Indeed. Practicing a piece small part at a time, hand by hand, with both hands, shorter periods at a time, but regularly and continuously works really well. Many of these ideas actually comes from Jason :D But some are just self realized before I found his channel.
My Karate teachers way of saying was "perfect practice makes perfect" he was a really wise dude and it applies to about everything even though it was simple advice it was very helpful.
Bruce Lee used to say that when one starts to fatigue it's best to call it a day since during fatigue movements start to get wonky and incorrect - this incorrect movement can imprint itself into the nervous system muscle memory and result in one repeating this erroneous movement even from fully fresh and rested state as a result. Less BUT correct is more than more BUT incorrect.
@@trivela_shortsYT Bruce Lee is a martial artist but his quotes apply to many others things too. This quote tells us that, if you start feeling fatigue(tired/weak) it's better to stop practicing and go sleep or do something else instead of practicing. Because if you practice while being tired/weak, you will most likely be doing the movements/exercise wrong, which means that you're practicing wrong movements. So you're basically making your body more likely to do "wrong" movements(mistakes), even when it's fresh and awake, because you're training yourself to remember these wrong movements instead of "calling it a day" and practice correct movements, when you're not feeling fatigue(tired/weak), but fresh and awake. It's better to practice correct movements/exercises for 30 minutes a day, than to practice wrong movements 1 hour a day :)
I love the "If you are practicing correct things, you are improving. If you are practicing the wrong things, you are making those wrong things stronger" I am deeply hit by this statement. Whenever I play any piece, I always hate doing things over and over again. So whenever there's a difficult part, I always think "okay, I'll just do it, best of luck" I always tryna let things be out of luck. I often play things incorrectly which is why final results are always bad. This is an eye opener for me. I've been crying a lot this past few days because I think I am not improving, I thought I have no talent for this,or that whatever I do, I will not improve, but this video made me realize a lot of things. It is not that I can't improve, but it's that I do not do anything to improve.
Thank you for sharing Diana. You sound like you are having some good insights from this video- congrats. Yes, when you're not improving, it's definitely not because you're not talented or anything. You just need to tweak your practice method and you will improve for sure. FYI, I don't ever use the word ''talent'' in my vocabulary. I don't believe in it. I believe in hard work. You can do it Diana
I had never looked at this way that if you’re practising mistakes, your muscle memory is absorbing the mistakes. Makes sense. I’m off to do some s-l-o-w pratice😉 Thanks for your tips. I find them very helpful and If I become half as good as you, I will be delighted
I just want to add, playing slow can also be a big trap. When you play slowly you need to make sure that you are still making the same movements that you need to make to play fast, because when you play slowly you can often get away with making inefficient movements that won't work at full speed. So you need to be really careful, and try playing it fast first, see the exact movements you need to make to play fast, and then practice those movements in slow motion.
@@anonym4707 i highly disagree, you could always learn new ways and better ways to practice pieces. It is useless to shame someone for not having a certain piece of knowledge, and instead much better to encourage others to learn and encourage them in their journeys
I have noticed this myself. Playing it correctly is so much more important than playing it at the right tempo! You need to make sure you are playing the right notes when you are practicing, even if it is ridiculously slow. Then turn on the metronome and try to play the section at that ridiculously slow tempo without any mistakes. If you can do it 3-4 times, speed up the metronome just by a couple of bpm, and do it 3 more times, then speed up again, and repeat. When you get tired of it, go to sleep and come back the next morning, and you'll be amazed how much a good sleep will improve your performance too!
My teaching philosophy is completely in line with yours, Jazer. Isn't it fun watching our young students struggle while they strive for that one mistake-free execution, but eventually grow to become self-assured, honest individuals over time? Practicing correctly truly builds a fine human being.
You've done it again, Maestro! Thank you for not projecting this unrealistic air of a master piano player. You are THE teacher, but you never let us forget that you're still a student yourself. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being honest, showing your struggles, and ultimately basking in the success long down the road. I hope your creating only becomes more and more rewarding because your videos have been instrumental (hey-o!) to my piano education!
Even the big players are students. If Liberace, Beethoven, Bach. Quit playing for a while I’m sure they would be back to trying to practice to get back to where they once were
I totally agree! My "live" teacher is useless and will not be my teacher for much longer. These videos are encouraging and I'm going to keeping tuning in.
This totally hits the nail on the head for me! I've always skipped or faked my way through the difficult parts. I think this is really key for me. Like a lot of people I tend to tense up and choke when the hard part is coming up.... like singers on the high notes!
These are just the methods I always use to practise and I must say that I began study at the Conservatory of music when I was forty (40!!!) years old and I played the piano for the first time at that age...today I can play Chopin and orthers without problems...you are totally right! Playing correctly is an automatism and piano practice involves many subtleties to keep in mind and the right everyday habits (and also theory) make the difference! Thank you 🎹🎹😀😀 Master!
As a teacher, I thank you for giving students permission to slow down on the hard parts. Of course, we don't want that to be permanent, so you stress using the metronome. I find that the metronome points out where my tempo is off. Great videos! I hope many young people watch them!!!
I hated the metronome when I was a student, it was an extra thing to worry about. After all it was hard enough to get the fingers pressing the correct keys.The teacher habitually corrected me by using the metronome, but I simply refused to use it in practice. It took me years before I start practicing a new piece with the metronome. Looking back I must have wasted an enormous amount of my time. So my humble advice for any beginner is to use the metronome as often as you can. You learn much faster if you follow the beat.
One comment though, is that I have the reflex to replay correctly what I just did when I do a mistake but that's a no no when someone is singing while you're playing or during a performance. So yeah, it's important to practice parts that you are having difficulty and at the same time being able to play through a piece despite some mistake (hoping that you are conscious of it).
During a performance, the show must go on. If you stop to correct a mistake, the audience should be able to notice. I say this with little piano/keyboard stage experience so I could be wrong. However, I imagine that this is a good logical assessment. I’m working my way there. Home practice gives me an opportunity to do what I shouldn’t do on stage.
That honesty bit is something I urge with my students. I say, would you rather have to relearn the same hard part every time you play so you can avoid playing slowly, or play slower for a half hour and then never have to learn the part again?
@@jazerleepiano another way I try to make the student understand necessity of the slow but accurate practice is that they waste time every time they play wrong notes. It literally is wasting the most important resource we have, because we will never make up for time lost on bad practice, and we lose more time again trying to correct the learned mistakes.
You spend all your time focusing on the hard parts. Its total unending misery if you're going to play piano well. Once you've played hard part #1 for a week to get it down, then move on to hard part #2. Then 3, then 4.......then 86. It's never fun. If you're not working on the hard part, you're not progressing, so it's 100% misery 99% of the time. And reading music is torture. Fuck it. To become a decent player is a 50-year task. I'll be dead by then if not by tomorrow.
When I stop my students mid-song because they’re playing it wrong, some of them will say “I just want to play it all once first” then continue to play it wrong. Such a waste of valuable lesson time. Any suggestions? When I finally do stop them, I can tell they don’t like it and they know I’m going to correct them, but I can’t stand letting them continually play it wrong. Many of the mistakes are timing mistakes.Any ideas to soften the blow?
Those are excellent suggestions! Here are some additional thoughts on the matter: Musicians often associate practice with repetition, but the truth is actually that nothing really changes when you repeat something. Its in the definition of the word 'to repeat' Practicing SLOWLY is crucial. Instead of trying to increase the tempo, then do the opposite. Start by choosing the fastest tempo in which you can successfully play the piece in, the moment when you sit down to practice. Then slowly lower the tempo each time you practice that part and don't repeat what you are doing, instead experiment with dynamics, expression, timing and so on. And lastly, accept who you are and the abilities you have. If you see no improvements to whatever you are practicing after a time, then just accept it and move on to something else. The most important thing is to always focus more on making music and creativity and less on technique
You are mostly right, however: The problem with playing things slowly is that the technique sometimes is not exactly the same as when playing them fast. This means that you might play a piece up to a certain speed hundreds of times without any mistakes, but would not be able to breach that speed limit. Therefore, it is useful sometimes to play above your speed limit, even though you play with mistakes and not in a clean way, letting your body find solutions to problems that do not exist when you play slowly.
