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I'll just say this once. PianoStudent88 you are in track with what you are doing, and it seems you have a good understanding of the principles of this without getting hung up on the details.
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If you intend to embrace this method fully then good enough to learn the tune by hearing it without sight of the score.
If you want ideas for getting there start with children's nursery rhymes... With the first piece? That doesn't seem like Bernhard's method from what I have read. He describes starting students with a piece they want to learn, not with nursery rhymes and Christmas carols in case they don't have sufficient aural skills yet. No, I think you misunderstood. Start with where you're at now, using the score for guidance. If you want to develop memorising music without using the score then start with nursery rhymes. Just for the memorising. Not for pieces to learn. Hmm?
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Ok, I did misunderstand. I had asked about for this piece and you answered as a long term improvement program, beyond this piece.
I don't understand the role of nursery rhymes and Christmas carols in learning how to learn to hum a tune just from listening. I already know how to hum lots of nursery rhymes and Christmas carols. Starting with "simple music that I don't know already" would make sense to me. You haven't slipped into giving advice for how to learn to play by ear, have you? For that, nursery rhymes and Christmas carols -- tunes I know already -- would make sense as a starting point. For me, being able to learn a tune aurally so I can hum it is a long long way from being able to pick out that tune on the piano.
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Rereading, I may have misunderstood again. What do you mean by "memorising music without using the score"?
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zrtf90, I have read your post, here:
You're looking at the fingering and listening to recordings?
This is not the Bernhard method.
What happens before sitting at the piano or looking at the score is learning the whole piece as sound in the head. Next is analysing the score, harmonic progression, phrasing, dynamics, texture, motifs, etc.
The third step is to play through the score looking for technical difficulties. After this comes assigning the section lengths for learning. I'm not exactly sure where the fingering is done but I would suspect that it's after this stage and the first thing done when beginning each section.
Do you have a better idea, Bob, of when the fingering is assigned?
Speaking of fingering, the unfingered Bach editions are not to be sniffed at. If fingering is important to you then you might want to check out the IMSLP editions for ideas on fingering or buy cheaper versions fingered by different editors. I have several editions of the inventions all edited by different folks and a prized copy that was unfingered and my own fingering written in only after I finished each piece.
I typically begin Bach with a variety of editions all on the rack together. As I'm usually only working a couple of bars a day it's no hardship to compare all the editions once I've tried my own intuitive fingering and come up short of complete success. I don't think I've ever used all the fingering of one edition.
There's a lot to be said for intelligently tackling your own fingering especially when comparing editions that are fingered differently and you try to find out why.
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***What happens before sitting at the piano or looking at the score is learning the whole piece as sound in the head.
I don't know how long you have been playing the piano or how "gifted" you are.
+++Looking at a score of music, as a beginner piano player in no way puts the whole piece as sound in the head. Even playing a piece daily for as much as 2 years is the whole piece as sound in the head.
***Next is analysing the score, harmonic progression, phrasing, dynamics, texture, motifs, etc.
+++WOW - like I said - how long have you been playing music?
***The third step is to play through the score
looking for technical difficulties. After this comes assigning the section lengths for learning. I'm not exactly sure where the fingering is done but I would suspect that it's after this stage and the first thing done when beginning each section.
Do you have a better idea, Bob, of when the fingering is assigned?
+++The first thing I do when I start a piece of music is reading through the score/piece to be sure I can recognize the notes in the piece - 5 ledger notes above and below I can read and recognize, but 10 ledger lines below and above may cause me to pause or is a show stopper.
***After this comes assigning the section lengths for learning.
+++I don't get this at all. If I can't play 1 measure easily and correctly - there is no better reason to assign the section length for learning immediately! Else why would it matter how and why define a section to learned and be played?
*****I'm not exactly sure where the fingering is done but I would suspect that it's after this stage and the first thing done when beginning each section.
Well, like I said, how long have you been playing. I am a beginner and the finger is in place. I have 3 John Thompson method books to work through, so maybe 1, 2, 3, years, before I am learning famous, difficult Opus numbers of famous composers.
Do you have a better idea, Bob, of when the fingering is assigned?
Speaking of fingering, the unfingered Bach editions are not to be sniffed at. If fingering is important to you then you might want to check out the IMSLP editions for ideas on fingering or buy cheaper versions fingered by different editors. I have several editions of the inventions all edited by different folks and a prized copy that was unfingered and my own fingering written in only after I finished each piece.
