One of my adult students was asking tonight for some help planning his practice time. He is preparing for his Grade 8 piano exam. He is an engineer, a spreadsheet kind of guy. I'm sympathetic. Here is what we discussed. 
 
Warmup with sight reading. Use a metronome! Get into the zone.
 
Now start practicing
 
Technique with a 2-minute timer. Switch activities every 2 minutes = 15 minutes

• 1 scale
• 1 tonic chord played solid and broken
• V7 chord solid and broken
• I and V7 arpeggio

Practice one short section to perfection =15 minutes

Theory =10 minutes

Ear Training = 10 minutes

Review completed piece or pieces 10 minutes 

BOOM! one hour of accomplishment

This may work for you. 
​
David

1. Listen everyday to the professional recordings supplied with your books. As the Bugs Bunny Theme song “This is it” says, “We know every part by heart.”
2. Record yourself playing. Video is best. Play, watch, make notes on what needs work, repeat the process. Evaluate your playing. No mindless repeating. No grinding: grinding just creates a pile of dust.
3. Play your technique with a metronome. Use a comfortable tempo. Make a note of the tempo played by date. Increase the tempo incrementally.
4. Memorise the music and technique at your earliest convenience. Theatrical rehearsals get serious when the actors are “off the book.” 
5. Spend one-third of your time on theory, ear training, and sight reading. The pillars of understanding and long-term accomplishment.

If I can help you, call me.
 
David 

Learning to love how we sound.

In the 1921 teaching manual “Principles of Pianoforte Practice” by James Friskin, he asserts that most students “simply do not hear all the sounds they produce”. I concur. Friskin would be amazed, I’m sure, at the technological tools available to students today, namely YouTube and phones. YouTube for inspiration, artist impression, and guidance. The phone for recording and evaluating their progress.
It would be interesting to discuss together what students continue to miss when they grind instead of plan. How they often bore themselves silly with endless repetitions, hoping for a musical miracle instead of exploring the range of interpretations on their pieces.

First level: Before practicing, listen to a professional performance. Then record yourself playing and listen back. How did it go? Jot down notes and annotate the tricky bits, like fingerings, into your score.

Second level: Before practicing, listen to a professional performance. Mark your score with notes on what you heard: Tempo changes, phrasing, articulations. All and everything you hear. Now, with the recorder going, play from your notes. Listen and analyse the results. Repeat.

Third level: Repeat level two working from a different performance/musician. Compare the different interpretations.
Sometime students don’t realize that the notation tells you what to play, but not how it goes. “How it goes” comes from experience listening to and witnessing great performances. “How it goes” also develops from our study of music history, harmony, and rudiments.

Now the hard part, learning to love how we sound. It takes a certain amount of fortitude to listen to ourselves. Especially in early music study. It can be discouraging. But push on in faith. You will be the first to hear improvement and progress in your playing. Over time you will accumulate hundreds, even thousands of practice recordings. (In 12 years of playing drums I’ve 248 Gigs of mp3 recordings) It’s fun and gratifying to hear how one sounded a decade earlier, or even last year.

If I can help you learn to practice effectively, call me.
​
David

Jazz is primarily about rhythm and articulations, those tricky bits that are impossible to notate. Harmony is like math, fun for many and much easier to get your head around for most. Or so beginners believe. But when the moment of truth arrives at a jam session theory goes mostly out the window and instinct kicks in. Adam Maness explores this theme in his video "Why do I still suck". 

Jorge Mabarak, on Facebook, puts it well, theory is a tool. I propose that rhythm is the key. And ear training is the secret to unlocking the mystery.

Here is a practice time breakdown that may work for you:

• Fifty percent time spent improving your instrumental skills. Find a skilled teacher. Put in the work. To paraphrase Wynton, "learn to play your d#%$@# instrument".
• Twenty-five percent time working on ear training: transcriptions and memorizing tunes. How many tunes can you play from memory? Ten would be a good start and realistic goal for most jazz beginners. Can you sing the melodies of the tunes you are trying to memorize? Can you sing the chord roots, in time and in pitch, of these tunes? Can you sing the arpeggiated 7th chords found in these tunes?
• Twenty percent jamming with a least one other musician. This is a key component of learning jazz. Jazz is a team sport. For instance, if you are a pianist, call a jazz guitar teacher, they have students who need to jam with others too. Set up a session. Don't be shy. As Adam Maness emphasizes "time for jazz swagger".
• Five percent jazz theory

 
If I can help, please call me. 

