Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Getting rid of tension just with time and experience.

I drove my car today and thought of such a thing...
5 years ago, when I decided to get a driver's license and came to driving school, and first time after I got my driving lisence, I was rather tensed behind the wheel. The faster I drove, the more tension grew, with hands dug into the steering wheel. And what now? Now, relaxed and calm, I can pour a cup of tea from my thermos, speak my phone an drive with one finger on the wheel at 100 km/h, with manual transmission. And no one ever told my about relaxation behind the wheel - it just came with time. With 5 years of expirience and 200 000 km of mileage.
Can it be the same with piano? My teacher told me recently, that "mileage" is very important in piano playing.

Yes - after 58 years I am just beginning to get the hang of it!

Better late than never :))

No.

Dear PianoStarts yes! mileage (i.e. experience) is so important. Don't take my word for it, Dreyfus and Dreyfus has a model on skill acquisition. I used this model for my dissertation. Here is a link to a PDF article on The Five-Stage Model of Adult Skill Acquisition by Stuart Dreyfus. When you are learning a new skill it is very task oriented it is halting and rigid. As you become more experienced though the years, the halting task becomes muscle memory and you automatically do it. It is like I can type and talk, I never have to look at the keys unless I type numbers. I have been typing for 40 years. My fingers most of the time just go to the key.



Dreyfus skill acquisition

I tried the link in Piano Forum it does not work, just type in Google and it comes up. The Five-Stage Model of Adult Skill Acquisition. Stuart E. Dreyfus. It is in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society

I tried the link again just copy and pasted it.

http://www.bumc.bu.edu/facdev-medicine/files/2012/03/Dreyfus-skill-level.pdf

Thanks! It's interesting, I'll read.

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: it's not just time.

You have to be listening to your body is telling you. You don't just have to learn how to play with relaxation. You also have to learn what it feels like when your playing lacks relaxation. Probably the worst thing that anyone could take away from this discussion is the thought, "Well, my forearms are burning and tired after every practice session, so I should just practice longer and eventually my playing will become relaxed." That's a road to some severe pain and possible long-term injury.

It's more that you'll be playing or practicing and you'll find yourself in the zone. You'll realize that the keys you want to play happen to be under your hand. You're getting good tone. Things feel secure. You'll feel your intent convert fluidly into a motion where it feels more like you're caressing the keys.

THAT'S when you pause and try to figure out what arrangement of biomechanics is bringing you there. Try to consciously feel what's happening, to try to get your brain to remember how your body is positioned and how it moves in response to your intent, in the hopes of recapturing that feeling the next time you're at the keyboard.

And then, of course, the next time, you don't quite feel it but sometime down the line you're in the zone again and you get to another chance to learn.

The stuff we do at the piano is way harder from a coordination point of view than what we do in a car. "Play with relaxation" is the worst advice ever because it describes the outcome, not the process. But because piano playing is a complex of physical techniques, technique advice is resistant to being described with words. You can watch no end of videos about posture or read countless books on technique and all they'll be is a bunch of words until you feel it for the first time.

So you need time, but it's not just that.

I see what you're saying, but I think there are two different kinds of tension: one that is due to a improper technique (i.e., trying to drive with your elbows on the steering wheel instead of your hands), and one that is due to awkwardness of unfamiliarity (i.e., you know how to drive, it's just not quite in the unconscious yet).

Improper Technique: What ever you do over long periods of time, it will become easier. If you play with tension over long periods of time, your tension will become more "normal" as your body adapts to it. Meaning that you become used to playing with tension. You still will suffer the effects of the tension, of course, but there will be layers of it you may no longer be aware of. Only as you peel away those layers of tension can you work at getting rid of what lies underneath.

Unfamiliarity: I can play a new piece, but it will feel awkward until I get the piece into my fingers. As I learn the piece and it becomes memorized, then I begin to anticipate what's going on, and that eliminates the awkwardness.

Putting this on a practical level and toward learning to play piano at whatever level you (anyone) happen to be on, we can reverse-engineer this a bit.

One basic principle is: "You can only focus well on one new thing at a time." "New thing" in this case does not mean something like "a new piano piece", or "learning a new route to drive in your car", or "reading a new book, when you can read". Because here you are using established skills, assuming you have them. It means the tasks and skills embedded in these activities. Playing piano involves the intertwining of a host of different skills plus knowledge. So we can get at some learning strategies from there.

In playing a piece of music, you will have the piece itself, the notes and chords involved, the note values, then the timing, as well as how loud and soft to play, then also how loud and soft to play each hand so as to bring out the principle melody, how to blend notes with the pedal, all in real time. Trying to get at all that, esp. if your skills are still evolving, will leave you in a bundle of tension. It's too much. As well, with the basic principle, you'll be trying to focus on many things, so your focus is scattered and distracted. Even professionals who already have the skills you're still getting will break down difficult sections in music into parts in various ways.

Several strategies arise from this. One is to break your music into small parts or chunks. Two pages may make you tense, but how are you about two measures or even two beats? Another strategy is to work on only some elements in your chunk, and when those elements are no longer "new" - they're part of you - add the next element. For example: "I will get these notes in this measures, using the same fingering that I've determined to be good, and with easy movement from one note to the next." You might spent a couple of days at this level in various measures. You go at the speed that your body/mind can handle - quite slow. After a few days, these are "part" of you. Now you add another element; maybe dynamics, maybe something else.

While you are working at these levels, in stages or layers, your playing will not sound musical or impressive. The small parts may even be hard to recognize as the real thing. But as it "comes together" (literally), it will have a certain quality to it. Best of all, since you've been working at your present level of competence, in small bits, there is much less tension.

bumping

Correction - it's actually 68 years! I'll get there eventually - or somewhere.

Certainly. But the progress is quicker if a person pays attention to relaxation.