|
Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
|
|
66 members (Animisha, benkeys, BWV846, Anglagard44, brdwyguy, amc252, Bellyman, 16 invisible),
2,260
guests, and
395
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 653
500 Post Club Member
|
500 Post Club Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 653 |
I agree that it is best to look for patterns in music. Don't go through trying to figure out each note without relating it to the other notes around it or in the passage. I tell my students to block passages into chords (all the notes that you can play before changing your position). For example in a B Major scale, right hand, they play the first 3 notes as a chord with correct fingering, then move the hand and play the remaining 5 notes. After that they all tell me how much more sense everything makes and they rarely still have problems learning the notes. All thats doing is organizing notes into bigger units so it seems there is less to learn. Look for things like that to add to your practicing, it really speeds up the process.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 83
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 83 |
Gyro is right. All this sight-reading stuff is an elaborate hoax. For that matter, classical music in general is a lie, made up so that jazz and pop musicians feel bad about themselves. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart... never existed. You remember that 10.4 Richter video. Never happened. In fact "Richter" was a Soviet animotronic puppet designed to humiliate Capitalist pianists. Sorry everyone, but I could no longer keep this dark and terrible knowledge a secret.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 8,483
8000 Post Club Member
|
8000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 8,483 |
yeah, right! what a secret!
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 2,160
2000 Post Club Member
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 2,160 |
concertus, First of all, let me say that I'm very happy for you that you can play such hard pieces that you listed after having learned the notes. I'm very envious! With difficult pieces like those mentioned, I have to work for a long time until they sound good enough, BUT, I have no problems with LEARNING them. Want to trade? You'll give me your great technique, and I'll give you my learning/sight reading skills But seriously, all pianists have different problems. I think its important to remember that the best thing one can do to become better is to find ones WEAK spots - in your case, sight reading and memorizing - and to practice THAT, instead of practicing the things that you are good at already - technique for instance. Instead of practicing Hanon or Czerny to improve your technique even more, try to improve your memorization skills as much as possible. Learning A LOT of new pieces is a good idea, but chose smaller works instead of large works. Your problem is quite common I think, but don't give up! You said that you've only played "with enthusiasm" for two years, and if you keep learning new pieces, I'm sure you'll improve your learning and sight reading skills. I could try to help you with more ideas, but it would be great if you could tell us what other pieces you have played earlier, and I'm also wondering if you had problems with memorizing easier pieces, stuff that you worked on a few years ago for instance? Can you remember any piece you learned recently which you DIDN'T have problems with memorizing, or which didn't cause you AS MUCH trouble? Is it harder for to learn a Bach fugue than it is for you to learn a mozart sonata? If the answer is yes but you don't know why, try to find out why it is harder for you to learn certain pieces. Also, it would be great to know HOW you learn new pieces. Since your sight reading skills are bad, maybe it would help to listen to a recording while reading the score, a few times? When learning pieces, do you learn them hands seperately, or hands together? Whatever your answer is - try to do the opposite and see if it works better. Do you just learn the notes at first or do you work out the best fingering immidiately? I have to stop writing, but one last thing I can say is that about 8 months ago I decided to be more careful when learning new pieces. I started doing everything VERY VERY slowly, bar by bar, in order to learn AS MUCH AS I COULD at the same time - fingering, dynamics, legato etc - instead of doing one thing at the time. At first it was hard to do this because my hands weren't always doing what I was telling them to do - when I was concentrating on doing the right fingering in the right hand, the left hand forgot what to do etc. But you have to remember that when you are learning a new piece, you are never really doing everything at the same time; first, you look at the sheet music to see what your right hand is supposed to do, then you decide the fingering in the right hand, then make sure you're playing legato and doing everything else right... now, the right hand is "programmed" to do whatever its supposed to do when you want it to do it, and now you can concentrate on your left hand for a millisecond, taking a look at the score, deciding fingering etc etc... and you also have to make sure that the dynamics are right, and that you bring out whatever else is in the score. You have to understand that this is what every pianist does, with the difference that those who are experienced can do it a lot faster than those who aren't. I'm no expert on this at all, but my guess is that if you really want to improve your memorization (and sight reading/score reading) skills, try to find out HOW MUCH TIME it takes for you to do the things I just explained - seperately. That is, after seeing notes on the score, how much time does it take before you can "localize" the notes on the piano? And then, how much time it takes for you to decide the right fingering? (remember, however, that deciding the right fingering requires you to see or know what comes next in the score) How much time do you need to make sure that you are playing with the right dynamics etc? Maybe it will make you confused! But after only a few months, you'll see a lot of improvement, I promise. After seeing and playing a passage 2-3 times I often have the fingerings memorized (unless its very awkward...), at slower speed of course. Try to learn a short passage from a piece - how many times do you have to play it before having it memorized, with fingerings? Do it hands seperately if it's too hard hands together. Anyway, what you will learn from THINKING of all of these things when learning a piece - fingering, dynamics, phrasing - is that after having worked like that for sometime, all of those things will come MORE NATURALLY. After a year or so, you won't be thinking "fingering" or "dynamics" etc at all, because your brain will be so accustomed to it that learning the right notes will come as natural as breathing... And learning new music will become much easier for you. One last idea from me, before I go to bed, is to study theory if you aren't doing that already! It will help you a lot. Martin
