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Very normal to get overwhelmed by that exercise. But it is an excelllent rhythm exercise.

You usually see the phrase “ Landmarks & Intervals” because we use both to keep going. Put your hands on a landmark note and then start reading intervallically as far as you can go. When you mess up, re-orient your hands with the landmark and start reading intervals again.

I found it useful to be aware of the “fifth” that my hands are sitting on - in other words the 3 lines or spaces that my hand is sitting on. I use this as a larger “landmark” to keep myself oriented while reading. For example if my right hand thumb is on G (treble clef) - then I’m very aware that my hand is on the 3 middle lines of the treble clef. It helps me quickly see notes and chord patterns that are easy or difficult to play. For tricky quick moving passages, Ive found it efficient to anchor on the line/space that my middle finger is on and read intervallically from there. I can be much more accurate using that technique.

Thanks groove on, I've never heard that before and it really seems like a simple method that would really work, I think I'd still get flustered at this stage to work that out within a beat (hopefully I'll mess up on whole or half notes so I have a little more time lol) if that's all the time I had but it will certainly find my place quicker.

I've been on with this book for roughly a week now, doing 20 minutes twice a day. I've also done extra rythm excercises away from the piano when I've got time to kill away from my house.

I typically start from the beginning and by the time my 20 minutes is up I'm just finished section 3 so circa 40-45 short 4 bar excercises. Maybe 85% of the time it's error free, if I make an error twice I move on so I don't start to memorise any exercises

I did have a slight concern that I was memorising stuff as it was getting noticeably easier but upon reflection nothing seems familiar at all so I guess it just feels easier due to improvement, I hope so anyway!

The process I use is:

Hit a wrong note.

Determine if it's too high or too low.

Play down or up the chromatic scale until I hear the right note.

Continue from there.

Mostly it sounds like rubbish, sometimes I get lucky and it could pass for deliberate ornamentation..... ;-)

That sounds like an interesting method john, I'm not sure you'd hear the right note with exercises that are hit and miss for sounding musicals.

I've been pressing on with the book doing an average of 40 minutes a day. I started with 20 minutes but I usually do 2 of these sessions now as I'm finding them enjoyable.

Anyway I'm not sure what was differant when I did it last night but it was one of those ureka moments when I just all of a sudden found it noticeably easier from my previous sessions, I really hope it wasn't a 1 off. I am rather excited by this.

I do become a bit overwhelmed when there is a bigger interval and still feel like I just have to have a guess to keep time. However I have noticed when I do guess I happen to get it correct a lot more than before.

Yes, just to add to this, it is useful to have more permanent landmarks. It's easy to recognize/use use the C's as landmark notes because of the symmetry they have on the score (middle C - three spaces up on the trebble staff/three spaces down on the bass staff - two ledger lines above the trebble staff - two ledger lines below the bass staff). When you're comfortable with that you can add a couple of other landmark notes. On the bass clef I was taught to use the F which is marked by the clef (2nd line down, the line between the two dots on the bass clef) and the other one just below the staff. On the Trebble Clef I use the G (2nd line up - the one the treble clef kinda swirls around) and the other G just above the staff.

Using those notes as landmarks, you can recognize intervals around them (of course one could use other landmarks as well, but you just need something to give you a visual anchor to help you recover should you lose your place). Crap that didn't sound right I must have misread the note...oh the next one is just a third above my landmark note - it helps you get back on track.

Of course, to use this one needs to cultivate a feeling for the span of an interval. you need to know what a 2nd feels like, what a third feels like, etc... I actually had blocks that were the width of different intervals that I could practice feeling the distances using different fingers but you could simply use the piano to measure out the distances and get used to playing different interval spans.

Some ideas that might be useful:

1)Set your fingers a third a part and play thirds up and down the keyboard...focus on feeling the distance more than the sound. Get it in your head that THIS is the distance of a third.
2) Make a loose fist then see if you can "throw" your fingers out to the correct distance and test it on the keyboard (at different locations, throwing a third each time before you test) -- the idea here is that you don't want your fingers to be rigid like a claw but you want to be able to move your fingers from not being a third apart to being a third apart because you know what that distance feels like. When you test, practice playing both melodic (one after the other) and harmonic (both at the same time)intervals. Also, before you play anything, consciously relax your hand...you should NEVER practice playing with tense hands even on a drill like this.
3) pick a different set of two fingers and repeat the process.
4) once you've got your thirds solid go on to fourths and repeat the process....then get the rest of the intervals down.

And you need to learn to recognize different intervals on the written music. I made a bunch of flash cards for that actually. I had like a 100+ flash cards with different intervals written out (no clef, mix of positions on the staff, mix of stems up/down, etc... and I could turn the cards upside down to double up on them). I haven't thought about those flash cards in ages. But after a couple of weeks of going through the deck a couple of times a day my interval recognition was extremely solid. It's worth the time to do imo.

Warm Regards,
Fizikisto

Ah, a couple other rules of mine are:

Never play anything that isn't intended to sound musical.

Never play anything without knowing how it's supposed to sound.

The only little exception to that is drilling on brief sequences that present a physical challenge.

Fititsko - thankyou for such a long thought out response, some very good ideas there. I will have to make a few notes my own land marks. I really like the idea of the flash cards I think I will try that.

John - maybe I'm being a little harsh suggesting they have no musicality, they do but they are just not exciting.

Scottswald You're welcome. I went looking into my "piano files" folder and I actually still have the file I made to print out the intervals flash cards. if you would like a copy send me a PM with your email address and I'll send it to you. I printed them out, cut them to size and pasted them onto 3 x 5 index cards.

Warm Regards,
Fizikisto

Fizikisto I will definately take you up on that offer! I'll send you a pm now. What a great forum!

Hi just an update

I'm still plugging away and improving, I can relax more when doing it and for the earlier parts I have increased my tempo.

My concern is that I find it very manageable until section 6, is it me or is section 6 quite a jump up as it introduces both 8th notes and accidentals at the same time? I have no problem with the 8th notes but the accidentals are really tripping me up. I never know what finger to use, should I always just use the same finger that I would for that note if it wasn't sharpened or flattened? Keep in mind that for grade 1 it's mostly still a five finger position.

Scottswald, the short answer to your question is, yes, at this level use the same finger on the note with an accidental as you would use if there weren't an accidental.

That will preserve the basic feature of five-finger positions: as you go from a line to the adjacent space, or a space to the adjacent line, you play the notes with consecutive fingers. If you skip a line or space, you skip a finger. For even larger skips, you skip more fingers.

In later levels of the series you will start moving your hand around the keyboard and then there will be more choices/decisions to make about which fingers to use in the face of accidentals. But in Book 1, it's still mostly five-finger positions.