[HN Gopher] Fundamentals of Piano Practice
___________________________________________________________________
Fundamentals of Piano Practice
Author : delib
Score : 330 points
Date : 2021-10-30 22:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (fundamentals-of-piano-practice.readthedocs.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (fundamentals-of-piano-practice.readthedocs.io)
| andrepd wrote:
| Starting a book by singing one's praise is already dubious. Then
| you come across this
|
| >(...) Mental Play (...) It is almost unbelievable that such an
| essential skill has been mostly neglected by piano teachers.
|
| which is a top "crank red flag".
| packjaddison wrote:
| Astoundingly, I have never heard another source advise doing
| this, and this includes professors at Juilliard. I don't work
| on all my pieces using pure Mental Play as frequently as I
| should, but trying to 'play on phantom limbs' without being at
| the instrument is like trying to remember the exact details of
| a painting you have looked at. Though there are many parts of
| the book that are a bit more... cranked.
| DixieDev wrote:
| In the context of practising a piece initially much slower than
| it's intended to be played:
|
| > The probability of playing incorrectly is nearly 100%,
| because there is almost an infinity of ways to play incorrectly
| but only one best way.
|
| I'm sure this book has some useful information within, but my 5
| minutes spent checking out different parts have so far left a
| very poor impression. Combined with its verbosity, it's hard to
| justify giving it serious attention...
| arxanas wrote:
| The book uses a lot of hyperbolic wording, but the techniques
| in the book are generally sound. Mental practice in particular
| is an established pattern for top performers across sportive
| disciplines.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| A good book. Although this statement:
|
| _While writing it, I discovered that piano pedagogy had never
| been researched, documented, and analyzed properly_
|
| is totally wrong. There's a Piano Pedagogy group just in the Bay
| Area, and lots of books on it.
|
| I was an Adult Beginner, which is _sorta_ a Thing. My teacher had
| about 12 adult students, and we had separate recitals from the
| kids. The hidden reason for this is, you don 't want to hear some
| 9-year-old kid who plays better than you ever will.
|
| Almost all of the other adults had played as a child and given it
| up. Many teachers won't take adults like me because they have
| unrealistic ideas about how good they're going to be. The truth
| is, you are not going to be very good, and lots of people who are
| orders of magnitude better than you can't make any real money
| playing piano, because that level of skill is so common.
|
| The interesting thing about how our brains work is: I could
| memorize effortlessly, but I couldn't sight read worth shit.
| There are other people who are the exact opposite.
|
| Lastly, one thing they said really resonated with me:
|
| _The first thing that must be done is to eliminate the habits of
| stopping and backtracking (stuttering), at every mistake. The
| best time to develop the skill of not stopping at every mistake
| is when you begin your first piano lessons._
|
| OMG, in the recitals there was one lady who just _had_ to play
| every note correctly, no matter how many times she had to try.
| She stopped at every mistake and "corrected" it, until you
| wanted to scream at her.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I should clarify one thing about "making money":
|
| You would _think_ you could play at rehearsals for a community
| theater group. Those are really low budget organizations and a
| lot of the staff doesn 't even get paid. The rehearsal pianist
| got paid $50 for the entire show.
|
| Even that guy is way better than most of us will ever be.
| scottious wrote:
| > OMG, in the recitals there was one lady who just had to play
| every note correctly, no matter how many times she had to try.
| She stopped at every mistake and "corrected" it, until you
| wanted to scream at her.
|
| oh man, that is frustrating! Somebody once said that a good
| musician will make their mistakes sound musical. Thinking that
| you must stop to correct a mistake is a fundamental
| misunderstanding about how music is perceived. I don't blame
| her though, I was once like this too. I think this is the
| default behavior for many adult beginners especially.
| rectang wrote:
| > _She stopped at every mistake and "corrected" it, until you
| wanted to scream at her._
|
| I had a college instrumental performance professor yell at me
| to "sit still" because this was happening all the time at our
| weekly recital hour, it was driving me crazy, and I would jerk,
| or shake my head or hang it, or facepalm, or clench my fists.
|
| They were right to call me out because I was being rude and I
| toned down my reactions after that, but... ugh. I hate that the
| professors tolerated that -- it was such a disservice to their
| students.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I know! It IS rude. But it's hard not to cringe.
|
| Just think "poker face."
| rectang wrote:
| The audience is rooting for you. They want to experience
| something special.
|
| They _want_ you to blow through glitches without drawing
| attention to them or even thinking about them, because that
| 's how you bring them along in a shared, spellbinding
| experience.
| narag wrote:
| _The truth is, you are not going to be very good, and lots of
| people who are orders of magnitude better than you can 't make
| any real money playing piano, because that level of skill is so
| common._
|
| This isn't so much of a problem if your intention is not
| playing professionally. Learning easy and intermediate pieces
| is a lot of fun. Also making your own music using a MIDI
| keyboard and a DAW.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| It does help to compose game music if you feel more
| comfortable around a synth. For people who like learning new
| abilities!
| esistgut wrote:
| I think you are being too hard on "adult beginners". I'm not
| sure if it is relatable but I'm learning guitar, just finished
| my second year self teaching it. I can't see myself as a guitar
| player just yet but I'm starting to have a clear perception of
| the stuff I have to learn and more importantly the stuff music
| players around me know and I'm pretty sure I can reach and
| overtake them. I'm thinking about "average level skills", there
| will always be a 8 years old kid with better abilities but I
| find the idea of comparing oneself to the whole world is
| unhealthy and far from fair. This doesn't apply only to music:
| the mere existance of Fabrice Bellard should prevent me from
| ever reaching a computer keyboard ever again.
|
| I live in Italy, here there are two kind of musicians: 1)
| conservatory majors, with really really strong "fundamentals"
| but none to zero improvisation skills 2) other people who
| followed a learning path of anglo-saxon derivation, usually
| they have some degree of play-by-ear and improvisation skills
| but they show a severe lack on fundamentals skills. By
| "fundamentals" I mean sight reading (meant as sight reading on
| _first sight_ , everyone can read with enough time), ability to
| sing what you want to play _in tune_ before playing it, strong
| inner sense of time and subdivision, knowledge of theory and
| harmony. Side note: if you ever see musicians perform in Italy
| (maybe this applies to other European countries like Germany
| and France too) there is a very easy way to recognize if they
| have a classical / conservatory background: look at their
| feet. If they tap a foot there is a very strong chance they
| have no classical background as it is seen as the kind of baby
| wheels thing that prevents solfege from developing a strong
| inner sense of time.
|
| Back on topic: as you can see there are these big two big
| subsets of music learning. What I'm doing is simply mix them: I
| study sight reading and solfege (trying to sing in tune) but at
| the same time I spend time transcribing by ear and following
| improvisation methods. There are some very strong sinergies in
| this: the ability to sing ( _in tune_ , not mumbling it) makes
| transcribing orders of magnitude easier. Same applies to
| knowledge of harmonic motions. Doing progressive reading
| exercises vastly improved my ability to play and understand odd
| rhythmic patterns to the point I can actually sense the lack of
| precision they have when I play in a garage band with my
| friends (not professional musicians but they have been playing
| for more than 20 years).
|
| To make an even simpler example: I can play without looking at
| my guitar, a lot of people can't. This feel a lot like seeing
| people unable to type on a computer keyboard without looking at
| it.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Funny about tapping your feet!
|
| On stage in choruses, I would do it, but only inside my shoes
| (with my toe) so no one could see it. I see nothing wrong
| with it, but then, I didn't go to conservatory.
|
| I never sang in a gospel choir, but I would hope that in
| those, it's not only permitted, it's _encouraged_. Along with
| swinging your arms & your head, and bobbing up and down.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > The hidden reason for this is, you don't want to hear some
| 9-year-old kid who plays better than you ever will.
|
| A surprise I had is that 9 yo is an advanced age in musical
| spheres. There's international young pianist competitions won
| by 10~11 year olds. They are usually bound to become pro
| players, so not the average kid in your local music school, but
| it's a good frame of mind for thinking about how good a 10 yo
| can be.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _is totally wrong. There 's a Piano Pedagogy group just in
| the Bay Area, and lots of books on it._
|
| None of the above refute the parent's statement. They author is
| aware there are such things as piano pedagody groups and books.
| Key word here is "properly" (which might be accurate or not,
| but that's what should be refuted).
| eredengrin wrote:
| Yep, fully agree. "researched, documented, and analyzed
| properly" is a very particular method of doing things, and
| much of the music pedagogy is pretty much "it worked for me
| and I'm good (or it worked for them and they're good), so it
| will work for you too". Which is true sometimes and very much
| not true other times. It's often a very conservative field
| (not in the political way, but in the sense of resisting
| change/doing it the traditional way), so if someone comes in
| and actually studies things with a more scientific sort of
| approach, there's no guarantee it will be accepted or catch
| on.
|
| At least in the family of brass instruments, I am fairly
| confident that they're largely still living in the dark ages
| and often don't understand fundamentally how the instrument
| is even played, at least from a scientific/physical
| perspective, so good luck if you end up with a
| teacher/professor who expects you to play one way when in
| reality you'd probably be much better off playing another
| way. This happened to me early on and I eventually learned
| that there has in fact been some pretty good research and
| documentation into brass technique but it's pretty niche and
| lots of music professors pretty much entirely disregard it
| because of the above point about it being a very conservative
| field. Donald Reinhardt is kind of the one who kicked off a
| lot of that movement but there's a number of people who have
| been carrying on that work.
|
| If a similar thing has been happening in the piano field I
| wouldn't be at all surprised (although I do think that the
| brass field is particularly ripe for things to go rotten in
| this way just because the brass embouchure is particularly
| complicated and also hard to observe).
