Why do we practice slow to go fast?

Good question.

We all play like we practice. So, if we practice carefully, thoughtfully, and methodically our odds of playing expressively, confidently, at a steady tempo go up significantly. Alas the opposite is true too. 

Let's consider one aspect of this: Slow practice.

1. Starting slowly allows us to consider our motions at the piano.
2. Slow allows us to play steadier while learning. Remember playing quickly and stumbling about may make our stumbling get embedded in our playing. 
3. Speed up bit by bit as your skill with the scale, chord, arpeggio, etude, phrase, or piece increases.
4. To play fast, you will have to practice fast. It is good practice to have your moves together before sprinting through the music. 

David

Playing the piano is much easier when the scales and chords have become automatic in our hands. Below is the fingering chart for all 3 note chords like C major and G minor. I've cropped this image from a student's notes.

If I can help you, call me.

David

Some days and some weeks are going to be difficult. Here are some suggestions that immediately come to mind you might consider to dampen down the practice room blues. These comments are aimed at beginners. 

1. Start on a high note by playing pieces you know.
2. Next play your scales 5X each.
3. Review your chords.
4. Mess around on your DAW.
5. Work on 4 measures of your new piece. Clap the rhythm while counting aloud, then play hands separately, then hands together. Record yourself, listen back. Repeat as needed. Stick with it until that short section is completed and secure. Remember start slowly.
6. Finish with a favorite piece. 

If I can help you, call me. 

David

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

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

I found it very helpful over the holidays to practice with a video camera recording my progress. I played for 5 minutes, and watched 5 minutes. The camera was positioned so that the keyboard of the xylophone was visible. I was able to see and hear what was working and what was not and adjust accordingly on the next round of playing.


If I can help you, call me. 

​David

The above is the final take in ten takes over 20 minutes. 

Jamey Aebersold gave a great demonstration, which was so revealing to me as a jazz teacher.
He assembled the students in the auditorium at University of Louisville. He would pluck one “lucky contestant” from the crowd to join him on stage. Jamey would then hand the musician a microphone and instruct them to sing/scat/hauler a jazz solo along with the chords he would randomly play on the piano.

Guess what?

Everyone could scat, some very well, others so so. But the consensus was that the “singers” could scat better than they could play. Hmmm. So, the problem isn’t in the head, it’s in the hands.

Conclusion 1: Jamey was encouraging everyone to improve their general musicianship skills on and off the instrument.
Conclusion 2: If you are a pianist or guitarist, sing and play at the same time.
 
Jamey's second reveal.

​One morning he asks the musicians, “How many of you can play 50 jazz standards from memory?” I enthusiastically raise my hand. Looking around the room of 250+ there were very few hands joining me.
How many can play 25?
10?
Any?
Overwhelming the answer was zero.

Conclusion #3 It’s hard to play freely when your head is in a book.
Conclusion #4 These musicians didn’t trust themselves to play without a book/sheet/app in front of them. He was happy to sell them another book. 

I hope this helps you begin to think through what may be holding you back.
 
David

At some point you will have to practice fast to play fast. Will it be pretty? No. But, it will get better. 

Try this. After mastering the piece at a slow tempo, isolate a single phrase or section and start speeding it up. Phase between repetitions to catch your breath and repeat. 

The faster I played the D major scale, the lighter my touch became. Tension is the enemy of speed.

As Jamey Aebersold pleaded one day to his campers. "Don't practice everything slow!"
​
​David

So many students are seeking the "secret", the secret that sends them to the front of the line. 

Alas, there is more than one secret. And they are all hiding in plain sight. 

Here are a few of the secrets:

1. Practice technique with a metronome.
2. Master theory appropriate to your level, including harmony.
3. Read music history, knowing the repertoire and the historical context from whence it comes.
4. And most importantly, ear training. Connecting the ear with the hands. 

Known by some students as the boring bits. Recognized by professionals as the exciting bits. 

Below is a video of the Duke Ellington student staple, Satin doll. The video is cued for the B section or middle 8. Listen to the trombone "lick" played when the chord progression lands on F. Figure is out. It is in the key of F, starts on A. Now check out the video I've made on what to do with this lick. 

If I can help, call me. 

David​

This late elementary piece has been a hit since the day it was written. Lively and energetic it is a thrilling piece for students to master. But there are those annoying last 4 measures which have devilled generations of aspirants. 


The student needs to have the following in place: 

1. A clear idea of how this passages sounds.
2. Fingering clearly marked.
3. Understanding that they will need to memorize these 4 measures to have a good chance of mastering the jumps confidence. 
4. Understanding that they will need to repeat the passage hands separately dozens of times to get it comfortable before they put the hands together.
5. Practice slow.
6. Follow the agreed to or assigned fingering. Clarity on this point is important. 
7. Understand how the passage will be articulated. The photo above is not marked up yet. 
8. Professional tip: Record each pass the student makes and listen back before repeating. I find this immensely helpful. I listen carefully to my rhythm, dynamics, articulations, steadiness, and flow before my next pass. I try to always understand want I'm trying to fix or master before repeating a passage. 

David

Practice tip #1

How many times do I need to repeat a passage?

