Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Finalizing a Song

Hi -

Can you let me know how you all go about really polishing a song and getting down really well? Even after you can play it how to even get better at it. I assume it's just playing it over and over but looking to hear what methods you all use.

I learn RH then LH then BH for about 8 measures at a time. I don't move on until I know the measures really well. I just completed a song and learned 91 measures. How do I go about even playing it smoother and pedaling? Do I practice all 91 measures at once over and over then add in pedal? Or do you play it all and find the areas that are not as smooth and then work on those measures alone?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

You could try:
1. record yourself and try to listen to it objectively;
2. perform the piece for someone at home - that means starting at bar one and keep going until you reach the end. If you make a mistake don't stop. Try to listen as if you were in the audience.
3. perform in public for people you don't know.
4. keep polishing those rough areas.
5. approach the piece anew and take into account the audience - you are going to give them a 'guided tour' of the piece. What do you want them to hear, to experience? What does the piece mean to you, how do you re-create that for them?

This is the one thing you should not do. At this stage never simply play through without having a particular goal in mind (e.g. see if you can play through with no mistakes, check if you are communicating what you want musically).

Schubertian has posted some good suggestions especially about performing it in front of others. With the extra pressure trouble spots will reveal themselves.

Do you have the piece memorized? Can you pickup and start at any measure and play without the score? Work on trouble spots in isolation. You can make a list of them and only work on those spots using ~3 repetitions until it sounds and feel perfect. If it doesn't then take time to analyze what is going wrong and come up with a solution.

You can also go through the score away from the keyboard and listen with your mind's ear. Can you run through the whole piece in just your head? Have you consulted recordings for interpretation? Some critical listening can spark some new ideas and illuminate the piece in different ways.

No, not over and over. That'll lead to mechanical playing. Do something specific each time to keep the brain engaged. Play with sharper articulation, perhaps, or a wider dynamic range. Make the crescendos gentler or longer, etc.

Work in phrases, from the start of each phrase to the start (note/beat/bar) of the next rather than fix numbers of bars so that everything has a musical point. Work the accents into every bar well enough that they remain when you don't concentrate on them - this is one of the main reasons for counting, not to get an even space between notes but to get their accents right, strong-weak-medium-weak for common time, strong-weak-weak or strong-medium-weak for triple time.

Find the climax of each phrase and eaxch section and work towards them. Is it the highest note? Or the highest note on a beat? Or the point of greatest tension, note frequency, voice texture, etc. How quickly does it build and die? What is the composer trying to say? What are you trying to say?

Try getting each phrase polished before you move on. It's easier to do it while you're working on small sections and as long as you play slowly and deliberately through the piece once or twice every other day or so you'll maintain the flow of the piece. When you've done each phrase put them together as periods (antecedent phrase and consequent phrase) or sections. Then put the sections together.

When you put the whole piece together build to the climax of the piece as a whole. Build that just as you do each phrase. Don't play the piece smoothly, make a musical point. Play everything up to the climax with the climax in mind and from there relax back down to the coda.

Once every so often play it through for a recording and give it a day or two before you listen, really listen, to the recording. Revisit every sub-par phrase before doing another recording.

Add pedal as soon as the hands are working together or as soon as you put the hands together, phrase by phrase. If a piece is going to be played with a lot of pedal get the pedal in at the start. If the piece uses careful and deliberate pedalling, work the changes in as soon as you've put the hands together correctly.

Great suggestions!

I also drop the song from my daily practice from time to time to give it time to rest. Then - when I return to it, it seems fresh.

Sometimes that means re-learning parts of the piece. Sigh.

Often I have to drop a piece because I am heartily sick of playing it!

Thank you, zrtf90, for your post! I have been wondering for quite awhile what the steps are to really finalize a piece of music. There have been other posts on this subject in the past but yours, IMO, is the best with some very specific steps on what to do, how to do it, and why it's important.

I always read anything you post with great interest and I have never been disappointed with what you have to say.

Thanks!