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Just as an aside: a couple years ago I was hanging with a
| professional French Horn player at the dog park, and never
| having played one, I thought it would be amusing to try it.
| I had no aspirations of really being good. I was honest
| with him about my lack of ambition and he was fine with it.
|
| So I got one for cheap, and took a couple lessons from him.
| Damn, that thing is _hard_!
| eredengrin wrote:
| Very interesting, professional performers in the
| classical music world are relatively hard to come by
| since it's so competitive. It certainly takes a lot of
| practice to make it start to sound somewhat good and the
| professionals are on a whole other level. The amount of
| competition to get a job in a professional orchestra
| makes a google interview look like a piece of cake.
| Although I would say you probably got a bit unlucky with
| instrument choice, out of all the brass instruments,
| french horn is generally regarded as being the hardest.
| Haven't ever tried myself but I don't doubt it.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Yeah, for sure. Scott is on The List (my term), those
| guys who've passed the test and can fill in for your sick
| Horn player. So he's played with almost every orchestra
| in the Bay Area.
|
| He played at LucasFilm for a couple weeks, to build their
| library of sounds. He said for that one week, he made
| more money than his son in high tech.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I'm dubious about "properly". As she said, I found lots of
| instruction similar to hers, including the books she herself
| cited. The music stores are full of them.
|
| The one thing about piano teaching, similar to dog training,
| playing golf, and so many other areas, is:
|
| _Every teacher thinks every other teacher is full of it._
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Interesting, I didn't think any adult would try to learn
| instrument as an adult with goal of making money. I guess I
| happened to know professional amazing orchestra players who
| practiced hours every day since they were 6... And were mostly
| still dirt poor. So when I started piano lessons at tender age
| of 40, it did not come with any illusions of riches and fame
| compared to wizards who were _three and a half decades ahead of
| me_ :-).
|
| But I'm still having so much fun!! Playing simple piano pieces
| or fooling around with synth or arranger or playing with my
| kids etc. Piano has such a low barrier of entry to just tinkle
| around, and such phenomenal keyboards can be had for so little
| money used if you research a bit, I feel totally spoiled :-).
| There's YouTube videos and online lessons and awesome books for
| any style.
|
| My one tip to adult learners - understand that music theory is
| not the same as learning to play is not the same as learning
| music notation / sight reading. Traditional music teachers with
| captive audience of 10 year olds whose parents force them to
| attend, start with notes reading which has no pay off for
| unbelievable amount of time. As a busy motivated adult there's
| no shame and lots of advantages to first learn your way around
| the instrument and a few songs or improv, even some good
| theory, before conittibg yourself to grind and learn by rote of
| music notation. It is NOT intuitive and you won't benefit from
| it immediately. Especially as piano has different clef for left
| and right hand... Mostly Because grouchy 18th century old
| Austrian white males hate you! :-D
| sseagull wrote:
| Yes, I feel like the focus on making money is misplaced.
|
| I started lessons in my early 30s, (although had a strong
| background in music before). Never had an interest in
| performing.
|
| I view it like going to the gym. I don't lift weights to win
| some sort of weightlifting competition. So similarly I view
| playing piano as exercise for my mind, particularly areas
| which don't get as much of a workout programming and whatnot.
|
| And while I do go to recitals where kids 25 years younger
| than me play harder pieces, I bet I can program a lot better
| than they can (probably) :)
| andrepd wrote:
| What's the deal with learning basic notation being made to be
| so difficult? It's by far one of the easiest parts of
| learning to play an instrument.
|
| >It is NOT intuitive and you won't benefit from it
| immediately.
|
| What? How do you hope to play anything other than basic
| melodies if you can't read music? You'd have to develop your
| ear, which is much harder than learning to read music x)
|
| > Especially as piano has different clef for left and right
| hand... Mostly Because grouchy 18th century old Austrian
| white males hate you! :-D
|
| It's because the grand staff is centered around middle C.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| People have been developing their ears their whole lives.
| It isn't that hard to take that and convert it to keys.
|
| I play several instruments but can only read music for
| piano. Guitar, banjo, and harmonica I play entirely by ear
| or sometimes with some tablature to get started.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Primarily, it's about payoff / benefit.
|
| Imagine you're 40 years old and you've never played an
| instrument. You have limited ambition - you want to have
| fun and play a little bit around campfire. How do you
| start, let's say on a guitar:
|
| 1. I show you G, C, D chords and print out a simple, easily
| understandable chart you can take home. You now can play
| hundreds of songs after 30 min lesson and a few mins of
| practice. You can spend time playing around and slowly
| learning rhythm, strumming techniques and patterns, while
| singing to your songs and getting a feel for your
| instrument. A week or three later I show you E-minor and
| now you can play virtually every pop song made in last 20
| years. [1] If you get excited and interested, we throw in
| Aminor, and eventually F Major and now you know power
| chords and you're the master of it all. You're having fun,
| you're playing, you're improving, and you're having FUN.
| You can focus on good techniques and sounding good. When
| and if you want more, we can learn basic music theory and
| pentatonic patterns, and then one day if you're serious and
| ready for some pain, you can learn some staff notation.
|
| Or!
|
| 2. I give you some books and tell you to learn notes. You
| download an app or six to enable you to mindlessly
| practices notes every day. You spend months studying by
| rote and can maybe play Twinkle Twinkle Little star,
| poorly. But it's academic because you gave up a long time
| before you got there as there was no FUN to be had and you
| have children and work and household chores and this is a
| poor investment of your precious, precious time.
|
| >>How do you hope to play anything other than basic
| melodies if you can't read music?
|
| I mean, it's 2021. Look around. We are SPOILED for choices
| when it comes to learning! There's pianote and flowkey and
| casio lk line and songsterr and YouTube and tablature and
| karaoke apps and anything and everything. It's wonderful
| and we should embrace that every person can learn
| differently and enjoy themselves! :)
|
| FWIW, I've played Amelie on piano, Green Onions on organ, I
| want to Break free on synth and made some small synthwave
| songs entirely from scratch without reading music (but with
| thorough understanding of what I was playing - keys and
| changes and transitions and inversions) . I've recorded a
| cover version of White room including Rhythm and Solo, and
| now play bass in a 3 piece band, for fun, without needing
| to read music. Yes I've learned it eventually, but frankly
| as a 43 year old it's brought no benefit yet in the two
| years since I've done so.
|
| YES if you are a pro dedicated musician interacting with
| others you must learn it. But I think a lot of old-school
| musicians forget or don't want to understand what it's like
| to be a casual adult player who just wants to have some fun
| and jam. Empathy is lacking. Just because previous
| generation went through some enforced painful rite of
| passage, doesn't mean everybody has to - let's have an
| actual discussion on specific customized learning path that
| benefits each person's goals and constraints.
|
| ------------------
|
| Second point, I firmly believe, especially for Hacker-News
| audience, is that learning staff notation too early is
| counter-productive. It gives enormous undeserved privilege
| and primacy to C major and it prevents you from making
| crucial connections early on. In Western 12 note equal
| temperament, there are 12 notes. That's it, 12 notes,
| repeating. You can start wherever you want and it's the
| same. You don't care if you start from C or Bb. There are
| patterns and intervals and triads and chords and things
| that sound good that are completely relative and you can
| learn SO much without staff notation messing you up. Then
| you do learn staff notation, and you realize it's always
| lying to you. The spaces on staff notation are not
| representative to anything in the real world. Between E and
| F there's one semitone; but between F and G there are two
| semitones, even though they are the same spacing on the
| staff. And if you move from the safety of C major to
| anything else, you are SCREEEEEWED as na adult student
| wanting to have fun. Notation stops any pretense of sense
| logic and patterns and it's a quagmire of flats and sharps
| you're supposed to remember as you painfully make your way
| through. It takes something beautiful, built on relative
| patterns, and jams that lovely circle into jagged square
| hole that's on fire. Yes, eventually, you need to learn the
| same stupid crippling language everybody else uses, but
| that's not in any way to say that the language is beautiful
| or practical or helpful. It's just the notation we're stuck
| in Western music.
|
| -----
|
| I think most importantly, a lot of people completely
| conflate "music theory" with "staff notation".
|
| I've spent a long time reading "Music Theory books" which
| just want to teach you staff notation, which has zero
| explanatory powers (and I firmly believe has negative
| initial explanatory value). Finally, I came upon on this
| [2] book, which starts with "If you want to learn staff
| notation, awesome; we have a sibling book for that; but
| this is a book on music _theory_ which is independent on
| any specific notation system ". I read that book and every
| page was revelation and insight and made me a better
| player. Modern motivated geeky interested enthusiastic
| adults don't _have_ to be stuck in the method that our
| grandparents taught captive 10 year olds.
|
| I dunno, maybe it'll blow your mind, maybe you cannot see
| it, but I could discuss dominant 7th and minor harmonics
| and modes and pentatonics and intervals and triads and
| augmented & diminished and all that good, meaty, fun,
| fascinating, geeky stuff with my instructor without needing
| or referencing staff notation at all.
|
| >>It's because the grand staff is centered around middle C.
|
| That explains precisely nothing. It's not even circular,
| it's a rote memorized factoid thrown out instead of
| explanation that can be understood and discussed. The bass
| and treble are off by two. Two!!! If you truly cannot see
| that for a student, let alone for anybody, it would've been
| better if Piano staffs were same notes but one or two
| straight octaves apart, I feel you're not making an effort
| to see it from anybody else's eyes. My challenge is to find
| a practical, discussable reason two hands on same piano are
| off by two notes on staff that has inherent value and
| cannot be trivially reduced to "because 18th century
| grouchy Austrians said so" :)
|
| >>It's by far one of the easiest parts of learning to play
| an instrument.
|
| Well that's just wrong, but we can agree to STROOOONGLY
| disagree on this one :P
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ
|
| 2: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1986061833/ref=ppx_yo_d
| t_b_...
| oriolid wrote:
| > Second point, I firmly believe, especially for Hacker-
| News audience, is that learning staff notation too early
| is counter-productive.
|
| I'd like to add that in 2021 learning writing and reading
| is counter-productive. Text-to speech and vice versa
| software is widely available, and spelling rules for
| English require a ridiculous effort for little benefit
| except backwards compatibility with legacy books. As an
| adult learner you are SCREEEEWED even trying to figure
| out how to pronounce the things written above.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I think that's intended as sarcasm, and uncharitably
| ignores my point was order of priorities, not absolutes;
| but sure, things like that Should be discussed - e. G. My
| ex-father-in-law was Insistent that kids MUST be taught
| cursive. When challenged why, he gave no particular
| reason other than to repeat it a lot.
|
| More to the point though, Kids ARE taught speech FIRST
| (as is my point with an instrument)! They in fact DO
| learn complex sentences and language patterns and
| communication way way before we teach them writing. We
| are not even contemplating teaching 1 year olds writing
| before we teach them language. So you are 100% making my
| point for me :).
|
| Similarly in languages, I once went through 2 years of
| learning foreign language by rote memorization of tenses
| and rules and declensions and it was awful (this was not
| in North America) . Got nobody in the class anywhere. 10
| A-plus students couldn't make a conversational sentence
| after 2 years. Much more success is accomplished by
| teaching people here to speak and understand language
| first.
|
| And again to address different part of your comment and
| my point: I claim staff notation for people who WANT to
| understand patterns and theory In music can be
| counterproductive. Get the feel for relativity of keys
| first, before we smash C major up your throat. Alphabets
| by and large aren't that counterproductive, so it's a bit
| of a false comparison on that level too, though we can
| have a good discussion of phonetic alphabets vs whatever
| the heck English has. Staff notation is not inherently
| logical and representative of patterns in 12 note equal
| temperament. It's just an archaic system we are stuck in
| though others have been proposed. It's qwerty! :)
|
| Through all of this tough, I don't see an actual counter
| argument - this seems to always get people riled up and
| upset, But why SHOULD an adult wanting to strum or jam
| and have some fun, be taught staff notation FIRST? What
| goal does it accomplish, why is that a beneficial order
| of operation, other than "that's how I was taught"? Let's
| have a charitable, productive honest discussion :)
| oriolid wrote:
| Honest question: Did you read my post and write that all
| by yourself? If yes, why are you so hostile to the idea
| that music can be effectively communicated through
| writing and reading? Yes, you can teach a beginner to
| strum a few chords without any context, but once you want
| to play with others you need some concepts to be able to
| communicate and when you have to learn those concepts
| writing them down is the easy part.
