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQxJJ7AgS7k&list=PL4cPpP-
| Ua6...
|
| he also has a blog: http://piano-jazz.blogspot.com/p/water-
| pianism.html
| andy_ppp wrote:
| The feedback process of listening to the music you've created
| is almost as important as the score itself, which to me feels
| like a guide. Sure you can play the right notes in the right
| order, but smaller tempo and pressure adjustments are made by
| feeling the music. My girlfriend played piano for years and
| hated it, she can play almost anything, but it sounds
| horrible because she isn't listening to and interpreting what
| she plays. That is where the joy of piano is for me.
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| I use a "Temporal distancing" method for feedback of audio
| / visual recordings of my performances.
|
| I record and watch or listen after many days. I have
| recordings of some of my performances from years ago which
| felt really terrible on the day of the performance but felt
| ok many years later.
| robomartin wrote:
| Early-on I taught my kids that "Practice makes perfect" is
| wrong. The right advice is "Practicing correctly makes perfect,
| because practice makes everything permanent, including
| mistakes". This applies to music, chess, swimming, anything
| really.
|
| Start slow and in small chunks with a focus on "correct",
| everything else takes care of itself.
| aynsof wrote:
| I've heard this captured concisely as 'Practice makes
| permanent'.
| varrock wrote:
| As someone who doesn't play piano, what you were describing
| reminded me exactly of my typing experience. I'm glad to see
| you thought the same! You mentioned the 4th and 5th fingers on
| the keyboard specifically -- what is the correct finger
| placement for those keys relative to what you think most people
| do?
| siraben wrote:
| Can't speak for everyone, but for me, I realized I didn't use
| my right pinkie to hit backspace or left pinkie to hit tab,
| and likewise for my 4th fingers, so I would end up moving my
| wrist. After a bit of practice I didn't need to use my wrists
| as much and practically all the keys can be reached in this
| way.
| prirun wrote:
| I play piano and touch type pretty fast. This example, of
| using the right pinkie for Backspace, is a good analogy
| with piano fingering.
|
| I use my 4th finger for Backspace, not 5th (pinkie). While
| pinkie may seem logical at first, it is much shorter on my
| hand than 4th. To use 4th, I only have to move my wrist to
| the right. To use 5th, I have to move my whole arm toward
| the screen, which is a much bigger deal. Same kind of thing
| happens in piano fingering all the time.
|
| The other key thing about fingering is you don't want to
| stretch fingers if you can avoid it. Stretched fingers
| cause fatigue and fingers are less flexible when stretched.
| Try stretching your fingers apart and moving them quickly.
| So when finding a fingering, you want to group notes into
| comfortable hand positions, play what you can in that
| position, then move your hand to the next position. This is
| commonly called grouping and surfacing if you want to do
| some research.
|
| You also want to avoid playing with your wrist twisted to
| the far right or left. If your fingering requires a twisted
| wrist, the notes should probably be grouped a different
| way, which will also change the hand position and fingering
| you use.
| jvvw wrote:
| I practice Feldenkrais which is partly about improving
| coordination of movement and practicing things slowly is one of
| the major ideas behind that. I watched an online talk earlier
| this week talking about the 'Weber-Fechner-Henneman Movement
| Optimization Cycle' as an explanation behind that. I haven't
| scrutinised the science - but there's info on page 28 of this
| PDF: https://www.feldenkraisguild.com/files/Journal_30.pdf
| opheliate wrote:
| A bit off topic, but thank you so much for sharing Un Sospiro,
| wasn't expecting to hear that much beauty this morning.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| Yes! My cello teacher told me "what you can only play slowly,
| you can eventually play fast; what you can only play wrong, you
| can't play at all."
|
| Keep in mind, this is a man who continued playing as a soloist
| in concert once after breaking his A string by playing high on
| his D string. You have to know the rules before you can break
| them well.
| turtlebits wrote:
| I think it all depends. I ignore dynamics and fingering when
| starting out, and I think for the most part, fingering doesn't
| really matter unless you are trying to play extremely fast
| sections, which pretty much require repetition to get right.
|
| FWIW, if I was learning Un Sospiro, I would just try get
| through the whole song. I played it at 1/2 speed and that
| seemed to be a reasonable attempt.
|
| Sometimes I feel if you have to follow the techniques in the
| OP, the song may be too challenging for you.
| siraben wrote:
| Sure, for Un Sospiro there were definitely sections that were
| easy (first few pages are quite repetitive) so not much issue
| there, but there are runs in the middle where I practiced
| slowly for a while until it came naturally.
