Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum A whole slew of technique questions!

I've been playing piano seriously (4+ hours/day) for 2 months; I'm currently 20. I've played for a total of two years; I can play something along the lines of the K545 musically without too much difficulty. I have been practicing technique for a very short amount of time, however, so I have many questions. My current shortish-term goal is to reach a grade 10 RCM level. I currently have a teacher who's been an immense help, alas; I am an inexhaustible well of questions!

1. Slow or fast practice for technique? I find it difficult to transition from one to the other. The momentum of the hands, and physiological characteristics changes from fast to slow practice, so I might as well just learn it fast from the start. On the other hand, accuracy is a problem if I do that. So, how do I get my technique up to speed? How can I maintain a high degree of accuracy?

2. Any tips on the transition from HS to HT?

3. I've been trying arpeggios and broken triads. I don't know what to do with my hands. Should I play 'in groups of 3', keeping the same arm movements as I do in solid triads? Should I keep my wrist level/high, while using the weight of my arm to depress the keys with relatively little finger movements, or should I focus on the fingers?

4. How should I go about playing scales piano or forte? Similar to the above question; should I use the weight of my arm as much as possible? It seems very difficult to play forte scales without excessive tension.

5. How do I go about eliminating random errors? I find that even when I practice something until it seems profoundly easy, I *never* progress to a performance level, even with basic pieces. I don't make specific, identifiable errors on practiced techniques or pieces, but I'll consistently make "one-time-errors" that pop up in the middle of every other performance. Is it possible to eliminate this? Strict repetition isn't helping.

6. How long should I be spending on technique each day? I find I spend hours upon hours each day, with relatively little progress; I have the sense that I don't know exactly how to go about the process of learning all the technique.

7. When I practice during a day, I make at least some decent progress on at least one piece of technique. I can often get from a slow, delicate mess to a fluid 2 hand scale within a day of practice. (How fast would a grade 10 exam expect them?) However, the next day, my ability to play the scale/arpeggio/whatever is already reverted to about how it was at the start of day one, resulting in a few more hours of practice to get it back, only for it to revert again the next day. There is some overall practice, but it seems disturbingly slow and inefficient as it is. Can this unfortunate phenomenon be avoided in any way?

Anyway, I'm sure I have plenty more questions, but I think I'll leave it at that for now! Sorry if some of this has already been asked; my dubious searching skills didn't come up with too much.

Thanks for any assistance!

Hi Zarathustra,

Welcome to the forums.

I think it's great that you have a goal of passing the RCM grade 10 exam.

But, the things that you are asking are steps that need to be mastered gradually and progressively.

Take your time. Learning to play the piano should be about the journey not the destination. IMO, try a much easier exam first, just to make sure you have a solid foundation and are ready for the exam process.

Rich

I don't know the answers, but am interested in hearing what others say so I'm subscribing to this thread.

As far as accuracy/speed my thought is (and what I've always heard) that you should start slowly and gradually increase speed. Seems that would help with the accuracy as well.

hi there, i'm also 20 and learning from nearly scratch .
When i tried to learn piano once again i looked on google and the online book by C Chuan fundamental of piano practice. While his method really rely on HS, i think it's worth having a look on some sections of it ( search for fundamentals of piano practice)

1. If you start playing HT when you practice, then start slow, because if you make mistakes, it gets imprinted into your "finger memory" which is difficult to erase and lends to errors.

2 Not sure if it's that efficient, but play HS and look at the place the other hand should be playing and visualise the notes.

3 Can't help on that sorry

4. I would say start playing scales piano to decrease tension first, then you should ask your teacher about playing it forte

5. I"m not sure again, you should ask your teacher

6. Ask your teacher again, this amount of time varies according to people.


7. How long do you spend bringing up that scale to speed? Chuang advises to play the piano one last time before sleeping at 1/4th of the speed, and to carefully anticipate all the notes in your head.

As a side note, don't forget that there is a time component such as 10hrs a day is not equal to 1hr everyday for 10 days. If you input too much information in your mind, you will get confused.

Hope that helps

I think both slow and fast practice for technique. Playing with the metronome just slowly enough to ward off boredom but fast enough to keep you on your toes; then practicing short segments of problem areas at tempo or faster (see Chang for this).