|
| Your language course sounds really odd to me and I'm not
| sure if I should believe it actually happened.
|
| I don't really get why you are so hung up with C major.
| Sure, if you play piano the first few pieces are probably
| in C major unless one of them is Chopsticks but the
| method books that I have seen have all exercises in
| different keys almost from the beginning.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| - Yes I read your post, though I had the exact same
| question, as I feel we are talking past each other a bit
| :<
|
| - (Yes, I wrote that by myself though that's a strange
| question to ask :)
|
| - Yes that course was real. Two years of Latin, 1995,
| Prva Susacka Gimnazija u Rijeci. You can wake me up at 2
| am and I can recite "Terra Terrae Terrae Terram Terra
| Terrae Terrarum Terris Terras Terris" in about 6 seconds
| (just measured:). And that's literally what our exams
| were for two years - conjugate this verb; recite
| declension of this noun; give me a list of propositions;
| at no point did we actually learn to speak it
| conversationally, or tested on reading comprehension or
| speaking skills. Extreme example but it exists!
|
| Now let's see if we can productively engage on same topic
| together:
|
| - I am not talking about "reading or writing" or "music
| theory" or "Communicating with other musicians in
| general". I am making claims very specifically about
| western music staff notation, being taught first or
| early, for casually interested potential musicians. Not
| that "communicating music is unimportant" or
| "professional musician doesn't need staff notation"
|
| As such my claim specifically is:
|
| - Staff notation is provably and demonstrably not
| necessary, and I claim not helpful, to either start
| learning an instrument or communicate with other
| musicians or learn advanced music theory; and further, a
| lot of fairly advanced fun can be had with music without
| learning staff notation.
|
| That's it, that's my claim.
|
| We need to arrive at better understanding of where we
| disagree. A LOT of very good musicians mentally,
| subconsciously do not distinguish between "Music theory"
| and "Staff notation". I am NOT claiming Music Theory is
| not helpful - I am enjoying it tremendously.
| Understanding what you're playing and how and why is
| great! But staff notation is _completely_ lateral to
| learning Music Theory, as I mentioned above but may get
| missed.
|
| Some examples that may help see where I'm coming from -
| You do NOT need Staff notation to:
|
| - Tell your bandmate "hey, can you try doing a riff in E
| major pentatonic?"
|
| - Understand keys, triads, chords, inversions, intervals,
| etc; or communicate them
|
| - Learn a chord progression of a song
|
| - Learn a solo, learn to improvise, learn to arrange
|
| .... Whopsie, Sorry, kids are waking up from their nap,
| I'll write more in couple of hours, I'd be eager to
| continue this conversation, whether here or on
| Hangouts/Gmail/Whatsapp/Whatever :). But my central point
| here is - staff notation is perceived by some as
| necessary to a) learn music theory b) play an instrument
| c) communicate musical concepts, and today in 2021 there
| are plentiful counter examples to that, beyond
| theoretical discussion :)
| oriolid wrote:
| > Yes that course was real. You can wake me up at 2 am
| and I can recite "Terra Terrae Terrae Terram Terra Terrae
| Terrarum Terris Terras Terris".
|
| Interesting. My high school German classes involved
| repeating "an, auf, hinter, in, neben, uber, unter, vor,
| zwischen" until everyone remembers it and that didn't
| really mean that there wouldn't have been conversation
| practice. Maybe it's the Latin language, I have heard
| similar stories from others too.
|
| I guess it's possible to learn music theory without staff
| notation if you really try to do so, but to me it sounds
| just incredibly stubborn to not make the connection
| between the notes and the lines that dots are drawn on.
| The connection between the sounds and the letters is much
| more arbitrary than the connection to dots on lines and
| you don't seem to have problem with it. If anything, the
| note that's either H or B depending the culture is
| written the same way on staff everywhere. And if you're
| afraid of C major, you're not really getting away from
| accidentals by just using letters instead of staff
| notation.
|
| Edit:
|
| > Staff notation is not inherently logical and
| representative of patterns in 12 note equal temperament.
| It's just an archaic system we are stuck in though others
| have been proposed
|
| Most music in European tradition is written in diatonic,
| not chromatic scales, and while equal temperament is
| common, it's not all there is. The staff notation with
| key signatures is just too handy for writing down
| diatonic music to ignore. Of course it's not a perfect
| fit for other tuning systems but from "let's play the
| riff in E minor pentatonic" I'd guess you're not thinking
| about going atonal or outside 12-tone system either.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Surprisingly (maybe) I don't disagree with a lot of what
| you said.
|
| Exhibit A: Paul McCartney, who's produced some of the
| most timeless music ever written, and can't read music.
|
| Exhibit Others: it's too early in the morning for me to
| think of those. Give me some time.
|
| However, everyone who plays on the studio session to
| record your composed-by-ear masterpiece for the CD will
| be an excellent sight reader. Guaranteed. They wouldn't
| have gotten the gig if they weren't.
|
| "Staff notation" is pretty damn flexible, as you'll learn
| if you try to write a program to produce it as well as
| music publishers have done for centuries. You already
| said it's a way to communicate with other musicians, but
| I'd just add that oftentimes in popular music, that
| communication is just a score with a tempo and bar lines
| marked off, with chords and rests in the bars -- no
| individual notes.
|
| Furthermore, there's immense room for interpretation: if
| the chord is G7#13, an experienced player will laugh and
| say to himself "ok, so that's just an altered seventh,
| and by the way, I always add a ninth to a seventh chord."
| codr7 wrote:
| I used to take lessons, very classical with a skilled teacher,
| had my own digital piano at home; but couldn't find the
| motivation to practice.
|
| Several years later I bought a cheap 49-key midi keyboard and
| fired up YouTube, still going and improving every day.
|
| Just do it, really; sit down and learn how to play something you
| like, your way.
| tritones wrote:
| I came across this shortly before beginning my degree in music
| and it completely changed how I approached learning new pieces.
| When I tried to explain the technique to another pianist, they
| were confused as to what was 'new' about it. I guess they never
| had a teacher say "play it over and over until you can play it
| without mistakes".
|
| Now, my wife is completing her education degree and I see a lot
| of this approach being implemented in K-12: identify and focus on
| weaknesses; use your strengths to enhance your weakness; spend
| time on the big problems; balancing holistic approaches with
| concise methods, etc. All seem obvious and yet I didn't have a
| single teacher in music or otherwise suggest any of them to me.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| I find it hard to believe a pianist (or any trained musician)
| has never heard of playing something over and over again
| without mistakes...
| tritones wrote:
| You misunderstand. Their teachers used better methods than
| just "do it again but better".
| nkuttler wrote:
| This attitude contributes to the problem: many teachers at a
| higher level don't even bother to teach this stuff because
| they think everybody already does it.
| tejohnso wrote:
| I would like to see the best book ever written on how to practice
| at the _guitar_. Any suggestions?
| packjaddison wrote:
| I'd be happy to give you some advice to get you started.
| m0zg wrote:
| There are a lot of different genres within guitar, and a lot of
| different variations in instruments, and ways of playing the
| instrument (fingers, pick, hybrid, tapping, legato, slide,
| combination thereof), heck even within picking there's also
| "economy", "sweep", "downstroke", and "alternate" picking, so
| you'd need to narrow it down by a lot.
|
| For rock/prog I think Rock Discipline by John Petrucci is the
| best book available if you're prepared to put in a lot of work
| and, well, discipline. The name is not accidental: it's hard
| AF, so if someone is looking for a silver bullet, keep looking.
|
| But at least for guitar a book is not a replacement for a good
| teacher, and it can't be: there's too much nuance and too many
| ways to screw things up. Screw up your right wrist movement,
| and you won't be able to play fast. Screw up your left hand
| position, and you won't be able to do legato (hammer-ons and
| pull-offs) and chords will be difficult as well.
| Synchronization is hard too, especially in hybrid styles, where
| not every note is picked. Screw up muting and you won't be able
| to play clean. And the worst part is, you don't even hear
| yourself as you're playing, if you aren't recording, because
| your mind is struggling to control and synchronize your hands,
| which takes more effort than it does on a piano because the
| left hand does something completely different from the right.
| That's not even considering that music theory is much harder to
| learn on the guitar than it is on the piano.
|
| Even some established guitarists don't really know how to play
| properly (Kirk Hammett or Slash are perennial examples), and a
| lot of those that do know how to play don't know the theory.
| They've just learned the technique and a few licks, and that's
| enough if you don't have to learn someone else's music and
| don't need Petrucci's levels of sophistication. But knowing
| theory really opens up the instrument and makes it a lot easier
| to learn pieces, since you get to see the "grammar" of the
| thing.
| MrGando wrote:
| Have to chime-in here as a piano player since age 7 (so been
| going for ~28 now), who about 2 years ago got very serious about
| Jazz.
|
| I have stumbled across this book many times, I have read it. It's
| the single most controversial book that I've read about piano
| technique and playing that I've found.
|
| The author, is not even a player himself (!!!). There's a great
| summary of reviews about the book here
| (https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=38247.0), if
| you're starting into piano, stay away, get a decent teacher.
| rossjudson wrote:
| Oddly enough, the author himself says "get a piano teacher"
| when you're starting out. He also explicitly says that he's
| gathered together what he feels are the most effective practice
| techniques, culled from many books.
|
| Your linked reviews spend a considerable amount of energy
| complaining about the author's lack of pedigree, of one sort or
| another...or paraphrasing things the author didn't say. Which
| isn't really paraphrasing, is it?
|
| I think I've been playing piano since I was 7 too. After years
| away, I've been helping to teach my son. Most of the advice in
| the basic practice section is really, really good. Many of the
| techniques describe correspond quite well to what my son's
| (quite excellent) teacher asks him to do...and they work.
| MrGando wrote:
| The methods that work and are the kind of thing that any good
| teacher will tell you to do over a conversation in a coffee
| shop, meaning that you don't even need a piano to learn about
| them. Yes they do work, eg: learning a few bars at a time and
| separate hands.
|
| The book totally falls apart when getting into the weeds.
| Piano is a corporal activity after all and while yes, there's
| definitely "frameworks" to make learning pieces more
| efficient, or practicing more efficient, the author gives
| very bad advice when he starts crossing the threshold towards
| what's technical and corporal... because he just doesn't
| know.
| spekcular wrote:
| Is that "corporeal" information actually written down
| anywhere? I've read a few books about piano technique and
| pedagogy, and they contain some mix of "obvious" stuff
| (also in this book), wrong/misinformed stuff, and poor
| written descriptions of various body movements.
|
| It seems to me that piano is a physical activity that is
| impossible to teach through text, and that a good teacher
| is the only way. But I'd like to be wrong, or at least find
| some useful tips.
|
| (This is to say nothing of interpretation and other musical
| matters, which seem even more impossible to transmit
| through writing...)
| hatmatrix wrote:
| I had to laugh out loud when I read that the author openly
| admits to not being a pianist or a piano teacher... but a
| physicist. It reminds me a lot of physicists I know who
| approach every problem with the assumption that they can do it
| better than people who have been trying to solve the problem
| long before. On occasion, they are right, but this clearly
| appears to be one of those other times.
| microtherion wrote:
| Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/793/
| jeffwass wrote:
| As both a physicist and a pianist, I have to comment that
| it's not only physicists that make these assumptions.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Btw, do you have a reflex to model music as an abstract
| mathematical/geometric structure since you have a physics
| background ?
|
| I'm not even a physicist but I cannot help but to see non
| linear interpolated curves and surfaces when I hear music.
| (curvature being somehow related to dissonance).
| ashtonbaker wrote:
| Can I ask you what your path into jazz has been like?
|
| I've been playing myself for like 25 years, classically trained
| for my whole childhood. I've always enjoyed improvisation and
| love jazz piano so much, but I've found it really hard to build
| from my very limited improv vocabulary into "serious" jazz, and
| I've had a hard time learning how to learn jazz, if that makes
| sense.
| yesenadam wrote:
| My unasked for 2c: (Jazz pianist here, did classical piano
| from very young, then started jazz at about 12)
|
| - listen a lot to the greats and the players you love. The
| most common problem I see in students is them not listening
| to much/any jazz and expecting to be able to sound good.
|
| - transcribe a lot, solos you love but dont know what they're
| doing. Solos on any instrument. Then play them. (If you can
| play them without transcribing them, great.)
| objclxt wrote:
| If you are classically trained I highly recommend Mark
| Levine's book[1]. It digs into the theory of jazz, alongside
| improvisation. It does assume a working knowledge of basic
| theory, so not so great for those starting from scratch.