This is such great advice! I myself have been doing this so far. If there's a difficult part in a piece, I'd just play that part incorrectly and move on, instead of practicing that part at a slower speed because it wasn't very fun.
Bonjour, j’habite en France (dans le sud), et je suis vos vidéos avec attention. Merci pour vos conseils, ils me sont très utiles pour ma pratique quotidienne du piano. Il est vrai qu’on est toujours impatient de « terminer » un morceau le plus rapidement possible, sans toutefois s’attarder sur toutes les erreurs qu’on commet. Cette vidéo m’a fait réfléchir sur ma pratique, même si mon professeur m’en avait déjà parlé. Oui, il faut bien considérer que le corps à la mémoire des mouvements , et donc à nous de les réaliser le plus correctement possible. Néanmoins, et je ne pense pas que vous l’ayez mentionné, je considère que jouer le morceau avec le métronome devrait venir après avoir bien déchiffré la pièce, et donc qu’il existe une véritable chronologie de bonnes pratiques à établir pour aborder un morceau de À à Z. Je ne sais pas si vous avez déjà produit une vidéo sur toutes les « procédures »à mettre en place pour commencer et « terminer » un morceau ? Une sorte de « Check List » à suivre pour l’etude de n’importe quel morceau. Merci encore pour tous vos conseils.
This video really makes my piano practicing really smarter. My mom always told me when i finished a song, the sound is to fast or to slow than the original I still don't know but it is bad when i hear it myself Then i notice that using a metronome will make a better sound. From this video i learned many things, Thx
I started playing piano 3 months ago, and the way I was learning was just watching videos on UA-cam of someone's hand playing the pieces, and imitating them. I've actually learned to play those pieces, and they're not easy ones, I'm really talking like Turkish March level ones. I know it isn't the traditional way, but I actually got happier by knowing how to play them, and now I'm up to start learning to read sheet music, and your tips are really helping. Since I started playing these pieces, I wasn't really paying attention to my mistakes, so whenever I play them, I ALWAYS miss something, like really, EVERYTIME !! I've never played them perfectly. I wish I would've known this detail earlier. Thank you so much! I have been very motivaded since the beggining, and I'm practicing a whole lot.
I’ve been practicing just this section of waterfall for many weeks now as an exercise to improve my reach and accuracy. Painfully slowly at first but now I’m hitting the correct notes and fingering up and down every time, but still nowhere near the speed needed. Playing really slowly can often be harder than at a moderate speed. It’s often harder to slow your brain down than your fingers.
Jazer...thank you! You in your selfless humility have helped me so much. I know this intellectually, but your showing us how "bad" practice reinforces sloppiness , thus keeping one from correcting rough areas. It has made me face myself and recognize this and instead of whining, makes me WANT to slow down and work just on the difficult section. I never WANTED to do it before. You make me want to do this NECESSARY study/practice. Also I never really understood the purpose of the metronome. In a few words and by illustration, I get it! You are a great teacher and friend!!! Diane in Florida
Hello Jazer! Thanks for this video and the great study tips in it. You sound like a really good piano teacher. No doubt your students must benefit greatly from your lessons. Lucky them to have classes with you! 😊 Stay well and enjoy the remainder of your week! All the best!
Thank you Jazer! I am so glad that I found you. You have a knack for reinforcing effective practicing strategies in a logical and positive way that is inspiring. As an adult learner (just completed my online RCM level 3 exam ..yay!) and neuropsychologist, your methods certainly align with the science of learning. It can be hard to slow down and be mindful of those mistakes especially when playing the pieces in autopilot brings so much pleasure vs. working out the kinks feels like a chore. To create a positive association and to rewards these seemingly onerous practice sessions sometimes I will do them in short 5-minute bits with breaks where I do some thing I really like (could be play a piece I already know and like, read a magazine, play with my dog, take a 1- min belly breathing break, or make a nice cup of tea!). Looking forward to checking out your other videos.
Ahhhhhh. This makes soooooooo much sense. Thank you so much, my friend. I've definitely been rushing my practice. Time to slow down. Consolidate and get things right. As said in a prior post, I really enjoy my piano teacher - but he doesn't offer these practical suggestions like you do. Thank goodness for youtube. Hahaha. Take care and keep being brilliant.
@@jazerleepiano : Thanks for the reply my friend. Loving your videos mate. You've really inspired me to get myself out of my 'learning rut' and get stuck back into it. Going back to the basics and actually sitting down and practicing effectively. Compared to just 'stuffing around' - which does sound nice. But my goal is to READ and PLAY music. Take care mate and seriously, thank you!
Thank you! Yes, "practice makes perfect" is said so much but there's more to it and you went into it nicely. It's curious that you play at normal speed and then slow it down at the difficult bits. My teacher always says I have to play the entire piece at one speed so that I don't make the accelerating/decelerating a habit. So if 95% of the piece is super easy but there's a short really difficult section then I have to play the entire piece at snail's pace. Ugh, that's so boring!
Hi Jazer! I’m your newest student. Started piano as my first instrument at about 6. Just plinking single notes. Got bored and didn’t pick up music again till I was a teenager. Guitar and songwriting, rock punk metal bands until the pandemic. Now self teaching with my uncle as a mentor/ tutor at 52. I want to thank you for your awesome videos. They’ve been very helpful with my progress and technique. Keep the great videos coming!!!
Thank you for this video. I'm trying to teach myself piano using a teaching app. Fun, cheap, and helpful, but no substitute for a good teacher, which I don't have. Initially I progressed fast enough, but lately progress has slowed to a virtual standstill. I watched your video, put your advice into practice, and immediately noticed an improvement. Thank you again.
This is such great advice ❤️ Thank you very much. As a piano teacher, I will definitely communicate this to my students who can't forego the pleasure of playing and are not ready to work hard
Agree that "short term pain for a long term gain" is an excellent piano practice strategy and principle for life in general when trying to choose to just do what is right. Thank you for sharing your musical talent and thoughts.
@@jazerleepiano It was very tough but now the part that bothered me is smooth. The main problem I had was bad fingering. At times I thought I had it and then my fingers would revert back to the old way of playing it. One day I thought I had it right but when I played it the next day my fingers went back to the old way of playing it. Going over it very slow a few notes at a time eventually won out. I have no idea how many times I repeated playing measure number 7 but it was a struggle for this old man. Thank you for your advice. I will try to go very slow on everything I play.
Yeah, I have a mistake, that I always Made it while playing. And that really makes me like, "Am I supposed to repeat that or just continue" And I always just continued it. But after watching this video, I have some good lesson here. Not only practising, not only repeating, but I have to correct the mistakes. Thank you so much for the lesson! You are the best piano teacher on UA-cam!😀😀
This isn't just about piano by the way, this works for any instrument. and now that i think about it, it works for anything. If you are having trouble with something, isolate the problem and fix that before moving on.
I like how your every clip teaches me something new and opens up new ideas. Ofc you need to put ur mind and have patience in your practice :) Chopin - Etude Op. 10 No. 1! Your doing great, sounds so goood. Keep it up sensei ^^
Yes!! You are so right. When you've said it it seems so obvious but I think that's a sign of a great teacher; to say something so well that it makes sense.
