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The music comes first. Skills grow in order to bring out the music.
And for this reason sometimes the music has to come last, in order to get at the skills, in order to use them to bring out the music. But above all, nothing is black and white. Music study by its nature is an oxymoron. If anything is done to an extreme in either direction, then it is wrong for that reason alone. Would you agree?
developing arm weight by playing melodies alternating just one (unmoving) finger of each hand
do you mean pick one finger on each hand, and then play the notes with every other note using the RH finger and the in-between notes using the LH finger? Or something else? I think this mysterious "arm weight" is what I next want to find how to feel in my playing.
The exercise comes from the Russian School of Piano Playing by Nikolaev.
I don't have the books but knew of them. When playing the single hand exercises of Beyer Op. 101 and simple melodies from easy recorder and guitar tutors I had my boys use one hand for the whole exercise and then repeat it with the other hand, as per Nikolaev's instructions, but when picking out Beatles songs by ear, or whatever they knew, they both began using the other hand automatically where convenient. I let them improvise and use whatever hand suited them.
Keystring, yes, I agree that extremes can be wrong but I'm writing what I know and I know I'm using generalities. I expect them to be taken as just one opinion and a guideline. I don't want to qualify everything with 'there are exceptions but...'. Others can disagree, whether they have authority as piano teachers, experience as student, or opinion as people. Disagreement leads to an increase of clarity, knowledge and/or understanding, often for all parties.
Your concerns about what I've written are well founded, I'm sure, but my belief is that the beginner will overlook most of the detail if it's beyond their scope. If they start out like Sam Rose it may be more beneficial. They're just sample questions you might ask yourself and have more relevance to some than others. What piano instruction course suggests beginners ignore the music first? The details are ignored in practise because the head is fully occupied with more important things. If what I write is going to confuse them how can I prevent them reading Chang, Neuhaus and company?
When the student has become more advanced what I write may mean more - or possibly less! Until then I believe it will just wash over. Heavens, I've been playing for years and I'm still picking up stuff I read many years ago that's only now sinking in!
I find climaxes most often come on the highest notes. I know it's not a universal law. It's a good guide to shape the phrase at the outset. Better interpretation can come with more experience, more study and more listening. But a generality is a better way to shape a phrase than waiting until the piece is memorised.
I also believe the basic dynamic premise is different on the piano than on strings and more akin to singing.
As soon as a piano key is struck the sound begins to fade. The following notes must then be struck a little softer in order to main a legato line rather than a saw tooth. When the notes are rising a stronger dynamic masks the difference but in descent softer dynamics produce a smoother line. Yes, there are exceptions. But hitting every note the same force just because you're a beginner or you're just coordinating the hands is not the same as hitting every note with the same force because you haven't thought about it yet.
The piano is not ideally suited to the non-thinker. Godowsky was right when he said we don't play with our hands.
Your concerns about what I've written are well founded, I'm sure, but my belief is that the beginner will overlook most of the detail if it's beyond their scope.
But if, as a teacher, do not know what is yet in their scope, and not in their scope, you don't know what you are doing. And if you DO know that, then you will not confuse them by talking about concepts that are not part of what you are teaching right now.
When you are teaching one thing, but mention other things, the minds of the learners are split. The concentrate less fully on the thing that needs to be learned now, worrying other things they are not ready for.
There is a reason why the video you referenced is stressing NOT reading, in the beginning. I don't happen to agree with this idea, because I have seen too many reading disasters result from it, but I know what the woman is doing. If he starts with notation, she will have to delay some of the technical things she is starting with.
So if I try to teach what she is teaching AND teach what *I* teach at the beginning, at the same time, it will result in an incoherent mess.
That's the most important concept. It can be done both ways, by a great teacher, but only by deciding what must come first and second, not by doing both in the beginning.
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I also believe the basic dynamic premise is different on the piano than on strings and more akin to singing. [quote] But hitting every note the same force just because you're a beginner or you're just coordinating the hands is not the same as hitting every note with the same force because you haven't thought about it yet.
