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Yes, you heard right!

I had a teacher, she's not alive any more, or I'd ask her this question, tell me to play my advanced pieces "backwards"! I think I played them backwards, and it just felt awkward! So I hadn't thought about this until just recently, and I wish I had asked her why she would suggested to play my pieces "backwards"? At the time I just always did what my teachers asked. But now I think I should have asked WHY.

Anyone else ever taught this idea of playing pieces backwards? Or heard of this teaching idea? What benefits? & just... WHY?

I memorize backwards. Not ZYXWVUT backwards, but in sections starting from the end (memorize TUVWXYZ, then memorize LMNOPQRS...) That way when I play it through I'm always moving toward more securely known material.

Thank you for your reply on this!

& how many of you are at the piano playing a piece backwards right now!

Hands up all you who are trying a piece backwards right now?

That's not playing backwards. That's dividing pieces up into sections, and working on them out of order. It stops Go Magic Fingers. It stops senseless memorization and teaches people how to think about what they are doing.

But the real idea is to first nail endings, then the hardest parts. The logic should be obvious.

There was a teacher who posted frequently on one of the other forums that required his students to learn Bach inventions upside down (left hand playing the right hand part an octave displaced). I don't remember him ever talking about backwards. I guess you'd have to know it note by note, and I'm not sure that's an advantage.

Playing phrases from near the end, progressively starting more towards the front, seems like a different strategy than playing backwards.

I have heard on this forum about literally playing a piece backwards as a practice technique. I may have had a student do this once or twice, of their own accord. It was when I was trying to get them to understand creative practicing techniques, and let them decide a way to play the passage in question so that they could improve it. They inevitably come up with playing it backwards, which then I let them try. I don't see anything wrong with it, it's just devilishly hard, and I haven't used it myself.

I misunderstood. I guess (now) you let them use the music.

I was thinking of doing it from memory, which would require a rather thorough knowledge of it.

This is a very effective method for memorizing music. It forces you to look at the structure as well as the notes, because you're needing to find starting places each day as you work on the piece.

For example, one of my students is having great difficulty memorizing Bach Invention n.6. We looked at the total number of measures (62), divided that by 7, rounded up to 9 and then started looking at the piece to see how evenly we could divide up the piece for memorization. Nine measures didn't work well, but we could see that the subject appeared at 10 measure intervals, so we worked backwards 10 measures at a time. Still didn't work out quite right, but we were able to group the piece into 7 reasonable sections to memorize. Then we began. Sure enough, the last 10 measures, which he could just stumble through at the beginning of the lesson was memorized in about 10 min or so.

The benefit of this reverse memorization process is that as the student learns each new section, they will play forward, reinforcing their memory of the latter sections.

All of you teachers are changing this up on me. I understand the divide and conquer thing. Breaking the piece into SECTIONS, and working on each set.

But I'm not taking about dividing the piece up into sections and working thru sections at a time. Usually starting at the last section of the piece.

I am specifically talking about playing a piece "backward' with the music in front of you! Start at the very last note and playing note for note ..."backwards"!

Try playing a piece backwards. It just feels awkward.

Anyways, I am trying hard to remember what she may have said about why, but I can't remember WHY.

She wasn't a quack teacher, so I'm sure she had a purpose in asking me to play pieces "backward"!

And again, it's note for note, backwards. I'm not talking about playing "section"! I'm talking specifically about "backwards"!

Well, it would. You've learned a set of motions in one direction. How you land on any particular note or chord depends on where your hand was when it left the last one. Even your fingering choices often depend on what you just played.

Do you reverse the dynamics, too? Crescendo and decrescendo, e.g.?

We had a discussion about handbell ensemble (vs choir) practice recently. The strategy for starting in small sections near the end works for choirs, where typically you have your assigned bells and make few changes. It does not work for handbell small ensemble, where people use many bells, many of which are shared, and must carefully choreograph the changes. Small ensembles work from the front towards the back because everything depends on what just happened.

Diane, I've done versions of this, and it was part experiment, part advice. It begins with the idea of sections as already mentioned. Then within a small section of the music, you might play the notes backward, or omit and add notes again, and other things. I think it's more effective if you have a purpose in mind, or your teacher tells you roughly what it's about (not sure).

Exploring it:
- We can get into autopilot when we play beginning to end. That can even happen in working on chunks. So backward might break that up so your awareness of individual notes comes back.
- There is also the idea that as we play we go toward something (the next note/passage). You're always groping your way toward what is less familiar. If you miss, you'll tend to play the notes you already have solid, to go to the next note - you're practising what you can already do well, the most. If you start on the final note, then the preceding note, and move to the final note, then you're moving to the familiar rather than the unfamiliar, and you're practising what is "new" more.
- Maybe what your teacher had you do was just to rewire or expand part of what you were able to do. A million dollar question: Did it seem to do anything for you?

I found this flexible routine especially helpful for honing reading skills, because automatism would set up fast and then you're no longer reading.

Hey Tim & keystring,

Interesting ideas, I think you both are onto something.

Just wish now I had asked my teacher for the reason. She would have told me!

Suppose there were 10 notes in a phrase.

I could play 10, 10, 10, 10-9-10, 10-9-8-9-10, 10-9-8-7-8-9-10, etc.

It would take some mental concentration.

It's not completely free of the problem that a note approached from one direction might need a totally different fingering or motion mechanics than if approached from some other direction.

The purpose of doing a small amount of it might just be to break the flow to solidify learning.

Why? To what purpose? In reverse order, it's a completely different piece with no relationship to the piece in front of you? Perhaps it was just a drill to get you to actually read the notes.

What level were you at?

It could be a forced break in concentration.

With my handbell choir, I insert breaks. When we're working on a piece for performance, there will be a point where it is working smoothly. But they've been working on that section for a while, just like if you spend a half hour on your piano lesson piece and it comes. But you can't play it for your teacher, because it's a different piece when you don't that half hour running start. So I make them keep a page from another piece handy. We'll stop, and do 4-8 bars of another piece to completely flush the memory banks, then return. Each time we do this the warmup time gets shorter, until they can play it cold.

Maybe I'll try a backwards play for the same purpose.

Hey John,

It was at a Grade 7 level, & I think you may be right that it was just a drill to get me to actually read the notes. Once you know a piece, one tends to play on autopilot.

Giving students pieces where they are playing both hands in the bass clef or both hands in the treble cleff. Makes the mind have to really think because it's not the norm. Makes the mind think harder. I think that's called abnormal! But a good way to wake up the "mind"!

Speaking of "waking up the mind"!

I always wear high heels when I teach. I love to look at my shoes. Gives me a "mental" break. So when I'm feeling like I need a mental break, I look down at my shoes. And I love fancy fun shoes. For that very purpose.

Anyways, when I go out for the evening, I put on high heels, and automatically ... I feel smarter. Why?

Well it's because my mind sharpens when I put on high heels because I go into "teacher" mode!

Mind over Matter?... I think it's Matter over Mind! hahahaha

Because you're taller. Doh!

I will play a melody or something easy backwards just to show it is possible.

But this is mostly to get students to realize that it can be done, and reading is such a strong skill that it can be done in either direction.

I would never actually DO it, to learn. It seems pointless.

I'm thinking that if the student is advanced to any degree, then he/she might invent approaches themselves. You start with a difficulty or something you are trying to reach, and see how many angles you can find. Then you have half a dozen ways of practising, and there is a certain creativity to that. I once did practice two measures backward, but there was a reason to it. And it was fun.