Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum A Harrowing Tale of Chang, Bach, and the Mysterious Mind

When I was a waif in swaddling clothes, just six months of age, I was snatched from my cradle by a Mr. Chuan C. Chang and forced to engage in strange cult rituals proscribed in a mysterious tome called "The Fundamentals of Piano Practice."

This was no ordinary demonic cult, content with sacrificing virgins on alters soaked in goat blood, this cult reveled in truly heinous sacrilege, to wit:

- Memorization of piano pieces when they are first learned -- scorning the upright and godly practice of reading the notes off the page.

- Excommunication of Saint Hannon, and all other high priests of mindless redundant exercise.

- Elevation of hands separate practice to a rite of high spiritual profundity.

- Achievement of eternal grace only through undying faith in the concept of mental play.

In a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome, I became a convert to my abductor’s cause. Chang’s instructions in hand, I tore into Bach’s Invention #8 like Patty Hearst in guerilla fatigues brandishing an assault rifle. And it worked remarkably well. By the tender age of one year, I had not only mastered the Bach, but other Chang–induced pieces as well, like Fur Elise and the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata.

But an intervention was soon at hand. Flush with sophomoric confidence, I began taking lessons from a heretic and doubter of Chang. The first thing she noticed was I could barely read a note. I learned pieces quickly, but could play them only by memorizing them and looking at my hands. Agonizing moments ensued, when I couldn’t play the simplest children’s song without first memorizing the parts HS. Hard learned pieces were lost after just weeks of non-maintenance.

My deprogramming was arduous, including sight-reading for at least half-an-hour a day, doing blasphemous repetitions of the nefarious Hannon, and practicing scales and arpeggios in the bestial HT position. In time, I began to shun memorizing up front, preferring to read while learning, and painfully, I weaned myself of excessive prayers to the archangel of HS. I’m not fully cured, but my recovery is progressing.

Now I’ve started another Bach Invention – #1 – so I have a Petri dish in which to examine cultures grown under Chang vs. a traditional teacher. Here are some findings:

- Even though I started #1 two years after #8, I don’t think I’m learning it faster.

- I can rip through #8 like Blago dashing to a camera, but if I stumble, I’m toast. I have to restart from a few chosen spots.

- I can’t follow the score on #8. I have to look at my hands.

- I can play #1 (at least the parts I’ve worked on) without looking at the keys and while following the score.

- I can start #1 from just about anywhere.

- I make fewer mistakes on #1 than I did at a similar point in learning #8.

- #1 seems to be etching on my brain as a single piece of music, while #8 is two threads that happen to be woven together.

So what does all this prove (other than bluekeys likes cutesy metaphors)? I’m not sure, but my brain on Chang was very different from my brain on traditional methods. I play the pieces I learned after leaving His Church with fewer mistakes, but then I was more experienced when I started them, and it took longer to learn them. I no longer cower at the prospect of sight reading, but I’m still not very good either. I still memorize, but I do it later in the process and that seems to make my knowledge of the piece more solid.

Do you have any harrowing tales of cult abductions, or care to comment on mine?

Have you started drinking again?

"Have you started drinking again?"

Just the opposite. I am spitting out the Kool-aid.

Bluekeys--I have no real experience with cult abductions, but I am ready to join yours just because your writing is so entertaining!

I printed out Chang a few years ago, but I spent too much time practicing to actually read much of it. The thing I noticed is that he writes with such authority that it's easy to buy into it in its entirety. I do a good bit of HS work, but mostly to make sure I have it correct. I also do a good bit of HT work, whatever helps.

By the way, I'm not sure comparing anything to that Invention #8 is too fair--it really is two separate threads woven together like singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat in a round. It's unlike anything else I've played, even in the Baroque period, because the voices really are separate.

Congratulations on finding a way that works for you. My guess is that you'll spit out the Kool-Aid with projectile force, but then go back to it in moderation when it works for a specific piece or section. You really should be proud of the work you've done to change how you learn. It's hard enough to learn one way as an adult; to find success with that way and still be willing to change it for a better method is really admirable.

Nancy (still laughing at Blago dashing to the camera!)

