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I purchased Fitch's 4 book series and uploaded to my kindle app. To me, it's well worth the $50 as they are chock full of great practice and technique methods. Little things, like playing in small sections staccato were so helpful and there are loads of them. The book on performance I also found helpful in dealing with anxiety and being prepared for recitals. That said, to the OP comment, some of those bits were revelatory to me in learning pieces. I had struggled with learning even simple pieces but his discussion on slow practice helped me get past some hurdles much more quickly.
I purchased Fitch's 4 book series and uploaded to my kindle app. To me, it's well worth the $50 as they are chock full of great practice and technique methods. Little things, like playing in small sections staccato were so helpful and there are loads of them. The book on performance I also found helpful in dealing with anxiety and being prepared for recitals. That said, to the OP comment, some of those bits were revelatory to me in learning pieces. I had struggled with learning even simple pieces but his discussion on slow practice helped me get past some hurdles much more quickly.
Fitch?
Graham Fitch, the wonderful contributor to the Pianist Magazine. Series is titled "Practising the Piano". Below is offer with embedded media:
Looks interesting.. anyone have experience with his Practising the Piano – Online Academy? If we get the books free with a one year subscription, that may be a good deal. But only if it actually has substantial content.
Thanks for the link, am checking it out, have to say it looks very tempting to me... thinking of taking the plunge. I might wait for black friday just in case!
You are welcome! The study editions are really good and ABRSM and Trinity resources are helpful not only for those, who do exams. In his video on Bruch's Moderato for example Graham Fitch demonstrates how to practice jumps.
When I practise, I slow down till I don't make mistakes. I read somewhere that a repeated mistake will take a lot of practice to get rid of it.
Great insight.
I unfortunately drilled the second part of Fur Elise with bad timing before I should have been
I am still trying to undo the damage.
Fur Elise is a difficult piece in regards to the timing. I found that out the first time I played it for my piano teacher a couple of years ago.
Back in my youth. . .in high school we treated that piece as if it were some type of rite of passage and the faster you could play it the better. We were kids; too much energy!
Keep at it and you'll get there. It's such a pretty piece. Have a great day!
When I practise, I slow down till I don't make mistakes. I read somewhere that a repeated mistake will take a lot of practice to get rid of it.
Great insight.
I unfortunately drilled the second part of Fur Elise with bad timing before I should have been
I am still trying to undo the damage.
Fur Elise is a difficult piece in regards to the timing. I found that out the first time I played it for my piano teacher a couple of years ago.
Back in my youth. . .in high school we treated that piece as if it were some type of rite of passage and the faster you could play it the better. We were kids; too much energy!
Keep at it and you'll get there. It's such a pretty piece. Have a great day!
Thanks.
At this point the hardest thing for me is making the transition into the scond part make musical sense. Practicing it separately caused me to play it out of context with the main part.
I've been experimenting a bit with it and it is starting to come around.
It is kind of an odd piece imo. Kind of like three separate pieces---and I find it a little challenging to make it sound non-compartmentalized.
I wanted to spice up my warm-up exercises, I revisited a couple of YT videos.
One was on the Circle of 4ths/5ths and the other a progression pattern of 1-6-2-5-1.
The circle I was following, made sense this time around when I started with the C-scale in the 12 o'clock position and moved in a counter clockwise direction. It helped to already be familiar with the 1-3-5 chord of each key. I used the 5th to jump to the next key in the circle.
With the 1-6-2-5-1 progression, I relied on the 1-3-5 chord in order to play its minor chord. So if I understood the video lesson, the 6 and 2 are minor chords. ðŸ‘