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Piano-Book-Mark-
| Levine/dp/096147...
| navbaker wrote:
| Joining an online community like Learn Jazz Standards really
| helps. You can work through exercises and lessons at your own
| pace, plus you have others who can give you constructive
| feedback. I'm a guitar player and joining a similar site,
| Fret Dojo, has pushed me way beyond where I would have gotten
| on my own.
| wazoox wrote:
| It's difficult to give advice in that matter without first
| hearing you giving a try at improvisation to check where
| you're starting from. I've started learning jazz at 16 (50
| now) and you never cease to learn (obviously), but I can say
| that obviously different people learn in different ways.
|
| Basically I'd say there are 3 parts in learning
| improvisation: the theoretical part (which is already a
| complex one because there are several possible theoretical
| approaches to jazz improvisation), the imitation part (learn
| and play back existing phrases, or better complete solos from
| the masters), the by-ear / singing part (the toughest one
| that most actually don't reach, at least reliably).
|
| Don't forget that there is definitely a large social part in
| jazz improvisation; I'd rate my improvisation ability as
| uninteresting most of the time; I can get "in the zone"
| accidentally by myself, but more often it's a band thing:
| playing with the right people often enough and long enough to
| get together in "the zone". Yes, that's exactly the same zone
| as the programming one; you're lost in the music, feeling
| what's coming next and what notes should be played by whom
| (there only comes your technical ability in the picture)
| without thinking about it.
|
| In my personal case, a long practice of classical piano
| hampered my early capability at improvisation for a long time
| and I needed the crutch of theory, and to intellectualize the
| process. Some blessed people "ear" the right notes without
| needing any justification "why" they are the right ones.
|
| When you've got a long practice of your instrument, the
| difficulty is to free yourself from the reassuring but
| useless knowledge and habits you have that bring you to play
| this scale or this phrase because it's "in your fingers". The
| best way to reach that point is to have hundreds of ready
| phrases in all tones "in your fingers", and then try to
| forget them and listen to the music. Hopefully, you'll feel
| what goes where, like an unrolling, animated puzzle, or a
| Tetris game.
|
| Personally I've found Kent Hewitt's advice to be very useful,
| I think it may help a lot of people. What's great in his
| playing is that he keeps it very simple, but always richly
| melodic.
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdmjw5sm9Kn83TB_rA_QBCw
|
| Another piece of advice I can give you is to learn to
| recognize chords and all the different ways they're built (by
| stacking thirds or fourths, etc) and how they come in
| succession (the usual II V I VI and friends) to get a better
| feel of what comes here or there.
| wazoox wrote:
| Serendipity stroke with this great video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEdtUOGCCnU
| ashtonbaker wrote:
| Good stuff, and thanks for your comment. This part clicks
| with me:
|
| > When you've got a long practice of your instrument, the
| difficulty is to free yourself from the reassuring but
| useless knowledge and habits you have that bring you to
| play this scale or this phrase because it's "in your
| fingers". The best way to reach that point is to have
| hundreds of ready phrases in all tones "in your fingers",
| and then try to forget them and listen to the music.
| Hopefully, you'll feel what goes where, like an
| unrolling, animated puzzle, or a Tetris game.
| sandGorgon wrote:
| What is your opinion about the Taubman technique ? rotation and
| all.
|
| Claims to be very RSI resistant and healthy ?
| prirun wrote:
| Learning rotation is important and there are lots of Taubman
| videos on YT that explain it in detail, usually with scales.
|
| In a nutshell, there is the concept of single rotation and
| double rotation. When finger-to-finger movement is in one
| direction, like 1,2,3, you use double rotations. When going
| from 3 to 1, a single rotation. The movements are highly
| exaggerated for learning and demonstration.
|
| I think it's easy to get hung up on "how can I play piano if
| I'm rotating my hand all over the place?" In my opinion, a
| large part of learning rotation and how to use it for slow
| practice on difficult passages is about freeing your arm and
| hand so they are not unintentionally opposing movement.
| Playing with tension or unintentional opposition, especially
| if you play hours a day, is one way to get RSI (tendonitis).
|
| Here are some excellent YT resources for piano I have
| bookmarked. Several of these have videos that talk about
| forearm rotation:
| https://www.youtube.com/user/cedarvillemusic
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3vYz1SAtcbRhsatydObGQw
| https://www.youtube.com/user/PianistMagazine (Graham Fitch)
| https://www.youtube.com/user/SteveMass1101
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr0BMA5yu3AS0alkR7kYwEQ
| https://www.youtube.com/user/aw4piano
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLsMRd097KLJMvkNzC4rYAA
| https://www.youtube.com/c/DanielBarenboim/videos
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6tpkZhNpJiTnlUgoiUe9QQ
| sandGorgon wrote:
| Thank you so much ! This is brilliant.
| illwrks wrote:
| I don't play piano, but my seven year old daughter does. She's
| doing her grade 2 exam soon enough.
|
| I would also second that advice too! My wife taught her some
| basics but we got a private teacher for her about a year ago,
| that has supercharged her ability.
|
| She does a 40 minute lesson once a week. The teacher writes
| notes on what she is to practice and learn. She practices her
| work for about an hour a day, and spends maybe another 30
| minutes figuring out songs she likes (the Harry Potter theme is
| her current interest).
|
| I would recommend doing the same to anyone else, a private
| teacher is the way to go.
|
| As a side note, she didn't just start from zero, we've had her
| in some form of music and rhythm class since she was 9 months
| old. She has a good ear for music, timing and instruction, to
| the point where she used to surprise other parents/teachers
| with how attentive she was.
|
| Also I make sure to have the classical radio on every morning
| and evening to further train her ear ;)
| andai wrote:
| > we've had her in some form of music and rhythm class since
| she was 9 months old
|
| That's really cool, could you elaborate?
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| I can't help but agree. I've been playing piano since childhood
| too, though in a desultory, non-Conservatory way. It's been
| great fun reading through this comment section and seeing Piano
| HN, but I'm really surprised that this is the first comment
| that acknowledges the skub-nature [0] of the book, and that the
| author doesn't actually play piano but in fact armchair-QBs it
| via observation and discussion with his two daughters' piano
| teacher.
|
| That's not to say that he doesn't have any interesting
| insights, but IMO this is an entirely inappropriate book for an
| ab initio beginner. The value of his insights comes from
| another perspective on piano pedagogy, but it's an untrained
| one; better to learn the ropes as they're commonly understood
| before you seek the guy who's all about an unorthodox
| presentation of them.
|
| At the bare minimum, get a teacher so you can learn how to hold
| your hands.
|
| [0] https://pbfcomics.com/comics/skub/
| vixen99 wrote:
| Also agree but the author makes (among others) a couple of
| excellent points worth emphasizing: anyone (if they're
| motivated) can learn to play the piano well and acquiring
| technique is mostly a process of brain/nerve development
| because the you are improving your brain while learning
| piano.
| MrGando wrote:
| There's a specific thing I always remember about this book,
| which is that the author recommends the "thumb over"
| technique for scales. I would never, ever suggest a beginner
| to approach scales like that. Thumb rotation is super
| important to absorb and master. Of course, when you go for
| fast scales you do a "thumb over" which is not really that,
| but instead of the thumb rotation, you reposition your whole
| hand using your arm to keep going upwards (from reading the
| book, it feels like the author doesn't understand that,
| because he probably never really went through that process...
| which takes many many years of piano playing).
|
| I clearly remember the first time I went through the book,
| being a bit shocked when I read this particular take.
| rossjudson wrote:
| Perhaps you should re-read. On thumb-over and thumb-under
| (TO, TU):
|
| "Both methods are required to play the scale but each is
| needed under different circumstances; TO is needed for
| fast, difficult passages and TU is useful for slow, legato
| passages, or when notes need to be held while playing other
| notes."
|
| "Beginners should be taught TU first because it is needed
| for slow passages and takes longer to learn. The TO method
| should be taught as soon as faster scales are needed,
| within the first two years of lessons."
| MrGando wrote:
| It's both the way the technique is described and the name
| given to it "thumb over" that are unclear and misleading.
| I know the technique, and in my years of practice (semi-
| pro) I've never seen it described anything like that. It
| doesn't even have a "name" per-se, because you learn to
| play the piano with your whole body, so it becomes a
| natural thing that you just have to do to get that speed.
| And by the way, you can still use it when playing slow,
| if you want to obtain a certain "tone" or "sound".
| packjaddison wrote:
| In my head, after 'thumb-under', I think of 'skips' and
| 'leaps' depending on distance for whole-hand
| repositioning, which is descriptively accurate for
| fingering on the piano, guitar, and violin (etc.).
| Though, for the novice I could see how conceptualizing a
| movement this way could interfere with legato technique,
| as it encourages more discrete chunking than does the
| 'unbroken' thumb-under during a run. Does that
| nomenclature match your conceptualization at all?