But you can' hit a whole series of notes with the same "force", as you put it, without thinking about it, because this is a very difficult thing to learn. If you have absolute control over 5 notes, to the point that the sound perfectly even, then you will probably be able to do just about anything else later. I would argue that the evenness is the first step, and a difficult one.
... but my belief is that the beginner will overlook most of the detail if it's beyond their scope.
I'd wager that this belief is more of a guess. What I gather is that you are throwing out generalities of all kinds, not thinking that they might be taken as actual guidance. Since this is so, then a beginner reading these posts should know that this is how you intend it. I am not convinced that your guess is true, and this is for several reasons:
- because when I was inexperienced and was looking for answers, I took what I read quite seriously if anyone even appeared to have a voice of authority, and a few times I got in trouble because of it - because in learning about teaching from several teachers who have been at it for decades, the one thing that kept coming up is how adult students, above all, tend to follow things too precisely, and in exaggeration. - because I have encountered students who tried to reach such things without knowing how, and before being ready.
If you think what you write will be dismissed or ignored, why write them at all? But consider that they may be taken quite seriously, and somebody may think that these are the things he has to put into his playing from the get go.
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When the student has become more advanced what I write may mean more - or possibly less! Until then I believe it will just wash over. Heavens, I've been playing for years and I'm still picking up stuff I read many years ago that's only now sinking in!
It does NOT wash over. When advice is sought, and it is given, then it will be followed. It is now clear that you did not intend these things to be followed at this point, but rather "eventually" - if that is kept in mind, then it can be used the right way. But would you agree that if someone who is still a beginner thought they had to achieve the things you listed, there may be a problem?
I'd wager that this belief is more of a guess. What I gather is that you are throwing out generalities of all kinds, not thinking that they might be taken as actual guidance. Since this is so, then a beginner reading these posts should know that this is how you intend it. I am not convinced that your guess is true, and this is for several reasons:
In general I'd also say beware of students posing as teachers - particularly when advice given appears to be definitive.
I also believe the basic dynamic premise is different on the piano than on strings and more akin to singing.
This sentence is rather unclear. I think that by "basic dynamic premise" you mean the idea that you have put forth that a phrase that ascends and descends should have the highest note played the loudest, and that this is somehow trained into a person's system through the physical act of singing. I don't think that is true.
In writing that, you also do not seem to have read what I wrote, or considered it.
Meanwhile, I have written how strings and piano use two similar things: the "arm weight" that you keep stressing, and speed of motion, both in order to produce dynamics (louder, quieter). I play both instruments so this is from personal experience.
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As soon as a piano key is struck the sound begins to fade. The following notes must then be struck a little softer in order to main a legato line rather than a saw tooth.
That is not how legato is created, and it will confuse people. Legato, on piano, is created by having a slight overlap from one sound to the next sound, and this is done through timing. What worries me more is someone who is still at the beginning stage, trying to have subtle shades of "a little bit softer". What a struggle, and what formula for tension.
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But hitting every note the same force just because you're a beginner or you're just coordinating the hands is not the same as hitting every note with the same force because you haven't thought about it yet.
But we are talking about beginners. "Subject: Beginner-know when to drop an old piece?"
What piano instruction course suggests beginners ignore the music first?
Course, or lessons? In fact, we already talked about this in the subject of singing and how one excellent vocal teacher does it. In that case developing technique came first, and then the music, so that the student had control to be able to produce the music.
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The details are ignored in practise because the head is fully occupied with more important things.
Ok, first thing, which details are ignored by whom, how? And if you do not teach yourself, can you know this for sure? IF instructions are being ignored then there are two possibilities: poor following of instructions, or poor instructions. IF the instructions have too many details so that a student is forced to ignore them, then they are poor instructions.
If a student is taught properly, then there is planning to the teaching. That includes the kinds of things I was talking about: giving the skills; giving approaches; teaching stages in those approaches and so forth. There is no reason to ignore anything if good teaching is going on, and in that case ignoring is foolishness. If the teaching is overwhelming, then maybe ignoring is in fact wise.
