Thank you for all of the beautiful comments! For those of you asking about my piece “Crossroads” - it will be recorded before the end of the year by Tina Chong. I’m unable to share more until then, so please stay posted! I’ll provide links when it’s out :)
As my jazz sax Dad told me, "Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. " Careful listening, massive focus. Otherwise, you're just cementing bad habits and incorrect playing.
And the bad habit that SO many music students have of always starting at the beginning of a piece, so that they know the first part really well but never really solidify the 2nd half or the end, etc.
Mathew Walker, in his excellent book about sleep, tells us that a concert pianist spoke to him after a public lecture. He had noticed sometimes when he got stuck and could not fix some fault in a piece despite plenty of practice, after a night's sleep he could play it perfectly. Has anyone else experienced that?
I have noticed that one day I can mess up on a piece - even one I supposedly know pretty well - but oftentimes the next day, I play it without a hitch. Not always, but most of the time!
This was the story of my life when I sang Cavaradossi in Tosca. Sounded like crap when I was practicing it initially, but it magically got better when I revisited when well-rested.
Absolutely. I would get so struck on a passage. No matter what I did during practice I couldn't perfect it. Have a good night sleep. The next day I could play it all most perfectly.
This is very hard for us non-professional pianists: say, a decade of childhood piano education, but no conservatory. We don't learn a piece for an audition or an exam, but because we like the piece. It is very hard to stay patient and not just play the fun part.
@@NahreSol I heard of someone who envied Schiff, how easy it was for him to play everything. Until she found out just how hard he worked. I suppose professionals enjoy practice, mostly, but it is still work.
Thank you so much for this, I’ve recently begun to notice how unproductive my practice sessions can be at times and this is so helpful! Side note, I really appreciate your ability to teach concepts at a deeper level and help explore the “why” of musical concepts and practices. Great stuff, thank you!!
Particularly important when practicing in isolation, where one is the performer and critic. Recording , whatever the instrument, assists the possibility of honest appraisal and reduces the inevitable self delusion of one’s abilities and progress. Would love to see the unedited video of Nahre in full temper mode🥶
@@NahreSol I'm sure that many of us who (... not occasionally -- but rather frequently ... ) get into full temper mode will gladly welcome you to our ranks!. My full temper mode is when I ... s l o w . . . e v e r y t h i n g w a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a y d o w n and get into *FULL* *T E M P E R* *M O D E* which is ... I D O NOT HAVE TO PLAY A SINGLE WRONG NOTE AND I D O NOT HAVE TO PLAY A SINGLE NOTE UNTIL I AM READY TO . ... even if that means playing *ONE* note .... - then having lunch, and then coming back to ... play the *NEXT* note. I call it "sarcastically-slow" practice ... i.e. (to self) ... "I'll show *YOU* I can play this ... " -- SEE! but it *DOES* tend to re-generate focus --- which is usually at the root of the problem ... .. if you get my drift ... 🙂
I got lucky and figured out #1 by myself years ago. Closing your eyes works wonders for me. I feel like you become one with the instrument and the sound being produced. As far as #2 goes, it is nice hearing something concretely explained that I had already developed a vague understanding of. I’ll have to try the pausing trick. Thanks for the video.
Over that past couple of years, I have learned sooo much from you, Nahre. These small tips are worth their weight in gold. In fact, they are not "small" at all. They are huge. I am a guitarist, not a pianist, but your suggestions directly apply. Thank you! 🙏
Merci for your videos. I'm struggling to learn to be a musician after having started after 65 years of age. I joked that I had been born with two left ears, and I have no singing voice. As I learned piano, I took a deep dive into music theory, without developing my ear. As my ear improved, I started trying to sing. But recently my teacher said I had to quit listening to the music and feeling it. Every time I try a new concept, I have stopped my progress in John Thompson Book 2 and gone back to Book 1. For now the fourth time. I listen to videos of the pieces and now sing along as I read the notes. Will I ever be an in-demand musician? That's not my goal. Music is a part of everyone, and I just want to make a change. Every choir or music teacher made a note on my report card, "Doesn't play well with others". I want to get a better grade to show my parents. They promised me ice cream.