I don't know... His book looks really stupid to me. All he writes on first 20 pages is how good is his method, how teachers today can't teach... His writing is dogmatic and annoying.

The biggest absurd is his claiming that everyone, who follows his book can play Fantasie Impromptu after only 2 years of playing, which is pathetic, since we know, that untalented pianists will need at least 5 years of playing before they will be ready for that piece.

But there's nothing new here, and little that is controversial. He has done a great service in collecting it in one place and organizing it well, and supplying it free to anyone who wants it. True, he has a rather hyperbolic writing style that likely puts a lot of people off. But most of his techniques work and can be integrated into what you're doing now.

To me it would appear much of it was inspired by the theories of Abby Whiteside, a rather famous conservatory teacher well ahead of her time.

But if you prowl the web much, you'll find a number of sites talking about effective vs intuitive practice methods, and most agree in essence with chang.

Write more Bluekeys...

I always faltered at the claims of orders of magnitude better learning speed - I just couldn't bring myself to read the remainder after stuff like that...

I agree, I find his book to be almost unreadable, Many of his key ideas were written about in other books years ago.

Bluekeys,

Very entertaining post!

I'm glad that you've found a method that works for you through your teacher.

I have mixed opinions about Chang's book. I find his some of his claims outlandish and downright ridiculous. For example he emphasizes that his piano playing research is scientific yet the claims that he makes about the multiplicative improvements in one's piano playing if one follows his methods is just bizarre. He also talks about the expectations that people should have with regards to their piano playing abilities based on the age that they started to learn the piano. He states his opinions as if they were facts and provides no references for the basis for his opinions.

He may have a point about relying too much upon Hanon and Czerny to improve technique. But I believe there is no right or wrong answer here. Piano teachers have varied opinions about this issue so I think it is pointless debating whether Hanon is necessary or Hanon is useless.

I believe most piano teachers encourage their students to learn difficult passages HS should HT prove too difficult. I know my teacher does.

I would approach Chang's book with an open mind and not as some infallible approach to piano playing as Bluekeys fortunately discovered!

I think the most important thing about this thread, other than learning that Bluekeys is a very entertaining writer, is that each pianist needs to make an on-going study of what practice discipline works for them.

On of the things I always bring up in my lessons rather early on is that the student try to find out how their mind works relative to learning music and the piano, so they can optimize their practice.

This includes, but is not limited to, what time of day or night is most productive for practicing (for you), do you learn more by ear vs. written music, does short bursts of practice work better than longer stretches, what technique exercises are the most productive, etc, etc.

As Musictuary says, (paraphrase), take from Chang what works for you, and leave the rest.

ps..Bluekeys, write more please.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I do get a little over-dramatic sometimes. I'm glad most found it amusing.

Those who suggested taking what works and leaving the rest are (IMHO) spot on. There's tremendous value in what Chang has given us (for free); I'm just not ready to follow him to a mountain top to wait for a space ship.

Over-speed HS practice, memorization, mental play, slow play, overlapping sections, and many more of his core ideas will probably always be part of my practice. But I'm also going to do some Hannon, work on sight-reading, and delay conscious memorization until I reach the polishing stage -- because those things work for me.

I, too, am put off by some of the more absurd claims -- like his method is "1000 times faster" than intuitive methods -- but if you keep your BS detector high alert, you can find some pearls of wisdom in his book.

bluekeys - I, too, had to laugh at your op. But I'm afraid my pappy was a used car salesman and I've had an (over)active BS detector for as long as I can remember, so I, from the beginning, took only what seemed to me to make sense from Chang. I particularly looked a little askance at his dream interpretations in the later part of the book But the methods you listed above as useful to you were ones I picked up on, too, and the "over-speed" practice was particularly helpful as I was learning left-hand jumps for ragtime, stride, and pop tunes. The other idea that really made a difference was to make a difficult section as short as necessary in order to be capable of it - as short as two consecutive notes if need be. And then nail that. Without those two ideas I think left hand jumps would have taken me much longer than they did. What's hard for me now is to have the patience to go back to those methods in a new piece with less familiar jumps - I want it to just happen!

OT - sorry to hear about your lake, from your blog. I think I have some affinity for the idea that humans are becoming nature-bereft.