Well, I for one am convinced that the more (knowledge, information), the better. I probably read twenty or so books on piano technique, from those written in the 19th century to the most recent ones, including those whose ideas are now rejected. Based on that and on my experiences at the piano I formed my own opinion - or rather, I am continuously forming it as I move on. I read and watch advanced stuff too, even if I'm unable to practice it now, because I think it will seep through and will come out by itself when I need it. Maybe it's because of my old-style European education, but I'm totally against simplification. Complexity is good for the critical mind.
And I find that it's actually easier to be detailed and attentive when you study very simple things, when the mere note-learning part happens quite quickly. Hopefully one day I will only need to concentrate on musicality, tone and expression, but it's crucial that I at least try to do that now too. Moving along I acquire a sense of what I can achieve right now, and where I should stop, knowing that I did reasonably well for now.
Maybe, maybe not. I doubt that splitting focus along concurrent lines is always the most efficient means of developing competence for each of those components. On so many occasions with piano, I've found consecutive mono-tasking gets results quickly. Often it's easier to auto-pilot one thing before trying to satisfactorily monitor another. The simplest example would be muscle memory for the notes and expression (music!) after.
I notice these days youngsters seem to be particularly good at texting and, say, watching a film simultaneously. I couldn't do it, or maybe I just wouldn't do it because in each of the two activities undertaken simultaneously the involvement is too shallow - not just a lack of depth but something qualitative too (texting rarely being anything other than shallow!).
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And I find that it's actually easier to be detailed and attentive when you study very simple things
..yes, I'm more in tune with that. It could be simple or just narrower in range.
Yeah well I'm not advocating multitasking, on the contrary, it's usually counterproductive. But piano playing is made of many things and each of them has to be taken care of, sooner or later. A beginner will struggle a lot just to learn the notes and figure out the rhythm, and then fingering, dynamics, phrasing, and so on. You can learn one thing at a time or a bit of everything as you move on - personally I go for the latter because that's the way I function, even at work, in serial passages. If you're an advanced player, the basics are easy and you can really focus on a single technical or musical goal. What's nice about going back to a piece that was learned six months before is exactly that I don't need to struggle on the "easy" part anymore, and I can pay attention to other details. But still, you have to know everything that needs to be done, even if you don't do it all at the same time. At least I want to know.
There is some tendency to learn just the notes first, then add dynamics, then add contrast, then add shaping, then the other shaping within the shaping, then add... It's a very inefficient way to learn because you have to relearn the same music so many times. So I'm totally in agreement that you must multitask the learning especially dynamics and articulation on the first go at it. If one cannot cope simply drop to something easy enough to cope with it all then after some time, work back up.
I think the issue often with adults is that they play way above their level of competence because they want to learn Liszt Consolation No. 3 instead of Yankee Doodle Dandy, so they drop everything down to just learning the notes and maybe a little dynamics because they can't cope with all that must be done at the Consolation No. 3 level.
Yeah well I'm not advocating multitasking, on the contrary, it's usually counterproductive. But piano playing is made of many things and each of them has to be taken care of, sooner or later. A beginner will struggle a lot just to learn the notes and figure out the rhythm, and then fingering, dynamics, phrasing, and so on.
I thought this thread was ABOUT beginners?
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You can learn one thing at a time or a bit of everything as you move on - personally I go for the latter because that's the way I function, even at work, in serial passages.
The is counter to every student I have and have had. My students all make a wreck of things when they do not build in layers. They can only do several things at the same time when they have already mastered all those things, and mastered them well. Only THEN can they focus their concentration on something new.
What experienced players do is to continually shift from one layer to another, monitoring each different layer.
Beginners can't do this.
That is one very good reason for beginners to review, also for them to leave things for awhile. New skills come on line and can be added each time something is reviewed, over time.
There is some tendency to learn just the notes first, then add dynamics, then add contrast, then add shaping, then the other shaping within the shaping, then add... It's a very inefficient way to learn because you have to relearn the same music so many times. So I'm totally in agreement that you must multitask the learning especially dynamics and articulation on the first go at it.
