I use very slow practice when I am first learning the notes. Then fast practice to get the feel of how everything has to move at full tempo, not worrying about a few missed or wrong notes, but also not doing so much that I engrain the mistakes. Then back to slow practice, with those good motions, to get relaxed. Then little bits of very fast practice, one or two measures, particularly for trouble spots, then string longer bits of fast practice together. Then when I'm pretty happy with how the piece is shaping up I do a mix of fast and slow practice - the fast to get mentally used to keeping the concentration flowing through the piece and the slow to relax and prevent sloppiness from creeping in.
This is great! Having a mix of slow and fast practice is really helpful for progress - and you are clearly very intentional about it. Thanks for your comment!
This is great! I separate my students' goals into: "start/stop" practicing, which is practicing at any fluid tempo with the freedom to slow down or stop at any point that is difficult, in order to make sure the spot is done correctly; "any tempo" practicing, in which the student should find the tempo at which they are still able to think (it's usually just a hair slower than they feel it should go!); and "perform" which is the goal tempo. I appreciate your insights, especially on the necessity to take actual movements into account and the need for speed in those situations.
Hi Adam! Great to see you here. I love the way you differentiate the three types of goals - that's very clear for your students! Thanks for watching! 😄
Very helpful. I likely do too much slow practice believing that eventually accurate speed will automatically appear, but it won't. Better to use slow practice as a time for thorough analysis of what and how you are playing, and then bite the bullet and speed it up. If you hit bumps in the road at the faster speed, isolate the bumps, take them back to the slow analysis to dissect the problem spot for special work. But don't put the places where the speed is correct and solid back in that slow down mode. I don't use the word "practice" for my daily session; I call it studying the piano. I "practice" the piece only when I know it thoroughly because I have studied it; practice will help me perfect it, hopefully. .
That is a perfect summary - well said!! "Practicing" vs "studying" is an interesting way to differentiate between two different phases of the learning process - I like it!
I fell too in love with slow practice. I was playing pieces far beyond my capability and that was the only way I could "play" them. I never got to proper speed. I know play more realistic pieces. Wonderfully balanced lesson. Thanks!
That's a great insight! Practicing only slowly makes you really good at playing slowly. Sounds like you are very patient in the practice room - many people have the opposite problem, and find it difficult to slow down and listen carefully to what is actually happening. Glad you have found repertoire you feel more comfortable playing at speed!
A few runs through a passage at a tempo that is too fast for my current ability also seems to help. It’s like riding in a boat doing 70 mph and then 50 mph seems real slow.
Yes I'm 6 month ago started my piano adventure and learning pieces from UA-cam content. Slow practice is my # 1 rule till no obviously mistakes, then faster with time...all very personally depending from person to person. Thank you a lot for more detailed explanations slow down practice, totally agree ! (Subbed after 5 minutes watching...)
I grew up doing way too much very slow practice where I mentally checked out and played unmusically note to note. Thank you, Dr. Boyd, this has been helpful.
Excellent coverage. At a certain slow pace, articulation and dynamics disappear. After I select a fingering, slow practice will lay it down accurately. On delicate or difficult maneuvers, raising tempo carefully works very well. Part of my slow work is feeling the action with eyes glued to the score. As soon as the pace hits my desired speed, I add the metronome. That ensures some part of my mind follows the beat. Thank you sincerely for these extremely helpful tools.
Thank you so much Dr. Boyd. Love your videos which you have put a lot of thoughts into. Especially I love the contents of your videos. It always addresses a point
Sorry, I accidentally sent before I finish. Every video focus on one topic. You analyze the pro and con of it and give a very good advice on it. It has been super helpful! Appreciate your efforts 🙏🙏🙏 Liked! Subscribed! Shared! Your wonderful, generous work deserve to be spread more and more! Looking forward to your next 😊
Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm so happy to hear you are getting so much out of my videos. Best of luck for continued success and pleasure from your piano study! 😊
I generally practice too fast. Well, I did until I tried learning Rachmaninoff's prelude Op23#1. Impossible!! :)). Even playing slow enough to get the notes it sounded banal, I needed other strategies... I am trying zooming in to half-bars (or even quarter bars) to get the speed up, then slowing back down to add dynamics and bring the piece to life.
