|
Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
|
|
75 members (Cheeto717, AlkansBookcase, benkeys, Cinnamonbear, Animisha, 7sheji, 36251, anotherscott, brdwyguy, 11 invisible),
2,002
guests, and
289
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 255
Full Member
|
OP
Full Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 255 |
it's something that kills me almost. I would probably be 5 times better than I am if my playing were much cleaner. and it's something I want to get down before college auditions. so what advice do you have in order to get your playing very clean? outside of going very slow and gradually growing towards a faster pace (that whole process) and I talked to my teacher about it and she mentioned something about playing deeper into the keys. I want the best advice you can offer.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 134
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 134 |
Don't know if this will help but after playing a lot of Bach for a number of years I have found that my playing, in general, has really cleaned up.
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." Berthold Auerbach
Private Piano Teacher Member: Music Teachers' Association of California Evaluator: Certificate of Merit Organist/Pianist: Christ Lutheran Church, West Covina
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 36,805
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
|
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 36,805 |
I'm not sure what you mean by "cleaner". Missed notes, not all the notes sounding, or something else??
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 36
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 36 |
Technical excersises that you can use to warm up and tone the muscles of your fingers and forearms will probably help. I find that I have a better feel of control or cleanliness in playing after I've excercised my muscles either from working on difficult passages, various finger excercises and even from working out with light hand weights to tone the shoulders, arms and wrists. Just keep in mind that the goal is to help your musculature relax and play with ease, not to tense up and strain your muscles. There's nothing but trouble in tense playing both for the sound and your body.
Let the sun shine in.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 255
Full Member
|
OP
Full Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 255 |
clean meaning not hitting more than one not at the same time, on accident. slipping and all.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 59
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 59 |
IN other word, Playing slick, sleek, smooth, perfectly...? Actually, i am suffering from the same problem on the peice i am currently working on.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 5,446
5000 Post Club Member
|
5000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 5,446 |
so what advice do you have in order to get your playing very clean? outside of going very slow and gradually growing towards a faster pace (that whole process)So, let me get this right... you want to play well, but without practicing correctly? If you can figure that one out, write a book. I'll buy it.
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 1,595
1000 Post Club Member
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 1,595 |
No pedal. Playing slowly. Feeling balanced over (deeply) on each key before going on to the next key. Listening for eveneness and tone!!! Playing scales...everything, arpeggios, your pieces, any excercises, all played like this will help.
Private Piano Teacher, member MTNA and Piano Basics Foundation
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 59
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 59 |
play chopstick really fast!!!! LOL
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 921
500 Post Club Member
|
500 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 921 |
I thought this thread was going to be a pianoworld intervention to try to get me to take a shower....thank goodness
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 1,478
1000 Post Club Member
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 1,478 |
Kind of like a "clean skate"--- what ice skaters say they want to do when in competetion, they want to skate a "clean program".
I have my own weapon of mass destruction in the form of a "teenage" German Shepherd. Anything she spies and can get ahold of is fair game.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 827
500 Post Club Member
|
500 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 827 |
Everytime you practice a piece, play it the exact same way... slowly. If you incorperate mistakes into your practice, the mistakes will show in performance and the result will be "unclean."
- Zack -
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,302
1000 Post Club Member
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,302 |
"Unclean" palyiong can be due to not knowing or reading the score properly or not hitting hte right keys the right way. For the latter situation I give folowign advice:
Prequisite is patience, as you have to play slowly and correct from the beginning, as Alkan says. Short fingernails and correct basic technique, aquired with finger excercises is also required. With flat fingers you are more apt to hit the wrong key or hitting the neighbour key as well
Pianobuff's recommendation to play without pedal is very relevant in the stage when you are learning the piece. The pedal would cover much uneveness.
Finally I would like to stress the importance of good fingering. Write the fingers on every place where it is not absolutely sure you will use the one and only possible fingering. Good fingering not only helps playing difficult passages but will develop finger and spatial memory.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 3,652
3000 Post Club Member
|
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 3,652 |
Originally posted by Jan-Erik:
Prequisite is patience, as you have to play slowly and correct from the beginning, as Alkan says. Short fingernails and correct basic technique, aquired with finger excercises is also required. With flat fingers you are more apt to hit the wrong key or hitting the neighbour key as well
I agree with much of Jan-Erik's advice, but his comment about flat finger's is off target. There are many highly respected pianists that advocate flat fingers because they believe it allows better dynamic control and better tone. However, it doesn't sound like Asherf is at a point where tone and dynamic control are what he/she is working on. It's one thing to learn the notes of a piece, it's something entirely different to learn how to play a piece expressively. Clean playing is step 1.5 of learning a piece, it's the tail end of learning the notes.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 255
Full Member
|
OP
Full Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 255 |
Originally posted by Derulux: [b]so what advice do you have in order to get your playing very clean? outside of going very slow and gradually growing towards a faster pace (that whole process)So, let me get this right... you want to play well, but without practicing correctly? If you can figure that one out, write a book. I'll buy it. [/b] haha, no, what I meant was, other than playing slowing, meaning I already know/do that method of practicing :p yeah, I've got the no pedal thing, teacher taught me that. thanks all, this is helping.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047
2000 Post Club Member
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047 |
Quoted from Asherf's original topic starter:
" . . .so what advice do you have in order to get your playing very clean? outside of going very slow and gradually growing towards a faster pace (that whole process). . . "
Sounds to me like you're trying to avoid the hard work of practice.