I have been taught to do this, and depending on how it is done, it very efficient. I think the issue is in "how it is done", because it does not involve relearning the same music many times. Instead, it involves building on top of a previous layer. In fact, when professional musicians work on difficult material, they will often reduce the music into simpler layers and then put them together again.
Meanwhile, if a student is a beginner and is just building the first skills, then multitasking will make a muddle of all of it.
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I think the issue often with adults is that they play way above their level of competence because they want to learn Liszt Consolation No. 3 instead of Yankee Doodle Dandy, so they drop everything down to just learning the notes and maybe a little dynamics because they can't cope with all that must be done at the Consolation No. 3 level.
That is indeed the stereotype and perhaps for some people that is true. But the other element is simply knowing how to approach music and learning music. The piece and level of the piece is not the whole story.
Maybe, maybe not. I doubt that splitting focus along concurrent lines is always the most efficient means of developing competence for each of those components. On so many occasions with piano, I've found consecutive mono-tasking gets results quickly. Often it's easier to auto-pilot one thing before trying to satisfactorily monitor another. The simplest example would be muscle memory for the notes and expression (music!) after.
That's the only thing that works for me, and it's the only thing that works for my students.
Obviously if you are learning something and find the correct notes and fingering are very easy, and only the rhythm is a problem, you can depend on those other things working on auto-pilot while you work out the rhythm.
But if notes are glitching, and fingering, then it's going to be an unholy mess.
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I notice these days youngsters seem to be particularly good at texting and, say, watching a film simultaneously.
It's an illusion. I can type very fast while doing something else, so it's simply a skill, and texting is the same thing. But if you were to ask them what was going on in the movies, these kids would know less about what went on than others who were only watching the movies.
I believe tests have been done to substantiate that.
I couldn't do it, or maybe I just wouldn't do it because in each of the two activities undertaken simultaneously the involvement is too shallow - not just a lack of depth but something qualitative too (texting rarely being anything other than shallow!).
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And I find that it's actually easier to be detailed and attentive when you study very simple things
..yes, I'm more in tune with that. It could be simple or just narrower in range. [/quote]
Actually, my children learn just as you describe, in layers. But then they have all the time in the world to spend 5 to 8 weeks on a piece of music. I don't, and plus I practice a lot less, so I needed a short cut.
Lots of classical pieces start with an up beat. So my children would learn the piece on the first day just playing all the note equally starting with the upbeat. I literally have to listen for a couple of weeks before the music sound more natural during their practice. For me, why not play the upbeat lightly as it should, then play the rest of the first measure with shaping and learn the articulation as it needs all at once? The key is to not learn more than a few measures and don't do this for music above your competence. My kids? They can't do it at all. They are compelled to play to the end of the piece. They cannot practice the same four or eight measures for the first 1 or 2 days for an hour then add another 4 measures. They simply do not have the discipline. I think adults are capable of this discipline and can do this chucking efficiently. Also, if you do this for some years, you find your reading skills improve a lot, and you're not sitting there for an hour grinding away 4 measures. I'm not saying I could play a piece on week 1 as expressively as week 5. No, no, that's not possible, but I always try.
Bottom line, I could save 2-3 weeks on each piece of music compared to doing it the other way, and when you look at the number of pieces that have to be learn in a year before the exam, it adds up.
One of the things that has been explored in the ABF is approaches to learning, and especially in regards to practising. There is a lot to it, and not enough thought has been put to it. In fact, the topic comes up in the teacher forum from time to time.
I started chasing this quite a few years ago now, once I realized that how to practice / learn (teach) / approach / develop ... within a practice session - over weeks - and over the long term (how is it taught and developed) - that these make a huge difference. It's been good to see this question taken up in this forum.
Originally Posted by Eight Octaves
So my children would learn the piece on the first day just playing all the note equally starting with the upbeat.
