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Fundamentals of Piano Practice

fundamentals-of-piano-practice.readthedocs.io

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Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#171

Post by oriolid »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #164
oriolid wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: Did you read my post and write that all by yourself? If yes, why are you so hostile to the idea that music can be effectively communicated through writing and reading? Yes, you can teach a beginner to strum a few chords without any context, but once you want to play with others you need some concepts to be able to communicate and when you have to learn those concepts writing them down is the easy par…

- Yes I read your post, though I had the exact same question, as I feel we are talking past each other a bit : - (Yes, I wrote that by myself though that's a strange question to ask :) - Yes that course was real. Two years of Latin, 1995, Prva Susacka Gimnazija u Rijeci. You can wake me up at 2 am and I can recite "Terra Terrae Terrae Terram Terra Terrae Terrarum Terris Terras Terris" in about 6 seconds (just measure…

> Yes that course was real. You can wake me up at 2 am and I can recite "Terra Terrae Terrae Terram Terra Terrae Terrarum Terris Terras Terris".

Interesting. My high school German classes involved repeating "an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen" until everyone remembers it and that didn't really mean that there wouldn't have been conversation practice. Maybe it's the Latin language, I have heard similar stories from others too.

I guess it's possible to learn music theory without staff notation if you really try to do so, but to me it sounds just incredibly stubborn to not make the connection between the notes and the lines that dots are drawn on. The connection between the sounds and the letters is much more arbitrary than the connection to dots on lines and you don't seem to have problem with it. If anything, the note that's either H or B depending the culture is written the same way on staff everywhere. And if you're afraid of C major, you're not really getting away from accidentals by just using letters instead of staff notation.

Edit:

> Staff notation is not inherently logical and representative of patterns in 12 note equal temperament. It's just an archaic system we are stuck in though others have been proposed

Most music in European tradition is written in diatonic, not chromatic scales, and while equal temperament is common, it's not all there is. The staff notation with key signatures is just too handy for writing down diatonic music to ignore. Of course it's not a perfect fit for other tuning systems but from "let's play the riff in E minor pentatonic" I'd guess you're not thinking about going atonal or outside 12-tone system either.

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#172

Post by AlbertCory »

esistgut wrote: post #149
AlbertCory wrote: post #6

A good book. Although this statement: While writing it, I discovered that piano pedagogy had never been researched, documented, and analyzed properly is totally wrong. There's a Piano Pedagogy group just in the Bay Area, and lots of books on it. I was an Adult Beginner, which is sorta a Thing. My teacher had about 12 adult students, and we had separate recitals from the kids. The hidden reason for this is, you don't…

I think you are being too hard on "adult beginners". I'm not sure if it is relatable but I'm learning guitar, just finished my second year self teaching it. I can't see myself as a guitar player just yet but I'm starting to have a clear perception of the stuff I have to learn and more importantly the stuff music players around me know and I'm pretty sure I can reach and overtake them. I'm thinking about "average leve…

Funny about tapping your feet!

On stage in choruses, I would do it, but only inside my shoes (with my toe) so no one could see it. I see nothing wrong with it, but then, I didn't go to conservatory.

I never sang in a gospel choir, but I would hope that in those, it's not only permitted, it's encouraged. Along with swinging your arms & your head, and bobbing up and down.

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#173

Post by acrobatsunfish »

kashunstva wrote: post #140
dandotway wrote: post #20

Does this book cover how to figure out finger numbering for sheet music that doesn't have finger numbering? By finger numbering I mean the standard scheme where thumb=1, index=2, ..., pinky=5, and the notes on the sheet music have these numbers. This is the biggest mystery to me. I understand there is not a One True Canonical Fingering for a given sequence of notes. But some fingerings make the music much easier than…

I'm a collaborative pianist by profession. The discussion of fingering here is interesting. Much can be said about fingering but first and foremost it has to serve the musical intent and I would be surprised if any algorithm could surface those intents because (thankfully) they come from a place that is highly personal and emotive, e.g. the 1st finger (thumb) doesn't belong here because it's too heavy and falls on th…

A voice of reason in a sea of STEM bro self indulgence

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#175

Post by ashtonbaker »

wazoox wrote: post #165
wazoox wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to give advice in that matter without first hearing you giving a try at improvisation to check where you're starting from. I've started learning jazz at 16 (50 now) and you never cease to learn (obviously), but I can say that obviously different people learn in different ways. Basically I'd say there are 3 parts in learning improvisation: the theoretical part (which is already a complex one because the…

Serendipity stroke with this great video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEdtUOGCCnU

Good stuff, and thanks for your comment. This part clicks with me:

> When you've got a long practice of your instrument, the difficulty is to free yourself from the reassuring but useless knowledge and habits you have that bring you to play this scale or this phrase because it's "in your fingers". The best way to reach that point is to have hundreds of ready phrases in all tones "in your fingers", and then try to forget them and listen to the music. Hopefully, you'll feel what goes where, like an unrolling, animated puzzle, or a Tetris game.