David

Ten things to do when learning a new piece of music that will simplify the process. 
​

1. Listen to a professional recording while following the score. It is much simpler to read a score when you know what it is supposed to sound like. The music is not fully represented by the notation.
2. Listen some more. “How do I get the sound in my head out of these black dots” is much easier than, “I wonder what this sounds like?” Notice the deviations from the score that the professionals present. Mark in any nuances with dynamics and phrasing you might hear.
3. Observe the fingering suggestions in your score. I would only change the fingering in the cases of obvious error or small hands.
4. Practice slowly at first.
5. If the rhythms are difficult. Clap and count aloud the difficult passages.
6. Explore the score further, marking the form and cadences. Notice how the professionals play a cadence. You will want to do the same. If this step is new to you call me, I can help.
7. Practice with dynamics from the first reading. That way you avoid having to relearn the piece later. In my experience as a piano examiner, under stress candidates abandon the dynamic plan and resort to their pre-dynamic performance. I know this because I had the teachers score in front of us. Dynamics were underlined, high-lighted, and punctuated in these scores coast to coast. The more frantic and emphatic the marking the less chance the candidate would execute them.
8. Practice in small chunks. That is phrase by phrase, or if the passage is particularly difficult, measure by measure. Consider:
   1. Fingering
   2. The required movement to realize your artistic impression: slur gestures, arm weight, rotation, and so on.
   3. Dynamics
   4. Balance
   5. Flow
9. Record yourself. Many students find this uncomfortable. I say fight the resistance. The feedback one gets from hearing immediately your progress or lack thereof, will save you years of wasted effort. Step one above helps prepare us to evaluate our playing.
10. Take breaks. My attention span is short, yours is likely to be short too. So, prepare a number of activities when practicing.
    1. Practice the scales and chords required for your piece.
    2. Listen some more to the recordings.
    3. Jump back in.

If I can help, call me.
 
David

1. Effective Practicing For Musician By Benny Greb. Practical steps with humorous stories. I love this book. 
2. The Musician's Way by Gerald Klickstein. For serious studious students with big ambitions. I love this book.
3. The Art Of Practicing by Madeline Bruser. A gentle wholistic approach
4. Technique Of Percussion By George Lawrence Stone. Classic Old School. Stories back to the US Civil War Era to the 1960's. 
5. On Piano Playing by Gyorgy Sandor. A classic out of print book on specific piano techniques for advanced students and teachers. I've a well worn copy.
6. The drummer's Lifeline by Peter Erskine and Dave Black. I usually avoid material with the words "quick fixes, hacks" etc. But I've made an exception for this fine book. 

David

​ 

1. Sight reading new material. Step outside your normal area of focus. Explore some new corners of Jazz and Classical music.
2. Written piano music, short pieces. 1-2 pages. Work up a few to performance standard. Builds discipline and focus. 
3. Listening to music in a focused way. Ask yourself, “what’s going on here?” Read a book on music jazz appreciation.
4. Jamming with friends is an ideal activity.
5. Reading about jazz. Downbeat magazine. Track down on YouTube the folks you read about in Downbeat. 
6. Start memorising your core repertoire. Using play along software, play the melodies with the app piano, then play the chords without the app piano, then add the hands together. 
   1. C jam blues
   2. Autumn leaves
   3. Killer joe
   4. Blue bossa
   5. Satin doll
   6. Summertime 
   7. Mac the knife

 
Autumn leaves: walking in 2 with iReal pro playing the piano chords and drums. You play the bass and the melody along.
 
See you in September.
 
David

Lockdown 2.0 Oh boy!
The article above supplies some great ideas to keep us practicing. I invite you to click the photo to read the article. 