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| >Of course, when you go for fast scales you do a "thumb
| over" which is not really that, but instead of the thumb
| rotation, you reposition your whole hand using your arm to
| keep going upwards
|
| To belabour this point for non-pianists, the parent is
| describing what "thumb over" really is: a sort of physical
| consequence of playing a fast ascending arpeggio/scale. It
| isn't an alternative to "thumb under" so much as a good-
| faith approximation of it at speed. "Practicing" "thumb
| over", as in this YouTube video [0], would likely threaten
| the mapping of fingers to keys in a newer player. It's not
| wrong to acknowledge its existence, but IMO it's properly
| conceived of as a skill that develops as a consequence of
| playing normally (though quickly), not an alternative to
| it.
|
| Because (and in spite of) the fact that he doesn't play
| piano, his observations on "thumb over" are interesting,
| but unless you're already aware of the true nature of
| "thumb over" his authoritative tone will lead you astray in
| terms of conceptual categorization.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLTbURVEEO4
|
| [1] https://fundamentals-of-piano-
| practice.readthedocs.io/chapte...
| agumonkey wrote:
| it's been so long since i've seen pbf comics .. such a
| superior format.
| jbaber wrote:
| He's made a few more recently, has a patreon, etc.
| [deleted]
| DaniFong wrote:
| any hackers interested in piano should check out
| serenepianist.com
|
| https://www.instagram.com/serenepianist/
|
| serene was a hacker at google/tor/cmu and then went deep into
| piano and is an amazing concert pianist. she loved this book!
| zfier83 wrote:
| I'm an adult student. Started at 33 - just turned 38. Practicing
| 3-4 hours daily. Don't get this book. Take music theory classes,
| learn harmony, and get an excellent teacher. Mine is from the
| Russian school and changed the way I approach the instrument.
| Also - you can become a good pianist if you start as an adult.
| You just won't be attending Julliard as an instrumentalist. But
| who cares? Neither did Beethoven. My #1 advice: practice in
| perfect time. Build a natural sense of pulse. The dirty secret is
| it's easier to play a piece in time than the converse, especially
| at high velocity.
| is-is-odd wrote:
| How do I go about finding a good teacher? Are google maps
| reviews trustworthy enough?
| wildrhythms wrote:
| Look up your local/city orchestra; in my local philharmonic
| they keep an entire page on their website updated with local
| teachers for every instrument.
| IWantToRelocate wrote:
| started as an adult as well and couldnt stress this enough.
| anyone can play the piano with proper practice!
| dandotway wrote:
| Does this book cover how to figure out finger numbering for sheet
| music that doesn't have finger numbering?
|
| By finger numbering I mean the standard scheme where thumb=1,
| index=2, ..., pinky=5, and the notes on the sheet music have
| these numbers.
|
| This is the biggest mystery to me. I understand there is not a
| One True Canonical Fingering for a given sequence of notes. But
| some fingerings make the music much easier than others.
|
| Wish some HN coder genius would write a program that given sheet
| music as input, outputs the top 1-3 recommended fingerings for
| that music with explanations for which rules were applied.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| > how to figure out finger numbering for sheet music that
| doesn't have finger numbering
|
| It is one reason why instrumentalists spend so much time
| practicing things like scales and arpeggios. Because in
| practice 90% of music is made of these or small variations on
| them, so once these are "muscle memory" you truly don't think
| about fingerings any more.
| oplav wrote:
| I agree with this. Scales more or less have an accepted
| fingering so if you practice these a lot, you'll gain some
| natural muscle intuition for when you see variations on
| scales and arpeggios in the wild.
|
| When I took classical piano lessons, each week we'd have a
| new key assignment and we'd have to practice scales, chords,
| and arpeggios in that key.
|
| My piano teacher hand crafted a very nice sheet that listed
| all scale and arpeggio fingering for all keys, but that is
| buried somewhere in storage. This website [1] seems to have
| the same info.
|
| [1] https://www.pianoscales.org/major.html
| kashunstva wrote:
| I'm a collaborative pianist by profession. The discussion of
| fingering here is interesting. Much can be said about fingering
| but first and foremost it has to serve the musical intent and I
| would be surprised if any algorithm could surface those intents
| because (thankfully) they come from a place that is highly
| personal and emotive, e.g. the 1st finger (thumb) doesn't
| belong here because it's too heavy and falls on the end of a
| delicate appoggiatura.
|
| That said, many fingering choices are practical and dictated by
| the geography of the keyboard and the oddities of our hand
| anatomy. Armed with a knowledge of the fingering of all of the
| major and minor scales, the patterns and paradigms encountered
| in actual compositions become clearer. I recommend MacFarren's
| scale book but there are others. Beyond pattern recognition and
| an attempt to understand the musical intent, there's just trial
| and error. When approaching a new work, I'll spend quite a bit
| of time trying options in ambiguous passages. It's time well-
| spent. Pro-tip: don't write in every single finger number. It
| creates too much visual distraction on the page. Write in only
| when there's an inflection point. If you have a descending
| passage in the RH that is 5-4-3-2-1-3-2-1, let's say, just
| write the 5...1-3 or possibly just 5...3. String players are
| the absolute best at this concept, only annotating finger
| numbers when there's a shift of position or an odd extension.
| acrobatsunfish wrote:
| A voice of reason in a sea of STEM bro self indulgence
| jedimastert wrote:
| I think you're looking at this as an optimization problem, and
| while to a reasonably large extent it is, it's also a question
| of interpretation, because where you put your emphasis depends
| on where you start you're phrases and how you contour the
| phrase, and if there's multiple lines happening on a single
| hand what's the main line, if there is one?
| jancsika wrote:
| > Wish some HN coder genius would write a program that given
| sheet music as input, outputs the top 1-3 recommended
| fingerings for that music with explanations for which rules
| were applied.
|
| You must first access the corpus of data on fingerings. AFAICT
| that is an oral history passed among piano teachers.
|
| Even then, you must account for how different fingering
| approaches quantize to various tempo changes. E.g., there's a
| tempo beyond which I can start throwing my thumb (well, my arm)
| past my pinky in the development section of the last movement
| of Beethoven's Appassionata sonata. Below that tempo the
| fingering is basically nonsense.
|
| You could probably put together some basic set of rules for
| recommended amateur fingerings. Even there, I think the
| quantization to tempo is sufficiently complicated that you'd
| risk creating something like an ML algo that merely improves at
| persuasively rationalizing arbitrary fingerings.
|
| Edit: I just looked back at the passage and it's actually
| throwing my index finger past my ring finger. Funny enough, I
| tried the same passage throwing my thumb past my pinky-- it
| works fairly well at a fast enough tempo and is awkward and
| error prone if played too slowly. In either case, the same
| logic applies.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Hand _size_ , too. I have big fuckin' hands, and I can
| comfortably manage chords in eg Chopin pieces that my (small,
| female) piano teachers had to roll. Conversely, they could
| more easily do some of the arpeggiation that I'd almost
| literally fat-finger at non-practice tempo.
|
| I'll also add my anecdata to the parent's thoughts on
| quantization of fingerings to tempos. I like ragtime, and
| I've grown to notice that playing it properly (that is,
| slowly, as Joplin is always going on about in the margins)
| often requires what is essentially _more difficult fingering_
| than that which is required to play it quickly (that is, the
| !!FUN!! way). Someone in another subthread mentioned having
| to physically model the arm and hand. I think that 's
| essentially correct.
|
| >You must first access the corpus of data on fingerings.
| AFAICT that is an oral history passed among piano teachers.
|
| At the risk of a vague digression, I'd also like to point out
| the difficulty the parent had in extracting exactly what
| their hand was doing outside of the context of "sitting in
| front of a piano, playing the notes in question". The whole
| point of fingerings being added to a difficult section --
| whether by the publisher or the performer -- is to aid the
| speedy automatization of that difficult section, with the aim
| of converting it into an uncontroversially straightforward
| section, like those in the rest of the piece that don't need
| fingerings. The best piano teacher I ever had, when working
| out fingerings for a difficult unlabelled section, would play
| it slowly a few times while looking at, and thinking about,
| her finger position. Then, she'd try to play it at as close
| to full speed as she could, and _observe what her hand was
| doing_. That is, leverage the automatization that fingerings
| are supposed to supplement. It 's not just piano teacher oral
| histories one should ought to digitize, it's also piano
| teacher premotor cortices!
| ajkjk wrote:
| It's usually not too hard to figure out a fingering that works.
| Just don't do anything that feels really bizarre or involves
| stretching in a weird way. As you get into harder music you
| have to have an open mind -- it's not unheard of to do weird
| finger-crossing (like having a scale end with 4-5-4) or playing
| a line with some of the notes covered by both hands or crossing
| hands. But for the most part it only takes a few seconds to
| find a natural way to play any particular passage.
| analog31 wrote:
| I don't play piano, but double bass and cello. A challenge that
| I see is that a great deal of sheet music is still not
| available in computer readable form. So there's no data, much
| less labelled data. And the pace of introducing new material is
| painfully slow.
|
| A problem may be that once fingering becomes intuitive, then
| there's no incentive to write it down, and you might not even
| be able to articulate why you chose a particular finger.
|
| I only think about it when I'm trying to work out a difficult
| passage, and then I'm usually thinking of intervals and shifts
| that afford me the best chance of playing in tune. Fortunately
| that's not an issue on the piano, but the idea of finding an
| ergonomic and less mistake-prone fingering is probably a
| similarity.
|
| On the other hand you might be surprised at how little it might
| cost to have a pianist or piano student number some music for
| you. At least on cello and bass music, when material has
| fingerings, they only need to indicate the ones that are non-
| obvious.
| tracyhenry wrote:
| This seems to provide a solution:
| https://github.com/marcomusy/pianoplayer
| aeontech wrote:
| This is really cool, and probably deserves its own HN
| submission :)
| tomerv wrote:
| The fingerings in the example in the readme are completely
| non-intuitive for me. I've played piano for a few years and
| never encountered such fingering. My guess is that the
| algorithm is optimizing for the wrong metric.
| spekcular wrote:
| What particular fingering looks odd to you? The only one I
| see, for the Invention in D, is basically the same as
| what's given in the Alfred edition of the inventions (and
| the Henle, and others...).
| raflemakt wrote:
| I just had a look at their example (BWV 775) and the
| first thing I noted was this: Second finger on the Bb in
| bar 8 makes no sense (there's no reason to not use the
| thumb there, especially as the following interval is a
| seventh).
|
| I hope the internet won't become flooded with sheet music
| that has bad auto-generated fingering, because it's
| something that you really trust. If I encounter some
| strange fingering I trust that the composer knew
| something that I don't that I maybe should work hard to
| apply to my own technique, obviously this will damage
| your technique if it's nonsensical.
| microtherion wrote:
| > Second finger on the Bb in bar 8 makes no sense
|
| It seems all the more illogical as very similar patterns
| occur in bar 2, 6, and 10, and the thumb is used every
| time there.
|
| (Not a pianist myself)
| oriolid wrote:
| > I understand there is not a One True Canonical Fingering for
| a given sequence of notes.
|
| True. For any given passage, there are at least two different
| One True Canonical Fingerings, and no matter what you do you
| will be Wrong and criticized without mercy for your ridiculous
| incompetence.
| mahathu wrote:
| The same applies to guitar fretboard where I think it's a
| really interesting graph theory problem. I think I saw someone
| post about it on HN a while ago.