“Until it’s comfortable” Benny Greb, expert practicer

Most students practice until they get it. Professionals practice until it’s comfortable. I buy that.

Practice tip #2

Why is proper fingering so important?

“Under pressure, a performance, one does not want to train the brain with ineffective or multiple choices of fingering in difficult passages. Under stress the brain will have to decide. It might pick the poor fingering pattern and BOOM! a mistake happens.”

So, when learning, take extra care to follow the fingering in the early stages of learning. Don’t give yourself an unnecessary handicap of poor fingering options.

​David 

Bach - The Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by Arthur Grumiaux

Classical students 

1. Phrasing: Notice how the performer tapers each 2 note slur
2. Chords: Notice how the performer "strums" the chord from the bottom to top note
3. Dynamics: When the music goes up in pitch so does the intensity and vice versa. This is a very common effect in classical music performance. 
4. Dynamics part 2: Phrases which rise start softer and crescendo.

Jazz Students

1. Broken chords that ascend on a 7th chord and resolve in the opposite direction. Measure 4, beat 3
2. Enclosures in measure 2, beat 1 around the note C. Measure 5, beat 3. 
3. The use of chromatic approach notes to chord tones in a broken chord in measure 3. Mozart likes these types of figures as well. See Fantasia in D minor measure 10.

Have fun. 

David

An intermediate player can play some tunes with a band or play along track. They usually have to read the music though from a fake book due to a lack of confidence. They are keen to move it up a notch. They feel overwhelmed with the amount of possibilities in a practice session. 

Below are some ideas on how to spend your time. Yes, it is a lot, but over the course of a week and little bit of each can be worked on. Over time your experience will accumulate. 

Have fun. 

1. Listening to recordings and determining:
   1. Instrumentation
   2. Form
   3. Solo order
   4. Solo length: full chorus/half chorus or whatever
   5. Style/era: Traditional, swing, bebop, Modern, Post-modern
   6. Cool licks to learn, find at least one to learn
2. Slow Warmup playing ii-V 1 chord progressions with scales or broken chords in the right hand with chord voicings in the left hand. Select the keys from your current repertoire.
3. Technique

• Sight reading: piano music, lead sheets, whatever…
• Comping chords, if you are a beginner practice writing them out first.
• Phrasing questions: legato, detached, swing 8ths, dynamic shaping over the phrase. With the study of phrasing in jazz I suggest listening to a “master” play the phrase and then mimic it. Same phrase, different players, different approaches. You will learn a lot of interesting things with this phrase

    4. Licks

• Transposing a simple lick in multiple keys, see step 2 for keys

    5. Review old repertoire
    6. Repertoire work, your new pieces
    7. Theory work
    8. Singing intervals
    9. Jamming with tracks, apps, or original recordings.
    10. Repeat step one.

Consider:

1. Notes
2. Dynamics
3. Articulations
4. Tempi
5. Balance
6. Cadences and phrasing

 
The ability to discriminate these individual elements will help you play more expressively.

Here is an exercise:
​

1. Find a quiet space
2. Headset
3. Score
4. Pencil
5. Professional performance
6. 1st run through, just listen
7. 2nd run through, note the dynamics. Pay attention of the melodic direction and dynamic changes. Does the music get louder when the melody rises? And, vice versa? What happens to dynamics at the cadence?
8. 3rd run through, note the articulations: legato, staccato, detached, accents of various types.
9. 4th run through, note the relationship to tempi changes to phrasing and sections. Does it speed up or down? Is there a pause between major sections?
10. 5th run through, notice the relative loudness between the melody and accompaniment.

 
Happy listening.
 
David

What to practice and why 

1. Scales, chords, arpeggios: time to practice playing beautiful 
2. Sight reading: good sight-readers master new work quicker
   
3. Etudes: tame the technical limits of your playing 
   
4. Ear training: we can’t play what we can’t hear 
   
5. Repertoire review: build your program 
   
6. Deep listening: your developing skills will change how you hear music 
   
7. Playing with others: build relationships with likeminded souls and have more fun 

Finally, be patient, enjoy the process.

If I can help, call me.

David

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

Composer Igor Stravinsky said something to the effect of: we find inspiration through work, not the other way around.

Amateurs wait for inspiration to work; professionals get to work knowing inspiration will follow. Good advice when sitting in the practice room waiting for the muse to strike before beginning.
​
David

My decades old copy of Opus 821 by Czerny. Still on the piano. 

When I want to work on my tone, I go here. When I want to work on the different physical moves required in piano performance I go here.

This work covers all the keys in very short 8 measure exercises. I'm able to work on finger independence, arm weight, rotation, octaves, staccato, legato, portato, drop, thrust, dynamics, balance, and tone. 

Last weekend I attended the National Ballet of Canada's performance of "etudes". It is a 45 minute ballet of bar moves and set pieces to the etudes of Czerny. It was fun to recognize many of the pieces. It was instructive to hear the music interpreted by the dancers. 

Click here for a free copy:  https://imslp.org/wiki/160_kurze_Übungen,_Op.821_(Czerny,_Carl)

Happy practicing.