I think it helps to switch back and forth between HS and HT, as long as you don’t push the tempo.

Using arm weight as much as possible is a good idea. Raising your fingers high is not a good idea; ignore Hanon on that point. Same with playing forte: it takes more control to play scales and arpeggios piano, and control is what it’s all about. I think some problems with tension are the result of lack of control. I find tension when playing scales is reduced when I practice the scales very fast, but in sections.

My technique also seems better at the end of practice the day before than it does the next day. I think this might be an illusion; I’m actually better than I was the previous day, but but I’m expecting too much when I sit down to practice the next day, and so it seems as if I’ve made no progress.

My best advice is work hard but have fun. If you work hard without expecting or demanding progress, you will progress faster and more consistently.

If you want to know all the technical requirements for the RCM Grade 10 level, get a copy of their recent syllabus which has a list of requirements and speeds for each grade. For example, parallel scales at this grade level should be 4 octaves, 16th notes at 120 bpm. Even if you don't plan on taking the exams, they are an excellent guideline to ensure your technical skills are up to the level of the pieces you are playing.

Nice job enumerating and succinctly describing some problems I'm sure many of us can relate to. Good topic. Regarding item 5 (random errors), I am convinced that one should not expect to eliminate these as that intention leads to a loss of focus on the performance. This is especially true in any performance situation where you can't simply restart. The best you can do (and this is A LOT) is to learn how to adjust your performance to make the inevitable error as unobtrusive as possible. This is an art in itself, akin to a magician (or a pick-pocket) learning sleight-of-hand techniques. Like other arts, it can be practiced. Unfortunately, I'm unable to provide expert advice on this. My approach to practicing this art consists simply of plowing ahead, doing my best to maintain tempo, perhaps dropping a note (or even a whole phrase!) to stay in time. I'd love to hear advice on this issue from others.

Always start slow enough so you can play without mistakes and without unnecessary tension. Then as it gets easier allow the tempo to gradually speed up. Sometimes you have to force it to speed up by using the metronome. Set it first at your current tempo, then move it up a click or two, repeat until you find a point at which you can no longer play it well. Then begin again the next day a few clicks below where you ended. Eventually it will be faster this way. If you ever find there is tension along the way, you will need to focus on those areas that cause the problem, because that tells you there is something wrong technically with how you're playing it. That may even mean you do more slow practice for those sections.


First, don't stay in HS for too long with most music. If you are playing Bach or other Baroque (polyphonic) music then more HS practice is beneficial. When you do HT, try to read more vertically to see where the RH and LH play simultaneously. And be sure to slow the tempo way down at first. Usually you'll be playing HS at tempo or close to it, and you cannot expect to be able to play at tempo HT right out of the gate.



This is a difficult question to answer because I can't actually see what you mean. If you are playing a C major chord, and then playing C-E-G in a broken triad, your arm movements shouldn't change between the two. However, if you are doing an arpeggio that requires you to play large intervals between notes (like C-E-G-C, using fingers 1-2-3-5) then your hand will flatten out a bit more. There will also be an horizontal rotating of the wrist to facilitate this. Wrists should always be parallel with the keys, and not "high". But again, without seeing you and also being able to demonstrate for you, I would take this with a grain of salt. Your teacher is probably the best person to answer this for you.


I generally play scales at a MF. If you are doing more than one octave, you can start at MP and crescendo as you ascend and dim. as you return. You must have wrists that are parallel with the keys, as I mentioned above. Then as you depress each key, the wrist should bounce *down* and then return to the parallel position while holding the key down with the finger. This will help keep the wrist pliable and reduce tension. After a while, the bounce can be less exaggerated as you learn to release the tension.



It does depend on the cause for them. Sometimes there may be holes in the way you have learned the piece. Are you playing them from memory? Memorization helps a great deal with this, as long as you mind is actively participating as you play, rather than relying strictly on muscle memory to do the work. Another possibility is that since you are relatively new at piano, these mistakes will just happen. They used to happen for me...my octaves wouldn't always be clean as a finger might accidentally hit a different note, or some such mistake. Accuracy can often be a problem when you have not done enough slow practice, practicing in rhythms, blocking chords, etc., so I wouldn't dismiss them as one-time mistakes right away. It may be an indicator that those passages where they occur need some extra attention. Strict repetition, while good, is not the only way to practice. Other than that, those random mistakes that do happen will lesson with the more experience your get with playing in general as you get exposed to more and more different pieces, as well as performing publicly. 2 years is really not a very long time to have played in the grand scheme of things, so be patient about that.