| eredengrin wrote:
| It's similar but maybe slightly different. At least with bass
| guitar, the different positions you can play the notes will
| end up with the notes sounding slightly differently even if
| it's the same fundamental frequency (particularly open
| strings sound dramatically different, but even outside of
| that each string has its own sound). Also there might be a
| consideration about how the transition between two notes
| sounds which could be affected by whether the 2nd note is
| played on the same string or a different string than the
| first. I expect most (if not all) of these concerns would
| apply to any stringed instrument where the length of the
| string changes. It's not something a beginner would need to
| worry about generally but that might be why such a thing
| doesn't exist already - the pros all have their own unique
| methods for determining fingerings.
| analog31 wrote:
| Not to mention that there are multiple schools of thought
| on fingering. I'm a 1-2-4 player, likewise on double bass.
| tracyhenry wrote:
| Having the same struggle as an adult learning piano.
|
| How do highly-skilled pianist come up with fingering? Are there
| any kind of rules? I think there are. But it may be so
| automatic that they don't actively think about them.
|
| On the other hand, if we have a large quantity of high-quality
| sheets with fingering labeled, we can train a transformer which
| is supposed to learn the implicit rules pretty well.
| pitspotter2 wrote:
| (1) Keep a couple of pencils on the piano to write your
| fingering on the manuscript, (2) Feel free to ignore the
| editor's fingering if it's clunky for you, (3) No premature
| optimisation. Play through sections multiple times before
| deciding on fingering. If there are two apparent solutions to
| some fingering problem you might need to try both and then
| sleep on it, (4) Once you've decided on a fingering, stick to
| it, because otherwise you risk tripping up by regressing onto
| a previous fingering.
| tunesmith wrote:
| I have an undergrad degree in piano. The problem is that at
| higher levels it becomes more dependent on your own biology.
| Some of it is hand size, some of it is the layout of the
| tendons in your hands - some people get tendon click in ways
| that other people don't.
|
| Practicing includes the identification of the fingerings that
| can work for you. I don't think AI will ever get you all the
| way there. Sure, you can put in some beginning rules like
| don't cross your thumb under from a white key to a black key,
| but there's always going to be a fingering that is ideal for
| one pianist that won't work for another.
| tracyhenry wrote:
| Thanks for the insights.
|
| For casual adult playing though, I'd never reach" high
| level" playing. All I want is to play easy songs I like
| (I'm sure there are plenty of people like me), for which I
| think an automatic algorithm is pretty likely to work.
| yesenadam wrote:
| (Pianist here) But there is no objectively correct
| fingering, it's just what feels best/easiest/smoothest
| for you, personally. Having to read the fingering as well
| as the notes just seems to make it more complicated.
|
| Even for the simplest music, say a C major triad chord in
| the right hand - C-E-G - you could play it 1-3-5, 1-2-4,
| 1-2-3, 2-3-5 etc. I have big hands, so 1-3-5 feels the
| least comfortable of those, although it may be the
| 'automatic' choice. I agree with what others have said,
| that learning scales and arpeggios teaches you almost all
| you need to know about sensible fingerings on piano, and
| then having fingering pre-written on any music is
| entirely unnecessary. Books of scales and arpeggios have
| fingering written in, which you should learn.
| jedimastert wrote:
| > I think there are. But it may be so automatic that they
| don't actively think about them.
|
| That is, unfortunately for someone trying to learn, the
| entire goal of learning to play piano in a way. To turn the
| entire process from looking at a sheet (or hearing it in your
| head) to sounds happening to become essentially instinct.
|
| The best way to do this is repetition. This is what scales
| and arpeggios and excercises are for. By internalizing the
| scales you build up what feels correct, based on your hands,
| the length of your fingers, the different strengths and
| weaknesses of every single joint and bone and muscle and
| tendon. You have to use the repetition to find out what each
| transition and different motions _feel_ like, and interpolate
| that to what 's in front of you.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| The difficult jumps are usually write tge changes, but once
| there, it would seem redundant to keep numbering as it's
| obvious to someone at that level playing.
|
| If you're learning on your own as an adult, I highly
| recommend "Alfred's Basic Piano Course" book 1. You start
| from the very start, and by the end of the book, you'll be
| able to sight read
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I am leaning to play piano on a disguarded Hammond CMS-103.
| (Someone put this out by the curb with a free sign. It was
| originaly over 7 grand. Why did I include this. Because I'm
| shocked at what people toss.)
|
| Anyway, I labeled all the keys on my machine. C-D-G-F-G-A
|
| I memorized C for chopsticks. (C will always be the white key
| to the left of the two black keys.)
|
| I memorized F for Fork. (F will always be to left of three
| black keys.)
|
| I then found a song I liked on Google with chords.
|
| I picked a Ronny Millsap song, and played it over, and over
| again.
|
| Am I any good--hell no, but keeping piano/guitar simple
| helped me.
|
| Eddie Van Halen saw that his son was having a very hard time
| learning to play bass guitar. Wolfe told his father their are
| just too many chords. Eddie gave him some great fatherly
| advice.
|
| "You don't need to learn all the chords. 11 chords will allow
| you to play a lot of songs."
|
| A lot of Country, and rock, songs only have a few chords.
| aluminum96 wrote:
| It appears to be experience -- highly skilled pianists have
| played similar passages for pretty much any sheet music you
| could give them, and select fingerings from experience. This
| breaks down for music that's deliberately difficult to
| finger, or has usual repetition (think Ravel's Ondine, or
| Islamey).
| mkl wrote:
| Experience, sight-reading skill, and experimentation. My
| piano teacher used to play passages that needed fingering
| at full speed several times with different fingerings to
| find one that would work for me.
| iammisc wrote:
| I've played almost 25 years, including some professional.
|
| To answer you... I don't come up with fingering. I just do
| what my hands do. The fingerings in printed music are
| guidelines for pedagogy.
|
| Honestly I'm not even sure I explicitly practice fingering.
| It's just repetition. I frequently think I change it though.
|
| That being said as someone whos played so long it's like an
| extension of my arm, don't take my word for it. Experts are
| notoriously bad at explaining their techniques. I do think
| it's just practice though. No secret
| t_serpico wrote:
| You pick up relatively quickly fingerings that work. It's a
| matter of intuition and pattern matching.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| > ... and the notes on the sheet music have these numbers.
|
| I grew up with a piano in the house, have had sheet music for
| loads of instruments (played sax, piano, guitar, family had
| trumpet/clarinet/misc in house too). Have taken music theory
| classes, performed in bands in middle/high schools and college.
|
| I've never seen sheet music have 'fingering' info ever.
|
| Can someone point me to examples of what is being referred to
| here?
| a5aAqU wrote:
| > I've never seen sheet music have 'fingering' info ever.
|
| Classical guitar sheet music often has markings for
| fingering. See the first example on this page. http://lilypon
| d.org/doc/v2.21/Documentation/snippets/fretted...
| grey-area wrote:
| Beginner piano books often have fingering hints, it's just
| finger numbers beside the notes. It makes playing easier when
| you can't sight read but is not so useful after that. So it's
| not surprising you haven't seen it.
|
| I'd contend finger numbering is more about learning the notes
| of a piece easily for beginners rather than about actual
| fingering.
| aimor wrote:
| When I was young and learning piano my teacher would use
| pencil to write in the suggested finger number above notes.
| Thumb=1 pinky=5. This was a good reminder when reading the
| sheet music of where on the keyboard my hands should be
| positioned.
|
| Image search returns some examples: https://ddg.gg/?q=piano+s
| heet+music+fingering&ia=images&iax=...
| zarzavat wrote:
| It's also very common for string instruments, even at
| higher levels for difficult passages.
| loxias wrote:
| >Wish some HN coder genius would write a program that given
| sheet music as input, outputs the top 1-3 recommended
| fingerings for that music with explanations for which rules
| were applied.
|
| While I am NOT claiming to be "some coder genius", a program
| that does exactly this is something on my "projects to-do"
| list. My partner (who's improving her piano skills) keeps
| crying out for more sheet music with fingerings...
|
| Is there already a canonical set of rules to apply? My approach
| is to find fingerings through a sort of beam search, using a
| utility function for how hard it is to move between points in a
| 10 dimensional "finger space".
|
| I'm _sure_ this approach is Probably Wrong or at least
| Overkill, but it 's the most mathematically interesting way...
| :)
| mkl wrote:
| I think it's probably not overkill, and actually I think it
| may need to be more complex than that (though simple methods
| may prove to work well enough in practice, so try them
| first!). There's all sorts of stuff do do with momentum,
| wrist angle, position back or forward on the keys, etc., so
| it depends on where on the keyboard the notes are and what
| notes are at the same time or before and after them, and so
| on. To look for optimal fingerings I'd probably model a hand
| and arm geometrically, with fingers on notes being
| constraints for a trajectory through hand-arm space.
| loxias wrote:
| > actually I think it may need to be more complex than
| that...
|
| I like the way you think. _thumbs up_
| abecedarius wrote:
| Going the other way from mkl, I wonder if you don't really
| need beam search. Approximate as a finite state space, use
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viterbi_algorithm
| xhevahir wrote:
| I've seen some papers about optimizing piano fingering on
| arxiv before. They used various kinds of machine learning.
| Some papers dealing with guitar fingering, too.
| Syntonicles wrote:
| I was working on a similar project for nearly a year. I ran
| into trouble finding the correct fingerings and considered a
| very similar approach to the one you're taking - that is a
| simplified hand model with a cost-based heuristic.
|
| My personal interest was more along the lines of acquiring
| statistical data from expert play. I'm supremely interested
| in this problem from a mathematical standpoint, but the data-
| set did not exist and I shelved the project as I'm a novice
| player.
|
| I don't think the data-set would be very hard or very
| expensive to construct, given several experts and a program
| to generate note sequences. One could also sample from a
| large population of players, but then you have the bootstrap
| problem of attracting them before you offer enough value.
|
| There are some very promising pathways for this developing if
| you're interested in the statistical approach. In any case
| I'd love to keep up with your project if you continue on.
| dmlerner wrote:
| MIT OCW 6.006 talks about this (in much higher resolution than
| when I last saw!): https://youtu.be/TDo3r5M1LNo?t=2806
|
| An optimal fingering for n notes played one at a time by an F
| fingered hand can be found in nF^2 time, or I believe n(F^F)^2
| if you allow F note chords. "Optimal" in the sense of
| minimizing a cost function defined in terms of state
| transitions: c(t, f, t', f') is the cost of playing note t with
| finger f, followed by note t' with finger f'. E.g. c(a3, 1, b3,
| 2) < c(a3, 1, b3, 5) because it's unpleasant to scrunch your
| pinky (5) that close to your thumb. (Notably, t/t' do not mean
| t_i and t_j, two notes in the piece.) There are papers
| quantifying such cost functions, apparently.
|
| Side rant -
|
| Having grown up on violin, but learning piano as an adult, (and
| as a programmer), it kills me to index fingers from 1 (thumb)
| to 5 (pinky). Violin doesn't use the thumb, so the pointer to
| pinky are 1->4! Worse, as a Suzuki violinist, I hear (to some
| approximation) the number of the finger I'm thinking about
| while playing. Worse yet, I read bass by "adding two" notes to
| treble, so I get a nice off-by-two to think about with my off-
| by-one.
