In my thread about working on a piece with a deadline, Nancy asked how I analyzed the score. The reply I wrote was so long that I decided to give it its own thread! If anyone would like to share how they analyze, please do!

It's a little difficult to explain my way of analyzing without examples from the score, but since I'm too lazy to get out the scanner, I'll do my best!

First of all, when I first open the score, I go through and number all the measures. (Ok, I number the first measure of every line.) Even if the score has rehearsal marks (A, B) I will eventually be deciding my own practice sections, so I need those numbers.

Then I look through the score to see which looks the most "dense." I'm sure everyone knows what I mean! Where are the clumps of 16th notes, or more chords? Then I look at the melody, is it always in the RH? Does it shift to the left? Sometimes I can't tell this unless I actually play through it, but in any case, at the beginning I do this while only looking at the score (usually while I'm sitting on the floor with the sheets all spread out around me!)

Then I look at the LH, where is it simple? That is likely to be a section that will be easier to play. Where is the LH more complicated? That's likely to be harder to play.

Now that I have a general idea, I go to the piano. (This might even be the next day or whatever, my pre-play work I often do during non-practice times.) Maybe those "dense" spots are really simple and some other spot is deceptively difficult, sometimes you can't tell until you get to the keyboard, but in any case having studied the score before hand gives me a framework to start with.

The first time I sit at the piano with the score, I usually play through the whole thing. With this current piece "Spring," I bet it took over 20 minutes! (the real piece should be under 4 minutes. ) During this time, I try to see if my original ideas were right (about which parts would be difficult.) I look at the natural sections of the music, and I look within those sections for what's difficult. Sometimes I can't come up with a practice schedule on the first run through. Nevue's "While the trees sleep" was like that. I think I played through it for 3 days before I decided which section would be difficult. Then I worked on that section while I contiuned analyzing the rest of the piece.

Anyway, so here I am, looking at the score and playing. Let's say I'm playing at half tempo (I usually don't have the metronome out at this stage, but I know I never play at tempo!) Which parts can I play HT close to that half-speed tempo, without stopping the flow of the music? Those are easier. Which parts do I need to play HS? Those are more difficult. Now let's look at the sections where I want to play HS. Which sections can I play at a decent tempo HS? These are not as hard as the sections that I need to slow way down even with HS practice. These are likely to be the most difficult sections.

Another thing I consider is fingering. Which sections can I sort of intuit the fingering? Which sections do I feel like I'll need to work on before I figure out the best fingering? Those sections will be in the more difficult group.

Ah one other thing I forgot to mention is that I look at the dynamic markings and the phrase indications as well, because knowing that I need to make something legato somewhere, or keep a particular phrase linked, may make it more challenging, or make the fingering more challenging, so in addition to the notes on the page, the sound I'm aiming for (or that the score is asking for) is also an element that is always part of the equation.

So, is this making any sense?

Now let me try to say some specific things about my deadline piece. There's one theme in the RH that is not the melody, but it occurs at the beginning, in the middle and at the very end. So one part of my analysis was to notice that, and then look and see which occurances of that theme are the most difficult. Where it occurs in the middle, it's only 4 measures, whereas at the beginning and end, it's 8 measures. Where it occurs at the beginning, the RH has some syncopated 8th/16th note-combinations, and the LH plays all 8th notess in arpeggiated chords. But where this theme occurs at the middle and end, the LH is only half notes. So right there, you can see that the intro theme is more difficult than the middle and end occurances of this theme.

Now let's look at the melody. This was originally a song, and I have a wonderful solo arrangement of it. But because it's a song, I think that makes it a lot easier to analyze since it has verses and a chorus/refrain. So the next thing I looked at was the melody where it's a verse versus where it's in the refrain. I noticed that the verses are a little bit easier, because the RH sings and the LH accompanies. But the refrains, which come up 3 times, are more difficult because there are three voices (4 in one place.) The melody in the RH, and accompany voice (the backup singer?) also in the RH, and the accompany part in the LH.