Cathy

bluekeys
We are traveling very similar paths.

BS detection is one of the more rewarding aspects of achieving competence in a field. I think that's why I have little tolerance for those who rant on about this or that method/school. They're still trying to swim through it!

I've read Chang and follow many of his ideas. The method he calls "chord attack" has helped me master complex two handed passages that contain jumps. On the other hand, I force myself to look at the music because I otherwise depend solely on memory and I will forget how to play the song in a matter of weeks.

I'm a bit skeptical about his assertion that starting at the advanced age of 50 I'll forget songs faster than I can learn them. I think his advice to me was to learn a few Beatles songs and not expect too much.

"I can’t follow the score on #8. I have to look at my hands."

Actually not quite true. Try playing it with your eyes closed. If you're like me, you can do it on a Chang method piece. Stevie Wonder doesn't look at the sheet music either.

Surely this "Chang" would be able to play - if they ever play - pieces for 4 hands, something that C. Chang alone would never achieve.

http://www.cojoweb.com/siamese%20twins.html

HS practice, however, would take more time than usual.

I'm sure there are individual differences but this one is true for me.

I have often memorized hymns for church and been unable to remember them one week later.

In fairness to my former abductor, I think you may be understating his views on the potential of a 50-year-old starter. The Beethoven Sonatas are a little more than "a few Beatles songs."

I do disagree with his statement that "as you learn new pieces you will completely forget old ones" -- I started at 50 too, and for me that hasn't been true.

Then again, I never fully obeyed His commandment not to practice old pieces while you're learning new ones, so maybe that's why I didn't forget them.

Quoth the Almighty Chang:

"Ages 45-65. This is the age range in which, depending on the person, there will be increasing limitations on what you can learn to play. You can probably get up to the level of the Beethoven Sonatas, although the most difficult ones will be a huge challenge that will take many years to learn. Acquiring a sufficiently large repertoire will be difficult, and at any time, you will be able to perform only a few pieces. But for personal enjoyment, there is still a limitless number of compositions that you can play. Because there are more wonderful compositions to learn than you have time to learn them, you may not necessarily feel a limit to what you can play. There is still no major problems in learning new pieces, but they will require constant maintenance if you want to keep them in your repertoire. This will greatly limit your playable repertoire, because as you learn new pieces, you will completely forget the old ones, unless you had learned them at much younger ages. In addition, your learning rate will definitely start to slow down. By re-memorizing and re-forgetting several times, you can still memorize a significant amount of material. It is best to concentrate on a few pieces and learn to play them well. There is little time for beginner's books and exercises – these are not harmful, but you should start learning pieces you want to play within a few months after starting lessons."

I'm kinda glad we don't have stars on threads anymore, but if we did:

*****

And if we had a laugh-o-meter rating system:


I agree there are some really great ideas in Chang's book, and the ones you mentioned have been the most valuable to me.

Ed

This thread is very entertaining indeed; which led me read about Chang's method. I found his "idea" very awakening - "Scientifically". Definitely something we should ponder upon in the journey of Piano playing.

Nevertheless, what has kept me playing the piano for the last 10 months or so; is simply the imperfection in everyone of us - which led to indefinite interpretation of 200 year old music; beautiful music.

If piano playing is so "scientific", we might as well get a machine to do it.

My 2 cent!

I hate when that happens. That's the reason I'm trying to learn to read music adequately, so I can run through the songs I want to keep at least once a week. But in a few cases I've been so thoroughly defeated by a song that I've happily forgotten it so I can relearn it when I have a bit more skill and experience. (One song is now waiting for its third attempt.) :rolleyes:

This is the best writing I've seen on Piano World Forums in a very long time. Please write more!!!

best wishes,
Valerie

I checked out your blog. What's all this about neglecting your piano and playing the DP? That really is letting the side down, don't 'cha know.

Great post bluekeys - thanks!

I'm also trying to de-Chang myself at the moment. That infernal 'mental play' almost drove me to distraction (and away from the piano for good!). I invested a lot of time and effort in this 'holy grail' of a technique without being able to play more than a few bars 'in my mind' - just dosen't work for me... I'm no Walter Gieseking!