|
| I should, uh, probably get a teacher.
| prirun wrote:
| Fingering is largely a planning problem. If your RH thumb is on
| C and the next note is D, it's obvious you play it with 2. But
| if the next note is the B below, you'd have to do something
| awkward to play it. So having your RH thumb on C is wrong and
| you need 2 on that to play the B with your thumb. Unless the
| next note is the A below. :-)
|
| If you look ahead a bit at a line of music, you can sort of
| anticipate how many fingers you'll need in the direction you're
| going and that helps plan which ones to use. But as others have
| said, knowing how to play scales contributes a lot to your
| planning skills.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This is a prettified version of the original which is available
| here:
|
| http://www.pianopractice.org/ , suggest a link change.
| nuclearnice1 wrote:
| What do you see as the advantage of the "ugly" version?
|
| More up to date?
| kzrdude wrote:
| More canonical
| mkl wrote:
| http://www.pianopractice.org/ has the third edition from
| 2016, but this version is based on the second, from 2009. The
| third edition has many additions.
| jacquesm wrote:
| HN as a rule tries to link to the original source of
| something when it is available.
| tunesmith wrote:
| One of my favorite piano practice tricks was using one hand to
| teach the other. Not like how this book describes it, but using
| inverted patterns.
|
| In the first movement of Apposionata Op. 57, there's a pattern
| that goes from hand to hand, in groups of five. Difficult for the
| left hand. So my teacher had me learn it in the right hand too,
| but inverted.
|
| So in the left hand it went Db Eb G Eb Db. In the right hand that
| would be Eb Db A Db Eb, an octave up. Mirror image. You'd play
| both at the same time.
|
| It sounded awful (and then kind of cool after a while) but it
| worked really well.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Ah Apposionata! Crazy dynamics, passing one's hands over one
| another, a great showpiece. For those that don't play piano,
| the parent is essentially bragging, and is entirely justified
| in doing so. I feel compelled to upvote because the implication
| that it was successfully learned
|
| My favourite performance of it (not Lang Lang!):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEptNFzLpjk
| rossjudson wrote:
| This was insanely good. Thanks! She is remarkable.
| tunesmith wrote:
| I plead humility, I never learned the third movement all the
| way. :)
|
| EDIT: A couple notes about the above performance, for those
| interested:
|
| First, the section I was describing above is at 3:09.
|
| Second, and purely trivial - she has a mistake that is
| _extremely_ common among pianists. Everyone copies each other
| and they miss details. At the top of the figure that starts
| at 7:53, measure 219, there 's an 8th rest, not a 16th rest
| before the last three notes. Same with the following
| patterns. Both the Dover and Schnabel editions clearly show
| these eighth rests, but no one plays them.
|
| I suppose it's possible that Dover and Schnabel are both
| wrong and there's some autograph edition out there somewhere
| that has the 16th rest, but accidentally changing it to an
| 8th rest (and adjusting the following note values) in
| multiple places would be a really weird mistake to make in
| printing.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Stunningly useful even if you're a proficient pianist.
|
| Moreover, Chang's a techie--an experienced scientist--so there's
| no bullshit or unnecessary padding here. As such, he'll appeal to
| many HN readers who tinkle the ivories from time to time and
| who'd like to improve their technique.
|
| _P.S.: I found his piano tuning info /techniques most
| interesting. As a hacker who couldn't leave well enough alone and
| who managed to put my old upright well out of wack and sounding
| like bar piano out of an old Western movie, this info would have
| been absolutely invaluable._
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I'm going to try this out. I'm excited.
|
| I'm a piano beginner and my lingering anxieties are:
|
| 1. Am I building bad habits?
|
| 2. Am I learning in first gear without realizing it?
| packjaddison wrote:
| The most deadly bad habits are learning shortcuts that cause
| you to destroy your flexibility as a musician (example on
| piano: practicing a piece always at the same volume, so you
| would be unable to change the dynamics of the piece if it
| strikes you during performance), playing with tension (I have
| given myself multiple types of tendinitis and can attest to
| this), and repeating a mistake (more on this at the bottom).
|
| As for learning in first gear, don't be afraid to make
| mistakes, as long as you are thinking about the mistakes and
| analyzing them, rather than blindly repeating them as "a thing
| that is hard so I will work in it later while I approach the
| parts of the piece that I enjoy." The way to improve is by
| hurling yourself at something too difficult for you, and then
| slowly improving your technique once you are able to analyze
| why a particular bit of music you're working on is beyond you.
|
| To play a piece *perfectly, it is like wiping a glass window.
| You want to play the piece perfectly, every. single. time. So
| as you build the piece in your head, you cannot leave the
| equivalent of 'you missed a spot.' If your technique manages to
| be perfect, clear glass, the listener can 'see' through it to
| the music. It is dangerous that you already know the piece in
| your head, because your memory of the music can trump the
| mistake even as you are making it, because you hear 'how the
| piece should be' rather than how you're playing it. It's
| imperative to listen to recordings of your work as you polish
| it; only at the level of mastery does this become a superfluous
| tool. By listening to it back, you effectively can 'see' all
| the spots on the window that you are trying to wipe away.
|
| Finally, there are only two types of playing the piano:
| practice, which involves deliberate and labored cleaning-up of
| your weaknesses and mistakes, and playing, which is the
| exhibition of your efforts to make something beautiful and
| perfect. The book does address this; most amateurs enjoy
| playing more than they practice, so they play a lot and fool
| themselves into thinking they are practicing (I am very guilty
| of this) and rarely practice, so their playing sounds like they
| need more practice :)
| scottious wrote:
| Getting a teacher will without a doubt help with both of those
| things. Learning to play the piano is like trying to summit Mt.
| Everest while blindfolded. Technically speaking, you can do it
| alone but it's orders of magnitude easier with somebody guiding
| you. Sometimes all it takes is a nudge in the right direction.
| Other times they need to tell you specifically how to execute
| or understand an idea.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Definitely. Alas I'm not in a position to have that. Just
| yet, at least.
|
| Nevertheless, in terms of optimization in the context of
| going it alone, having resources on _how_ to learn rather
| than _what_ to learn is great.
| chkaloon wrote:
| Just read the section about temperament. Several errors just in
| that short section. Pretty much a mess of writing.
| arxanas wrote:
| This book has a lot of useful techniques regarding piano
| _practice_ , but it's light on details about _technique_ itself,
| such as finger positioning or how to engage which muscles. Does
| anyone have good resources towards this end?
| wildrhythms wrote:
| A book will never teach you which muscles to engage to play an
| instrument. Find a piano teacher if you want to learn correct
| posture and exercises to prevent injuring yourself and play
| properly.
| arxanas wrote:
| The piano teachers I've worked with don't seem to know enough
| about kinesiology to explain the muscle activity. On the
| contrary, it seems like the mental models they use to explain
| posture and exercises are primarily correlative, rather than
| causative. They can tell me that my posture is incorrect and
| what it should look like, but not what muscles to engage or
| why, or what angles to apply force at, and so on.
|
| I enjoyed reading a text about weightlifting exercises once.
| It's not a substitute for carrying out the exercises or
| having an observer comment, but the underlying principles
| could be used to explain my performance (or lack thereof) and
| extend to other exercises.
|
| I have my own notes on piano kinesiology which I've built up,
| which I refer to as necessary, but it would be easier if
| someone else had already done it, as it's clearly not the
| case that a book can't teach you which muscles to engage.
| bananabiscuit wrote:
| This book changed how I practice piano and also pretty much any
| other skill.
|
| I also really enjoy the tone of this book. I think the author
| might actually be manic. I can't find it now in this online
| version, but in my decade old printed edition I remember in one
| of the sections he describes a problem his book might cause in
| the world where by teaching people to tune their own pianos so
| well, you might be concerned that it would lead to putting piano
| tuners out of business. He then insists you should not worry
| about this imagined problem because his piano teaching method is
| so great, that there will be orders of magnitude more piano
| students thanks to his book, which would lead to ever higher job
| security for piano tuners/technicians as not every student will
| have the time or interest to actually tune their pianos, despite
| now knowing how to do so very well thanks to this book.
|
| Amazing stuff.
| maroonblazer wrote:
| From the last section in Chapter One, titled "Jazz, Fake Books,
| and Improvisation":
|
| > In summary, the process of learning this genre consists of
| practicing the chords and scales sufficiently so that, given a
| melody, you can "feel" the right and wrong chords that go along
| with it.
|
| That's only scratching the surface and will not get you playing
| jazz. Listening to and copying the greats - Bird, Monk, Evans,
| Coltrane, Rollins, et al. That's how you learn to play jazz.
|
| >It is clear that this genre is here to stay, has great
| educational and practical value, is relatively easy to learn, and
| can be a lot of fun.
|
| Relatively easy to learn??? Clearly the author hasn't or isn't
| playing jazz.
| poetaster wrote:
| It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. Aspiring to
| jazz for over 20 years. Satie is easier, if no less
| interesting.
| andkon wrote:
| Hmmm, what parts feel harder or not described above? In my
| experience it really is just about learning the scales and the
| chords, like the author mentions. Then you just have to let
| yourself make the connection. That can be really hard. But it's
| kinda about trusting that you know the necessary parts - which
| notes are playable.
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| are you a professional jazz pianist? there is more to jazz
| than pitches... theres time, vocab, rhythm, tone, etc etc
| which are the things you work on your whole life lol. and
| then theres the whole issue of playing _with other people_
| [deleted]
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Remember, different capacities.
|
| The author might be super talented compared to you. He might
| find easy what you call difficult, or his definition of easy is
| different to ours.
|
| Might~
| oriolid wrote:
| The author has had some piano lessons and later observed his
| kids' piano lessons. He certainly doesn't appear or claim to
| be a teacher or accomplished player.
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| As somebody who has been trying to play harpsichord for many
| decades on and off, I immediately jumped to the chapter on
| tuning. My longstanding opinion on ET is that any key is simply a
| shift of x semitones above and below C.
|
| Since publication when electronic aids were expensive, there's
| apps you can put on your phone for little or no money. Pitchlab
| Pro is excellent, but there may be patent issues in your
| jurisdiction. Also you now have to go through Amazon.
|
| These days YouTube offers different interpretations of just about
| everything. It gives you something to aim for.
| [deleted]
| cloogshicer wrote:
| It's sad that this book is written in such a self-validating tone
| (the very first sentence is "This is the best book ever written
| on how to practice at the piano!" for crying out loud), because
| the content is excellent.
|
| I read it a couple years ago and it completely changed how I
| approach practicing.
| rossjudson wrote:
| I agree; it is surprisingly good. And conceited...which is an
| acceptable tradeoff ;)
| rossjudson wrote:
| I'll also point out (to myself!) that the _third edition_ is
| a considerably better read. It 's available for free at the
| author's web site (http://www.pianopractice.org/).