​David

It is two months before the big date. What do you do? How do you practice?
​
Some thoughts:

1. Listen to great music, piano music, music in the style of your program. Over time you will begin to recognise the difference between good, great, and indifferent playing.
2. Practice technique using a metronome. If this is difficult; start by playing the scale in whole notes with the metronome playing in quarter notes. Count aloud. When this stabilises play in half notes, then quarter, and finally 8th notes. Counting aloud the entire time. This step may take some patient work over a week or two.
3. Listen to professional recordings of your program before practicing. You need the intimate familiarity of the music to the same degree we all know happy birthday. You want to easily know when an error occurs in practice.
4. Work daily on the sight-reading book exercise, pencil in hand, answering all questions. The text is the lesson.
5. If you ear testing is weak, use the online service. Codes are in inside the back cover of the sight reading book.
6. Self assess your progress by recording yourself playing your program. Note in the score on playback where the trouble bits are found. Start practicing there. Playing the pieces top to bottom before they are completed is a waste of time.
7. Do some more listening to great music.
8. Back to the theory book. The pillars of music learning are aural skills, sight-reading skills, and theory knowledge. Excelling in these 3 areas will build your confidence and put a bounce in your step.
9. Back to technique.
10. Finally, intersperse other pieces you enjoy playing into your practice time for 2 reasons. One, to remind yourself you really can play the piano. Two, playing time, clocking the hours. The 10,000-hour rule has been heavily criticized by folks more knowledgeable than me, but it still gives us a good benchmark. The steps above respond to those criticisms: Hours are fine, but how you spend your hours is more important.

​David

Listen to great music. A musical truism: "we are who we listen to".

Try this on your next new piece. 

1. Find a professional recording.
2. Listen a few times while watching the score.
3. With pencil in hand work out the fingering for both hands on nearly every note. You can skip repeated notes.
4. Now back to the recording. Listen to the 1st phrase, typically 2-4 measures. Using the fingering you wrote down. mimic what you heard. Make adjustments to match the expression of the professional. If you are playing jazz, make adjustments of the notation to match the recording. The recording is correct. Fakebooks are approximations. 
5. Continue to the end of the piece, painstakingly working out one phrase at a time. 
6. Next day start over. It will go quicker today.
7. As you go along, record your phrases and listen back. Are you shaping and articulating correctly. Don't worry about the tempo. That will come later. 

Have fun. 

David

How do I become a great pianist?

An honest question if a tiny bit naïve. If you are in a great hurry, it is going to be difficult. If you are looking for a “hack” or some shortcut, I don’t know any.

For centuries pianists have followed a standard set of proven practices.

1. Humility is good. Musical skill is earned through consistent effort and direct coaching.
2. Patience is required. Learning to play the piano is a physical skill. It takes time. Even though the ten-thousand-hour rule has been debunked, it is a good metaphor.
3. Listening to piano music. Through listening, aural and theory study, and reflection we raise our level of sophistication which is needed to play well. Student's listening experience is often as a music fan, not as a musician. We musicians listen with intent. Starting with the question, “what is going on here?”
4. Find a teacher who has travelled the road you aspire to experience.
5. Learn to practice. Become a student of practice. Read books, watch videos, read blogs, take courses on how to practice. 

I'm available to help and encourage you on your journey. Just call me. 

David

Classical piano Grades 1-2

Is it possible to make progress in 10 minutes? Of course. At some point longer practice sessions will be required, but with planning and focus you can accomplish a lot in a shorter time. Remember playing an instrument is fun when we succeed at it. And can clearly see our progress over time.

What practice is:

Learning through thoughtful repetition how to play our instrument so that over time we progress towards our goal however modest or lofty that may be. The goal is to accomplish a micro step forward each time we sit to practice. The size of this micro step varies on the time available.

What practice is not:

Messing around playing stuff we know is not practicing, it is playing. This is not a negative, but the reason we practice in the first place. In conclusion don’t feel guilty messing around, just don’t confuse it with practicing. Fool around without guilt. Have fun.

Session 1

• Turn audio recorder on
• One scale and chord set, metronome at a slow tempo you can comfortably manage, playing one note per click, listen back
• One short section of a piece
  • Listen first to the professional recording that comes with your book
  • One hand, then the other counting aloud, listen back
• Play a bit from a favourite piece if time permits

Session 2

• Turn audio recorder on
• One scale and chord set, metronome at a slow tempo you can comfortably manage, playing one note be click, listen back
• One short section of a piece
  • Listen first to the professional recording that comes with your book
  • One hand, then the other counting aloud, listen back
• Do all or part of a section from the sight-reading book.

Session 3

• Turn audio recorder on
• One scale and chord set, metronome at a slow tempo you can comfortably manage, playing one note be click, listen back
• One section of a piece
  • Listen first
  • One hand, then the other counting aloud, listen back
• Sing your assigned intervals

 
Have fun. 


David

The "breakfast piano minutes" are usually created in about 10 minutes 1st thing in the morning. 