Great strategy! You might also try incorporating hands separate practice with your hands together practice - take one phrase and work each hand up to tempo, and then slow it back down to put hands together and work it up to tempo gradually. That can help with that feeling of working note to note and not being able to perceive the "life" of the music. Hope this helps!
Yes, slowing down and separating the hands and adding the dynamics one hand at a time helps. Measures 34ff just needed a lot of practice to get the notes and hands together first for me. That hand crossing is insane! But the dynamics are utterly essential to this piece...@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd
Very insightful, thank you! Incidentally, a lot of what you say about slow practice I've found to be true about (slow, naturally) sight-reading (for me, typically around 1/4-1/2 of performance speed).
Yes, sightreading is a whole other discussion, especially in piano playing. I think that sightreading is one of the most valuable skills a pianist can develop - glad to hear you're practicing that, too! Good luck! 😊 🎹
I trained on slow motion. since I played on the stage at the university some comic plays . That is after devising the phrase in patterns I train slowly at these paterns up to a comfortable speed. But til know I do not reaches a suitable speed, and that wat I work on to increase the speed.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I am glad you have found that slow motion has been effective for you. Hope this video has helped, and happy practicing! 😊
This is perfect, and I love all of your videos - every one has something worthwhile to apply. This lines up perfectly with some of the principles that I've started to experiment with myself recently, which is about being connected with the instrument, and awareness including feeling the keyboard under the fingers, being aware of tension in the muscles, relaxing into the performance, playing the notes using only the strength that is required, where it is required, and thinking of every motion being connected to the next motion, and part of a flow through the music on the page.
Thank you for sharing your experiences! These are all very wise and useful strategies for expressive, quality music making, all of which will greatly benefit you! Happy practicing! 😊
Too much slow practice here. Sometimes I musically prefer the piece that way, I have a taste towards lyrical music and some pieces sound quite nice slower than traditionally performed, though I probably wouldn't play them publicly that way. Sometimes it's a way to practice something that I'm not technically ready for yet, or to test a piece to see if it feels like I'll be able to speed it up if I spend some time on it. Sometimes it just feels kind of soothing to put my cares and worries aside and slowly work my way through a piece.
I certainly think that doing a lot of slow practice can be a comfortable way to practice, and if you aren't preparing it for any particular performance, there is absolutely no need to pressure yourself to speed things up! Where people run into problems, in my experience, is that they practice very slowly and then TRY to play faster but then discover that the slow practice hasn't prepared them for fast playing as well as they expected it to.
Thank you for this great video! Besides so many useful information, I found original thoughts in it, like: practicing slowly, but not beyond necessity; using slow-motion... As a beginner, I *always* start any exercise / piece slowly and without the metronome. When I *feel* I won't be disturbed by the metronome, I turn it on and try to increase the bpm accordingly to my capacity at the moment. It requires patience and the truth is that many times I try to go faster and... well, I have to slow down. Slow practice made a notable difference in the efficiency and efficacy of my practice. Slow practice, the counting out loud of the tempo and the metronome have been my best friends in my practice. I'd like to ask you (at least) 2 questions about practice: 1- may I continue to start using the metronome just after I feel comfortable with playing the notes or should I introduce the metronome right at the beginning of the piece? 2 - is it possible for a beginner to play with musicality? I'm sure there is a robot inside me... This makes me afraid of not being able to develop musicality. How can a beginner be musical? I've been trying to apply dynamics to some exercises, and I think this may be helpful, but when it comes to voicing and musical phrases...