I typically begin Bach with a variety of editions all on the rack together. As I'm usually only working a couple of bars a day it's no hardship to compare all the editions once I've tried my own intuitive fingering and come up short of complete success. I don't think I've ever used all the fingering of one edition.
There's a lot to be said for intelligently tackling your own fingering especially when comparing editions that are fingered differently and you try to find out why.
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zrtf90, I have read your post, here:
You're looking at the fingering and listening to recordings?
This is not the Bernhard method.
What happens before sitting at the piano or looking at the score is learning the whole piece as sound in the head. Next is analysing the score, harmonic progression, phrasing, dynamics, texture, motifs, etc.
The third step is to play through the score looking for technical difficulties. After this comes assigning the section lengths for learning. I'm not exactly sure where the fingering is done but I would suspect that it's after this stage and the first thing done when beginning each section.
Do you have a better idea, Bob, of when the fingering is assigned?
Speaking of fingering, the unfingered Bach editions are not to be sniffed at. If fingering is important to you then you might want to check out the IMSLP editions for ideas on fingering or buy cheaper versions fingered by different editors. I have several editions of the inventions all edited by different folks and a prized copy that was unfingered and my own fingering written in only after I finished each piece.
I typically begin Bach with a variety of editions all on the rack together. As I'm usually only working a couple of bars a day it's no hardship to compare all the editions once I've tried my own intuitive fingering and come up short of complete success. I don't think I've ever used all the fingering of one edition.
There's a lot to be said for intelligently tackling your own fingering especially when comparing editions that are fingered differently and you try to find out why.
_________________________________________________
***What happens before sitting at the piano or looking at the score is learning the whole piece as sound in the head.
I don't know how long you have been playing the piano or how "gifted" you are.
+++Looking at a score of music, as a beginner piano player in no way puts the whole piece as sound in the head. Even playing a piece daily for as much as 2 years is the whole piece as sound in the head.
***Next is analysing the score, harmonic progression, phrasing, dynamics, texture, motifs, etc.
+++WOW - like I said - how long have you been playing music?
***The third step is to play through the score
looking for technical difficulties. After this comes assigning the section lengths for learning. I'm not exactly sure where the fingering is done but I would suspect that it's after this stage and the first thing done when beginning each section.
Do you have a better idea, Bob, of when the fingering is assigned?
+++The first thing I do when I start a piece of music is reading through the score/piece to be sure I can recognize the notes in the piece - 5 ledger notes above and below I can read and recognize, but 10 ledger lines below and above may cause me to pause or is a show stopper.
***After this comes assigning the section lengths for learning.
+++I don't get this at all. If I can't play 1 measure easily and correctly - there is no better reason to assign the section length for learning immediately! Else why would it matter how and why define a section to learned and be played?
*****I'm not exactly sure where the fingering is done but I would suspect that it's after this stage and the first thing done when beginning each section.
Well, like I said, how long have you been playing. I am a beginner and the finger is in place. I have 3 John Thompson method books to work through, so maybe 1, 2, 3, years, before I am learning famous, difficult Opus numbers of famous composers.
Do you have a better idea, Bob, of when the fingering is assigned?
Speaking of fingering, the unfingered Bach editions are not to be sniffed at. If fingering is important to you then you might want to check out the IMSLP editions for ideas on fingering or buy cheaper versions fingered by different editors. I have several editions of the inventions all edited by different folks and a prized copy that was unfingered and my own fingering written in only after I finished each piece.
I typically begin Bach with a variety of editions all on the rack together. As I'm usually only working a couple of bars a day it's no hardship to compare all the editions once I've tried my own intuitive fingering and come up short of complete success. I don't think I've ever used all the fingering of one edition.
There's a lot to be said for intelligently tackling your own fingering especially when comparing editions that are fingered differently and you try to find out why.
What, exactly, is your point?
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In regards to nursery rhymes and music that has words:
This is one kind of association. If you are good at memorizing words, or if you associate melody with words, then you can use that to quickly remember the melody of that kind of music. I don't know whether it develops hearing, or if it is just good for memorizing that kind of music.
I was in a choir where one day we were given music that had a long passage of just "ooh". My reaction was "Finally something where you don't have to try to look at both the music and the words - easier." This choir had sung the song for years but still had trouble with it at the "ooh". That's when I realized that they focused primarily on the words, and attached the melody to them, while I started with the melody. They did not think like instrumentalists.
If your strong point is reading, then doesn't it make sense to attach the melody to the written notes, instead of attaching it to words? And if you can do that, wouldn't memorization for performance without the score arise from practising that way, without ever needing to start with memorized music?