I hope this helps me😂 I’m self taught, I play by ear, so I have no absolute clue how to read sheet music… I learn on the videos where the bars come down the screen, I just do it in slow mo, then pick up speed
I'm presently in G2 for the piano. When I make mistakes, I usually restart from the beginning. When a particular bar keeps giving me trouble, I would focus on it for three tries. If I still get it wrong, I drop that piece entirely and move to another piece I can play smoothly. Once that is done, I return to the problematic piece and reduce the speed of play until I get everything right.
Hahaha! Way too difficult for me. I just appreciate others better than I. Am working on the Schubert Bb, though. It'll take me years...... 😂 Thanks for all your helpful tips; love your videos
I have been practicing 3 hours a day with little progress. I always label myself "no musical talent ". Now I understand why. Thank you for opening my eyes. You are the best !
My son's baseball coach used to always tell the team, "The way you practice is the way you'll play." And his karate sensei said, "Practice doesn't make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect. " I have a question, though. I've always struggled when trying to play with a metronome. Do you have any tips to make it easier?
It makes me panic. That insistent tick tick tick ding tick tick tick ding it doesn't feel like a supportive friend it feels like an enemy. I switch on the one on my electric piano when playing the acoustic and turn it down really low so it is barely audible, that works better. Most times I just don't bother with one. If you have a portable pyramid one you could always stand it just outside the door or down the passage. It's meant to be a gentle reminder not an interference.
My problem is rhythm. No matter how fast or how slow I set it, I can't seem to stay on the rhythm. Even when doing something relatively simple like scales, I have to really concentrate. Even when I was a child, this was a problem. We'd be in children's choir at church, and all the other kids would be clapping on the beat, and I'd be over here doing my own crazy thing. I'm one of those who can't have an in person teacher due to an irregular work schedule, so I'm trying to learn to play using videos such as these. I've only been playing a short time, as well. Oh, and I know you can't tell from my screen name, but I'm a she.
This is a major problem that I have developed. I know what I am practicing wrongly, yet the urge to bungle past the difficult bars is always there; to get back to the melodious section. I am resolved to stop, slow down and get the notes right before I start the piece from the beginning. Thank you Jazer. You are my inspiration.
This was awesome! I just wish I listened to my teacher suggesting these things when I was younger! One of the things I've learned that really works for me is focusing on the hard parts when you start practicing. Usually it's the hard things that we're most prone to futzing. If we practice those first, we can build that correct muscle memory more quickly, instead of having to go through the cycle of messing up the hard part continuously, only to later figure out it needs work!
Very good point about not practicing mistakes. One thing that can work, though, is to make the mistake deliberately (as if it were a different piece of music) so you establish a separate neural pathway for it and then are more able to choose between the incorrect and the correct ways of playing.
It’s like you’ve been watching my struggles for the last 50 years. Thank you for taking the delusion out of this fantastic art form, and brining in tangible practical methods of realizing it on the magnificent instrument.. you are as brilliant as your teaching style..
common sense, it is so obvious that it takes a talented young man like you to point it out, brilliantly described and demonstrated, i have learned a whole lot. Thank you so much for sharing this nugget of knowledge, much appreciated. Cheers. Andy. Scotland.
Haha, I stumbled upon the same realisation… we all love playing pieces through… but isolation of problem parts is where progress realy takes off… it’s logic, but I guess it’s something human to only notice that after some time… there’s also the thing that you learn and integrate in your sleep… so just isolating a problem and sleeping over it a few times can do wonders! Thanx for the video’s!
So clever! Very useful! Don´t feed your faults, very good! There is a common tabú about mantaining tempo. I've always thought that when you ride a bicicle, you slow down your speed when the track becomes harder, in the same way you really need to slow down your tempo when neccesary. The only thing you need to observe is being conciousnes of what are you doing with your tempo. in fact when your teacher says, tempo, tempo, he really should say: observe your tempo, be aware of it. Listen to it, is the clue. If you feed your mistakes, and keep the wrigth tempo you create a neverending circle, then 10.000 exercises are not enough to get it.
You are so right Jazer, so often we want to get the piece finished without putting in the real hard work where it's needed. All the points you make are so relevant to me at this time when I'm learning choir accompaniments and I appreciate your very good advice.
The method that I use is by implementing different rhythms to the same section. For example in your bar, which is kinda arpeggio and fast in tempo, I'd play it slowly (obviously), but in dotted rhythm. If I've gotten that done smoothly, then I'll move onto trying another different rhythm for example in triplets. Keep going on trying and mastering different rhythms and learning the correct fingering and positions. Then when you get back on the original and do the same thing, it'll definitely be better than before! Hopefully this helps anyone out there that might be struggling in certain parts :)
Thank you so much for this video! I currently just started practicing the Walsdstein sonata along with other pieces for my exams. I will definitely use everything that was said in this video, very enlightening. Now that I'm looking back, I did make these mistakes in the past, and it makes sense now, as to why my playing is not as clear as it should be in some pieces of music. I used to practice the pieces from top to bottom and I never played the difficult parts separately. I'm not gonna make the same mistake again! Thank you so much!
you are quite right ...i feel it .....self-concentration and method ... as well as emotion in every note ...i see that when i close my eyes ,music is more effect...sounds better...
While I don't like the process of mark the fingering for a piece I do it for exactly the reason mentioned in the video. Helps me to learn the piece faster and better without the fear of practicing the wrong things.
U r absolutely right Jazer. The very first piece I learned was Canon in D. It took me a year cause I’d be playing along and would stumble at a certain part and would start over from the beginning. After a couple of months my wife, who is an accomplished clarinet player, told me to just practice the part I’m messing up. I did that and finally was able to move on. Thank u for all of these great tips.
Thanks for opening these doors. I've viewed both your beginners video & I've just 1 major point - motivation. I've lived my life working these fingers for a living but not piano & tho these choices interest me, when I grind thru learning which fingers etc (I still have to work at 72) it's hard unlike a 7year old. Now a good teacher inspires & I'm talking discovering music within us - not just strictly the sheets. Yes rigor & discipline but many piano learners give up until you realize that you can create the music from within us (still with me?). I've learned a little to improvise & discovered music is Life then some brilliance came thru. But for many of us we spend years building a career till old never found the spark. I once heard Sangah Noona said she doesn't keep scores - just play with her instincts & break rules & found new ones. Any help for old geezers like me to innovate pieces & discover the Mozart in us? But your technical approach is still good.
I really, really appreciate the advice in these videos. If you think about it, it's all stuff that is obvious and we're probably doing it already in a more or less haphazard fashion. The video pulls the awareness together, analyses it and gives it a structure. That really makes sense and is a great help.
I started learning playing piano a week ago. I love the way you explain things and directly show it on the piano. Keep going and thank you very much! :)
Hello. I am an adult beginner student of piano, and I am following the Bastien method. I cannot afford a teacher right now, but I am disciplined and I practise every day, sticking as tightly as I can to the method. I am also very aware of errors and I find your recommendations very useful. Thank you very much for sharing them!
So true!! Years ago a I start on the wrong way..fingers wrong position and now suffering😢 now at the new beginning, all the years lost..😊 Thank you for all the great tips! ❤❤
this composition was a good example and I do agree with you that it’s not a matter of how long you practice but it’s a matter of how you practice the right technique? That’s why two people can play the same composition but it sounds much more professional and fluid. I had a music instructor who is now a conduct directed Tamron Philharmonics and he said two things that I like. He would use Beethoven’s quote” playing the wrong note is understandable but playing without passion is inexcusable.” What I’ve noticed from the great classical Beethoven, Mortar, Rachmaninoff or Wagner is although they were from different cultures they all had one thing in common and that was they were passionate about their craft. another thing he said was look at it like sports the team that plays smarter rather than working harder will win. Practice is important but practicing the right techniques is more important which is why you should start with perfecting your scales so those arpeggios can come naturally and you will recognize the pattern. all it boils down to is memorization of finger patterns and repetition or time.