I came to this exact same conclusion and started to record my practices using my phone…..not only did i not like the way i sounded….its was hard to say exactly what’s happening you are right its hard to listen and concentrate…but you are also right it is sloppy…it is like I was forgiving myself for mistakes because nobody was listening….now I want to hear progress every practice tape. I told a musician I was doing this and they scoffed at me but i dont care because it works for me.
What great advice! I'm always getting ahead of myself and then getting frustrated when I find it I just can't play it the next day! And then I get all stressed that I'll never be able to learn it. Definitely will try to be more patient. Thank you.
I recently started a very difficult piece, & got ahead of myself right away. I wasn’t getting it, so I decided not to play any of it faster than one-half tempo. I did this for a week, and then played it flawlessly at full tempo, and it felt effortless. Great advice.
thanks so much for this great video! some things i do when preparing for performance: i practice sections slowly with metronome and repeat about ten times striving for perfection. i do this at a slow tempo to insure that i can do it flawlessly. after those 10 repetitions, i move the metronome up a couple notches and do the same process over again. eventually, when i get to a speed where flaws may develop, i stop, take a break and when i come back, i start several notches slower, establishing a comfortable feeling with the passage. then, after a few more repetitions, i move onto something more lyrical and less technical. i wait until the next day to start the process a little slower than i left off. depending on the difficulty, my mastery of the passage may take a week or two and i don’t rush the process of getting comfortable with the passage. another thing i do is i practice RELAXED. my practice room is welcoming and cozy. i am constantly in tune with my body; my arms, shoulders, back, neck, fingers…i position myself to be relaxed at all times in my practice sessions. that way, when i’m in “the hot seat” at a performance, i will always know which part of my body is tensing up and can quickly and consciously relax it. tension impedes performance and so if you know how it feels (during practice) to play completely relaxed, that will be your default to fall back on in performance. i don’t usually practice hours and hours straight. i take breaks to rest my body and mind to maximize my ability to play without tension. when i go to sleep at night, i clear my mind of cluttering thoughts and allow my subconscious to work on the music while i sleep.
Every time I watch a video like this, I'm grateful for what my piano teacher taught me as a child. She taught me so many good habits instead of music theory and pedals, so I wasn't too happy about that at some point, but there are so many good videos on all kinds of topics these days that it's better this way! New piano players, especially when self-taught, focus far too little on building habits... like sitting down with good posture and making practise effective through analysis and such
Your tips and explanations are sooo helpful, Nahre. I am a guitarist, not a pianist but your ideas apply to my instrument as well. Thank you for what you do. 😊
Thanks for putting this out there, it’s a huge help. The “getting ahead of yourself” should be so obvious; I often start a passage thinking “I’ve got this, I’ll just go over it,” but when I play there’s some mistake. That should be the point where we completely stop and say “nope, I have to break this down and work on it again” but our ego gets in the way and we try to plow through. Definitely getting ahead of ourselves!
Nahre your videos are such fantastic and practical breaks from the typical content we see a lot of musicians posting. Thank you! I'll definitely be trying to put these tips into practice.
Critical listening, like critical thought is both a humbling but empowering exercise. The stop, move away, return and try again reminds me of throwing hoops at the free-throw line. Those who don't move away and stay frozen in the same position to shoot end up repeating the same opportunity don't build responsive skill. Your mature outlook (and depth of references -- Bill Evans!!) is astounding.
I feel like I already "knew of" both of them, but so far failed to clearly define them. Thanks so much, reflecting on it is really helpful. For #1, doing a recording and pretending to be my own teacher listening and giving advice helps me. But nothing beats having the real teacher listen. #2 is an ongoing struggle. I found gamification techniques to make sure I confirm a passage again and again but some days I still find find myself circumventing it (too fast too early).
How coincidental, I was watching a take on Itzhak Perlman last night where he addressed the importance of slowing down. These are pearls of wisdom that we have heard but not actually listened to them. So within a period of 12 hours both of you have addressed something so crucial that has hindered the progress of many of us. I am now beginning to have a regular Nahre Sol session every time I practice…….as in Hanon, scales and arpeggios AND NAHRE SOL😂. Thank you, really!
Great stuff Nahre. I think we all struggle with going slow before we go fast. I constantly have to remind myself of this and I have noticed that if I don't slow down, I start to build in the neural pathways to mistakes.