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If you want to develop memorising music without using the score
I see no reason for memorizing music without using the score, and I DO see potential harm in this. If you aren't hearing everything correctly, you may well play notes that have not been written in, but that you think you are hearing. I also suspect that some clarifications are needed because the impressions may not be what you are actually trying to say. For example: listening to the music and imagining the notes before ever looking at the score. I do have some abilities both in audiating, and playing what I hear or writing it down, but I know for certain that the music would have to be very simple for me to do that. For example, I cannot recognize thick chords accurately. Even if I hear the quality of that chord, I may not hear the distribution of the notes in it accurately. How could someone who is at the beginning of learning to hear possibly imagine all the notes in both hands in a complex piece of music? And since scores exist, why not use them? You cannot be meaning literally what you seem to be saying.
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I agree with your reservations keystring. This is why I asked what Richard means by "memorizing music without using the score." I thought we were talking about the ability to become able to hum the melody of a piece, just from listening to it repeatedly. But now I'm not sure what Richard is talking about.
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What if I'm really bad at remembering tunes if I can only hear them... Start memorising "simple music that you don't know already".  I initially thought of nursery rhymes, carols, folk music... ...if I can look at the score at the same time as I listen to them I can remember the tune much better So a) use the score or b) try to memorise tunes without looking at the score - the way you (presumably) learnt the nursery rhymes. But I'd start with "simple music that you don't know already". What do you mean by "memorising music without using the score"? Listening to recordings or performances until you can audiate them from memory - the way you do nursery rhymes and carols - and know where you are in the score, well enough that on hearing "dit-diddley ah-da" you can add "boom, boom".
Richard
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***What happens before sitting at the piano or looking at the score is learning the whole piece as sound in the head.
I don't know how long you have been playing the piano or how "gifted" you are. Very gifted! I'm fluent in my mother tongue and I'm incredibly good looking. Nearly everyone I visit has a photograph of me in their bathroom!  +++Looking at a score of music, as a beginner piano player in no way puts the whole piece as sound in the head. Even playing a piece daily for as much as 2 years is the whole piece as sound in the head. You've misunderstood the quote Michael. The first step is to memorise the sound from listening to recordings - not from looking at the score. ***Next is analysing the score, harmonic progression, phrasing, dynamics, texture, motifs, etc.
+++WOW - like I said - how long have you been playing music? This is not difficult, Michael. There was a gang of us doing just that on this forum and PianoStudent88 was one of the leading participants. +++The first thing I do when I start a piece of music is reading through the score/piece to be sure I can recognize the notes in the piece - 5 ledger notes above and below I can read and recognize, but 10 ledger lines below and above may cause me to pause or is a show stopper. Ledger lines are a reading difficulty. I'm going through as an experienced sight reader looking for big leaps, weak finger trills, difficult stretches, polyrhythmic passages or fast arpeggios, etc. I'm looking for things that are difficult to play even when I can read the notes or have memorised them. +++I don't get this at all. If I can't play 1 measure easily and correctly - there is no better reason to assign the section length for learning immediately! Else why would it matter how and why define a section to learned and be played? The test is not what you can or cannot play but how much you can hold in working memory. If you can't memorise 1 measure, playing hands separately, it may be better to work on a half measure...or just one beat...or just two notes. As your experience grows so does your ability to memorise passages. I have memorised a full page of an easy Scarlatti sonata in one day. I struggle with a half measure of a Bach fugue. The object is to find out how much music you can hold in working memory so that improvements at the end of the section will still be there for the next repeat. If you're having to read the music to remember the notes, remembering the new fingering, for example, may prove too much.
Last edited by zrtf90; 07/25/13 06:12 PM. Reason: spellings...
Richard
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If you intend to embrace this method fully then good enough to learn the tune by hearing it without sight of the score.