I use a different fingering on that descending hard F7b5 arpeggio that you keep stuffing: 5-4-3-1 instead of 5-3-2-1 which is shown on the manuscript. By experimenting, I'm sure you could figure out the associated subtle arm, forearm, and wrist movements that would facilitate evenness. However, I'll detail my observations: The 4th finger on the upper B makes it easy for the thumb to reach the bottom B. The 4-3 creates some smoothness difficulty of its own due to limited dexterity of the 4th finger. I use a sweeping descending movement of the arm plus forearm pronation (counterclockwise movement). Additionally, slight wrist flexion and forward arm movement when going from 4th to 3rd finger substitutes for 4-3 finger action, which is inherently clumsy. That action puts the 3rd finger straight up on its tip, after which the bottom B can be reached easily by the pronation. After the first arpeggio, the hand is lifted and the forearm supinated (clockwise) to hit the next D# beginning the 2nd arpeggio.
Not with music but on the issue of muscle memory I had this exact problem! In a rhythm-heavy VR game called Beat Saber there was a segment of a song that no matter how many times I tried I couldn't get the pattern properly. I practiced it so many times that I could play the entire song flawlessly but that one segment tripped me up every. Single. Time. in the same way! I realized the same as this video where I had actually practiced that mistake and ingrained it into the performance as if it was part of the song, slowing it down and practicing that part correctly helped me to slowly overcome all the failed attempts I had perfected and allowed me to start playing it properly. It's crazy how muscle memory and habits work, whether it's an objectively good or bad habit that doesn't matter. It all comes down to repetition, the more you exercise it the stronger it becomes and the harder it is then to undo it. Better to go slow and get it right the first time than to spend 1000's of attempts to fix it later. BTW I got my first piano finally last week, been following your videos ever since and I've been loving it you're amazing! I also greatly appreciate the mindfulness books you have on your shelf, a man of intellectual freedom I see ;)
Indeed, I usually spend hours practicing very tiny bits of the note... My wife sometimes goes crazy ;D I loved that you emphasized that practicing makes what we do stronger, which also applies to mistakes. Practicing mistakes makes them stronger indeed. One of the best advices I heard so far! Thanks Jazer!
The piece is Etude in C major Op.10 no. 1 Many years ago I had a piano teacher from Hungary and she said that 'You can achieve more by practicing smart for 10 minutes than practising in a stupid way for hours'
Thanks for sharing your secret of learning & practicing piano you really encourage me I just restarted to play piano again after 30 years with my right hand fingers affected with the pain because of rheumatoid arthritis
Thank you! I enjoyed your videos, I am an adult beginner just started learning piano around 7 months ago due to the pandemic. Piano has helped me busy learning new things everyday during lockdown!
I don't practice much and when I do I fluff over mistakes. You are right - unless I STOP and do it correctly I am only reinforcing the mistake for next time. HONESTY is the key here (pardon an obtuse pun) but also discipline to STOP and fix it. :-} Enjoyed your video/
Fantastic advice, crystal clear advice on how to practice and avoid pitfalls. At my stage, while learning sections of my target pieces, most practice is in developing coordination and correct fingering, playing in time etc. I expect that playing the music that motivates me will be done more easily as a result. As a beginner at current rate of progress, I expect 200 hours may be required to play the main interstellar theme. But the next piece will be faster.
Yes! So good to hear this.. Thank you! I am teaching this my students too but it is great to hear this from you too!! So I know I am still on the right path with my thinking…Some important thoughts/ or mindsets you said about the time and practicing the right things and movements is soo important and the “sacrifice” you need to “give” in order to get the joy of being able to play a part well..thats hard to bring this to the mind of some students..I think the right mindset is perhaps 80% of what students (and we all) need to achieve the joy of playing better and improving technique or a difficult part…and most of the time students nowadays want to have quick results, or practice the wrong way..So good to hear this. Thanks!!
Jazer, I honestly believe you just saved me - the example about 89 times incorrect and 1 time correct is basically what i had been doing for a long time, but lately i came up with this very idea of practicing correct things and you really ensured me that i'm doing right, thank you!!!!!!!!!:)
Terrific info Jazer, and beautifully explained. As an older piano student (52!) studying for Grade 6, I REALLY appreciate these helpful tips. PLEASE keep them coming.
Comment your thoughts about the concepts in this video! 🎹🎹😀😀
Okay sir I got it "Slow it down and play things cleanly" namaste love from india, 🇮🇳❤️🙏😊
Love from india
I visited Australia,Sydney
Great video man!! I am incorporating these strategies into my practice routines right now!
Small off topic, speaking of that Chopin arpeggio ure working on, instead of playing 5 3 2... 5 4 3 helped me a lot.;)
Agree. It is not about practicing “long” but practicing smarter.
Exactly!
Purposeful practising 😄
Yeah
Yes, it's quality over quantity. Everytime you practice, you should have a goal for each piece or technical exercise for that practice session.
Indeed. Practicing a piece small part at a time, hand by hand, with both hands, shorter periods at a time, but regularly and continuously works really well.
Many of these ideas actually comes from Jason :D But some are just self realized before I found his channel.
One of my music teachers favorite phrases is “practice makes permanent”.
My Karate teachers way of saying was "perfect practice makes perfect" he was a really wise dude and it applies to about everything even though it was simple advice it was very helpful.
@@itspersonal739 I don't know if you know Ethan Becker but he says that too and he is an artist on UA-cam
This is the first time I hear somebody else say this
My teacher always said "Practice does NOT make perfect. Practice makes consistency."
Okay this should be the thing people say and spread lol
Bruce Lee used to say that when one starts to fatigue it's best to call it a day since during fatigue movements start to get wonky and incorrect - this incorrect movement can imprint itself into the nervous system muscle memory and result in one repeating this erroneous movement even from fully fresh and rested state as a result. Less BUT correct is more than more BUT incorrect.
Ah yes, Bruce Lee, my favourite pianist
@@thecubingduck 😂
Bruce Lee was a very wise man :)
i dont get it
@@trivela_shortsYT Bruce Lee is a martial artist but his quotes apply to many others things too. This quote tells us that, if you start feeling fatigue(tired/weak) it's better to stop practicing and go sleep or do something else instead of practicing. Because if you practice while being tired/weak, you will most likely be doing the movements/exercise wrong, which means that you're practicing wrong movements. So you're basically making your body more likely to do "wrong" movements(mistakes), even when it's fresh and awake, because you're training yourself to remember these wrong movements instead of "calling it a day" and practice correct movements, when you're not feeling fatigue(tired/weak), but fresh and awake. It's better to practice correct movements/exercises for 30 minutes a day, than to practice wrong movements 1 hour a day :)
I love the "If you are practicing correct things, you are improving. If you are practicing the wrong things, you are making those wrong things stronger" I am deeply hit by this statement. Whenever I play any piece, I always hate doing things over and over again. So whenever there's a difficult part, I always think "okay, I'll just do it, best of luck" I always tryna let things be out of luck. I often play things incorrectly which is why final results are always bad. This is an eye opener for me. I've been crying a lot this past few days because I think I am not improving, I thought I have no talent for this,or that whatever I do, I will not improve, but this video made me realize a lot of things. It is not that I can't improve, but it's that I do not do anything to improve.
Thank you for sharing Diana. You sound like you are having some good insights from this video- congrats. Yes, when you're not improving, it's definitely not because you're not talented or anything. You just need to tweak your practice method and you will improve for sure. FYI, I don't ever use the word ''talent'' in my vocabulary. I don't believe in it. I believe in hard work. You can do it Diana
Yep. This part of video struck me also. Good luck.