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Could you elaborate on what in it helped change your practice
| approach? I tried reading it a while back and I couldn't really
| get past the style. I'm sure there is good advice in there, but
| it's very off putting due to the rambling style.
| cloogshicer wrote:
| The main takeaways for me were:
|
| - Do not try to practice the whole piece at once. Split it
| into pieces
|
| - Start by listening to the piece. If possible get multiple
| performances/recordings (usually easy with YouTube) to get a
| feel for different interpretations.
|
| - Take the piece and number each measure from 1 to finish.
| Figure out where the repetitions are, which measures are the
| easiest, which the hardest (this will differ for left and
| right hand usually), where key/timing changes happen
|
| - Practice both hands separately, start with a single measure
| that is one of the hardest (if need be you can split it up
| even more). Overlap the measures slightly so that you also
| practice the transitions. Play as slowly as you need to so
| that you can play expressively from the very beginning
| (albeit with only one hand). As you learn the measure,
| increase speed, but only so much that you can still play
| expressively. Switch hands once your hand gets tired.
|
| - Since one hand (usually the left hand) is often much easier
| to play in many measures or even entire pieces, it will get
| much less practice. To offset this, make sure to also
| practice the hardest measure for each hand first. Sometimes
| you might even need to practice the left hand from a
| different piece (if the current piece only has easy stuff),
| while the right hand is resting.
|
| - Keep practicing all the measures in the piece in this
| fashion (with one hand) until you can play them expressively
| even at higher speeds than the piece is usually played at.
|
| - Now is the time to put the hands together. Use the same
| method of practice as described above (splitting up the piece
| into overlapping measures, starting with the hardest one),
| only this time use both hands.
|
| There are other nuggets of wisdom in the book, for example:
|
| - How to properly practice playing chords
|
| - Very fast notes played in succession are really just
| "imperfectly played chords", where your hand is already in
| the position of playing the chord, except one or more fingers
| are slightly lower than the others as your hand goes down.
| Thinking of it this way, you're not trying to speed up
| individual notes, but "slow down" a chord.
| ecdavis wrote:
| > As you learn the measure, increase speed, but only so
| much that you can still play expressively.
|
| This summary omits one of the major themes of the book.
| Granted, the discussion of speed is quite nuanced. See
| 1.II.13: https://fundamentals-of-piano-
| practice.readthedocs.io/chapte...
|
| One relevant excerpt, though large chunks of the book are
| dedicated to this topic:
|
| > To vary the speed, first get up to some manageable
| "maximum speed" at which you can play accurately. Then go
| faster (using parallel sets, etc., if necessary), and take
| note of how the playing needs to be changed (don't worry if
| you are not playing accurately at this point because you
| are not repeating it many times). Then use that motion and
| play at the previous "maximum accurate speed". It should
| now be noticeably easier. Practice at this speed for a
| while, then try slower speeds to make sure that you are
| completely relaxed and absolutely accurate. Then repeat the
| whole procedure. In this way, you ratchet up the speed in
| manageable jumps and work on each needed skill separately.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| > Do not try to practice the whole piece at once. Split it
| into pieces
|
| This has been my biggest ever piano hack. I now practice
| bar-by-bar and don't move on until I'm happy, and its taken
| my practice to a whole new level
| blobbers wrote:
| How is this a piano hack ? This is the basics of how to
| learn any song.
|
| What's the alternative approach? Repeatedly play the
| entire song making mistakes at the crux, but insisting on
| playing the easy parts and pushing through the difficult
| ones?
| compiler-guy wrote:
| That is how many people practice. Beginning to end every
| time. Maybe slowly, but muddle through the hard parts and
| blast through the easy parts. Maybe, maybe, replay a
| measure where you made a mistake a couple of times until
| you get it right exactly once and then continue.
|
| This deliberate one-measure-until-it's-perfect isn't
| something many folks learn on their own.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| This is how I've always played until last month. Made a
| mistake? Fumble through but never really focus 20 times
| perfect on a single bar like I do now.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| This is how every piece of music was taught to me since
| grade 5 when I first started learning an instrument.
| karmelapple wrote:
| I'm a little surprised to hear this as being somewhat
| unique to this book. I took lessons for years and this
| was a standard technique my teacher encouraged.
| jacquesm wrote:
| As a kid aged 9 this was what my teacher recommended me
| to do as well. (I suck at piano, but that was a pretty
| good teacher). This book is useful but it is way over the
| top in pretending to be unique or groundbreaking, it's
| more a case of the author being somewhat ignorant about
| what common practice is, something you can't really fault
| him for since he didn't actually play piano. What struck
| me as odd was that he believed that the teacher that his
| daughter had was somehow unique in her approach, whereas
| it all seemed pretty standard and 'common sense' to me.
|
| The end result is a book that is useful, but that could
| do with some serious editing by an advanced pianist or at
| least someone more knowledgeable about various piano
| teaching practices.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Yeah, if only my first teach taught me this... It would
| have saved me a hell lot of time!
| the_other wrote:
| Intuitively, I can see how this helps accurate playing
| and deep learning of a piece. I imagine it builds better
| skills in the long term.
|
| However, it seems like it would be a motivation killer.
| I'd have thought there was more emotional value in
| getting through the whole piece, to hear each part in
| context, to "follow the story".
|
| Can you talk about this method's interaction with your
| motivation? Would it suit an absolute beginner?
|
| (I'm commenting from my imagination rather than
| experience. I almost always rely on a sequencer to play
| for me ;-) )
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| For me, I want to play as technically perfect as I
| possibly can, so I guess the motivation is already built-
| in to my aims. For others, yeah this would be draining,
| especially for pieces that you're not actually interested
| in vs for me I just want to play whatever is in front if
| me regardless of genre
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've codified this method (and a couple of others) in
| pianojacq.com, the 'slide/easy slide/normal and
| slide/perfect' methods are specifically meant to automate
| the process of breaking up a piece in overlapping
| segments. At the end of a run (the end of the piece) it
| extends the segment length by doubling it and then loops
| back to the beginning until you can play the piece. It
| _really_ works and the speed with which you progress
| through a piece is a huge improvement compared to some
| other ways in which you could approach the problem, but
| it is not without downsides, it tends to demotivate
| people that 'just want to play', which is fine (there
| are options for those people as well). Practice is
| fundamentally different from performance, and it would be
| good for all aspiring pianists to have this tattooed onto
| their foreheads in mirror image so that you are reminded
| each morning.
| spangry wrote:
| That all seems like pretty solid advice. Chunking the piece
| up but practicing overlapping parts is particularly good -
| if you neglect the overlapping part you can end up with
| obvious 'seams' in the piece when you put it all together.
|
| Listening to the piece first is always helpful, but be
| careful not to become overly dependent on learning by ear -
| it can cripple your sight reading in the long run. Same
| goes for separate hand practice. While both of these can
| speed up your progress early on, becoming a good sight
| reader pays dividends later on.
| prirun wrote:
| I was a terrible sight reader. My teachers never taught
| me is that sight-reading is a skill that has to be
| practiced, just like other piano skills.
|
| I bought a ton of books in this series and started
| spending time every day playing them:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Evans-Jazz-Piano-
| Solos/dp/145840...
|
| I'm classically trained but really enjoy playing these.
| They're hard enough to be challenging yet not something
| you have to practice for months like many classical
| pieces. An especially good thing for sight reading is
| that instead of lots of fast passages like in a lot of
| classical music, there are lots of chords where you have
| to read and play 8 notes on a beat. With time (I did this
| for about a year), you start reading entire chords by
| sight rather than individual notes.
|
| Working to get better at sight reading makes learning new
| music much more enjoyable. You could probably do it by
| reading a lot of classical music below your playing level
| too, but for me, the jazz stuff is a nice break and
| something different.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| That's very good advice if one's well disciplined. The
| trouble is many of are not and it's why we need a good
| teacher to keep us on the straight-and-narrow.
|
| My teacher was forever nagging me to _" play what's
| written, not my interpretation of it"._ She'd also tell me
| to _" go home and practice the actual lesson",_ boring
| Czerny scales or such, _"...and not muck around and waste
| time playing songbook stuff that I liked the sound of "._
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Right now I'm working with a jazz/improvisation teacher
| and he has me play through a piece once strictly as it's
| written, once again strictly but singing the melody, and
| then the third time through with improvisation on the
| melody. Sheet music is thrown away as soon as possible.
| Of course jazz compositions are much shorter than
| classical pieces, but I do think the premise of getting
| it down strictly and slowly opening it up is a great way
| to practice.
| amelius wrote:
| > "This is the best book ever written on how to practice at the
| piano!" for crying out loud
|
| It fits with the current zeitgeist, where clickbait is
| everywhere, even in respected newspapers.
| rossjudson wrote:
| I am pretty sure the current zeitgeist is to do the minimum
| possible amount of observation/research before passing
| judgement on something.
| rackjack wrote:
| People have been doing this for decades, probably
| centuries... there was a book on shorthand (Eclectic
| shorthand) I found on the Internet Archive and the first
| couple of pages were extolling its virtues compared to the
| others. The difference is that you're seeing it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It was written long ago.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes. But maybe it explains why it resurfaces now.
| [deleted]
| jmchuster wrote:
| That's a preface by the individual who found this book only
| after years of research and then decided to post it online.
| This is not the author of the book talking about their own
| book.
| cloogshicer wrote:
| Oh, you might be right.
|
| I downloaded the book a long time ago as a PDF from
| somewhere. It also included this sentence and it stuck out to
| me because it was so weird. The rest of the tone of the book
| felt in the same style to me so I never second guessed it,
| but you might be correct.
| mkl wrote:
| Probably from the canonical site,
| http://www.pianopractice.org/, where a more up to date
| edition is available for free. The second edition (that the
| submission link is based on) _does_ contain that sentence,
| so it is from the original author. The third edition does
| not.
| jimmyvalmer wrote:
| This book claims to be the answer to "I am a diligent student so
| why do I suck?" Having skimmed the first thirty pages, I can
| assure you the question remains unanswered (the author, being
| talented, really doesn't get it from our plebe view).
| telesilla wrote:
| I struggle with learning pieces by heart. It's my greatest regret
| that I need sheet music to enjoy the piano, some 40 years later
| since lessons began in typical classical format. My sight reading
| is impeccable. Any advice welcome.
| scottious wrote:
| I envy the fact that you can read music so well! I'm the
| opposite of you: I play by ear and I am mediocre at reading
| music.
|
| I started piano lessons 9 years ago when I was 27. I had a
| background in marching band where we were not allowed to carry
| sheet music with us on the field for 4 years in college
|
| I think that experience with marching band really forced me to
| develop my ear and learn to memorize music. Also I was terrible
| at reading music so I used my ear (which also wasn't that good)
| to fill in the gaps.
|
| Eventually I became proficient enough at this that I could just
| listen to the other saxophone players and play what they were
| playing. I didn't know anything about keys, chords, intervals,
| or anything. I just played what I heard because I had no other
| choice.
|
| Perhaps putting yourself in similar situations would be
| helpful. For example, I'm now a keyboard player in a band and I
| have to be able to learn a song that I've never heard at a
| moment's notice. That kind of pressure would force anybody to
| develop their ear because sheet music is just not as useful in
| that kind of setting.
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