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Fundamentals of Piano Practice

fundamentals-of-piano-practice.readthedocs.io

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Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#191

Post by sandGorgon »

MrGando wrote: post #187
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 ?

I think it's very interesting and there's a lot to be gained by working on it (which I'm actually starting to do). The hardest scale in piano is C major probably, or at least one of the hardest ones... just started with Taubman, but C major (and D major) are sounding way better, even with what I would say is not a huge time investment.

any resources or tutorials that were very helpful for you ? would love to get in on that.

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#192

Post by revolvingocelot »

revolvingocelot wrote: post #101
MrGando wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a specific thing I always remember about this book, which is that the author recommends the "thumb over" technique for scales. I would never, ever suggest a beginner to approach scales like that. Thumb rotation is super important to absorb and master. Of course, when you go for fast scales you do a "thumb over" which is not really that, but instead of the thumb rotation, you reposition your whole hand using y…

>Of course, when you go for fast scales you do a "thumb over" which is not really that, but instead of the thumb rotation, you reposition your whole hand using your arm to keep going upwards To belabour this point for non-pianists, the parent is describing what "thumb over" really is: a sort of physical consequence of playing a fast ascending arpeggio/scale. It isn't an alternative to "thumb under" so much as a good-…

...a fast ascending arpeggio/scale with the right hand, or a fast descending arpeggio/scale with the left hand, to be more precise

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#193

Post by yesenadam »

tracyhenry wrote: post #184
yesenadam wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Pianist here) But there is no objectively correct fingering, it's just what feels best/easiest/smoothest for you, personally. Having to read the fingering as well as the notes just seems to make it more complicated. Even for the simplest music, say a C major triad chord in the right hand - C-E-G - you could play it 1-3-5, 1-2-4, 1-2-3, 2-3-5 etc. I have big hands, so 1-3-5 feels the least comfortable of those, altho…

The automatic algorithm can definitely take hand size into account. I often feel that the fingering I come up with myself as a beginner is suboptimal. What I usually do is to watch youtube videos repeatedly to study what experts do. And that really helps me correct some bad adhoc fingering. I'm sure it's an experience thing - I can totally understand why experts would consider fingering on a sheet as useless. But for…

> You probably don't care about beginners

My second paragraph was about beginners and what seems to me their best course, not sure why you say that. (TAB for guitarist beginners similarly "can make a huge difference" I'm sure, but also it keeps you a beginner.) It seems you ignored what I said about scales and arpeggios. I wrote my previous comment because it seemed you similarly ignored what the person you replied to said before. But sure, whatever works for you. Good luck!

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#194

Post by MrGando »

sandGorgon wrote: post #191
MrGando wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's very interesting and there's a lot to be gained by working on it (which I'm actually starting to do). The hardest scale in piano is C major probably, or at least one of the hardest ones... just started with Taubman, but C major (and D major) are sounding way better, even with what I would say is not a huge time investment.

any resources or tutorials that were very helpful for you ? would love to get in on that.

There's very good teachers doing zoom lessons these days. And I think Taubman technique is the sort of thing that you'll need a teacher so that the concepts can be applied to how you're playing. Start here https://www.golandskyinstitute.org/faculty-of-the-golandsky-...

Good luck :)

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#195

Post by tracyhenry »

yesenadam wrote: post #193
tracyhenry wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The automatic algorithm can definitely take hand size into account. I often feel that the fingering I come up with myself as a beginner is suboptimal. What I usually do is to watch youtube videos repeatedly to study what experts do. And that really helps me correct some bad adhoc fingering. I'm sure it's an experience thing - I can totally understand why experts would consider fingering on a sheet as useless. But for…

> You probably don't care about beginners My second paragraph was about beginners and what seems to me their best course, not sure why you say that. (TAB for guitarist beginners similarly "can make a huge difference" I'm sure, but also it keeps you a beginner.) It seems you ignored what I said about scales and arpeggios. I wrote my previous comment because it seemed you similarly ignored what the person you replied t…

Didn't intend any offense. But let me introduce more about myself, and tons of other adult piano beginners. You can see if you really care.