What is a phase? Would that be intro/hook/bridge etc.? After I get down a new section I go back to add in the previous section and practice it again then add what I just learned, is that good? I basically just learned all measures a day ago so I definitely want to make sure I move forward properly and I want to figure best method to learn my next song.

I can't play the entire song with out the music. I need the sheets. Do you most learn it until they don't need the score?

Do you sustain with right foot? I only have a sustain but naturally my right foot wants to help with tapping. Any suggestions for pedaling/tapping a foot? If I want to depress the press the pedal on bar 4 into 5 do you eventually just get a feel with the quickness and when to pedal?

Thank you all for the help!

This is what I do too. It is great feeling sometimes to come back and find out (after quickly relearning some sections) that the piece is a bit more engrained into the hand or the fingers feel 'veteranized' in regards to the piece.
I feel as if sometimes you need a piece to steep a bit like tea, or age like in wine in terms of my playability towards it.

A phrase is typically the line of a song or a line of music that you'd sing in one breath. It would be easier to point to examples than write a definition.

AZ_Astro alluded to a problem that frequently affects students - forgetting. When you're working on a piece every day it's easy to remember what you did the day before (so you're not practising recall) but when you rest a piece you forget it quickly. That's because storing information and recalling information are two distinct processes.

To build long term memory you need to practise recall so work on one phrase then forget it while you work on the next. When you've finished all the phrases go back again. This way you'll know what you remember and what you don't. The relearning process is much faster than the first time and strengthens the memory even more. Sometimes you have to do this a few times, one phrase at a time, and other times you can work two phrases at a time on the next run through, then four, and so on.

High repetitions don't help memory. I typically play a phrase no more than two or three times a day but I concentrate on what I'm doing. If that's not enough to remember it I need to study it more not repeat it more. Higher repetitions may be more useful for mechanical or technical difficulties but two or three reps between other passages or other pieces are better than all at once.

The more you practise forgetting and then recalling - as opposed to having it left in short term memory overnight - the stronger your long term memory will be, or more precisely, your recall from long term memory. So work three pieces one day/week/fortnight and another three the next for stronger recall.

Some prefer to stay with the score. I prefer to memorise straight away if I'm adding a piece to performance repertoire or learning over a long period and to stay with the score for pieces that I'll only play while I'm learning them.

Right foot for sustain pedal, tap with left foot, nod head, count out loud, tap tongue. Anything physical, i.e. muscular, will invoke the body's time keeping mechanism. Counting in your head won't nor will relying on your built in rhythm.

Pedalling is an art. As with most things at the piano, go real slow and use your ears. Typically, for a pedal change, the foot comes up as the hands go down and the foot is re-applied immediately afterwards or as soon as the bass strings have been deadened sufficiently, or not long enough to kill the bass strings too much - depending on the immediate need.


And thank-you, Reiki3!

I cut my music into lines and memorise one line at a time. I don't move on to the next line until I can play that line comfortably from memory.

Thankyou Richard, I am just learning to use the pedal, and I struggle with doing something different with my foot and hand. If the arm goes down so does the foot, and so I accelerate into corners instead of out of them, been told I would be a great rally driver lol.

I could never play drums as the bass pedal copied the rhythm of the drumsticks, could not play independently, so I have been nervous with the pedal , but your description has been a great help, I have spent the past twenty mins working on this and have much improvement already.

Thank you all for the help and tips! It helps a lot and is really awesome that you all take the time to help out. I can;t wait until I can help out others more.

For tapping you say anything mechanical. Head nod, left foot tap etc. Do you usually tap the smallest note? If right hand is playing a lot of 1/8 and left is a lot of 1/4 would you tap the eight note? I feel like it help if I tap all. If i have a few quarter notes I'll tap those then if it changes to a few eights I'll tap them too.

Taping everything would be awkward if you have different note values in the same measure; e.g 3 quarter notes, then 2 sixteenths and an eighth. I usually just tap the beat note but it depends on the music. Sometimes I only tap the strong beat instead of all beats, for instance in 6/8 time I would tap on 1 and 4.