My experience with memorising is similar to yours. Since returning to the piano I've tried to memorise everything - it's not much! - that I've learned. My reading skills are poor and it's been a hard bar-by-bar slog. But now I'm starting to do what you're doing in that I'm learning by reading (still a slow process), NOT staring at the keyboard and letting the memorising take care of itself. It's early days, but I have great hopes that this new approach will help my playing take off... we'll see

Well i have followed Chans book and have been playing 4 months i used it to pick apart the following 4 tunes are works in progress all have flubs in the recording and the pedal technique in Le Onde is non existent(one of the hazards of not having a teacher), i have now learned that the pedal can be lifted at times.

the thing is i am thinking of having lessons but im scared of going bck to Mary had a Little Lamb etc also, with Chans method you can work on tunes you like. With normal lessons you get tunes dished out to you?

Le Onde - the first tune i tried to learn and it was this tune that made me start and i started b4 fuly reading Chans book still missing the second bit so i just repeat the first bit. Again please excuse the MUDDY sound!!!

http://www.box.net/shared/5t1oot7ium

Moonlit Sonata i started this a couple of weeks ago- obv still a work in progress

http://www.box.net/shared/vu6bf6xzip

Raindrop Prelude- I started this a week ago and can only play a few bars but im cheating on Chans method by playing hands together b4 learning the whole peice HS(so impatient!!)

http://www.box.net/shared/nyhr3l5ptt

I can also play Ashokan Farewell and the first couple of pages if The Heart Asks Pleasre First (nyman). But never recorded them.

But to the point is, i like the fact that once memorised you can focus on the musical aspect. Maybe a good sightreader can play a song and express the emotion at the same time but it seems to me that they sepnd a lot of concentration to just read? If you can learn songs so fast does it matter how you learn them?

I do want to get as good as possible?

He who pays the piper...

KBK -- Just waiting for the spring when my downstairs warms up. I'm not going all Gyro on you!

NeNiRi -- If you've really only been playing 4 months with Chang's method, I'm tempted to put a black hood over my head and throw myself in the trunk of Chang's car in hopes that he'll abduct me again. Your Le Onde puts mine to shame, and I've been working on it for a year! The Moonlight and Raindrop sound like they're progressing nicely too. As long as you're satisfied with limited sight-reading, he seems to be working out well for you. I'm curious -- how old are you?

Bluekeys ty

I loved Le Onde so much, 4 months i bought a keyboard (later upgraded to Clavinova)and started ago rewinding re-rewinding Smokey Joe's rendition of Le Onde on You Tube. I got about 1/4 trough by copying his fingers then i downloaded the sheet music and with the help of a theory book and a key chart found the rest of the song that i know.

I only discovered Chans book a two months ago. I am seeing what you mean about needing to maintain. But are you enjoying music more using traditional methods.

Is it not a bit like being a Jack of all trades master of none.

P.s please dont think that i think im a master i know im full of technical errors. But i would like to master the piano as much as i can.

So if im going to swap over i would like to do it now rather than waste time that i could be getting past the Three Blind Mice stage???

Le Onde is to me a milestone piece. You either need a very good memory to deal with all the subtle changes on the left and constant counterpoint on the right, or you need strong enough reading and orientation skills to do the wide left arps without looking. If I ever reach the point where I can play it consistently without errors, I'll consider myself to have crossed from beginner to intermediate. I admire anyone who can play it well.

BlueKeys, forgot to say im 33

You didnt telrl me if you feel better to sbe following the sight reading route?

I thought you were going to say you were under 20. Seems like most very fast learners are.

As for feeling better about reading... I don't freaken know anymore. I just played through a bunch of pieces reading, and I played horribly! I only did well when I gave up and played from memory, and then I only got decent plays the second or third time thru because my memory kept failing. Alas, some people are just not destined to play well. Then again, after 35 years of callous disregard for brain cells and liver function, it's a miracle I'm not in a wacky ward with tubes hanging out of me.