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 41
Full Member
|
OP
Full Member
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 41 |
Martin, can you be my teacher?!! First of all i'd like to clarify, i cannot 'play' the pieces i listed above - i'm working on them. I can play around two pages of the Revolutionary etude and around three pages of the Ballade in G Minor (dotted around the whole piece - mainly the harder parts, i like to get them over with!) I'll describe my learning process with you. Usually, i read the notes slowly and play them, looking at my hands, then score, then hands. I then just look at my hands when it is memorised. This works well for simple structures in pieces like chromatics or arpeggio-like runs. Unless the score is easy technically, where i will play whilst reading the music and won't necessarily 'learn' it, for instance the first page of the Ballade. It would be hard to tell you what pieces i have played earlier because the answer is: not many! I have worked through my grades 1-8 (missing a few in between) which have included Debussy: Le Petit Negre, Minstrels Brahms - Intermezzo in A minor Grieg Sonata in e minor Bach/Beethoven (can't remember! shocking i know) - Rondo Rachmaninov - Prelude G# minor I have also dabbled in the following (can play around 30-70% of) Chopin - Revolutionary etude, Valse op.64-2, the Ballade Debussy-Golliwogs Cakewalk, Arabesque 1, Clair de Lune, Reverie. Scott Joplin - Maple leaf Rag. As you will probably realise by now, my knowledge of several classical composers is pretty awful. I have never (really) played Mozart, Beethoven and Bach. My musical interests are more romantic, i.e. Brahms, Rachmaninov, Chopin. To answer your question about memorising, if something has a pattern then i find it much easier. That is why i've found the Revolutionary etude easy to memorise - its full of patterns and repeats in that left hand. The op.25 no.11 on the other hand i find almost impossible to memorise. Lastly, i have grade 2 theory and that is it I pick up a lot of stuff from the music i work on, obviously, but i agree, it could have been a lot easier the other way round! Thankyou for your suggestions! I've picked a smaller piece - Rach's prelude in C# and i'm concentrating on the second page, after the slow chords at the start. I'll learn it how you suggested - taking everything in at once, but slowly.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 2,160
2000 Post Club Member
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 2,160 |
Concertus, hehe, you deserve a better teacher than me But I hope I can learn you something, at least. This is just a quick answer as I have to go to bed soon, but after reading your post I wanted to comment a few things: Originally posted by concertus: Unless the score is easy technically, where i will play whilst reading the music and won't necessarily 'learn' it, for instance the first page of the Ballade. I believe you are making a big mistake here, although I know a lot of pianists do the same mistake. I think you should concentrate on LEARNING the first page of the ballade even though it doesn't present the same technical challanges as some other spots in this piece,like the coda for instance. Fewer technical challenges don't necessarily make a passage/section/piece easier, and the opening of the G minor ballade is, imo, a DIFFICULT opening. Just listen to a few different recordings, and you'll see how differently various pianists interpret it. How do YOU want to play the first page? Since you don't have any big technical challenges, focus on EXPERIMENTING, trying different ways of playing it. Are you playing the accompaniement quiet enough, without disturbing the melody? Maybe the accompaniement should be played even more quiet, or a bit louder? How about the melody, maybe it should be played louder, or with more/less nuances? Should you play with some rubato, or more strict in time? EXPERIMENT! The goal is of course to make a CONVINCING INTERPRETATION of the piece, and a good start is, as I said, to experiment as much as possible. Don't just play around with the first pages, try different things, try playing it a bit different every time. Did you notice that I told you in the beginning, that you should concentrate on LEARNING the first page of the ballade too, but then I didn't really say how you should learn it? Because when you'll start thinking about the things I just told you about experimenting and making a convincing interpretation, learning the piece will come without that you'll even notice it. No, you shouldn't be sitting in front of the piano thinking, "I have to memorize this measure, then this measure...etc", because you won't learn a piece fast that way. Think about how you want to play it. In other words, DON'T concentrate on memorizing the piece, and you'll learn it much faster! Thankyou for your suggestions! I've picked a smaller piece - Rach's prelude in C# and i'm concentrating on the second page, after the slow chords at the start. I'll learn it how you suggested - taking everything in at once, but slowly. Again, I think it's a mistake. Especially since what you need when learning something new is to get some kind of vision of the WHOLE piece, so you should start from measure one, not from the "fast, loud and fun" part... Now, since your sightreading skills aren't the best maybe I shouldn't recommend this to you, but it's always a good idea to sightread the piece you are about to learn a few times, to get a vision of the whole piece. That way, you won't be surprised when it turns out that the piece doesn't evolve the way you thought it would or something like that... And also, you'll understand the relationship between the introduction and the other sections of the piece. Thats all I had to say this time... goodnight!