Glad you found this video helpful! In answer to your questions: 1) I always suggest waiting until you have note security before adding the metronome. The metronome will serve to exernalize the pulse for you, and if you aren't yet secure with the notes (i.e., you're just starting a piece) you will feel internal pressure to keep up with the metronome. When you first start a piece, work on learning the notes and training your fingers where to go. When that starts to come easily and you need to either work on playing in a consistent tempo or increasing the tempo, then start working with the metronome. 2) It IS possible for a beginner to play with musicality. I'm working on a series addressing issues of musicality and expression, where I'll go into this in more detail. For now, I suggest following the actual printed markings to the letter: dynamics, articulations, note lengths, etc. There's a lot of musicality in there. And probably the #1 thing you can do to start feeling things more musically is to start feeling the music "leading" or "going" to a particular beat or note. In a phrase, usually there is a goal note or a note where the music is leading to. Work on actually imagining the line growing to that goal note and then receding from it. If you spend time listening to a bunch of music, like Brahms symphonies, Beethoven string quartets, and Mozart arias, for example, you can really listen for the way the phrases move toward these high points. Hope this is helpful! Good luck! 😄🎹
@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd Many, many thanks! Your replies are precious lessons - and not only for me, I'm sure! And, again, your words present original information. I'm glad to have found your chanel. I wish you have all the recognition you, certainly, deserve.
That is a very wise move! Once you get comfortable with that slow tempo, you can increase the tempo just slightly each time to gradually work toward your desired tempo. Happy practicing!
Make sure to practice in such a way that you can play accurately. So, if you are making mistakes, then try it hands separately or try a shorter segment. Then, once you can repeat something 5-7 times without errors, you can either 1) increase the tempo; 2) play it hands together but not faster; or 3) play a longer segment. You might check out one of my videos on how to learn a brand new piece: ua-cam.com/video/3pdFYAGJk1o/v-deo.html Good luck!
![Play Octaves Faster With Ease: Piano Technique Tutorial | Kate Boyd The Piano Prof [1/2]](/img/n.gif)
Like this video? Watch this one next! ua-cam.com/video/ykT8Uba6hqQ/v-deo.html
I use very slow practice when I am first learning the notes. Then fast practice to get the feel of how everything has to move at full tempo, not worrying about a few missed or wrong notes, but also not doing so much that I engrain the mistakes. Then back to slow practice, with those good motions, to get relaxed. Then little bits of very fast practice, one or two measures, particularly for trouble spots, then string longer bits of fast practice together. Then when I'm pretty happy with how the piece is shaping up I do a mix of fast and slow practice - the fast to get mentally used to keeping the concentration flowing through the piece and the slow to relax and prevent sloppiness from creeping in.
This is great! Having a mix of slow and fast practice is really helpful for progress - and you are clearly very intentional about it. Thanks for your comment!
This is great! I separate my students' goals into: "start/stop" practicing, which is practicing at any fluid tempo with the freedom to slow down or stop at any point that is difficult, in order to make sure the spot is done correctly; "any tempo" practicing, in which the student should find the tempo at which they are still able to think (it's usually just a hair slower than they feel it should go!); and "perform" which is the goal tempo. I appreciate your insights, especially on the necessity to take actual movements into account and the need for speed in those situations.
Hi Adam! Great to see you here. I love the way you differentiate the three types of goals - that's very clear for your students! Thanks for watching! 😄
Very helpful. I likely do too much slow practice believing that eventually accurate speed will automatically appear, but it won't. Better to use slow practice as a time for thorough analysis of what and how you are playing, and then bite the bullet and speed it up. If you hit bumps in the road at the faster speed, isolate the bumps, take them back to the slow analysis to dissect the problem spot for special work. But don't put the places where the speed is correct and solid back in that slow down mode. I don't use the word "practice" for my daily session; I call it studying the piano. I "practice" the piece only when I know it thoroughly because I have studied it; practice will help me perfect it, hopefully.
.
That is a perfect summary - well said!! "Practicing" vs "studying" is an interesting way to differentiate between two different phases of the learning process - I like it!
I fell too in love with slow practice. I was playing pieces far beyond my capability and that was the only way I could "play" them. I never got to proper speed. I know play more realistic pieces.
Wonderfully balanced lesson. Thanks!
That's a great insight! Practicing only slowly makes you really good at playing slowly. Sounds like you are very patient in the practice room - many people have the opposite problem, and find it difficult to slow down and listen carefully to what is actually happening. Glad you have found repertoire you feel more comfortable playing at speed!
A few runs through a passage at a tempo that is too fast for my current ability also seems to help. It’s like riding in a boat doing 70 mph and then 50 mph seems real slow.
Yes, that can also be very helpful!