I had never looked at this way that if you’re practising mistakes, your muscle memory is absorbing the mistakes. Makes sense. I’m off to do some s-l-o-w pratice😉 Thanks for your tips. I find them very helpful and If I become half as good as you, I will be delighted
So happy you understand this Anna, please update me your progress. I can almost guarantee you will see great results in just 3 days
I just want to add, playing slow can also be a big trap. When you play slowly you need to make sure that you are still making the same movements that you need to make to play fast, because when you play slowly you can often get away with making inefficient movements that won't work at full speed.
So you need to be really careful, and try playing it fast first, see the exact movements you need to make to play fast, and then practice those movements in slow motion.
Yes, "...you are allowed to slow down."
Thanks for that good announcement.
Yes ------- in "Initial D" (the movie) --- the father says ---- the 'slower' he sees things ------- the 'faster' he gets.
'4 to 40 hours to master'
Me after 3911 at first page: bruh...
Me too
4 to 40 hours to master when you are already a master lol
Well you're probably thinking 4 to 40 hours straight. You can practice 40 hours in a month
@@devo6413 or 40h per day
@@theglobalwarming6081 The true ling ling way
It's actually refreshing to watch you struggle with a piece, realizing that everyone has to practice, no matter how good you are.
The piece is Chopin's etude opus 10 no.1 "Waterfall".
Edit: I am learning la campanella and i have a feeling this will help me alot. Thx!
You are probably not ready for la campanella if you get something new from this video lol
@@anonym4707 i highly disagree, you could always learn new ways and better ways to practice pieces. It is useless to shame someone for not having a certain piece of knowledge, and instead much better to encourage others to learn and encourage them in their journeys
Good luck! let us know how it goes
Good luck and have fun! It's a great piece!
Good luck on your 20 years journey!
I have noticed this myself. Playing it correctly is so much more important than playing it at the right tempo! You need to make sure you are playing the right notes when you are practicing, even if it is ridiculously slow. Then turn on the metronome and try to play the section at that ridiculously slow tempo without any mistakes. If you can do it 3-4 times, speed up the metronome just by a couple of bpm, and do it 3 more times, then speed up again, and repeat. When you get tired of it, go to sleep and come back the next morning, and you'll be amazed how much a good sleep will improve your performance too!
My teaching philosophy is completely in line with yours, Jazer. Isn't it fun watching our young students struggle while they strive for that one mistake-free execution, but eventually grow to become self-assured, honest individuals over time? Practicing correctly truly builds a fine human being.
You've done it again, Maestro! Thank you for not projecting this unrealistic air of a master piano player. You are THE teacher, but you never let us forget that you're still a student yourself. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being honest, showing your struggles, and ultimately basking in the success long down the road. I hope your creating only becomes more and more rewarding because your videos have been instrumental (hey-o!) to my piano education!
Thanks for your words Jay, means a lot to me! Let's all practice and grow together!
Even the big players are students. If Liberace, Beethoven, Bach. Quit playing for a while I’m sure they would be back to trying to practice to get back to where they once were
Jazer, you have the best piano lessons on UA-cam. Simple, easy to understand and practical! Thank you.
Thanks so much Madelein, hope this lesson helps you out!
I am really glad I discovered Jazer, I really enjoy his videos.
@@jazerleepiano yes I learned alots frm yr sharing thank u very much
I agree. Jazer you are not only a great teacher, with great tips, but you are very pleasant to listen to. Where do you live?
I totally agree! My "live" teacher is useless and will not be my teacher for much longer. These videos are encouraging and I'm going to keeping tuning in.
This totally hits the nail on the head for me! I've always skipped or faked my way through the difficult parts. I think this is really key for me. Like a lot of people I tend to tense up and choke when the hard part is coming up.... like singers on the high notes!
These are just the methods I always use to practise and I must say that I began study at the Conservatory of music when I was forty (40!!!) years old and I played the piano for the first time at that age...today I can play Chopin and orthers without problems...you are totally right! Playing correctly is an automatism and piano practice involves many subtleties to keep in mind and the right everyday habits (and also theory) make the difference! Thank you 🎹🎹😀😀 Master!
As a teacher, I thank you for giving students permission to slow down on the hard parts. Of course, we don't want that to be permanent, so you stress using the metronome. I find that the metronome points out where my tempo is off. Great videos! I hope many young people watch them!!!
I hated the metronome when I was a student, it was an extra thing to worry about. After all it was hard enough to get the fingers pressing the correct keys.The teacher habitually corrected me by using the metronome, but I simply refused to use it in practice. It took me years before I start practicing a new piece with the metronome. Looking back I must have wasted an enormous amount of my time. So my humble advice for any beginner is to use the metronome as often as you can. You learn much faster if you follow the beat.
I haven't forgotten my mentor who said: "Everything we do is a form of practice".
One comment though, is that I have the reflex to replay correctly what I just did when I do a mistake but that's a no no when someone is singing while you're playing or during a performance. So yeah, it's important to practice parts that you are having difficulty and at the same time being able to play through a piece despite some mistake (hoping that you are conscious of it).
During a performance, the show must go on. If you stop to correct a mistake, the audience should be able to notice. I say this with little piano/keyboard stage experience so I could be wrong. However, I imagine that this is a good logical assessment. I’m working my way there. Home practice gives me an opportunity to do what I shouldn’t do on stage.
I love the bit about honesty....and skipping the hard work for the pleasures of playing...short term pain verses long term gain! Brilliant!
I can TOTALLY relate to that "maybe next time" lie we tell ourselves!
❤❤❤
False muscle memory/brain data: maybe next time..... I'm gonna make damn sure that you fail again! Mwahahahaha
That honesty bit is something I urge with my students. I say, would you rather have to relearn the same hard part every time you play so you can avoid playing slowly, or play slower for a half hour and then never have to learn the part again?
Nicely put, the second option sounds much nicer Ogany!
@@jazerleepiano another way I try to make the student understand necessity of the slow but accurate practice is that they waste time every time they play wrong notes. It literally is wasting the most important resource we have, because we will never make up for time lost on bad practice, and we lose more time again trying to correct the learned mistakes.
You spend all your time focusing on the hard parts. Its total unending misery if you're going to play piano well. Once you've played hard part #1 for a week to get it down, then move on to hard part #2. Then 3, then 4.......then 86. It's never fun. If you're not working on the hard part, you're not progressing, so it's 100% misery 99% of the time. And reading music is torture. Fuck it. To become a decent player is a 50-year task. I'll be dead by then if not by tomorrow.
When I stop my students mid-song because they’re playing it wrong, some of them will say “I just want to play it all once first” then continue to play it wrong. Such a waste of valuable lesson time. Any suggestions? When I finally do stop them, I can tell they don’t like it and they know I’m going to correct them, but I can’t stand letting them continually play it wrong. Many of the mistakes are timing mistakes.Any ideas to soften the blow?
Those are excellent suggestions! Here are some additional thoughts on the matter:
Musicians often associate practice with repetition, but the truth is actually that nothing really changes when you repeat something. Its in the definition of the word 'to repeat'
Practicing SLOWLY is crucial. Instead of trying to increase the tempo, then do the opposite. Start by choosing the fastest tempo in which you can successfully play the piece in, the moment when you sit down to practice. Then slowly lower the tempo each time you practice that part and don't repeat what you are doing, instead experiment with dynamics, expression, timing and so on.
And lastly, accept who you are and the abilities you have. If you see no improvements to whatever you are practicing after a time, then just accept it and move on to something else. The most important thing is to always focus more on making music and creativity and less on technique
Incredible words Niels, thank you for sharing. Everybody please listen to Niels!!