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 41
Full Member
|
OP
Full Member
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 41 |
fnork; In regards to the C# minor, i know the piece extremely well from several recordings, so i do have an idea of the piece as a whole. I started on the second page only because it is tenchnically harder, and i have to learn specific fingerings whereas with the chords, they fall into place. I'm also treating it as a sight-reading excercise more than anything - if i finish the piece then thats a bonus. I've played through the first page, and the huge chords after the crashing run down to them, a few times, so they have not been neglected! Its interesting you should comment on getting an overall picture of a piece though. I have been in two (relatively low-key) competitions recently, and in both, the adjudicator said that they felt as if i hadn't looked at the piece as a whole, and the architecture of the piece. I also tend to overindulge in my own interpretation of a piece and disregard dynamics etc in the score slightly - but that is not the point of our discussion. In regards to the G-minor ballade and the points you make about focusing on that which is not just note-playing. Here, i'm in open water. I don't really get advice from my teacher about this - hence my asking if i should look around for a new one. I play a piece with influences on how i've heard it or seen it played (theres around 4 different versions i've seen here http://www.piano-e-competition.com/MIDIVIDEOFiles.htm and i've heard Rubensteins as well) but also on how i think it should be played. If you asked me about phrasing, articulation, you would receive a blank face. I aim, for instance in the G minor ballade, to bring out the melody of the right hand whilst keeping the accompaniment distant almost. I'm having trouble pedaling as well - my teacher says not to use it at all in this section (along with the lovely section that follows it), but i think it helps to create that distant, echoey feel that i sense in the music anyway. Incidentally, because of this disagreement i have played this section over and over, with and without pedal and have learnt it by doing so, therefore proving your main point in your last post! Do you ever feel like you could talk to someone forever about this measure, that line, this piece?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 420
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 420 |
Originally posted by tenuki: One of the stranger suggestions I got around memorization was to manually copy the piece you want to play to staff paper and learn/play off your copy. I bet it would work if you also sightread to keep your note recognition skills high. But I can't manage more than a few measures a day. I guess by the time I have the peice copied it will be memorized. there is a good tip to improve sightreading here-say if you have trouble reading chords-grab some staff and write maj7,min7,dom7,half dim and diminished chords starting with root position and cycling round in fifths and go through all inversions and also try to read lots of new scores
"musical training is a more potent instrument than any other because rhythym and harmony find their way into the inner places of the soul" -Plato
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 369
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 369 |
Originally posted by tenuki: One of the stranger suggestions I got around memorization was to manually copy the piece you want to play to staff paper and learn/play off your copy. I bet it would work if you also sightread to keep your note recognition skills high. But I can't manage more than a few measures a day. I guess by the time I have the peice copied it will be memorized. You know, around my area, they say that reading something twice and writing it once will lock it into memory. Perhaps, this could be useful to the poster?
Dreaming of a grand...
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 353
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 353 |
The problem that you have right now is that either 1. Your teacher doesn't know your problems and can't help you learn HOW to practice efficiently. 2. You need another teacher who is able to teach you HOW to practice. Memorizing and learning bar-by-bar is NOT the way to go.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 129
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 129 |
Concertus,
Perhaps a little patience with yourself is in order. You indicated that you were more serious for two of the eight years....that's really not a long time. You are working on some difficult pieces and because they take so long maybe you're not seeing enough fresh material. My teacher and I keep several levels of music going...we currently have a Mozart Sonata (really long), Brahm's Waltz (shortish), Chopin Prelude (a little longer), and a book of classics that are usually only one page long. The book keeps fresh material coming every couple weeks....and they while they appear really easy, they take a couple weeks to get up to performance level.
Everyone else made really good points, but one other thing I might suggest based on your recent post is don't look at your hands. Sometimes you have to pick up and move your hands to a new position, especially romantic music, but I'm finding my reading is getting much better by keeping my eyes on the music and learning to feel where my fingers need to go and also trusting myself to find the keys without my eyes. Does that make sense?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 420
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 420 |
Originally posted by Wandering Weezard: Originally posted by tenuki: [b] One of the stranger suggestions I got around memorization was to manually copy the piece you want to play to staff paper and learn/play off your copy. I bet it would work if you also sightread to keep your note recognition skills high. But I can't manage more than a few measures a day. I guess by the time I have the peice copied it will be memorized. You know, around my area, they say that reading something twice and writing it once will lock it into memory. Perhaps, this could be useful to the poster? [/b]this would work well
"musical training is a more potent instrument than any other because rhythym and harmony find their way into the inner places of the soul" -Plato
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 41
Full Member
|
OP
Full Member
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 41 |
tenuki - i don't think i have the time to do that - i'd be spending more time writing than playing! I see the merit in your suggestion though.
lynn - i agree, i think a larger number of smaller works could really help me in my music reading. I'm thinking of buying Bach's Well Tempered Klavier for this, i had a flick through it yesterday and it seemed good for some smaller, easier works.
Thankyou for your suggestions everyone, you have helped with my problems far more than i expected!
|
|
|
Forums43
Topics223,403
Posts3,349,419
Members111,636
|
Most Online15,252 Mar 21st, 2010
|
|
|
|
|
|