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#176

Post by jacquesm »

karmelapple wrote: post #90
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do not try to practice the whole piece at once. Split it into pieces This has been my biggest ever piano hack. I now practice bar-by-bar and don't move on until I'm happy, and its taken my practice to a whole new level

I’m a little surprised to hear this as being somewhat unique to this book. I took lessons for years and this was a standard technique my teacher encouraged.

As a kid aged 9 this was what my teacher recommended me to do as well. (I suck at piano, but that was a pretty good teacher). This book is useful but it is way over the top in pretending to be unique or groundbreaking, it's more a case of the author being somewhat ignorant about what common practice is, something you can't really fault him for since he didn't actually play piano. What struck me as odd was that he believed that the teacher that his daughter had was somehow unique in her approach, whereas it all seemed pretty standard and 'common sense' to me.

The end result is a book that is useful, but that could do with some serious editing by an advanced pianist or at least someone more knowledgeable about various piano teaching practices.

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#177

Post by jacquesm »

the_other wrote: post #137
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do not try to practice the whole piece at once. Split it into pieces This has been my biggest ever piano hack. I now practice bar-by-bar and don't move on until I'm happy, and its taken my practice to a whole new level

Intuitively, I can see how this helps accurate playing and deep learning of a piece. I imagine it builds better skills in the long term. However, it seems like it would be a motivation killer. I'd have thought there was more emotional value in getting through the whole piece, to hear each part in context, to "follow the story". Can you talk about this method's interaction with your motivation? Would it suit an absolu…

I've codified this method (and a couple of others) in pianojacq.com, the 'slide/easy slide/normal and slide/perfect' methods are specifically meant to automate the process of breaking up a piece in overlapping segments. At the end of a run (the end of the piece) it extends the segment length by doubling it and then loops back to the beginning until you can play the piece. It really works and the speed with which you progress through a piece is a huge improvement compared to some other ways in which you could approach the problem, but it is not without downsides, it tends to demotivate people that 'just want to play', which is fine (there are options for those people as well). Practice is fundamentally different from performance, and it would be good for all aspiring pianists to have this tattooed onto their foreheads in mirror image so that you are reminded each morning.

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#178

Post by jbaber »

agumonkey wrote: post #136
revolvingocelot wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but agree. I've been playing piano since childhood too, though in a desultory, non-Conservatory way. It's been great fun reading through this comment section and seeing Piano HN, but I'm really surprised that this is the first comment that acknowledges the skub-nature [0] of the book, and that the author doesn't actually play piano but in fact armchair-QBs it via observation and discussion with his two d…

it's been so long since i've seen pbf comics .. such a superior format.

He's made a few more recently, has a patreon, etc.

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#179

Post by tritones »

wildrhythms wrote: post #111
tritones wrote: post #8

I came across this shortly before beginning my degree in music and it completely changed how I approached learning new pieces. When I tried to explain the technique to another pianist, they were confused as to what was 'new' about it. I guess they never had a teacher say "play it over and over until you can play it without mistakes". Now, my wife is completing her education degree and I see a lot of this approach bei…

I find it hard to believe a pianist (or any trained musician) has never heard of playing something over and over again without mistakes...

You misunderstand. Their teachers used better methods than just "do it again but better".

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#180

Post by sandGorgon »

prirun wrote: post #166
sandGorgon wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your opinion about the Taubman technique ? rotation and all. Claims to be very RSI resistant and healthy ?

Learning rotation is important and there are lots of Taubman videos on YT that explain it in detail, usually with scales. In a nutshell, there is the concept of single rotation and double rotation. When finger-to-finger movement is in one direction, like 1,2,3, you use double rotations. When going from 3 to 1, a single rotation. The movements are highly exaggerated for learning and demonstration. I think it's easy to…

Thank you so much ! This is brilliant.
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