Well, Chang takes a beating around here but I gotta tell you, I never really learned anything well before discovering his method. I'd jump around playing one thing after another, never really practicing anything long enough to learn it properly. Now I can walk up to a piano and sit down and play without music. This is tremendously satisfying to me and I owe it to Chang's method. Only the most recently learned pieces are polished but I can bring any of them up to snuff in an hour or so. This is real - for some people, this method works. And I'm no spring chicken so if it works for me I'm sticking with it. I don't care about his writing style. Once you get past that and get the drift of the method it's simple to apply and results come quickly.

For me at least.

Bluekeys(and anyone else interested)

There is a guy called Tony Buzan who is an authority on memory. He has writen many books on the subject and he invented the Mind Map (a learning and thinking tool)

Of more interest to you, however, is what he has to say about humans of all ages. Unless you have Dimentia or some other mental imairment, your capacity to learn and recall are limetless.

The most relevant part of his book for you and others here is the Review Schedule. When you learn something new it goes into your short term memory. If after 10 minutes you dont review then it is forgoton or erodes very quickly.

The way to review is NOT to look at what you what to remember (in fact just as Chan said). Tony Buzan stresses the improtance of remember all you can and puting it on paper (In This Case Playing Piano in YOUR HEAD) And filling in the gaps that you cant remember by looking at the music and touching the keyboard.

The Review Schedule goes as follows

after 10 minutes (fill gaps of your memory)

after 1 day (*)

after 1 week (*)

after 1 Month (*)

The good news is that the information is in your head now stored in The Long Term Memory like a familiar telephone number.(however this is for information, motor skills may need more)


So you need to be pretty organised and have a diary to know when to review.

To give some credit to this system at the start of his book Tony Buzan talks of an average school student who after picking up these techniques managed to achive a stupid ammount of A*s and win a place at Oxford University.

I myself was an average student and used it to good effect to get through my Commecial Pilot examinations.

Amazingly whilst looking to check i was giving you the right information i actaully found the book in question and it is available to read online( without download) scroll down to page 59 for the bit in question but i recommend reading the whold book if you doubt your mental capacities in any way.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7293022/Use-Your-Head-Tony-Buzan

I also found a Dance website that discussed trying to remember dance, which has perhaps more in common with piano than studyig but acknowladges
Tony Buzan

http://www.westcoastswingamerica.com/mvsremember.htm

There is also a brilliant program called SuperMemo which subscribes to the ideas NeNiRi mentioned. But instead of having fixed review schedules such as 10 mins, 1 day, 1 week etc, it adapts this parameters to the individual using the program, based on some formulas and how well you remember something after a certain time.

I'm in the process of writing a database for myself that will print out a schedule of memorized pieces I should play to keep them fresh on any given day (based on my performance of memorization and recall on previous training sessions), but it'll probably be another year until I finish it

SuperMemo can be found for free (older versions anyway) at www.supermemo.com , maybe you can adapt it to suit your needs - although it really is meant for memorizing vocabulary, history and science. For the record, I am not affiliated with them in any way.

Out of the mouths of babes! I've just been reading the sleep part of the supermemo site that Bunneh linked above. I've known for a long time, being a poor sleeper, that learning requires good sleep. That's what these youngsters have on us! At least they don't waste that.

Everybody please note.

"Bachs Inventions" have now been reclassified officially by Mocheol.
Henceforth it shall be illegal to call them anything other than
"Bachs Infections"

So, the bottom line, for men at least, is piano potential is inversely proportional to the size of the prostate organ?

That's really stupid...

...or your fluid intake of an evening.

I used an old version of supermemo to learn foreign language vocabulary in highschool and it was quite effective. But now there's a free open source equivalent called Mnemosyne which is apparently easier to use .

My violin teacher taught me a trick for memorizing music that I found useful. The basic idea is that since rhythm is one of the easier aspects to remember, to learn the notes one can practice them with different rhythms. For example (dotted eighth note, sixteenth note, dotted eighth, sixteenth, etc.) or (sixteenth note, dotted eighth, sixteenth, dotted eighth, etc.) which group together difference pairs of notes so you learn to move fluidly between them. An example is given on this page . I'm still experimenting with adapting that to the piano with two hands at once though

hey, thanks for that mnemosyne link, I'll be sure to check that out