Exactly -- you learn what you practice! If you practice "play - oops - play - oops - play - oops - play " your brain remembers, you just went "play - oops - play - oops - play - oops - play ". Now you have to tell your brain, "OK, I know you learned "play - oops - play - oops - play - oops - play " -- but NOW what I want you to learn is "play - play - play - play - play - play - play ". Unfortunately, your brain has now learned two pieces: "play - oops - play - oops - play - oops - play " -- and "play - play - play - play - play - play - play ".
Nahre, I love this video and your insights here. In my own playing, I’m learning that actively listening solves a lot of problems in itself. Actively listen and trust what you’ve practiced. That habit alone takes practice and attention. But when it’s happening, I’m much more prepared to take on the task of not getting ahead of myself. Voila! Practice is interesting and fun instead of work!
I sure am glad to be here hearing words about concepts that have been holding me back (for 20 years in fact). More to the point, you have put each of my limitations into actual words. Who knew it would be that simple a solution. This may seem trivial. Putting things into words, however, is necessary for the solidification of what, to me, has always been conceptual in nature. I’ve been all right brain my whole musical life. I started on strings and have only lately been digging into keys. Thanks so much for the missing piece in my puzzle.
Everything in here was really great and these are immediately applicable for me. These are things I've just been starting to understand after decades of practicing sloppy. There's also some kind of thrill-chasing aspect to playing things that are above your comfort level, and over and over again "getting close" to getting it. I could spend hours doing that but it's a huge grind and it really reinforces sloppy playing to have your brain releasing intermittent dopamine rewards while you're essentially playing the thing wrong for hours.
The part about paying attention to how you feel is really important too. I got this advice recently from a tutorial video by Lucas Brar and I can already say it has made a big difference in my practice. Just breathe and try to relax, when you get tense and stay tense trying not to mess up you're inevitably going to make a mistake, it's just a matter of when (not to mention just tiring yourself out)
This all boils down to self discipline. It's hard to simultaneously be looking at the finish line, then stop ourselves midway to repeat something we just did (right or wrong). Our desires for immediate gratification to finish the overall task outweigh our practical knowledge of what we know is right. Stop in the middle of an incompleted task, focus on the troubled section/bar until it's done right, then move on. I think it's common to assume we'll get it next time or eventually, if we keep hacking at it. However, it only leads to being stuck in an endless loop of failure.
As an alternative (requires delayed gratification -- or "sublimation" ...) - set a different "finish line". Let your finish line be to learn as much -- and only as much -- as you can without a single mistake to have to unlearn -- i.e. never let your brain experience something to remember that you do not want it to remember. That is the goal. And, of course, to actually accomplish that, you will most definitely need to play as slowly as necessary to prevent feeding your brain an unwanted remembrance ...
Your video was a inspiration. I've been playing for 24 years and still have anxiety when l play weekly for my piano teacher. I learn new pieces but they are not "in my bones" and when l go back to an old piece l played years ago, it's as if l had never played it before 😢. Your video has been extremely for me in reviewing my bad habits.
Great tips! I have fallen into both traps many times. Hearing your explanation helped me to recognize these problems in my own practice. I showed the video to my children who are both learning piano as well.
Your videos got me thinking about practice and technique in a way that I never had before! I've really started focusing on cleaning up my technique by recording my playing and listening back to it. This has helped me activate my ears and hear how my playing sounds when I'm not focused on playing.
Wonderful and relatable video Nahre. The gaps between repetitions idea that you talk about also has other benefits. Mark Morley Fletcher says that it helps you learn faster and more effectively, as apparently our brains repeat the passage we just played several times faster (think he said 20x) during the gaps, giving us more repetitions in a given time period than if we were to spend the whole time repeating physically.
I completely agree with you. My late professor Jan Kulesza taught: - to have full control over the sound quality (practice with full concentration/listen to what sound you want to achieve) - if playing fast doesn't work, practice slowly :)
All so true And just wanted to say I read in one of my books somewhere years ago from a very professional pianist. I forget who but it doesn't matter.... To learn the hard parts first of a piece, usually there's only a small part that is troublesome in a piece that is within your range, or just above, And when you learn the hard part first and really learn it, that means memorize it and analyze it as in this video, then you take a grade 5 piece down to a grade three piece, whatever. That has really worked for me, I know that feeling of anxiety when you're approaching a passage that you are unfamiliar with, but if you make that part, the strongest part of the piece that anxiety goes away.