Students often believe that I must have started early in life with lots of natural talent. Let me clear this up.

I am proof practice works.

1. I started playing piano in high school.
2. I resisted structure, changing teachers yearly. I was fired by more than one.
3. I loved to sight-read music, not practice it.
4. I played in one piano recital in my whole life. That was enough for me.
5. I played pop music 90% of the time.
6. I loved creating my own music.
7. I wrote for the school band.
8. I started bands by age 13-14. I was a sad self-taught guitarist in the beginning before I discovered jazz. Then I formed and wrote for an 8-piece band every week in our rec room at home. I was also now the pianist.
9. I was mediocre in high school band class.  I owe the saxophone an apology. 
10. I had a tin ear and could not hit a pitch on the piano. I've no idea how I tuned my guitar.
11. I was a very enthusiastic music student, just an undisciplined unfocused pianist, without the gift of self knowledge.
12. My ability to memorise music was at best rudimentary.
13. I had terrible stage fright around the piano for several years.

 
I made it into Berklee with 4 years of piano under my belt, but it included 2 years of professional gigging in rock and country bands in the North Bay region. A lot of gigs. Plus, my basement jazz band. That made the difference I figure. But who knows, recordings do not exist.
 
I got through Berklee as a composition major. I thought about being a performance major, but that required serious practice. Something I was not interested in. But I continued playing gigs during those years. A lot of gigs. Some exciting gigs. I was a busy journeyman. I could sight-read just about anything. I showed up on time ready to play. I was pleasant to be around. Where did that put me in the Berklee pecking order? Turns out near the top. I made it one year to the number 2 band.
 
So, when did I learn to practice?
 
Age 42!
 
Signed up for my Grade 10 exam. My very first piano exam ever. I couldn't fake it. I had to play it. I put a couple of thousand hours of focused practice in. I read every book I could find on how to practice. How many books? Chapters bookstore sent me Christmas present. That is how many.

• I tried implementing what I was reading.
• I did everything my teachers asked of me.
• I did not push back against a curriculum written in the 19th century!
• My life was transformed. I finally really learn to play well. It progressed further during my ARCT. 
• I can help you find your path too. Call me. 

 
David

1. Spend some time exploring the history of jazz. Here is a good place to start. The great courses can be found on https://www.audible.ca/ for $14.00. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/elements-of-jazz-from-cakewalks-to-fusion.html 
2. Another exercise, listen to 3 different versions of a piece in your repertoire by 3 artists. Listen enough to each performance until you can sing along and mimic the performance of the melody on the piano. 
3. Someday my prince will come with Miles Davis: see attached listening sheet.
4. General piano skills. For sight reading try this. First page is free. https://www.musicnotes.com/search/go?w=Thanks+for+the+memory&from=header 
5. Play a chorus or two with Red Garland on C jam blues.
6. Functional jazz Skills

• voicings
• scales
• chords systems
• sight reading chords
• Repertoire

​Have Fun, see you in September. 

David

How many hobbies can one-person juggle?
 
Depends. I juggle one. I had two, but Covid19 put an end to that.

​I’ve students who try to juggle 3 or more while holding down jobs, spouses, children, and life. They often looked stressed. How do my less stressed students do it? Here are some tactics they follow:
​

1. They decide on just one hobby at a time. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun.” They prioritise what to tackle based on where they are in life. Marathons in their 30’s, night school in their 40’s, piano in their 50’s, gardening in their 60’s. You get the idea.
2. Some give themselves permission just to have fun and take it a day at a time. If you are an old-fashioned type A driver this might be take some work, but it is possible. My other hobby was ballroom dancing until Covid19. Friday nights we would just show up and have fun in a low stress class. No practicing until the following week. It took 2 years to get to level 2. We were having fun.
3. They give up something to make room for something new.

BTW, my hobby is drumming. It is now becoming a business. There will be more to this story in the years to come.

Do you remember why you were attracted to piano in the first place? Put up a post it note on the piano to keep it front of mind.

Cheers,
 
David

A plan is great if you can find your materials when it's time to practice. A plan is great if you can have some quiet alone time to focus and have fun. 

Here are ten tips on one aspect of success: an organized workspace. 

1. A tuned piano
2. Good lighting
3. All books and music within reach
4. A pencil and eraser to mark the scores
5. A journal to make notes
6. Your teacher's notes from class
7. An audio recorder (your phone will do)
8. Phone is in airplane mode
9. YouTube is ready for reference
10. You've made a general plan on what needs immediate attention

Have a productive session.