If you want ideas for getting there start with children's nursery rhymes and Christmas carols. Then move onto popular vocal music (popular across genres not 'pop' music per se), show tunes, folk music etc. Vocal music has readily identified melodies and words make them easier to remember... I see no reason for memorizing music without using the score, and I DO see potential harm in this. 1. Should we stop singing lullabies to infants without giving them the score? 2. Going back to my reply to Michael, the essential thing is to know the notes well enough to hold in working memory and learn new fingering to try it out without having to write the fingerings in the score first but remember which ones we've tried and which ones we've not. If we're using a softer staccato for a particular note than it's adjacent buddies it helps to remember which one without having to add a mark in the score. If you're trying a new phrasing to make the line more meaningful, more seductive, more pleading, more majestic, more piquant it helps to be able to hear it that way in your head first without having to follow the notes from the score. For example: listening to the music and imagining the notes before ever looking at the score. I don't think I've ever seen the score but I can sing "One, two, three, four, five, Once I caught a fish alive" and I'm fairly sure I've got the notes right! Singing that in my head is what I'm talking about. For example, I cannot recognize thick chords accurately. Even if I hear the quality of that chord, I may not hear the distribution of the notes in it accurately. Ask any budding guitarist how 'Smoke on the Water' goes and he'll sing the "chords" using single notes and a throaty timbre. That's what I'm talking about. You cannot be meaning literally what you seem to be saying. Then I don't mean it literally. I'm not writing statutes here and not passing it through the legal department. Luckily this is a public forum and anything that doesn't make sense can be questioned and clarified. Instead of memorising music perhaps I should say memorising melodies and throwing in the occasional 'um-ching-ching, twiddle-de-dee' in the gaps. Of course, as you get better you may well be able to add in the bass and drums or even whole orchestras but that's possibly beyond basic requirements here. The essential thing is to "know the tune", not every harmonic nuance but the basic melody from start to finish. I also suspect that some clarifications are needed because the impressions may not be what you are actually trying to say. I may be fluent in my mother tongue but that doesn't mean I'm lucid.  I'm not making huge technical demands on people here, honest!
Last edited by zrtf90; 07/25/13 06:13 PM. Reason: more spellings...
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how to deal with the coordination difficulties in putting hands together and how they may relate to the above, etc. Bobpickle, At the moment, I am learning Canon in D Pachelbel and I am struggling putting hands together for a specific section of 4 measures. I have already spent 3 days, 30 min a day on this section and still not struggling to play through these 4 measures. Can you advise step by step how I should be learning it using Bernhard method. Hi Joseph. I've been meaning to get around to responding to this, but haven't yet. How are things going - do you still need help?
Last edited by Bobpickle; 07/25/13 06:14 PM.
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We can only hum one note at a time so start with that. Hum along.
...
If you can hum, whistle or imagine the melody all the way through the piece from memory you're ready to start looking at the score. The other listening skills come with time and practice. This was an earlier post I made. I couldn't find it for my last responses. (I'm clearly not a fluent reader of my mother tongue, either.)
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how to deal with the coordination difficulties in putting hands together and how they may relate to the above, etc. Bobpickle, At the moment, I am learning Canon in D Pachelbel and I am struggling putting hands together for a specific section of 4 measures. I have already spent 3 days, 30 min a day on this section and still not struggling to play through these 4 measures. Can you advise step by step how I should be learning it using Bernhard method. Hi Joseph. I've been meaning to get around to responding to this, but haven't yet. How are things going - do you still need help? Since my posting, I have managed to progress further. Now I can play HT reasonably well. Actually, I spend daily 20 min playing HT slowly, and within 2 days I got the gist of it.I kept toggling between HS and HT. I am OK for now. Thanks. It was a question of time... slowly but daily... Thanks for asking.
Last edited by JosephAC; 07/25/13 09:56 PM.
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This statement of a major aural component to Bernhard's method as preparation before looking at the score is making me absolutely miserable. Richard, you are modifying Bernhard's method by not learning your sections up to final tempo initially; I wonder if your sense of how much should be aurally learned before looking at the score is also a modification?
It would be very helpful to have some of Bernhard's posts where he talks about this and then I could gauge firsthand what he's getting at and how he approaches it with his students.
I'm thinking for the sake of my sanity I'm going to modify this to "get familiar with both the sound and the score in as many ways as you know how to do, before breaking it down and starting to practice sections at the keyboard." I'll look at the list JosephAC quoted to give me some ideas, and also see if I come up with any other ideas.
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This statement of a major aural component to Bernhard's method as preparation before looking at the score is making me absolutely miserable. Richard, you are modifying Bernhard's method by not learning your sections up to final tempo initially; I wonder if your sense of how much should be aurally learned before looking at the score is also a modification?
It would be very helpful to have some of Bernhard's posts where he talks about this and then I could gauge firsthand what he's getting at and how he approaches it with his students.
I'm thinking for the sake of my sanity I'm going to modify this to "get familiar with both the sound and the score in as many ways as you know how to do, before breaking it down and starting to practice sections at the keyboard." I'll look at the list JosephAC quoted to give me some ideas, and also see if I come up with any other ideas.
