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Like a chef who learns to use the shell to remove egg pieces, Pianists pick up on some clever tricks as well.

The question is if somebody else has discovered this trick before...


When playing a FF Chord or something SFP, is it well known to play quite loudly and "pump" the pedal twice to reduce the dynamic to MP/P?

I use this all the time, esp. in Pathetique where there are so many SFP's.

share your tricks!

Before performing any piece, play it at home a lot first.

Lift up the fallboard before starting to play.

Use BOTH hands. Much easier.

I saw this demonstrated in a master class on the Pathetique; not sure now who was the teacher, may have been Robert Taub.

A suggestion for accordion players - when playing a grand piano do not tip the piano on its side, that is dangerous.

Before playing a LONG piece, make sure you go to the bathroom - specially if you drank a lot of water before.

I thought this was a good topic. My current favourite trick is to look for places to redistribute notes between the hands.

It IS a good topic. Sorry for the side-track.

My actual tip is to look very carefully through difficult and/or very fast music, to find unexpected places for your muscles to take a bit of a rest.

Yes this is known, and I have a piece where this is explicitly called for in the score: it is in an arrangement of "The Snowy-breasted Pearl!" by Arthur S. Loam. Under a climactic discord of A-C#-G-A-C#-E# marked sf and a fermata marked lunga, a footnote says

"After or during the pause, if the pedal is operated three or four times (or more) in quick succession, a most affective diminuendo can be obtained on a FF or F chord"

The pedalling markks under the chord also indicate the "pumping" action called for.

And yes, its very useful in the Pathetique.

My real tip is this: Before beginning to play a piece for a performance, mentally locate the most difficult sections and decide on an appropriate playing tempo based on whatever speed you can play those sections at comfortably.

I don't really have tricks for piano but I wanted to comment on the eggshell tip. I was a chef and found that if one were to whisk or beat eggs in a steel bowl, the shell bits stick to the sides of the bowl and do not need to be tediously removed.

Do you have a good tip for keeping the egg from sticking to the shell when they are hard boiled?

for octave glissandi, lick your thumb and pinky beforehand for better gliding. as seen in 'they came to play' by the competition winner drew for a beethoven sonata was it tempest or appassionata [edit: it's waldstein]?

by the way, this should also be possible by going over your nostrils, which are quite oily, at least it's a common flute practice.

^^ That's that Waldstein. I've had that trick recommended to me several times...though if the piano's not ridiculously heavy to play, I can do the gliss.

Dont make orgasmic face expressions always hide your feelings when you playing a piece on the piano.

R-E-A-L-L-Y? I will try this one out. Thanks for sharing!

As a general rule, remove the dots in baroque music, turning them into rests.
For some, alternating octaves with 5-4 on the outer end can be quicker, especially for chromatic passages
Two note slurs in mozart are always a down up feeling, a sigh motif (I'm sure most know that...)

I found the perfect preparation for just the right feeling of contact with the keys without slipping or sticking too much is to scratch my dogs. Really. They don't get bathed often because I clip them every 6 weeks. It gives my hands just the right feeling, (and they love it). Good dog!

Here I found this one for you --
"The best compromise is to use eggs that have been stored on their sides in the refrigerator for 7 to 10 days."

BTW,I think this is a great thread. Eggs are great for pianist - when my friend started learning piano, her dad asked her to hold eggs for hours (she was around 4) and she passed grade 8 in just three years when she was 7. Eggs help a lot!