Yes I'm 6 month ago started my piano adventure and learning pieces from UA-cam content.
Slow practice is my # 1 rule till no obviously mistakes, then faster with time...all very personally depending from person to person.
Thank you a lot for more detailed explanations slow down practice, totally agree ! (Subbed after 5 minutes watching...)
Thanks! Yes, it's all very individual - glad you're finding value in the videos! Good luck with your piano journey!
I grew up doing way too much very slow practice where I mentally checked out and played unmusically note to note. Thank you, Dr. Boyd, this has been helpful.
I'm so glad to hear this!! Playing musically is so important, and it can be really difficult to get the hang of!
This is what i need a video to show me how to practice
Glad it helped! Happy practicing!
Excellent coverage. At a certain slow pace, articulation and dynamics disappear. After I select a fingering, slow practice will lay it down accurately. On delicate or difficult maneuvers, raising tempo carefully works very well. Part of my slow work is feeling the action with eyes glued to the score. As soon as the pace hits my desired speed, I add the metronome. That ensures some part of my mind follows the beat. Thank you sincerely for these extremely helpful tools.
Thanks for your comment and for sharing your process. Glad you're finding the videos helpful! Best wishes!
Really a great teacher, the Number One on You Tube, bravo!
Thank you! 😃
Thank you so much Dr. Boyd. Love your videos which you have put a lot of thoughts into. Especially I love the contents of your videos. It always addresses a point
Sorry, I accidentally sent before I finish.
Every video focus on one topic. You analyze the pro and con of it and give a very good advice on it. It has been super helpful!
Appreciate your efforts 🙏🙏🙏
Liked! Subscribed! Shared!
Your wonderful, generous work deserve to be spread more and more!
Looking forward to your next 😊
Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm so happy to hear you are getting so much out of my videos. Best of luck for continued success and pleasure from your piano study! 😊
I begin slow and fast then after I learned the piece well I return back to really slow tempo and increase the tempo with metronome gradually
That's a really effective way to practice - I do that too sometimes! 😊
I generally practice too fast. Well, I did until I tried learning Rachmaninoff's prelude Op23#1. Impossible!! :)).
Even playing slow enough to get the notes it sounded banal, I needed other strategies... I am trying zooming in to half-bars (or even quarter bars) to get the speed up, then slowing back down to add dynamics and bring the piece to life.
Great strategy! You might also try incorporating hands separate practice with your hands together practice - take one phrase and work each hand up to tempo, and then slow it back down to put hands together and work it up to tempo gradually. That can help with that feeling of working note to note and not being able to perceive the "life" of the music. Hope this helps!
Yes, slowing down and separating the hands and adding the dynamics one hand at a time helps. Measures 34ff just needed a lot of practice to get the notes and hands together first for me. That hand crossing is insane! But the dynamics are utterly essential to this piece...@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd
Very insightful, thank you!
Incidentally, a lot of what you say about slow practice I've found to be true about (slow, naturally) sight-reading (for me, typically around 1/4-1/2 of performance speed).
Yes, sightreading is a whole other discussion, especially in piano playing. I think that sightreading is one of the most valuable skills a pianist can develop - glad to hear you're practicing that, too! Good luck! 😊 🎹
So many fresh ideas, I will try those suggestions
Thanks for watching - glad you find these suggestions helpful!
I trained on slow motion. since I played on the stage at the university some comic plays . That is after devising the phrase in patterns I train slowly at these paterns up to a comfortable speed. But til know I do not reaches a suitable speed, and that wat I work on to increase the speed.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I am glad you have found that slow motion has been effective for you. Hope this video has helped, and happy practicing! 😊
This is perfect, and I love all of your videos - every one has something worthwhile to apply. This lines up perfectly with some of the principles that I've started to experiment with myself recently, which is about being connected with the instrument, and awareness including feeling the keyboard under the fingers, being aware of tension in the muscles, relaxing into the performance, playing the notes using only the strength that is required, where it is required, and thinking of every motion being connected to the next motion, and part of a flow through the music on the page.