I wouldn't spend more than a half hour on technical exercises. The rest comes within the repertoire itself. It sounds as though you need to learn some different practice techniques. Do a search on this forum on how people practice, there have been many topics on this issue that would be of help to you. And don't forget to ask your teacher!


I wouldn't try for speed just yet, but for accuracy at whatever speed you can do it at. My guess is they probably expect scales at 144 per 8th note. As far as taking the big step backwards, I think perhaps you are not quite mastering things because it *should* get better the next day. It should be a steady improvement from day to day. So this tells me that perhaps you are not following a consecutive order of steps, perhaps skipping over things to get them to be fast at the cost of accuracy. There is also a point of diminishing returns after which no matter how long you practice, it will not be retained. Reducing the amount of time you spend on it will actually help in this case. Stick to a half hour of technical work/scales, and then spend the rest on repertoire and see how that works for you. Don't try to get too fast before you're ready. The goal is to be accurate without unnecessary tension. Also, when you are working on your repertoire, don't simply play straight through the piece. That can be valuable every few days, but not every day. Spend time working on the troublesome passages on the days in between the run-throughs. Your progress will be much better this way.

Thanks for all the answers! Some very helpful advice here so far.

There's just one thing I don't understand, which honestly, is making me very disappointed.

I simply don't understand how it's conceivable to to play slow enough that I can play without errors. I feel the only way I can do that is if a consciously and visually check each note before I press it. As soon as I progress even mildly faster than this, the mistakes come, and I just don't know

I tried practicing technique "slow, without error" for 2.5 hours this morning, as I have frequently attempted to do. In all this time, I haven't progressed in speed beyond what is required to check every single note before pressing it (which is EXTREMELY slow, perhaps 1 note every 2 seconds, when HT). When I said I could get my technique to a respectable speed within a day of practice; that was while allowing errors.

I can't help but feel that I'm doing something fundamentally wrong. I've talked to my teacher; she just thinks I should practice more, and throws me doubtful glances when I say I already practice for at least 4 hours a day. She's not a bad teacher or anything -- I would think the same if my student was showing up unable to play something that should take 30 minutes of practice a day.

Zarathustra, I'm right there with you and understand exactly what you are saying because I'm at the same point. I've been focusing on the simple tune Jingle Bells in the Alfred book and I've yet to play it without errors. I don't think I'll be able to until I get to point where I have the notes/song memorized and can focus strictly on my finger placement. Now, I can play either hand pretty much error free, but it's when I'm trying to play HT that is not error free yet. I'm going to do some more practice right now as a matter of fact. I'd also be interested in the responses.

The object is to play without errors and slow enough that your brain can make the connection to the series of keystrokes it takes to play the passage. Break up the song you are learning into pieces and only practice it in bits. Start very slowly at first. Your attention span is only good for about 15 minutes at a time. So practice on one part for 15 minutes. The leave it and do another part for 15 minutes. Give your brain time enough to make the connections. The next day you should be able to play the same part a little better. I don't think practicing for 2.5 hours doing the same thing is effective and you could be over training. Remember if you are making mistakes, you are practicing those mistakes and you are learning the mistakes. Slow and steady wins the race.

I don't know that I fully agree with all that wj3. Certainly if you are spending 2.5 hours doing the same three measures it's going to be boring and if you are repeating exactly that same mistake for that period then you are learning that mistake, but what I'm talking about is more random mistakes hitting the wrong key mostly, sort of like shooting at the basket and missing, it's finger training to hit the right note at the right time. I also disagree with the blanket statement of 15 mins. I've never heard that before, maybe it's true, but I think everyone is different and it depends on the specific task, motivation level, etc. etc.
I agree about breaking it up, that can help as can practicing HS which is the two things I've been applying to my initial learning.