"Never teach your brain mistakes!" A sentence I was told 20 years ago by my teacher.
You are absolutely correct! :)
You are mostly right, however:
The problem with playing things slowly is that the technique sometimes is not exactly the same as when playing them fast. This means that you might play a piece up to a certain speed hundreds of times without any mistakes, but would not be able to breach that speed limit.
Therefore, it is useful sometimes to play above your speed limit, even though you play with mistakes and not in a clean way, letting your body find solutions to problems that do not exist when you play slowly.
2:23
Jazer: Struggling with difficult passage
Subtitles: Upbeat piano music
🤣🤣🤣
This is such great advice! I myself have been doing this so far. If there's a difficult part in a piece, I'd just play that part incorrectly and move on, instead of practicing that part at a slower speed because it wasn't very fun.
Bonjour, j’habite en France (dans le sud), et je suis vos vidéos avec attention. Merci pour vos conseils, ils me sont très utiles pour ma pratique quotidienne du piano. Il est vrai qu’on est toujours impatient de « terminer » un morceau le plus rapidement possible, sans toutefois s’attarder sur toutes les erreurs qu’on commet. Cette vidéo m’a fait réfléchir sur ma pratique, même si mon professeur m’en avait déjà parlé. Oui, il faut bien considérer que le corps à la mémoire des mouvements , et donc à nous de les réaliser le plus correctement possible.
Néanmoins, et je ne pense pas que vous l’ayez mentionné, je considère que jouer le morceau avec le métronome devrait venir après avoir bien déchiffré la pièce, et donc qu’il existe une véritable chronologie de bonnes pratiques à établir pour aborder un morceau de À à Z.
Je ne sais pas si vous avez déjà produit une vidéo sur toutes les « procédures »à mettre en place pour commencer et « terminer » un morceau ? Une sorte de « Check List » à suivre pour l’etude de n’importe quel morceau.
Merci encore pour tous vos conseils.
This video really makes my piano practicing really smarter.
My mom always told me when i finished a song, the sound is to fast or to slow than the original
I still don't know but it is bad when i hear it myself
Then i notice that using a metronome will make a better sound.
From this video i learned many things, Thx
Soo happy to hear this
I started playing piano 3 months ago, and the way I was learning was just watching videos on UA-cam of someone's hand playing the pieces, and imitating them. I've actually learned to play those pieces, and they're not easy ones, I'm really talking like Turkish March level ones. I know it isn't the traditional way, but I actually got happier by knowing how to play them, and now I'm up to start learning to read sheet music, and your tips are really helping. Since I started playing these pieces, I wasn't really paying attention to my mistakes, so whenever I play them, I ALWAYS miss something, like really, EVERYTIME !! I've never played them perfectly. I wish I would've known this detail earlier. Thank you so much! I have been very motivaded since the beggining, and I'm practicing a whole lot.
I’ve been practicing just this section of waterfall for many weeks now as an exercise to improve my reach and accuracy. Painfully slowly at first but now I’m hitting the correct notes and fingering up and down every time, but still nowhere near the speed needed. Playing really slowly can often be harder than at a moderate speed. It’s often harder to slow your brain down than your fingers.
Jazer...thank you! You in your selfless humility have helped me so much. I know this intellectually, but your showing us how "bad" practice reinforces sloppiness , thus keeping one from correcting rough areas. It has made me face myself and recognize this and instead of whining, makes me WANT to slow down and work just on the difficult section. I never WANTED to do it before. You make me want to do this NECESSARY study/practice. Also I never really understood the purpose of the metronome. In a few words and by illustration, I get it! You are a great teacher and friend!!! Diane in Florida
Hello Jazer! Thanks for this video and the great study tips in it. You sound like a really good piano teacher. No doubt your students must benefit greatly from your lessons. Lucky them to have classes with you! 😊 Stay well and enjoy the remainder of your week! All the best!
Thank you Rodrigo, have a nice week too!
Thank you Jazer! I am so glad that I found you. You have a knack for reinforcing effective practicing strategies in a logical and positive way that is inspiring. As an adult learner (just completed my online RCM level 3 exam ..yay!) and neuropsychologist, your methods certainly align with the science of learning. It can be hard to slow down and be mindful of those mistakes especially when playing the pieces in autopilot brings so much pleasure vs. working out the kinks feels like a chore. To create a positive association and to rewards these seemingly onerous practice sessions sometimes I will do them in short 5-minute bits with breaks where I do some thing I really like (could be play a piece I already know and like, read a magazine, play with my dog, take a 1- min belly breathing break, or make a nice cup of tea!). Looking forward to checking out your other videos.
Ahhhhhh. This makes soooooooo much sense. Thank you so much, my friend. I've definitely been rushing my practice. Time to slow down. Consolidate and get things right.
As said in a prior post, I really enjoy my piano teacher - but he doesn't offer these practical suggestions like you do. Thank goodness for youtube. Hahaha.
Take care and keep being brilliant.
Thanks Ben! When we practice correctly, we can all be brilliant together. You will save tons of money and time I promise! Take care too.
@@jazerleepiano : Thanks for the reply my friend.
Loving your videos mate. You've really inspired me to get myself out of my 'learning rut' and get stuck back into it.
Going back to the basics and actually sitting down and practicing effectively. Compared to just 'stuffing around' - which does sound nice. But my goal is to READ and PLAY music.
Take care mate and seriously, thank you!
Thank you! Yes, "practice makes perfect" is said so much but there's more to it and you went into it nicely.
It's curious that you play at normal speed and then slow it down at the difficult bits. My teacher always says I have to play the entire piece at one speed so that I don't make the accelerating/decelerating a habit. So if 95% of the piece is super easy but there's a short really difficult section then I have to play the entire piece at snail's pace. Ugh, that's so boring!
Best teacher ever!! And I'm the 2nd viewer 🙈
Nice to see others struggle and solve their problems.
All good advice, especially the part about practicing at your own speed
Hi Jazer! I’m your newest student. Started piano as my first instrument at about 6. Just plinking single notes. Got bored and didn’t pick up music again till I was a teenager. Guitar and songwriting, rock punk metal bands until the pandemic. Now self teaching with my uncle as a mentor/ tutor at 52. I want to thank you for your awesome videos. They’ve been very helpful with my progress and technique. Keep the great videos coming!!!
Incredible! I was talking with a friend about these concepts just a few days ago. Thanks for the strategies!
Op. 10 No. 1 Etude. Simple piece in some ways, but the variations are fascinating. It’s extraordinarily musical. Definitely has its challenges!!!
Thank you for this video. I'm trying to teach myself piano using a teaching app. Fun, cheap, and helpful, but no substitute for a good teacher, which I don't have. Initially I progressed fast enough, but lately progress has slowed to a virtual standstill. I watched your video, put your advice into practice, and immediately noticed an improvement. Thank you again.
This is such great advice ❤️ Thank you very much. As a piano teacher, I will definitely communicate this to my students who can't forego the pleasure of playing and are not ready to work hard
Please do!
Agree that "short term pain for a long term gain" is an excellent piano practice strategy and principle for life in general when trying to choose to just do what is right. Thank you for sharing your musical talent and thoughts.
You're welcome, Melas!
I’ve been playing Chopin Prelude #6 over 30 years. There is one section with a few notes I’ve been faking my way through. I’ll correct that today
Good on you for being honest about this part. Let me know how it goes
@@jazerleepiano It was very tough but now the part that bothered me is smooth. The main problem I had was bad fingering. At times I thought I had it and then my fingers would revert back to the old way of playing it. One day I thought I had it right but when I played it the next day my fingers went back to the old way of playing it. Going over it very slow a few notes at a time eventually won out. I have no idea how many times I repeated playing measure number 7 but it was a struggle for this old man. Thank you for your advice. I will try to go very slow on everything I play.