So now I know that I need to practice the refrain sections before the verse sections. Now, which is the most difficult refrain section? The last one, and we could guess that without even looking at the score, because most songs lead up to a big finish. So in the last refrain, I saw that there are two voices in the RH and two voices in the LH. On top of that, the interplay between LH and RH is intricate, the rhythm is tricky, and the fingering is not intuitive. And it's the big climax, so it's fast and there are lots of 16th notes.

So there it is, the hardest section of this piece!

Through my analysis, I was able to pinpoint that section, but also break up the entire piece into sections and rank those sections by difficulty.

Here is where those measure numbers earn their keep. I use them to make a practice schedule. In the beginning, those 2 weeks of 8 measures, my practice note just said: "48 thru 51, 44-48; 44-51" So actually, I played those 8 measures in two groups of 4 measures, an even smaller chunk! I had forgotten about that.

But at this time, I already had my schedule of where to go next: " 36-39, 32-39." Then back to a section starting with measure 21, then forward to measure 40, then back to measure 17, etc.

So my practice schedule did not go in order, but instead had me working through the difficult sections one by one. Now those original sections are now longer at the top of my list, and my current practice schedule uses the score's original rehearsal marks. So I know work through the piece in this order: A, C, 40 thru 43, F, E, B, Intro, D, G. (the original difficult sections are in F and E)

I had my lesson today. Over the last two weeks I've spent all my time working on getting the notes in my fingers, getting the whole thing flowing etc. Today my teacher sent me home with a lot of expression-homework! "In this run of 4 notes, bring these two out and downplay these" stuff like that. So now the really hard work starts!

Nancy, and anyone else who may have plowed through this description of analysis, did it make sense at all?

"did it make sense at all?"
Shirokuro. This was very useful and as always, exceptionally informative!

Many thanks for taking the time and trouble to write this..

EJR

Hi Shiro,

How long do you study a score away from the piano? I'm thinking that I'd like to take a challenging piece of 3 or 4 pages on my upcoming trip. I may be away from a piano for 2 whole weeks!! When you study the score before playing it, do you have a recording or have you heard it before? I've been wondering how to avoid piano withdraw during my trip and this sounds like a good idea. Of course I'll have my paper piano along. It could be fun to have it studied this way before actually attempting to play it!!

EJR, thanks for reading, I wondered it if was too long!

Sandy, how long? It depends on the music, but I think I spend less time away from the piano if it's a piece I've never even heard before. The better aquainted I am with the music, the more I can work with the score on paper.

Sometimes I'll do a quicker scan-analysis away from the keyboard, and then do the rest of the analysis at the keyboard. If I have a recording, sometimes I'll work with the score while listening, and play the CD over several times. Other times I'll listen once.

With this piece, it was originally a song, and actually, I learned the song (the lyrics and how to sing it) when I was studying Japanese in college. (My teacher taught us several songs, I loved that!) Anyway, so I was very familiar with the original melody. But the solo arrangement is of course more than just the melody, so I tried to get what was happening in all the other parts. Interestingly enough, I got this arrangement from a piano magazine that included a CD, but I really don't like the performance of it, so I specifically avoided listening to it!

Anyway, I'm not getting any closer to answering your question! I've never spent more than a few days on analysis I think, I don't know what I'd do with a whole two weeks!

One thing I have not done is try to think about fingering etc before I've played the music at the keyboard. Since you'll have a paper keyboard with you, you might try that. Then it would be really interesting to see how good your fingering selections were.

Do you know the music?

Another piano-less thing I have gotten into doing is playing the music in my head (with or without the score.) I like to check the clock and then make sure that my mind-playing takes the same amount of time as real playing would take, because that means I'm really doing all the music in my head.

Now with this piece, for the first time I tried "playing" air piano! (And to make matters worse, it was while I was waiting in a hospital waiting room, everyone probably thought I was looney! ) Anyway, I tried to see how much I could remember (I didn't have the score with me) and I moved my fingers as if I was really playing. I also noted that I made the same fingering mistake I've been making lately in a particular spot. I think I am going to start doing that a lot more, because it really helped me when I actually sat down to practice.