Out of curiosity - what order do they (and you) work on a piece? Do you/they divide it into chunks, or play it in order. (Something in what you wrote makes me ask that.) - edit, you mention chunking elsewhere
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For me, why not play the upbeat lightly as it should, then play the rest of the first measure with shaping and learn the articulation as it needs all at once?
If you are capable of doing so, maybe. But if you are a beginner and you don't have the coordination, then definitely not.
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They are compelled to play to the end of the piece.
That answers my first question. So they are playing from beginning to end. There are quicker and more efficient ways of practising, should you be interested (explored in several other older threads). [edit: you do write about this further in your post.]
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They cannot practice the same four or eight measures for the first 1 or 2 days for an hour then add another 4 measures.
Again - sharing some principles of learning - Doing anything for an hour is not efficient. If you get into effective practising, you will find a much deeper concentration and focus, but it can only be maintained for 15 - 20 minutes. The results are cumulative and powerful. I would not practise a single thing like 4 - 8 measures for an hour.
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I think adults are capable of this discipline and can do this chucking efficiently.
Children can chunk too - but the "for an hour", no - but then it is also not a good thing to do.
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I'm not saying I could play a piece on week 1 as expressively as week 5. No, no, that's not possible, but I always try.
Since I learned to "layer", my playing is much more expressive and in control.
So if I try to teach what she is teaching AND teach what *I* teach at the beginning, at the same time, it will result in an incoherent mess.
But both ways are out there and both are valid. Pity the poor unthinking student who come across both.
Originally Posted by Gary D.
But you can' hit a whole series of notes with the same "force", as you put it, without thinking about it, because this is a very difficult thing to learn.
Badly written. (How can forums allow this stuff to happen?) There's a difference between trying to make the notes sound like the music and trying to make them all even, regardless of the results either way. You want to go for even first. I'd prefer to go with musical line and refine the touch so well that eventually I COULD play all the notes evenly. That's a better idea for me because evenness is harder and will take longer and it delays the time when I can make music. It may even show me that there's a benefit to playing evenly as a technical skill and I might take up scales later on.
Originally Posted by dire tonic
In general I'd also say beware of students posing as teachers - particularly when advice given appears to be definitive.
Beware of supposing anyone to be teachers or hold teachers in higher esteem than they deserve whether they write with authority or not or of taking any advice, from teachers or others, as definitive. Some teachers are bad teachers and some are often wrong themselves. Likewise some students are good teachers and are often right themselves.
Originally Posted by keystring
I'd wager that this belief is more of a guess.
How dismissive!!
Why are students told to read and reread material several times? Because they can't or don’t take it all in at once.
Originally Posted by keystring
...I took what I read quite seriously if anyone even appeared to have a voice of authority, and a few times I got in trouble because of it
This never happened to me. I took the simplified garbage handed down by "teachers" and understood it to be definitive. That screwed me up a few times.
Originally Posted by keystring
...the one thing that kept coming up is how adult students, above all, tend to follow things too precisely, and in exaggeration.
Too precisely? AND in exaggeration? Hmm? If this keeps coming up should the instructions not be made clearer? Should the students be given precautions from taking the instructions too precisely? Or to exaggerate them too much? Again, with me I missed things and had to go back over them. And over them. And over them again. They weren't given or taken precisely enough and not given due emphasis (as the bigger picture was withheld).
Originally Posted by keystring
I have encountered students who tried to reach such things without knowing how, and before being ready
And I have known them who reached things because they were told that they were there and have been ready for more things before the teacher was ready to give them and misunderstood stuff BECAUSE they aren't given the whole picture.
Your experience and mine are at odds. The Russian School is well established and I am not a statistical anomaly. I find it very insulting that your experience should be given weight and that mine should be treated as an aberration or be considered guesswork. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Originally Posted by keystring
If you think what you write will be dismissed or ignored, why write them at all?
I don't think what I write will be dismissed or ignored by everybody. I'm writing for the people that are out there that can make use of it.
Originally Posted by keystring
But consider that they may be taken quite seriously, and somebody may think that these are the things he has to put into his playing from the get go.