Thank you for sharing your experiences! These are all very wise and useful strategies for expressive, quality music making, all of which will greatly benefit you! Happy practicing! 😊
Yes … I agree .. slow… practice slowly .. make each note count
Too much slow practice here. Sometimes I musically prefer the piece that way, I have a taste towards lyrical music and some pieces sound quite nice slower than traditionally performed, though I probably wouldn't play them publicly that way. Sometimes it's a way to practice something that I'm not technically ready for yet, or to test a piece to see if it feels like I'll be able to speed it up if I spend some time on it. Sometimes it just feels kind of soothing to put my cares and worries aside and slowly work my way through a piece.
I certainly think that doing a lot of slow practice can be a comfortable way to practice, and if you aren't preparing it for any particular performance, there is absolutely no need to pressure yourself to speed things up! Where people run into problems, in my experience, is that they practice very slowly and then TRY to play faster but then discover that the slow practice hasn't prepared them for fast playing as well as they expected it to.
Thank you for this great video! Besides so many useful information, I found original thoughts in it, like: practicing slowly, but not beyond necessity; using slow-motion...
As a beginner, I *always* start any exercise / piece slowly and without the metronome. When I *feel* I won't be disturbed by the metronome, I turn it on and try to increase the bpm accordingly to my capacity at the moment. It requires patience and the truth is that many times I try to go faster and... well, I have to slow down.
Slow practice made a notable difference in the efficiency and efficacy of my practice. Slow practice, the counting out loud of the tempo and the metronome have been my best friends in my practice.
I'd like to ask you (at least) 2 questions about practice:
1- may I continue to start using the metronome just after I feel comfortable with playing the notes or should I introduce the metronome right at the beginning of the piece?
2 - is it possible for a beginner to play with musicality? I'm sure there is a robot inside me... This makes me afraid of not being able to develop musicality. How can a beginner be musical? I've been trying to apply dynamics to some exercises, and I think this may be helpful, but when it comes to voicing and musical phrases...
Glad you found this video helpful! In answer to your questions: 1) I always suggest waiting until you have note security before adding the metronome. The metronome will serve to exernalize the pulse for you, and if you aren't yet secure with the notes (i.e., you're just starting a piece) you will feel internal pressure to keep up with the metronome. When you first start a piece, work on learning the notes and training your fingers where to go. When that starts to come easily and you need to either work on playing in a consistent tempo or increasing the tempo, then start working with the metronome.
2) It IS possible for a beginner to play with musicality. I'm working on a series addressing issues of musicality and expression, where I'll go into this in more detail. For now, I suggest following the actual printed markings to the letter: dynamics, articulations, note lengths, etc. There's a lot of musicality in there. And probably the #1 thing you can do to start feeling things more musically is to start feeling the music "leading" or "going" to a particular beat or note. In a phrase, usually there is a goal note or a note where the music is leading to. Work on actually imagining the line growing to that goal note and then receding from it. If you spend time listening to a bunch of music, like Brahms symphonies, Beethoven string quartets, and Mozart arias, for example, you can really listen for the way the phrases move toward these high points.
Hope this is helpful! Good luck!
😄🎹
@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd Many, many thanks! Your replies are precious lessons - and not only for me, I'm sure! And, again, your words present original information. I'm glad to have found your chanel. I wish you have all the recognition you, certainly, deserve.
Thank you!
I practice slowly in part because I can't get fast pieces up to tempo.
That is a very wise move! Once you get comfortable with that slow tempo, you can increase the tempo just slightly each time to gradually work toward your desired tempo. Happy practicing!
Maestra, una pregunta ¿después de cuánta práctica lenta es conveniente aumentar la velocidad? Gracias por la ayuda
A good benchmark is to increase the speed when you're able to reliably play the passage without errors several times in a row. Good luck!
@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd muchas gracias!
How can I know, when practicing slowly. If I’m doing well and the speed will came over time or I’m not going anywhere because I’m making a mistake??
Make sure to practice in such a way that you can play accurately. So, if you are making mistakes, then try it hands separately or try a shorter segment. Then, once you can repeat something 5-7 times without errors, you can either 1) increase the tempo; 2) play it hands together but not faster; or 3) play a longer segment. You might check out one of my videos on how to learn a brand new piece: ua-cam.com/video/3pdFYAGJk1o/v-deo.html
Good luck!