I am not good at getting pitch/note info from a score if I don't know the piece, but even in that case I still set a tempo for myself and try to get the rhythm right. So if nothing else, you should certainly try that.

Two weeks! Wow! Where are you going?

Thanks so much, ShiroKuro, for putting all this together. I did read it through entirely, and I have several questions that I will post when I get a minute to formulate them. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your taking the time to write this out. I think the current piece I am working on would have been much, much easier if I had done what you do. I think I added many weeks (and lots of expended frustration) to the work on this piece by not understanding it first. Your outline will be really helpful going forward.

Nancy

Thanks Shiro,

I'm going to Cuba to sit in the sun! The first week is a business trip for my husband and I'm tagging along - we added the second week. Aside from missing my piano...I can't wait!! I think I'll have fun totally analyzing a piece. I'll pick one and maybe get my teacher to record it for me, analyze it every which way I can and maybe even bring my little metronome along to clap or tap out the rhythm (while my husband is at meetings - he already thinks I'm a little crazy)... It will be interesting to see how much quicker a piece comes together having studied away from the piano. I'm also going to SummerKeys in Main this summer so maybe I'll choose a piece that I'd like bring to that!

I have recently bought The Norton Scores and music (really cheap second hand from Amazon)as well as a few Chopin Books and other piano related material....I'm sure I won't have total withdraw....

Nancy, you're welcome! It always helps me to write things out, because it lets me confirm what exactly I'm doing, so I'm happy to do it. I will look forward to your questions. And maybe someone else will chime in as well.

Sandy, Cuba? Look around, you might find a few pianos that are waiting to be played! Be sure to keep your scores with you at all times!

You know, another thing I did once a long time ago was make a second copy of a score and go through and use different color highlighter pens and highlight with a specific color each time the same theme appeared (even if it was slightly different etc) It was really interesting to have a color-coded score, because I could lay out all the pages and literally see where each theme came up, and how many times. I haven't done this lately, but maybe I'll do with my deadline piece, it might be good to do some more analysing. Anyway, I thought I'd mention this because you might want to make a few extra copies of some of the scores.

I hope you have a great time in Cuba!

I'll add colored highlighters and extra copies to my list! This will be fun!

ShiroKuro, I'm finally back to ask a few questions.

First, when you say that your practice schedule said to practice measures 48-51, then 44-48 and so on, did you practice a little on each troublesome section every day, or did you hammer one down and then go onto the next one? And if you did the latter, how did you decide when it was smooth enough to move on?

Second, you mentioned your teacher sending you home with some "expression" homework. I really like it when my teacher gives me these pointers about what to bring out, but she has been emphasizing to me lately to make the choices for myself. I really don't have an ear for it, but she feels that I am just hesitant to be wrong, so I don't choose at all (which is also a choice, I guess). Does your teacher intend for you to eventually do this on your own, or is high quality playing just as good of a goal as being the interpreter of the music? I'm not sure if this makes sense, so ask me and I'll try to reword it.

Finally, I'd love to hear your thoughts on choosing fingerings. I think that's a weak spot for me. How do you know what's best when you can't quite understand what will be expected until it's comfortable under your fingers? If I do stick to one fingering (I have a terrible habit of just playing with any finger unless it's a particularly tricky section), it's almost always the one given by the editor.

I am very impressed that you can play any piece through without the music. I have tried that and not had success. I know it would make the piece much more secure in my memory, so it is a very valuable skill. I can do it for a few measures, but never much more than that, so slow practice is my main memory aid. Maybe I will try playing away from the music on a very short piece sometime soon. Do you picture the keys or the score in this case?

Thanks--Take your time in replying. You've dedicated a lot of time to my many questions!

