Richard,

Boileau was making a broad observation about the ease with which certain people capture the attention and adulation of others. Even if it's not applicable to this specific instance, I still think it has general relevance.

I'm sure you knew when you voiced your opinion that others wouldn't necessarily share it, but they're effectively muzzled from expressing themselves by the "If you can't say anything good, don't say anything" ethos that prevails here. By offering instead an aphorism from a learned Gallic scholar, I meant no offense to you and I apologize if any was taken.

Steven

Steven, Thank you for the apology, It is accepted - I was offended as I am sure it was not hard to tell. I am well aware of the differences of opinions that you and a few others share concerning Mark Cannon. I thought I was just expessing my thoughts and felt, and still feel, that I was taking no sides or supporting anyones viewpoint. I am a raw beginner and pretty new to the forum. I take great pleasure taking in the wealth of talent and knowledge that members here have acquired with years of effort. Since even I could see that there was a good deal of tension all through the thread I would have been wise to place my comments in a calmer atmosphere. Up until these little "events" take place further into some threads, members like you and keyboardklutz, passion and many others display and post a tremendous knowledge of music and education - and I am grateful for those gifts on Piano World.
Again, thank you,
Richard

Passion!? What was 'educational' about his bizarre, homophobic and scattalogical references in the 'No Fun' thread? That, in my time here at PW, has gotta be the most abusive post I've seen.

Keyboardklutz - I agree - don't know what got into me.
I think I will go for the mentioned muzzle.
Richard

I just assumed that the name was confused with someone else's.

For what it's worth, Passion has left the building.

Steven

Too funny, and much appreciated.

Cathy

It's amazing how off topic this thread has taken. I am involved in a lot of different forums and quite frankly I'm surprised a moderator has not stepped in yet. Usually these threads have some useful information for myself since a no teacher / self learner to all bad habits type of guy like me needs all the help you can get and will agree this thread did start that way but not for long. lol


While I did pick up some interesting unknown info (Keyboardklutz, I had no idea fingering was as important as it is in reference to Chopin and the like), it has been an entertaining way to start off the morning!

You want to see what goes on before YD gets out of bed!

Thanks, Richard -- it's better than "Larry David" which is what I usually get.

Thanks very much for the props and the encouragement!
But if I keep ruffling feathers in a bad way so often, I'll do something about it -- probably just posting less, which maybe wouldn't hurt anyway.

If part of what you meant was what I think you might have, I thank you anyway for taking a look.

I guess my view is that from the beginning it's best to learn a piece exactly as it's written, with the fingering and dynamics that are prescribed. I'm not very good at this because I'm impatient. I fall in love with beautiful melodies, and in my haste to hear the melody, I use my own sloppy fingering which may seem easier at the time. Then I have to go back and learn it again the right way, because I usually discover that my flawed fingering limits how well I can play the song. It takes so much discipline to learn a piece slowly, only playing passages as well as I can play them correctly. And I sometimes get in the habit of playing wrong notes because I'm not disciplined enough to make sure every note is correct as I'm learning.

Having said all that, I love to improvise. But maybe the best improv comes after we learn to play a piece straight. For me there's also the issue of respect. there's also the issue of respect. I try to be humble enough to honor the composer by learning to play a piece as close as possible to what he/she intended.

I'm a very amateur composer, and I know how much I agonize over every note, every nuance of dynamics and tempo. I wouldn't like it if someone else played from a manuscript of one of my songs and immediately started changing things without taking the time to find out what I originally intended as the composer.
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Larry, while it is true that it's important to have good fingering on the onset, often it is hard to know what fingering would work best. There are times that I have to adjust fingering as the tempo of a piece increases as I discover the ineffectiveness of what I've chosen before. This includes when I've used the editor's fingering to start with. Sometimes it is inevitable.

This is one reason I've found it so helpful to start practicing right away with hands separate in short sections (as C. C. Chang recommends in his book on practicing). This lets you play a lot of things at the correct tempo, or at least closer to it, from the beginning so that you can come up with good fingerings. Once those are more or less in place, you can then do the slow practice that is of course necessary.

This is interesting. I have not tried this method myself except for once on Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin, Prelude. I tried memorizing each measure as I went along, bringing it up to tempo. I think I made it through the first page like that and then gave up. So for me, I guess it wasn't effective at all in the sense that I lost interest in the piece and didn't complete it. Perhaps this depends solely on the personality of the performer.

Morodienne -- I think a measure is too artificial a subdivision. I usually mark a piece out into musically logical sections, noting especially the difficult ones, and then practice those sections in all kinds of ways. The section can be as short as two measures or it can be a whole page -- depends on the piece.

This helps with a lot of different things -- understanding the structure, understanding where thematic materials is repeated and where it varies, and understanding exactly where the technical challenges are.

I do believe that even when you are playing hands separate, if you play groups of notes at the correct tempo you develop muscle memory much sooner than if you only play them slowly, and you also understand better how those groups of notes fit into the whole.

I too fall victim at attempting new songs at an unreasonable fast pace. I picked up this habit from playing bass guitar, where I would only read tab notations. Since tabs doesn't notate time it's very hard to not try and pick up a song at least close to the tempo. It's the only reference to rythm you have.

Bad habits from one instrument to another.