​David

1. Listen to a classic piece of jazz to get in the mood.
2. Warm up with scales, jazz chords both solid and broken, and for advanced players arpeggios, All in a logical and thoughtful manner. Don’t rush through this step. Use a metronome.
3. Practice a jazz etude from a jazz theory book or YouTube video.
4. Play over a feel-good piece of your repertoire before getting down to the difficult work. Remind yourself of your progress to date.
5. Practice transposing a simple lick into as many keys as you know.
6. Spend a little time analysing a jazz standard, mark the form and the ii-V progressions, noting which keys they relate to.
7. Pick a tune from your repertoire to focus on. Play the melody with a recording, trying to mimic what you hear. Better yet learn a melody by ear.
8. Play through the broken chords on each chord of the piece.
9. Practice the scales associated with each chord.
10. Mimic the recording again.
11. Practice comping the chords first with a metronome, then with the recording. Transpose as needed.
12. Listen to some more jazz.
13. Sight read chord progressions from your fake book.
14. Finish up playing some completed repertoire to keep it fresh. Record this portion of practice and listen back.
15. Don’t follow this list in order, bounce around.

Have Fun,
​
David Story
 
 

Practicing in the times of the Covid-19 outbreak is going to be a challenge for some.

Some lucky people will use the extra time to jump right in. For this group I suggest ramping up practice amount slowly to avoid injury. The book, “The Musician’s Way” suggests increasing practice time 10% per week to avoid problems. Warming up before hand with a short cardio and stretching routine will also be beneficial.

For those too stressed to practice and/or focus try these tips:

1. Accept the situation, don’t beat yourself up. From March 15th to March 20th, I didn’t do much of anything except take care of this business. Last 2 days, I’ve started up practicing again.
2. Get off social media for a few hours and just listen to music. Reading the latest opinions of social media educated epidemiologists is going to make things worse.
3. Cut down on caffeine or ramp it up, you know what will work for you.
4. Approach your instrument and just sit with it for a few moments. Don’t play. Think about a happy moment you’ve had playing music in the past.
5. Start playing your favourite pieces, forget your assignments, have some guilt free fun.

Good luck,

David

“How good do you want to be?” Start with this question followed with: “how should I spend my time?” 

Success will depend on the depth and breathe of your practice. My most successful students have made peace with time and possibility. Yes, time counts, but patience and realistic expectations count for more.

Learning has piano follows a well trodden path. You just must follow it to succeed. There is no secret. Just time and hard work. We must be realistic with the fact that course correction will be needed regularly. Life is messy.

So:

1. Make some time
2. Find a teacher
3. Allocate your resources of time and money
4. Organize your practice space
5. Attend some concerts
6. Become a music student

Call me, I can help.
 
David

I've got happy students who practice more than an hour a day, others who practice an hour a week. Because their time matches their realistic expectations, they are happy. Could they all practice more? Of course. I could too. 

• Thoughtful, focused work over an extended period of time. 
• Access to resources: lessons, instruments, and  experiences
  
• Health
  
• Patience 
  
• Ambition
  
• Time
  
• Determination
  

My thoughts this week. 

David

"How good do you want to be?" A quick and snappy musicians answer. A gentler piano teacher question is, “what do you want to accomplish?"

Some benchmarks:

RCM levels 1 to 4: 45 minutes a day
RCM levels 5 to 8: 60 minutes a day
RCM levels 9 and above: 90 minutes plus

This amount of time is sufficient to cover all that needs to be done. 

• technique
• etudes
• repertoire
• theory or ear training on alternate days
• sight reading

Some musicians require more or less time. But all accomplished musicians have put in the time. 

Best regards,
David Story

PS: I'd like to thank my colleague Becky Yuan and former teacher Leon Karan for input on the numbers. 

​Becky Yuan: Mississauga http://beckyyuan.com/
Leon Karan: Hamilton http://www.leonkaran.com/

A quick coffee video on practicing from pianist magazine. 

A former student came by today of a lesson after a one-year absence. He played some stride piano. He sounded so much better than I remember. So, I start asking some questions about what he has been up to in the practice room.

He said:

1. I really wanted to improve
2. I practice with a metronome
3. I listen to great players
4. I practice a lot
5. I practice my scales and stuff

​Yeah student!

​Cheers,
 
David