Some people can put these things into their playing from the outset. You seem to be ignoring smarter and more gifted people. Why is that?
Do you think we should write just one thing and wait for everybody to get it before we write some more? And who will determine the order of the things put forth? And what of the stuff that's already out there? I'm offering nothing new! This is serious stuff that I've learnt from respected and professional sources not stuff I've dreamed up on the beach.
Originally Posted by keystring
When advice is sought, and it is given, then it will be followed.
This is not my experience. No. Advice is often overlooked or discarded or it changes with greater knowledge of the context or or they don't think it applies in their case. It often has to be given again and again and again.
Originally Posted by keystring
I think that by "basic dynamic premise" you mean...
Perhaps you should ask more and think less. With a violin you can increase the volume of a note while you are playing it. You can't do that with a piano so you have to learn some other way to produce a beautiful line, a smooth legato 'sound' even when playing staccato. This is the basic premise I was referring to. Ask for clarity if the sentence is unclear; don't read erroneously into it because you don't understand it.
Originally Posted by keystring
But we are talking about beginners. "Subject: Beginner-know when to drop an old piece?"
This is a forum for discussion not a course of instruction. The conversation moved. The title is not a prediction of, and doesn't cover, everything being discussed. Some titles are so poor they may be better taken as thread identifiers than subjects.
Originally Posted by keystring
In fact, we already talked about this in the subject of singing and how one excellent vocal teacher does it.
Yes and what I had said was in perfect harmony with that except that you hold your order to be sacrosanct and that I and the Russian School are wrong. This is not the case. There's more than one way.
Originally Posted by keystring
And if you do not teach yourself, can you know this for sure?
Yes! Yes, I can because I've learnt myself, I have taught others myself and I have seen others being taught. Yes, I have firsthand experience here. Thank you for asking.
Originally Posted by keystring
IF instructions are being ignored then there are two possibilities: poor following of instructions, or poor instructions. IF the instructions have too many details so that a student is forced to ignore them, then they are poor instructions.
Your approach seems to be to tailor the instructions to the lowest common denominator of students.
I don't like the simplistic teaching by dumbing down and drip-feeding. It has hindered my progress in the past. You don't need to target everything for the slowest and poorest students. This method may be better for personal or for remedial teaching. I would have dropped any teacher that insulted my intelligence and used it on me.
Originally Posted by keystring
If a student is taught properly, then there is planning to the teaching. That includes the kinds of things I was talking about: giving the skills; giving approaches; teaching stages in those approaches and so forth.
My approach is different to yours but it is equally valid and right. Your wax on, wax off approach may be effective but it insults the students ability to comprehend it in context. Skills can be learnt as they are needed in context without having to be dished out first without compensation or comprehension.
You can't plan instruction on the internet, it's not one-to-one teaching. You cannot give it for the least able student without doing a disservice to the more capable. Even with a book you can't prevent the student from reading ahead. In fact a good student will read ahead anyway. What you teach is not necessarily the best order of learning the skills and doesn't take into account the extraordinary versatility of the human brain. I would not withhold knowledge or advice in case some inferior student might misunderstand it or misuse it.
I'm not a piano teacher and have never claimed to be one, neither express nor implied. I'm an experienced student and I've done some teaching of other things. I've been asked, even by teachers, to run workshops and courses in a professional capacity. At the moment I know of no way to write on a public forum and ensure people don't read more things into them than I write, dismiss or ignore some of the points, or treat them as definitive. I don't think I should refrain from writing, however much authority is given to my voice by the poor readers, if it may do some good somewhere.
Not everyone will agree with me and I won't always be right but I'm passing on what I've learned from both public and private sources and what has worked for me. I'm not guessing nor am I playing at teacher. I'm not in the habit of qualifying my opinions or my findings with disclaimers or an IMO when that's not my purpose. That's a caveat for the emptor.
Some here have had benefit from my posts. That's good enough for me. Some have misunderstood, dismissed and ignored them. That's fine with me too. I can't control others nor would I try.