Nancy

Ok Nancy, I'll try to answer your questions the best I can. I was hoping others would join in, but either no one else does any score analyzing, or (more likely) the first post was too long and no one else has read the whole thing! :p

1) At the very beginning of working on this piece, I did indeed just practice that section (48-51 and 44-48) every day for about two weeks. During that initial phase, those measures were the only thing from this piece that I practiced. When I felt like I could get through those measures basically mistake-free (tho at a slow tempo) I started to work on the whole section (44-51) and added another section. Then I would continue working on each section individually each day, as I added new sections. So gradually the daily practice time I spent on this piece increased. Now it's leveled off.

Regarding how I decided I was ready to move on? Remeber, I'm not techincally moving on, because I still practice that as a separate section, but what's different is that I add another section. The decision when to do that isn't so much based on smoothness, but more on my own "feeling" towards the section. If it no longer feels overwhelming, if I can get through the section plus another (or put two adjacent sections together) without making mistakes, then I might be ready to go forward. I like to practice in repetitions of 7. If I can get through 7 reps mistake free, first run through, then I'm probably ready to work on more.

So I'm not waiting until a section is polished before I add another section. I think a certain level of polishing only comes in conjunction with playing the other sections, so I don't think that would be helpful anyway. I guess I need to feel like I know the notes (whether or not they're memorized) and can play it mistake free at a slow tempo. Then adding expression, speeding up etc can be worked on while I'm adding more sections. But the key is for me to not feel overwhelmed, because if I do then the stuff I'm doing will all take longer.

2) Hmm, this question of yours brings up another question to me. What is the difference between expression and interpretation? While connected, I don't think they are one and the same... I always have an idea of how I want to play a piece, even if it's a barely coherent idea! For example, for my deadline piece, my current "interpretation" intention is that I want to play it as a soft spring rain, rather than as a bright yellow spring flower.

But there are some expression things that are sort of universal (or not?! remember I'm an AB too so take this all with a grain of salt!) For example, say the LH is all arpeggiated chords, it's easier to explain with an example. So here's are the notes (all 8th notes, semi-colon signifies measure break) for LH for my deadline piece:

F C F C, G D G D; A E A E, A E A E (then repeat for next two measures.) (these arps go up and back, if you know what I mean)

My expression homework is to bring out the 1st and 3rd note of each arp rather than play each note with the exact same touch or feeling. I wouldn't call this an interpretation, but maybe I should. I think of this as sort of an obvious choice of expression, perhaps almost universal. It's going to sound dull & repetitive if I play all the LH notes exactly same.

I might have figured out to focus on that on my own, given time, but I've been so focused on playing the right notes at the right time. So this is one thing I meant by "expression homework." Some of the interpretation stuff that I either decide on my own or we decide together is the more intricate questions of breathing the piece, how to change the feeling for a repeat, and esp dynamics. There are some dynamic indications written on the score, but for this piece and most pieces, there's more that can be done, more shading, than what's already written in.

I take so much initiative as it is (no surprise I'll bet ) that my teacher probably doesn't feel the need to make me decide stuff on my own.

3) Fingerings! This is one of those endless topics. One of the main complaints I had about my old teacher was that she was terrible at teaching me fingering. I'd choose a fingering and write it in, and at the lesson say "how is this fingering?" and she'd say "yes, that looks fine." Then I'd play the piece for a millennium, and never be able to get around certain mistake, and finally change the fingering on my own. Then I'd show her again and she'd say "oh yeah, this fingering is much better." That used to drive me insane, why couldn't she have told me in the first place. I now suspect it was because she didn't know.

In the first year with my current teacher, we worked a LOT on fingering. And she would always tell me why certain fingerings were better for certain instances. She also showed me fingerings I'd never thought of (like playing two adjecent notes with my thumb or something.) Now I am able to choose my own fingerings based on the ideas and principles she's taught me. She still teaches me new fingerings or new ways to choose fingerings, I certainly haven't learned everything there is to learn about fingering.

Fingering is hard to talk about because it's so specific, to music and to pianists. And while there are some generalizations that can be made, it's hard to do out of context.

But one thing I can say, that applies to pretty much all pianists and all music, is that it is essential to consciously choose fingering and stick to it. Then, if your fingering is making things difficult, you can change that fingering. But in the learning stage, playing something with a different fingering each time will make it much more difficult and time-consuming to learn.