You're going to have to implement that whole process of going very slow and gradually growing towards a faster pace.
Tomasino
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do so with all thy might." Ecclesiastes 9:10
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,302
1000 Post Club Member
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,302 |
There are many show jumpers (riders) that rank high, but who have a terrible style of riding. Despite their wrong style and bad habits they have control over the horse, but young riders are not adviced to mimic those masters.
As in sports, where styles and methods develop simultanously with the refinement of the equipment, there seem to be many schools in piano playing. But we have to remember which technique and style that works for most piano students and not take some exceptions as the general rule.
I would not advice anyone to play with flat fingers like some of the pianists mentioned above, if not very broad chords or arpeggios makes it necessary to strighten the fingers.
Flat fingers are weaker and are generally considered to give less control over dynamics and result in "unclean playing".
Even in pianissimo your fingers should not be flabby, only the force applied should be reduced.
I did not know should I laugh or cry when reading about the "better tone" with flat fingers! I decided to ignore this religious belief in the influence of touch on sound quality, thouroghly discussed elsewhere.
P.S. Playing the right notes at the right time is really very essential. If you have problem with this this, it is IMO not the time to go to an audition.
It would be useful to know more about where exactly the problem lies - in sight reading or playing pieces by heart. What kind of pieces? Are there technically too hard passages?
I suspect ignorance regarding fingering - a very common cause of uncertain and unclean playing, but this issue the teacher should deal with. Who is the teacher? What does he think of this matter?
And I dare giving one more hint: Excercising with separate hands, which helps focusing on the right notes and time values.
For some people learning takes more time than for others. I do not think there are any shortcuts.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 255
Full Member
|
OP
Full Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 255 |
Originally posted by tomasino: Quoted from Asherf's original topic starter:
" . . .so what advice do you have in order to get your playing very clean? outside of going very slow and gradually growing towards a faster pace (that whole process). . . "
Sounds to me like you're trying to avoid the hard work of practice.
You're going to have to implement that whole process of going very slow and gradually growing towards a faster pace.
Tomasino sometimes I feel my posts get missunderstood :p I DO that process, and know that process, and love that process, but I'm looking for other ways as well.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 109
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 109 |
CV AIKN nailed it perfectly and I have found the best way to "clean up a lot of the messy parts of a piece is to: Play the piece as if I were performing it AND everytime I SLIP I STOP and MARK the measures in RED. By the time I have ended playing the composition I am amazed to find so many RED CIRCLES, but when I isolate these parts and work them hands alone, slowly together and gradually add them into the measure preceeding the RED MEASURE and connecting it to the measure following the weak place it begins to come together without seams and plays very well. Playing scales over and over always seemed to "clean up" my playing. Sometimes putting a piece aside for a period of time and then attempting to play it weeks later amazes me how well it plays! A fellow musician once told me to try and play the piece BACKWARDS! When I have become brain-dead with a piece I attempt to play it hand alone using the right hand to play the bass cleff and the left hand playing the treble cleff! It sort of sweeps the brain clean of a lot of debris! EXPERIMENT!
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 516
500 Post Club Member
|
500 Post Club Member
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 516 |
Hi, What I find makes all the difference in how clean I play is my mindset while I'm playing. After all the learning is done, it's all about how I'm thinking. Sometimes I'm visualizing the notes on the keyboard, sometimes I'm focusing on the physical feeling in my hands, listening to the notes being played, imagining the notes about to be played, thinking of the fingering. Sometimes I'm worrying about a tough passage coming up, or I'm off daydreaming about something else and not in the moment at all. What I've found is that thinking mechanically of things like fingering and the motions of your body or the keys, is useful at the early stages of playing but becomes a problem in the later stages - when you're trying to actually make music... It's too much to think about. If you've already got the mechanical aspects of the playing figured out and sufficiently drilled (that's where the slow-motion comes in), then you can leave that to your subconscious and occupy your conscious mind more with the overview. Focus on the sounds you intend on making (anticipative imagination), and be listening carefully to the sounds you ARE making (quality control). If you're used to thinking mechanistically, you may find it a little difficult to break that habit. When you can trust your subconscious to take care of that, it's a tremendous burden lifted from your conscious mind and you will find it easier and more enjoyable to play with flow and be in the moment. ...and there may be sections where you have to go in with the magnifying glass to correct some mechanical errors. So keep a diagnostic eye out for if you're making the same mistakes again and again. But if you begin to use anticipative listening, you will find yourself disinclined to break the flow of your playing - if you make a mistake, because your mind is always thinking a little ahead of where you are, it will want to keep going rather than stop at the mistake. Which is a great habit to develop because above all when you're performing you don't want to let little mistakes break the flow! So I would advise that the ideal is to practice flowing through mistakes, and just be aware of the mistakes you're making. Random screwups happen, but if you're consistantly making the same mistake you'd better fix it before it becomes habitual. Here's a site I found useful, the english is horrible, it's hard to read and organized akwardly, but once you can get through the language the ideas are pure gold: http://www.pianoeu.com/intro.html
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Learning
by Stephen_James - 04/17/24 10:36 AM
|
|
Forums43
Topics223,397
Posts3,349,393
Members111,636
|
Most Online15,252 Mar 21st, 2010
|
|
|
|
|
|