What makes you thinking the ability to auralize is in any way, shape, or form a major component to Bernhard's method? This is simply a part of Richard's take on Bernhard's approach (maybe Bernhard isn't even involved - there's been so much writing, I can hardly follow). Why does this have to be your take? If you can't auralize music to the extent that Richard can (I imagine few of us can), then this in no way, shape, or form excludes you from being able to benefit from Bernhard's approach to learning repertoire. All Richard has been describing is his approach to learning repertoire/sections/passages and its relation to what he's read of Bernhard's writing (again, maybe). Just as exactly what you do probably won't work for him, exactly what he does probably won't work for you. The only two necessities of Bernhard's approach (I hesitate to call them necessities, but they're the two core points everything is built around) is to practice a section of music no longer than 20 minutes (an average figure - maybe it's 10, maybe 30, just set a time limit for which you can focus) and to make significant progress in that period of time. Everything else amounts to great supplementary tools depending on your specific purpose in learning the piece, but nothing else is required (obviously even following the two aforementioned principles aren't required of anybody to follow, but we're trying to make the most of our practice, are we not). The only prerequisites to using Bernhard's routine and tips for learning repertoire are being able to read music and work out functional fingerings (which doesn't even need to be done away from the piano, but it makes you have to think in a good way). That's all. All not being able to auralize music means is that you have something to practice for the benefit of your musicianship (though it's debatable whether it compares in value to something like sightreading). Go re-read Richard Kant's Bernhard Summary - it says nothing about mental practice or auralization, let alone needing to do them. The only part of his (Bernhard's) routine where auralization is particularly helpful is when starting practicing passages hands together. The sooner you can hear in your head exactly what hands together sounds like, the sooner the fingers will be able to play it. Obviously a simple tape recorder or digital piano recorder function (i.e. recording one hand and playing along with the other) can take the place of auralization at performance or whatever tempo.
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No problem. Sorry for the slow response. I may try and summarize a few of the more important Bernhard principles to use when practicing new repertoire, as well as why they're important and the specific figures are what they are and if and when I do, I'll ask for you and others to proof-read it and look for holes for me.
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OK, I have read over some of the material about the practice methods (not all of it - too much to read!), and I have to say that it seems to me that little of it is controversial or even new. The summary that I read sounds very mainstream - breaking the music into chunks, the importance of repetition, limiting yourself in time (the same as the "pomo d'oro' method).
The only thing I see that is controversial is listening to the music before you learn it. What I have always been taught is that this causes you to 'copy' what other pianists are doing in the interpretation of the music. Much better to listen once, or even not at all, and develop your own skills to hear and interpret the music. Admittedly, this is easier the more experience that you have. It can be very difficult for an absolute beginner, but very rewarding for those with more experience. The goal is to develop your own sensibility to interpret music, and too much listening teaches imitation instead of independence.
Just my thoughts...
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The only thing I see that is controversial is listening to the music before you learn it. What I have always been taught is that this causes you to 'copy' what other pianists are doing in the interpretation of the music. (...) The goal is to develop your own sensibility to interpret music, and too much listening teaches imitation instead of independence. I can imagine why people would advise not to listen to pieces too much. But a strange side-effect is that this approach assumes that interpreters need to work in a vacuum, i.e. when they are not exposed to the interpretations of others, they are completely free to invent their own interpretation, but they lose this freedom when they get "tainted" by the world. There are a couple of philosophical problems with that assumption. First, about the performer trying to figure out from the score what the interpretation should be. Even this bit is not context free, as the score is obviously a way to indicate how the piece should be played. And, as it was written for piano (presumably), the composer had certain fingerings in mind that can be figured out with time and experience. Second, about the performer being influenced by a context until it is beyond his capacity to invent a new way of interpreting the piece. As I've already noticed in discussions here, many are using several versions of the score, using fingerings from one or another version as it suits them. Also, it's always possible to adapt your interpretation to your feeling as you go along. Glenn Gould did this for piano and Ton Koopman on organ. Even if you've heard one interpretation a lot, it doesn't mean that it feels right for you to play it that way. Listening to music and playing it are two very different things because playing involves your physical movement, which can be very different of how another interpreter moves. The way of thinking about being "free" when "untainted" by other influences and "bound" when "touched by others" seems very romantic to me (a bit like Candide) and not very relevant any more right now. We can learn from trying to imitate, but we can also deviate when needed or wanted.
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