I write in fingerings that are not originally there, and do sometimes change the editor's fingerings (with great care though.) I write a lot more fingerings than I might otherwise for two reasons. One because having it written on the score just helps me to learn it faster. And two because I play my sections out of order. Fingering is based on context, and what came before determines the fingering for what's coming next. So if I'm playing out of context, I want to make sure I'm using the right fingering, so I write it in from the very beginning.

Ah, how do I know what's best when the music is not comfortable under my fingers? That's from what I've been learning about fingering in general. There are certain ideas that I can use to choose the fingerings, and lately I'm getting better and better at making the right choices from the very beginning. And when there's really something I cannot work out, often I just won't play it until after my next lesson, when I can get my teacher to help me choose. (I rarely choose fingerings for Bach on my own! too difficult!)

4) For your comments about playing without music, I assume you mean without the keyboard. You should try it with something simple. Or even just try one hand's part or one line of music/one voice if one hand has more than one voice. Put the score on your lap, close your eyes and do a few measures, check the score, do a little more. When I do it, if the music is more simple I don't picture the score, but if it's more difficult, I do picture the score in my head. And sometimes I do picture the keys. I think I'm doing that more these days. But I have a very visual memory of the score, so that's probably the easiest way for me.

I think I've run out of words for now!

What do you think?

ShiroKuro, this is all very good advice. It reminds me a lot of how Charles Cooke suggested approaching a piece in the book Playing the Piano for Pleasure.

RE figuring out fingerings: one thing I do in the really difficult passages is play small sections (a measure or two) up to tempo as best I can, hands separate. This gives me an idea of what fingering will work best. This is something Chang recommends in HIS book.

Slow practice is of course most important, but I believe you should at least give yourself a taste of how it will go at the performance tempo right from the beginning so you know what you're aiming for. It also helps with the interpretive types of decisions.

The mental practice thing is really, really valuable, but it's also hard to do. When I do it, I hear the music in my head and at the same time try to picture the score and know what fingers are playing those notes. You really have to go slowly. Try doing just a few measures at a time. I read a post by Elena, a professional pianist who posts here sometimes as EHpianist, in which she said that you should NOT picture your hands playing the notes, because that's just an extension of muscle memory. But I figure it's better than nothing! Especially for us amateurs!

When I was ill with a fever a few weeks ago, my brain kept going over and over a few measures of the Chopin Nocturne I was working on. It practically drove me insane, but when I got back to the piano, I could actually play those measures a lot better. Not a recommended technique, though.

ShiroKuro--One thing I think is that I hope you haven't truly run out of words! They're all so good.

I liked what you had to say about getting a section under your fingers by itself, but doing the polishing along with other sections. That makes sense to me. Sometimes I play a small section so far into the polishing stage that it always stands out to me, like a piece of wood that was varnished years before the rest of the deck. It never sounds quite together.

I understand your distinction between interpretation and expression, but I hadn't thought of it that way. I am hesitant to do either, but I think I'm more apt to make up a mood or story about the piece than I am to decide to emphasize certain parts of each measure. For some reason those things don't just naturally come to me; I need to be told.

I could ask you more questions about the principles of fingering, but I will give you a rest for the weekend! I think you're right about needing to write it in; a teacher told me that last year, and it was the first I thought about it. But of course, if you need to start from anywhere, you have to be able to know the fingering.