Thanks.

Try breaking the piece down and practice in short bursts. So for example, play measures 1 and 2 with full accuracy but slowly. Gradually work those measures towards tempo, then play measures 3-4. When you progress beyond measure 1-2, try to include a note or two of overlap from the measure before and after the measures you're practising. That'll help when it comes to playing all the measures together.

By only doing a small number of measures at a time and repeating them several times until they're played accuratly, I've found it shortens the time it takes me to memorise a piece.

An added benefit of this is that when you hit a dodgy spot where you make several errors. You can practice just those couple of measures (+ overlap).

The other thing I've found useful which was again recommended in the Helen Marlais book, is to not play a note until you are 100% sure it's the correct note. So for example, say you can play measure 1, you play it, then even if it means pausing for some time, move your hands to the new position, then look down and make sure your fingers are correct before going ahead to play the measure.

This was a recommendation on a piece that shifted both hands by a few octaves at the same time. When I started playing it, the pause between the end of measure, moving hands then playing the correct note was several seconds. It didn't take too much practice however before the gap decreased and now I can play it at tempo moving from one 1/8 note to the next with no noticeable pause.

Prior to using this method, I used to start at the beginning of a piece and play until I got stuck. Work on that section then restart the piece and include it. I struggled to memorise pieces larger than a single page with this method. Probably because I was playing the whole piece which was too much to take in in one go.

Give the above a go, it may help



I find it much easier to learn new material in short bursts of 20-30 minutes. Then take a short break for a few minutes, make a drink or something.

There have been numerous studies on how to efficiently learn new material. Although it likely varies from individual to individual, the one thing they have in common is that learning in short bursts with regular breaks is usually more beneficial than a marathon session.

Thanks Gary, I think you are right on about working on only a few measures at a time and I need to incorporate that more into my practice. I did exactly that on the ending measures of the current piece I'm working (Jingle Bells for God's sake! ) and it's getting better. I'll try to start applying this approach even moreso.

I think then the answer is one of two things, or perhaps both:

1) Let me clarify that playing without errors is not an absolute. Sure you might strike a wrong note here and there and have to go back to correct. If it is too often, however, then you may be playing it too fast. I have a tendency to play too fast because I know what it should sound like and I have to constantly remind myself to slow it down when first learning a piece. I make errors all the time, but the point is you should get a sense of steady beat and flow at this slow speed. Forcing yourself to stay slow will help in accuracy later one when you are ready to play at faster speeds.

2)If there is not a reasonable speed (one note every 2 seconds is not) at which you can play something slowly without errors then you are playing music that is too hard for you. That is what is fundamentally wrong here.

My first inclination is #1 is the issue here, a misunderstanding of what I meant in my original post. However, after playing a piece where you know it rather well, you should be able to play it slowly and almost note-perfect while not having to double check everything before you play it. There should be muscle memory in there to guide your fingers, and the score is simply a reminder of what you've mostly memorized. If this is not the case, then perhaps you are taking on more than you can chew so to speak.

Thanks Gary001. This is exactly what I was trying to say. The 15 minute thing, I was talking about trying to learn a section of the song. Say maybe 2 or 3 measures or a phrase. Play slowly until you can play without an error 5 or 6 times, but don't spend more that 15 minutes on that phrase. Then go on to another section that you are learning. I don't mean to stop your practice after 15 minutes. Just go on to something else. Practice the sections that you have trouble with. Don't just play the song from the beginnig each time.

Ah, yeah that helps my understanding of what you were saying.

and thanks everyone for all the great help, tips, and explanations and apologies to the O.P. for a slight hijacking of the thread.

Thanks Kenny... I guess what I was mostly trying to say is somewhat like your signature line says "Strive on with Awareness". Don't sit and mindlessly play away. Be aware, and concentrate on what you are learning. If only I could practice what I preach. lol..

Walt

I agree completely. Doesn't do any good to just keep repeating errors without being aware. In fact it's a very bad thing.

Sorry, to bump this, but I feel I must give thanks for all the replies. I'm impressed to get so many detailed responses!

So, I'm trying it out. I guess we'll see if I'm more confidant about my practice techniques in a few weeks.