I care absolutely nothing about piano basics. I have a busy full-time job and tons of side projects so I have absolutely no patience for learning boring basics. I paid hundreds of buck for piano lessons in college but I ended up going to only two lessons (again - busy!). Yeah I know it would possibly develop bad habits, but as long as I can play pieces I like, why would I care? I just want the thing that would satisfy my short-term needs. I know that spending some time training my basics would make me a better player, but this boringness is going to let me give up on piano entirely.

Again, no offense intended - just trying to describe a unique persona. So no need to educate me on practicing the basics - I have had enough of those from many people...

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#196

Post by jacquesm »

jmchuster wrote: post #55
cloogshicer wrote: post #4

It's sad that this book is written in such a self-validating tone (the very first sentence is "This is the best book ever written on how to practice at the piano!" for crying out loud), because the content is excellent. I read it a couple years ago and it completely changed how I approach practicing.

That's a preface by the individual who found this book only after years of research and then decided to post it online. This is not the author of the book talking about their own book.

This is incorrect, this is the preface lifted straight from the 2nd edition pdf on the original site:

"This is the best book ever written on how to practice at the piano! The revelation of this book is that there are highly efficient practice methods that can accelerate your learning rate, by up to 1,000 times if you have not yet learned the most efficient practice methods (see IV.5). What is surprising is that, although these methods were known since the earliest days of piano, they were seldom taught because only a few teachers knew about them and these knowledgeable teachers never bothered to disseminate this knowledge. "

http://www.pianopractice.org/

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#197

Post by jacquesm »

cloogshicer wrote: post #59
jmchuster wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a preface by the individual who found this book only after years of research and then decided to post it online. This is not the author of the book talking about their own book.

Oh, you might be right. I downloaded the book a long time ago as a PDF from somewhere. It also included this sentence and it stuck out to me because it was so weird. The rest of the tone of the book felt in the same style to me so I never second guessed it, but you might be correct.

He isn't, that is exactly what the book says.

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#198

Post by jmchuster »

jacquesm wrote: post #196
jmchuster wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a preface by the individual who found this book only after years of research and then decided to post it online. This is not the author of the book talking about their own book.

This is incorrect, this is the preface lifted straight from the 2nd edition pdf on the original site: "This is the best book ever written on how to practice at the piano! The revelation of this book is that there are highly efficient practice methods that can accelerate your learning rate, by up to 1,000 times if you have not yet learned the most efficient practice methods (see IV.5). What is surprising is that, alth…

Ooh, that's a pretty bad miss on my part.

I read

> This is the best book ever written on how to practice at the piano!

> This is a work in progress, some sections have not been copied over, there are probably a few formatting errors/inconsistencies, and generally nuttiness. Please ignore or contribute patches on GitHub.

> This is Sphinx adaptation of Chaun C. Chang’s excellent book, Fundamentals of Piano Practice.

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#199

Post by hatmatrix »

microtherion wrote: post #146
hatmatrix wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to laugh out loud when I read that the author openly admits to not being a pianist or a piano teacher... but a physicist. It reminds me a lot of physicists I know who approach every problem with the assumption that they can do it better than people who have been trying to solve the problem long before. On occasion, they are right, but this clearly appears to be one of those other times.

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/793/

Exactly! Forgotten about that XKCD

Re: Fundamentals of Piano Practice

#200

Post by blobbers »

compiler-guy wrote: post #114
blobbers wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this a piano hack ? This is the basics of how to learn any song. What's the alternative approach? Repeatedly play the entire song making mistakes at the crux, but insisting on playing the easy parts and pushing through the difficult ones?

That is how many people practice. Beginning to end every time. Maybe slowly, but muddle through the hard parts and blast through the easy parts. Maybe, maybe, replay a measure where you made a mistake a couple of times until you get it right exactly once and then continue. This deliberate one-measure-until-it’s-perfect isn’t something many folks learn on their own.

Most people don’t become real pianists without a real teacher; I didn’t realize people tried to learn piano on their own.

But man, this is life in general. Difficult math? Solving a bunch of arithmetic won’t help you with laplace transforms or difficult integrals. You need to practice the hard problems to get better at the hard things.

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