I would like to start a bank of wonderful ideas we have gotten from our amazing teachers. (I sincerely hope this doesn't start any arguments.) Here are a few I've picked up lately:

Economy of motion: Keep you fingers close to the keys.

Let your musical phrases breathe. Finish the phrases.

Legato is done more with the arms than fingers

To play all the notes in a chord at the same instant, position your fingers lightly on the keys before striking.

To bring out a melody a with finger, curl the finger and scratch the key

To bring out a melody with the thumb, rotate your thumb inward toward the fallboard as you hit the key.

Be able to start your music from any bar.

When practicing, play each phrase absolutely perfectly 5 times before moving on.

Use most of your practice time to focus on areas that need work. Don't waste precious time by playing what you already know.

Memorize the left hand alone.

Don't park too close to my car...

Concentrate on the "up" motion and don't get stuck in the keys. You can't move a key down unless you are up first.

Let the pedal hold it.

If you are rhythmically accurate the notes will fall into place more easily.

To play quickly you need to move your hands quickly.

Why don't you try some Brahms? :-)

Here's just a few:

For accompaniment-type passage which need to be played underneath a melody, keep the wrist somewhat lower than normal and the palm closer to the keys.

Practice performing. That is, even in the practice room, sit down and say to yourself "I'm now going to play piece X just as if I were performing it right now." That way, you know what to expect in your actual performance and know which parts you need to practice before then.

Practice scales, chords, arpeggios, and technical exercises musically. Play them forte, piano, staccato, legato, with crescendo, with diminuendo, with varying rhythms, crossed hands, etc.

These date from 2002, the date of my last lessons!

Practice octave scales, on each hand, with the thumb only; and the little finger only; that gives the scales clean "edges." i.e. each finger should be able to do its job perfectly when isolated. This almost immediately cleaned up my octave scales.

Look over a piece of music before you start reading it, see where the highest and lowest notes will be, look for any key or tempo changes. (I realized that I would just start playing "blindly," try to figure out the time signature in the first couple of bars, glance back as I went to see what key it was in and exactly what sharps and flats there were -- !!)

Emphasize dynamics and contrast! "Now, as you play it, it sounds like a watercolor wash. Do you understand what I mean by that?" Yes, perfectly.

Have fun and tell a story. ("Petit Ane Blanc" by Ibert.) "You can hear him clipping and clopping down the street, and now he's braying, eee-yaaa!" (I sat on the piano bench feeling like an overgrown 9-year-old as she was talking, but yes, it made sense.)

Psychological aspects of performance. OUCH!!! My weak point! One day I showed up for a lesson, having learned a piece (can't remember what) and ready to play it-- but with a certain defensive mood of "You can stand and stare at my fingers the whole time, I am not going to make a single mistake." To my surprise, she sat down in an armchair and said, "Just play. For the pleasure of the audience. Forget that I'm a teacher-- I just want to hear something beautiful." She sat back with her eyes closed and a faint smile on her face, waiting... I was flummoxed... felt like she had pinpointed the single thing that I did not "get" about that piece. All I remember is playing with a feeling of intense strain and difficulty and even anger-- she had just taken away my main motivation for playing the piece!

(I tried to explain my reaction to her later, but she seemed to think I was angry with her... she was very sensitive and took it personally, I think!)

We ended our lessons shortly afterwards, for other reasons. We have remained friends, but every time in the intervening years that I have mentioned piano, or sight-reading, she makes some oblique comment and avoids the subject. Before, she was actively suggesting that I have lessons with her.

Later, her husband told me (as I was fishing for some information), that she had said I was a "problematic" performer, and I wanted to play for myself, not for others. It was a sad lesson and I am not sure how much I can change to be a more "generous" performer but it did make me realize that aspect of performing-- that music is something you share with the audience, not just a showcase of "how good you are."

"Play the tops!! Play the tops!!" It took me a long time figure out that what was meant was to intensify the top notes of melodic lines. This is standard advice, but it is still good to be reminded.

"Work on Mendelssohn's Variations sérieuses to improve your technique." Still a good idea.

"Fling your hands off the keyboard at the end; the blue-hairs in the front row eat that stuff up." Cynical manipulation of the audience as part of playing a piece? Can't say I completely agree, but I understand the impulse to do it.

I love this kind of stuff (and often enough, have found it personally useful), and I hope more of you dig into your memory banks and contribute.

Advice from my first teacher about performing...

"When you walk on to the stage and sit down - sit there and take your time... don't feel the pressure to begin playing straight away. This is YOUR time - settle yourself, settle your mind... and start playing when YOU are ready"

"You must feel the music... without feeling it inside you - you won't be able to communicate it to the audience"

"Let your music breathe... it's the breathing that make all the difference. That's what will separate your performance from those who concentrate on getting the notes just right"

This thread is pure gold. Let's keeping it going!

"When playing scales, lean the hand toward the direction you are playing. Keep wrist slightly lower when going up, slightly higher when going down."

"Economy of motion: when playing broken cords with black and white keys, play more toward the edge on the black keys, and play more in between the black keys on the white keys." (it's much easier to see this than describe it in words)

"Move the hand rather than stretch with the fingers"

Flat fingers for a sensitive/lyrical sound

Unless it's Brahms Op 119 #3 then it's "play the bottoms, play the bottoms!"