Practice does not make perfect… Practice makes permanent! That's why it's important to practice correctly.
Love your lessons. Thanks!
The Tittle : Why Practicing Can Be a Bad Thing
Ling-ling : This is *sacrilegious*
07:00 Simply just play it slowly if you can't play it quickly
The anti ling ling
😂😂
If you can play it slowly, you can play it quickly. Playing quickly, is like playing slowly, but quickly.
‘Slow’ is the new ‘fast’!!
My band director always said "practice doesn't make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect"
Great video
am in love with your lessons 💙💙 love and peace from Tunisia 💨❣
Love from Aus :)
Yeah, I have a mistake, that I always Made it while playing. And that really makes me like, "Am I supposed to repeat that or just continue" And I always just continued it. But after watching this video, I have some good lesson here. Not only practising, not only repeating, but I have to correct the mistakes. Thank you so much for the lesson! You are the best piano teacher on UA-cam!😀😀
That's so practical and helpful. Thanks a lot 🙏
My pleasure Vishal!
This isn't just about piano by the way, this works for any instrument. and now that i think about it, it works for anything. If you are having trouble with something, isolate the problem and fix that before moving on.
I like how your every clip teaches me something new and opens up new ideas. Ofc you need to put ur mind and have patience in your practice :) Chopin - Etude Op. 10 No. 1! Your doing great, sounds so goood. Keep it up sensei ^^
Yes!! You are so right. When you've said it it seems so obvious but I think that's a sign of a great teacher; to say something so well that it makes sense.
I hope this helps me😂 I’m self taught, I play by ear, so I have no absolute clue how to read sheet music… I learn on the videos where the bars come down the screen, I just do it in slow mo, then pick up speed
Yeah thats not a good way to learn piano unless you just wanna play for fun or learn a few songs
@@carlus6432 that is what I wanna do, I don’t wanna go pro, or do concerts or any of that
@@carlus6432 although that would be awesome, idk if I wanna do that
I'm presently in G2 for the piano. When I make mistakes, I usually restart from the beginning. When a particular bar keeps giving me trouble, I would focus on it for three tries. If I still get it wrong, I drop that piece entirely and move to another piece I can play smoothly. Once that is done, I return to the problematic piece and reduce the speed of play until I get everything right.
That is my favourite Etude! Thank you
Pleasure Fiona, have you tried this piece?
Hahaha! Way too difficult for me. I just appreciate others better than I.
Am working on the Schubert Bb, though. It'll take me years...... 😂
Thanks for all your helpful tips; love your videos
I have been practicing 3 hours a day with little progress. I always label myself "no musical talent ". Now I understand why. Thank you for opening my eyes. You are the best !
My son's baseball coach used to always tell the team, "The way you practice is the way you'll play." And his karate sensei said, "Practice doesn't make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect. " I have a question, though. I've always struggled when trying to play with a metronome. Do you have any tips to make it easier?
"If you can play it Slowly
You can play it beautifully"
Wise words CalKingOnyx! I will likely do a video on metronome soon. Stay tuned!
It makes me panic. That insistent tick tick tick ding tick tick tick ding it doesn't feel like a supportive friend it feels like an enemy. I switch on the one on my electric piano when playing the acoustic and turn it down really low so it is barely audible, that works better. Most times I just don't bother with one. If you have a portable pyramid one you could always stand it just outside the door or down the passage. It's meant to be a gentle reminder not an interference.
I like “practice makes progress”
My problem is rhythm. No matter how fast or how slow I set it, I can't seem to stay on the rhythm. Even when doing something relatively simple like scales, I have to really concentrate. Even when I was a child, this was a problem. We'd be in children's choir at church, and all the other kids would be clapping on the beat, and I'd be over here doing my own crazy thing. I'm one of those who can't have an in person teacher due to an irregular work schedule, so I'm trying to learn to play using videos such as these. I've only been playing a short time, as well. Oh, and I know you can't tell from my screen name, but I'm a she.
This is a major problem that I have developed. I know what I am practicing wrongly, yet the urge to bungle past the difficult bars is always there; to get back to the melodious section. I am resolved to stop, slow down and get the notes right before I start the piece from the beginning. Thank you Jazer. You are my inspiration.
This was awesome! I just wish I listened to my teacher suggesting these things when I was younger!
One of the things I've learned that really works for me is focusing on the hard parts when you start practicing. Usually it's the hard things that we're most prone to futzing. If we practice those first, we can build that correct muscle memory more quickly, instead of having to go through the cycle of messing up the hard part continuously, only to later figure out it needs work!
Very good point about not practicing mistakes. One thing that can work, though, is to make the mistake deliberately (as if it were a different piece of music) so you establish a separate neural pathway for it and then are more able to choose between the incorrect and the correct ways of playing.
What a good idea to record ourselves, because one believes that it plays more beautiful than it really is…
8:51 This is the answer to my proble about keeping up with the metronome. Thank you Jazer 🙂
Thx for the tips ..will surely apply it while practicing
It’s like you’ve been watching my struggles for the last 50 years. Thank you for taking the delusion out of this fantastic art form, and brining in tangible practical methods of realizing it on the magnificent instrument.. you are as brilliant as your teaching style..
At least we know that whether it takes 4 or 40 hours of practice to get results, it can still be done in one day. :D
I wondered if this was deliberate
Ling ling style 😂
Practice ing anything makes perfecting when it's the wrong thing you're practicing. Thanks for your honesty
The last part about recording yourself is critical. I made zero recordings in my first year of learning and I REALLY regret it. 😢
common sense, it is so obvious that it takes a talented young man like you to point it out, brilliantly described and demonstrated, i have learned a whole lot. Thank you so much for sharing this nugget of knowledge, much appreciated. Cheers. Andy. Scotland.
Haha, I stumbled upon the same realisation… we all love playing pieces through… but isolation of problem parts is where progress realy takes off… it’s logic, but I guess it’s something human to only notice that after some time… there’s also the thing that you learn and integrate in your sleep… so just isolating a problem and sleeping over it a few times can do wonders! Thanx for the video’s!
So clever! Very useful!
Don´t feed your faults, very good!
There is a common tabú about mantaining tempo. I've always thought that when you ride a bicicle, you slow down your speed when the track becomes harder, in the same way you really need to slow down your tempo when neccesary. The only thing you need to observe is being conciousnes of what are you doing with your tempo.
in fact when your teacher says, tempo, tempo, he really should say: observe your tempo, be aware of it. Listen to it, is the clue.
If you feed your mistakes, and keep the wrigth tempo you create a neverending circle, then 10.000 exercises are not enough to get it.
You are so right Jazer, so often we want to get the piece finished without putting in the real hard work where it's needed. All the points you make are so relevant to me at this time when I'm learning choir accompaniments and I appreciate your very good advice.
The method that I use is by implementing different rhythms to the same section. For example in your bar, which is kinda arpeggio and fast in tempo, I'd play it slowly (obviously), but in dotted rhythm. If I've gotten that done smoothly, then I'll move onto trying another different rhythm for example in triplets. Keep going on trying and mastering different rhythms and learning the correct fingering and positions. Then when you get back on the original and do the same thing, it'll definitely be better than before! Hopefully this helps anyone out there that might be struggling in certain parts :)
It's the Chopin Etude op. 10 no. 1 in c major, also called "Waterfall"!