Piano again, I will try your idea of playing short sections up to tempo HS. This makes so much sense because I have noticed that some fingerings that feel comfortable at a slow tempo do not hold up when I have to play quickly. Also, I was very interested to read about your fever and playing the Chopin Nocturn in your head. The exact same thing happened to me in high school with a very bad two week bout with the flu. I was taking typing at the time and the fever caused me to mentally type every word I saw or heard and every thought I had. This went on for months after I was healed until I thought I'd go crazy. It eventually subsided, but I made an A in typing that quarter! And I'm a really fast typist now:)

Finally, ShiroKuro, yes I did mean playing without a piano. I went to an "emergency" lesson tonight with another teacher--my own teacher sent me because I was having trouble with my current piece that she was unable to resolve--and he brought up many of your same points in a different way. He urged me to practice much the way you are describing, and he said he would recommend playing by section, calling out each note, singing the melody, and being so familiar with the score that I could play it with pencils tapping on the keys. I don't think I'll get that far, but I do think I'll try some of your analysis ideas, even this late in the game. I have to play this March 3 (my version of a deadline piece), and I'm not nearly ready. I know your ideas will move me forward, and I really appreciate your taking the time to post them.

Nancy

Piano Again,
That makes a lot of sense. Another thing we could say then is maybe picturing your hands might be something you'd actually choose to do at a certain stage, if you were trying to cement your muscle memory. I wonder what Elena would say about picturing the keyboard... now that she's a mommy, she posts here less. Who can blame her!

I've been doing a lot more keyboard-picturing than I used to. I'm doing scales where LH and RH go up together for two octaves, and then the RH continues up for two more octaves, while the LH goes down for two octaves, then each hand moves back toward the other for two more octaves, and then both hands move together back down to the original start position. When the hands are moving opposite of each other, I tend to look at the LH, but I was having trouble with missing notes in the RH. So I would picture the keyboard under my RH while I was looking at the keys under my LH. That seemed to help.

Since doing that, now I'm using a similar technique with my current piece. There are a few times where the LH has to jump down over an octave while the RH has to shift position into a three-note chord. I miss this a lot, as you can imagine. Sometimes I look at the bottom note of the RH chord, sometimes I look where my LH pinkie has to go, but I've been trying to picture the other part of the keyboard at the same time. My ability to nail this in both hands, at the desired tempo, is improving. I don't know if it's this picturing that's helping, or just the fact that I've been practicing it for a while now! :p

Nancy, emphasizing certain parts of each measure is one of the more difficult things IMO. Especially, or mainly, for the LH part. In the past, I felt like I couldn't even hear the difference when my teacher would say "here's how you're playing it. Here's how I want you to play it instead."

When it's all you can do to play the notes at the right time, hearing how one should stand out more than the other is really difficult unless it's a melody note. But once you are taught those points in a few different pieces, I think you can start to make predictions on your own. I can now do those predictions for arpeggios, and I can play those arps HS and try a few different ways of playing and say "this one fits this music better." But when the LH is a different pattern, I can't make those predictions.

But more importantly, I still tend not to beat my teacher, if you know what I mean! She always gets there first, giving me the "emphasize these notes" instructions before I can start doing it on my own.

Re making up a story, I think that's very important. Then the next step is to make the connection between your story and how you'd bring it out in your playing. For my piece, where I want it to be a spring rain not a yellow flower, one of the ways I want to try to "play" that story is to keep the LH from being bouncy, instead I want it to be just a little bit heavy, and I want play very legato.
I want to make sure that I don't jump right into the next section when there's a section change, so I want to let the piece breathe. I think of how this music might be played if it was a march (yuck!) and imagine how you'd charge ahead in the music for a march. So, this is a soft rain, instead of charging forward, I want to sort of slide, ooze forward (what a funny thing to say.) But that doesn't mean I'll slow down, you know what I mean? So within the same tempo, there are different ways of moving forward.

Re fingering, I bet we could start putting together some general principles of fingering. Look out, here comes another thread! I will try to put some of my ideas into words, and then start a thread in the next few days, and I bet this is a topic that a lot of other people will join in on. Stay tuned!

Also, in preparation for your March 3 recital, you should definitely try playing the piece in your head. Even if you only do the melody, I think it might help you "put the piece together." Also, if you do some analyzing and cut the piece up into sections (or it's already in sections) then try visualizing the first measure (LH and RH) of each section. Do this in order, because the purpose of it is to visualize the flow of the music.

Then, in a few days or a week, let us know if you think it make a difference, or what techniques helped you the most.

What are you playing on the 3rd?