| prirun wrote:
| Paul Barton's versions are intended for tutorials. For another
| take with better flow and melody line, try:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSHwX2O7j2w
|
| World of difference IMO.
| jacquesm wrote:
| For once this isn't entirely off-topic:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFRdoYfZYUY
| suicas wrote:
| This is a great article, one I wished I read a long time ago
| after a lot of inefficient learning.
|
| One thing I'm still keeping an eye out for is how to best learn
| when time is limited.
|
| As I get older, free time is at a premium, with
| job/kids/life/etc. meaning that some days even 20m practice is a
| luxury. So I've always been curious how to make the most of that
| and unexpected slots of free time.
|
| Should I just work on technical exercises/scales? Have a set of
| things written down to work on in case free time appears? Follow
| the advice in the article? Or accept that nothing worthwhile can
| be done in such short time and noodle around?
| monster_group wrote:
| I am in same situation as you. What keeps me going is
| practicing songs that I enjoy. If I am working on a song that I
| enjoy, I am excited to pick up the guitar and am more or less
| able to find time every day. I also see progress because I am
| learning what I enjoy.
| hzay wrote:
| Indian classical dancer here.
|
| > Do not work on this section for more than twenty minutes.
|
| This is not something I've heard often in my field but I had to
| learn this over the years. Performers want to present a piece as
| if it was never practiced and was all made up on the spot, and
| yet we do have to practice a piece day after day. Losing vitality
| and "becoming rehearsed" through over-practice is a real problem.
|
| The book "A Soprano on Her Head" by Eloise Ristad, who was a
| piano teacher, really helped me with my dance & acting practice.
| I restructured a lot based on that book (added improvisational
| elements, reduced forceful drill-like elements, more self-
| observation, less verbal cues), and my technique and enjoyment
| both improved a lot during covid lockdown. She also wrote a book
| called "Bold Beginnings" for teaching piano using a new method
| that she made up, but I've not been able to find a copy.
| vajrabum wrote:
| I'd completely forgotten about Eloise Ristad and "A Soprano On
| Her Head." Fanstasic book. Thanks for the reminder. I poked
| around looking for Bold Beginnings and didn't find it but I did
| find this page that might be interesting.
| https://www.modernmusicology.com/elosie-ristad-bold-music-te...
| throw0101a wrote:
| Professional pianist Tiffany Poon has a channel where she posts
| some of her practice sessions with why she does certain things:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/c/TiffanyPoonpianist/videos
| [deleted]
| mmcnl wrote:
| One important piece of advice is missing: sleep. So many times
| I've struggled with a certain piece, only to be able to play it
| flawlessly the following day.
| spobin wrote:
| I've been making a VR piano app to help with my own practicing. I
| find that it helps to see the recorded hands moving in 3d space
| in front of you. I can also slow down the movements to make it
| easier to replicate. It's certainly easier than learning sheet
| music! Here's a video if anyone is interested:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnBmjtgb2rA
| georgeam wrote:
| Here is a book I happen to own (and I recommend highly), on the
| general topic of how to practice piano effectively.
|
| "The Practice Revolution: Getting great results from the six days
| between lessons", by Philip Johnston. It contains a lot of advice
| including some overlap with some of the comments in this thread.
| nojs wrote:
| > Use the correct fingering, dynamics, articulation, etc. from
| the very beginning; you are never going to get around to "fixing"
| it later.
|
| As both a piano player and language learner I am often torn about
| this. On the one hand it's better not to give your brain a chance
| to learn the "wrong" way, because then you trip up on that
| section over and over. But for language, my experience is that
| people who speak prolifically, even if it's badly wrong, do
| better than those who speak less but make sure it's always
| correct. I would love to know if there is any evidence as to
| which is better, and if it's different for language than other
| skills like piano.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Language is different because people tend to be very forgiving
| of strangers with poor pronunciation and grammar. As long as
| you can make yourself understood, no one cares if you're not
| speaking like a local.
|
| If you really do want to speak like a local you'll need lessons
| from a professional voice coach - _not_ just a language teacher
| - who will teach you how to move your mouth muscles to make the
| correct sounds. While some talented people can work this out
| for themselves, most people can 't.
|
| Piano is the equivalent of having to work it out for yourself.
| Muscle memory of right-notes-in-the-right order is the _start_
| of musicality, not the end of it. You have to master that level
| to the point where it 's unconscious before you control
| dynamics, tempo, and evenness - which are the performance
| details that make a performance successful and expressive, as
| opposed to sort-of-competent.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-05-09 23:02 UTC)