Thank you so much for this video! I currently just started practicing the Walsdstein sonata along with other pieces for my exams. I will definitely use everything that was said in this video, very enlightening. Now that I'm looking back, I did make these mistakes in the past, and it makes sense now, as to why my playing is not as clear as it should be in some pieces of music. I used to practice the pieces from top to bottom and I never played the difficult parts separately. I'm not gonna make the same mistake again! Thank you so much!
you are quite right ...i feel it .....self-concentration and method ... as well as emotion in every note ...i see that when i close my eyes ,music is more effect...sounds better...
While I don't like the process of mark the fingering for a piece I do it for exactly the reason mentioned in the video.
Helps me to learn the piece faster and better without the fear of practicing the wrong things.
U r absolutely right Jazer. The very first piece I learned was Canon in D. It took me a year cause I’d be playing along and would stumble at a certain part and would start over from the beginning. After a couple of months my wife, who is an accomplished clarinet player, told me to just practice the part I’m messing up. I did that and finally was able to move on.
Thank u for all of these great tips.
Thanks for opening these doors. I've viewed both your beginners video & I've just 1 major point - motivation. I've lived my life working these fingers for a living but not piano & tho these choices interest me, when I grind thru learning which fingers etc (I still have to work at 72) it's hard unlike a 7year old. Now a good teacher inspires & I'm talking discovering music within us - not just strictly the sheets. Yes rigor & discipline but many piano learners give up until you realize that you can create the music from within us (still with me?). I've learned a little to improvise & discovered music is Life then some brilliance came thru. But for many of us we spend years building a career till old never found the spark. I once heard Sangah Noona said she doesn't keep scores - just play with her instincts & break rules & found new ones. Any help for old geezers like me to innovate pieces & discover the Mozart in us? But your technical approach is still good.
I really, really appreciate the advice in these videos. If you think about it, it's all stuff that is obvious and we're probably doing it already in a more or less haphazard fashion. The video pulls the awareness together, analyses it and gives it a structure. That really makes sense and is a great help.
I started learning playing piano a week ago. I love the way you explain things and directly show it on the piano. Keep going and thank you very much! :)
Hello. I am an adult beginner student of piano, and I am following the Bastien method. I cannot afford a teacher right now, but I am disciplined and I practise every day, sticking as tightly as I can to the method. I am also very aware of errors and I find your recommendations very useful. Thank you very much for sharing them!
Good luck Mr Cockney!
@@jazerleepiano I will need it. I know how important is to have a teacher by your side when you are learning a skill such this.
So true!! Years ago a I start on the wrong way..fingers wrong position and now suffering😢 now at the new beginning, all the years lost..😊
Thank you for all the great tips!
❤❤
this composition was a good example and I do agree with you that it’s not a matter of how long you practice but it’s a matter of how you practice the right technique? That’s why two people can play the same composition but it sounds much more professional and fluid. I had a music instructor who is now a conduct directed Tamron Philharmonics and he said two things that I like. He would use Beethoven’s quote” playing the wrong note is understandable but playing without passion is inexcusable.” What I’ve noticed from the great classical Beethoven, Mortar, Rachmaninoff or Wagner is although they were from different cultures they all had one thing in common and that was they were passionate about their craft. another thing he said was look at it like sports the team that plays smarter rather than working harder will win. Practice is important but practicing the right techniques is more important which is why you should start with perfecting your scales so those arpeggios can come naturally and you will recognize the pattern. all it boils down to is memorization of finger patterns and repetition or time.
I use a different fingering on that descending hard F7b5 arpeggio that you keep stuffing: 5-4-3-1 instead of 5-3-2-1 which is shown on the manuscript. By experimenting, I'm sure you could figure out the associated subtle arm, forearm, and wrist movements that would facilitate evenness. However, I'll detail my observations: The 4th finger on the upper B makes it easy for the thumb to reach the bottom B. The 4-3 creates some smoothness difficulty of its own due to limited dexterity of the 4th finger. I use a sweeping descending movement of the arm plus forearm pronation (counterclockwise movement). Additionally, slight wrist flexion and forward arm movement when going from 4th to 3rd finger substitutes for 4-3 finger action, which is inherently clumsy. That action puts the 3rd finger straight up on its tip, after which the bottom B can be reached easily by the pronation. After the first arpeggio, the hand is lifted and the forearm supinated (clockwise) to hit the next D# beginning the 2nd arpeggio.
Not with music but on the issue of muscle memory I had this exact problem! In a rhythm-heavy VR game called Beat Saber there was a segment of a song that no matter how many times I tried I couldn't get the pattern properly. I practiced it so many times that I could play the entire song flawlessly but that one segment tripped me up every. Single. Time. in the same way!
I realized the same as this video where I had actually practiced that mistake and ingrained it into the performance as if it was part of the song, slowing it down and practicing that part correctly helped me to slowly overcome all the failed attempts I had perfected and allowed me to start playing it properly.
It's crazy how muscle memory and habits work, whether it's an objectively good or bad habit that doesn't matter. It all comes down to repetition, the more you exercise it the stronger it becomes and the harder it is then to undo it. Better to go slow and get it right the first time than to spend 1000's of attempts to fix it later.
BTW I got my first piano finally last week, been following your videos ever since and I've been loving it you're amazing! I also greatly appreciate the mindfulness books you have on your shelf, a man of intellectual freedom I see ;)
Indeed, I usually spend hours practicing very tiny bits of the note... My wife sometimes goes crazy ;D
I loved that you emphasized that practicing makes what we do stronger, which also applies to mistakes. Practicing mistakes makes them stronger indeed.
One of the best advices I heard so far! Thanks Jazer!
Etude 10.1!😊 Chopin. Love this piece!
Correct Duanne!
The piece is Etude in C major Op.10 no. 1 Many years ago I had a piano teacher from Hungary and she said that 'You can achieve more by practicing smart for 10 minutes than practising in a stupid way for hours'
Thanks for sharing your secret of learning & practicing piano you really encourage me I just restarted to play piano again after 30 years with my right hand fingers affected with the pain because of rheumatoid arthritis
Great video Jazer! Business is not productivity - this gem doesn't belong to piano studying only! Any kind of studying or work really..
Thank you! I enjoyed your videos, I am an adult beginner just started learning piano around 7 months ago due to the pandemic. Piano has helped me busy learning new things everyday during lockdown!
I don't practice much and when I do I fluff over mistakes. You are right - unless I STOP and do it correctly I am only reinforcing the mistake for next time. HONESTY is the key here (pardon an obtuse pun) but also discipline to STOP and fix it. :-} Enjoyed your video/
Fantastic advice, crystal clear advice on how to practice and avoid pitfalls. At my stage, while learning sections of my target pieces, most practice is in developing coordination and correct fingering, playing in time etc. I expect that playing the music that motivates me will be done more easily as a result.
As a beginner at current rate of progress, I expect 200 hours may be required to play the main interstellar theme. But the next piece will be faster.
Yes! So good to hear this.. Thank you! I am teaching this my students too but it is great to hear this from you too!! So I know I am still on the right path with my thinking…Some important thoughts/ or mindsets you said about the time and practicing the right things and movements is soo important and the “sacrifice” you need to “give” in order to get the joy of being able to play a part well..thats hard to bring this to the mind of some students..I think the right mindset is perhaps 80% of what students (and we all) need to achieve the joy of playing better and improving technique or a difficult part…and most of the time students nowadays want to have quick results, or practice the wrong way..So good to hear this. Thanks!!
Jazer, I honestly believe you just saved me - the example about 89 times incorrect and 1 time correct is basically what i had been doing for a long time, but lately i came up with this very idea of practicing correct things and you really ensured me that i'm doing right, thank you!!!!!!!!!:)
So happy for you, let me know if you have any progress in a week :)
Terrific info Jazer, and beautifully explained. As an older piano student (52!) studying for Grade 6, I REALLY appreciate these helpful tips. PLEASE keep them coming.