How to Keep a Piano Piece in Shape
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I'm Robert Estrin. Today's subject is about how to keep a piano piece in shape. Sometimes it's the most difficult thing. You have a performance, and you get everything in good shape. But it can be like a ripe banana. Suddenly the whole bunch is just a disaster and you have to throw them away. Sometimes that happens with your piano music! Everything is going just fine, and then suddenly, you feel like you can't even play! What can you do about this? It's a tremendous challenge keeping your music on a high level. Sometimes you can peak early. Everything's in shape, and then at the performance just two or three days later, everything disintegrates. How can you get things back into shape?
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Wow...one of many life-changing lessons that I have had the privilege to learn from since recently beginning a serious dive into your collection of instructive videos on youtube, Robert! Your lessons provide true wisdom for pianists, clearly presented, in focused segments that allow each essential element to be clearly understood and adopted into one's lifestyle. Piano teachers, please consider carefully, a few hours study of Robert's videos could almost certainly give you a whole new level of what you can offer your students! And, while we talking piano playing progress here, I would advocate much of the wisdom you are bestowing on us, Robert, can be equally useful in living life more intelligently as well. I am deeply grateful, and wish for you, and all the lucky people who study your teaching, continued ever greater success!!!
Your comments are greatly appreciated!
Agree with Erik completely. Robert your slow and back to the score suggestions are spot on for me. It is amazing how poorly I remember the song when I do this at first. And it is nice to know that I am not the only one who experiences this. I listen to several online piano instructional videos, but Robert you are the best.
Thank you for this video! As an adult beginner I recently went through just this, and it can be disheartening. I spent 3+ months learning Moonlight Sonata Mov. 1 and got to a place I was actually happy with it (how I started my channel), and then recently tried to revisit it and it was a mess. I could play the full thing maybe 2 out 10 tries. I ultimately just had to spend a a few days slowing everything down as if I was learning it again for the first time, and within a week or so I had it even better than I did when I first learned it. It helps also that I know a bit more theory now and can listen better to know what things should sound like, rather than just relying on muscle memory when playing it "fast."
I'm having this problem myself. Even playing the piece at full tempo every day i end up forgetting bits of it here and there. I though it was more efficient to detect the missing details and refresh those with the score.
Thank you for this video. It's really a super valuable tip, because it's happened to me too that I suddenly became unfamiliar with a very familiar piece and I couldn't even play some passages slowly.
Thank you for your great advices!
Nice video. It takes real skill to play in slow motion. And in places, a piece can sound so different at a slow tempo. Eg. Mozart Sonata in B flat K333, third movement, measures 20-24.
In my experience, it has always been more difficult to play a piece slow with precision that at full tempo. If you can discipline your brain to keep it slow, it will yield dividends. Good lesson, Robert! And, IMHO....Bach should be played "pedal-less" regardless of tempo ;)
It is also true for me that some pieces are easier to play fast than slow but usually that happens because I don't know the score that well: when I play fast I can cover the errors with speed and pedal, when I am being slow I am "nacked". Therefore it is very important to play slowly to really understan how much you know the piece
About Bach I think that a bit of pedal in the right places is necessary and good: it is useful to sustain the sound and to get the file of sonority that the piece requires. Anyway obviously Bach shouldn't be played as Debussy...
Vince DeRosa (Horn studio musician who played for everything and with everyone from 1935 to 2008) once responded to a comment by a horn student who said he had good days and bad days. "You can't have bad days. You must always be ready." I know, easier said than done. But perhaps it helps to first get it into your head that you must be at peak at all times. For myself, sometimes when having to learn a piece, or relearn a piece, I start at the end of the piece. Play maybe the last 16 bars. Then the last 32 bars. And so on. It seems to help and usually helps insure you finish clean and strong.
Congratulations to 102k subscribers!!
Thank-you Robert for your experience on this topic. I thought it was problem I only experienced. 🎶🥀☺️
When I've learned the mechanics of a piece I play it at a slow tempo with a metronome. Any spots that need more practice show up quickly. Re: Using pedal with Bach. My teacher had a point: If Bach had a sustain pedal he would have used it.
Thanks. Glad to know that's exactly how I'm learning to play.
Certainly there are many ways of slicing and dicing a given piece to jog your memory or just to implant it. Trying just to hear it and not looking back at the sheet music seems like a good idea. Thanks for the suggestions! 1/8/2011 Survivor ( dive for the ground )
Great lesson, as always. Thank you
A guitarist I know was playing his A minor scale at some ridicules speed bragging about how he's outgrown the need to practice. I told him to play 3 notes per beat instead of 8 and play in A# major instead. He pretty much broke down and could no longer play his guitar. If you slowed his scales down and listened to them you'd hear a ton of hidden mistakes.
Okay I couldn’t help but chuckle when you were talking about slowing down and you said “take your foot off the pedal” lol. But yeah I really should revisit the score because my whole repertoire is painfully rusty. Oh what a treat it would be to have time to practice like I used to but with three young children, well… not happening.
And anyway this is why I’m so glad I finally committed to learning to read instead of just memorizing- a piece will never be lost, you just need to check the score and it will come back.
Thanks for the encouragement and (unintentional?) humor haha.
Hi Robert
I have acquired a Smith and Nixon Edwardian style baby grand piano from roughly 1907, in pretty decent condition, given the age. Any information on a piano like that or the value of one? Thank you
Important to practice slowly....speed comes later.
Absolutely!
Hi Robert. I'd really like to ask your opinion on something.
Generally speaking, would it be a better choice to go for a semi concert grand size from a Chinese piano maker like Hailun, or a 'known brand' piano like Kawai but at a smaller size?
I am considering a 7 foot 2 Hailun 218 and a Kawai GX3 (6 foot 2). These two pianos are the same price in my country.
I am a huge fan of the Kawai 'house sound', but I also understand that there are signfiicant benefits to getting a larger piano.
Wondering if you have played any of these and what your professional opinion might be?
Have you faced this dilemma yourself?
Thank you
Wow! My English is bad. I thought he was going to tell us how keep the shape of a piece of a piano. Well don’t drop it our hit it with a crow bar. That’s a start.
had this exact thought -- I thought he was gonna recommend putting the sheets in a folder or something
AMEN! 🙂🙂🙂🙏🏼❤
Thank you for this information. I've been using it re-learning the Chopin Revolutionary Etude; it's amazing how quickly this particular piece comes back. I don't quite understand how the left had just seems to 'know' the notes after all these years. And this piece was easy to memorize, while other pieces are so difficult to memorize. Why is it easy to memorize? When I played it before, it never really got up to speed - how can I speed it up?