Thank you for posting your videos! I'm totally not listening to anything you said... and I'm totally gettin' ahead of myself here... but in case you don't hear this often enough... you are so freakin' talented. Thank you!!!
Thank you for the video Nahre! Getting ahead of myself is so true for my practice because I am always scared to not be good/fast enough at learning something, but now I will think of it more in a different way which you proposed!
For n1, if find it actually helps a lot to record yourself while practicing and review it later. It helps entirely remove the "focused on doing" part, forces you to actively listen and helps planning your practice if you do it at the start of your next session ("I play these two notes too loud, so let's focus on that phrase, then this entire section is too fast, I must make sure to practice it slower and more intentionally..."). And write all of that down if you can, in but a few weeks you'll have an amazing record of the progress you've made! (thanks for the video, as a teacher I knew all that, but I still frequently fall to these bad habits, seeing a brilliant musician such as yourself doing it too is reassuring ❤)
Very good tips! I’ve noticed these things in my own practice in the last year, which makes me feel like I’m on the right path. I am nowhere near Nahre’s level yet though 😅.
Anyone who has taken an extanded break from playing will tell you that when they return, their playing has improved. I didn't play for 18 months and its like my brain forgot all the feasrs I had of playing pieces and things seemed so much simpler. Applying this to practice is equally as true, as you stated, a brief pause is a good thing - hear the music in the room, get slightly ditant from it and let the playing come to you. I can't readlly express it in a simpler way - you'll know what i mean!
Thanks for sharing! I'm an amateur organist, and I sometimes find it difficult (as I get older) to learn new material. So I need to listen carefully to what I'm doing, which note I need to hold just a bit longer to keep the music alive. Additionally, I often rush too much and need to practice much slower and break things down into smaller parts.
Спасибо Вам большое! Очень нравятся Ваши видео! Всегда даёте полезные советы. Они очень эффективны. Последние два применяю уже много лет (как-то сама это почувствовала и дошла до такой практики) - в работе очень помогает. 👍 Желаю Вам дальнейших творческих успехов! Берегите себя 🤗
What a coincidence. I started practicing piano again very recently, and these tips were exactly what I needed. I wish I paid attention more attention to these much earlier. I have an expansive repertoire, but I could use more polish. More intentional practice.
This is so true. I have been accustomed to the detailed and mindful practice needed with vocals, but have lately been frustrated with the finer motor skills of my hand just bizarrely out of my control in a way I never used to have to think about for years. I know it's a weird off and on Parkinsonian thing. The pressure in an uncontrolled environment somehow is now breaking my signature, after the first three letters of each part. So I just really am noticing the breaking points now, and have known sometimes it doesn't happen when music is playing in the background somewhere and if it's random music I don't know to expect. Hearing you state about concentration on the exact place things keep falling apart, helped me remember how I get myself to hear the correction in my head superimposed over the top of the wrong thing I tend to mindlessly jump track at distracted consistently for who knows why at the same place. I need to hear the magnified fix simultaneously as the botched area I need to have the fix occupy and own now. It changes where I place the beginning and ending of the phrase now from where I assumed it was before. It changes where my mind starts to get ready to head there just very slightly so there is a definite bridge there now with no gap. So now I'm going to let my mind impose an additional syllable on just the letters that happen to be the breaking points on my signatures now. Just practicing those individual letters with the last half's of my signatures. Definitely different fragment combination practices need to happen. ...but only with my name. Till falling off the log becomes very comfortable again. 🙃🙂😀
yes - fortunately -- and "un"fortunately -- your brain remembers what it experiences -- right or wrong. So if you feed it wrong experiences - it remembers; if you feed it right experiences - it remembers. The problem with feeding it wrong experiences is not only is it wasted time initially, but it's added wasted time having to extinguish the wrong memory and separate it from an almost identical - yet different "right" memory. Almost triple the work and time: learn the wrong piece, extinguish the wrong piece, and learn the right piece. So much easier to learn only one piece instead of three ...
Nahre you are a great reminder🙏🏻I can relate this traps especially getting ahead of myself.I Love your videos and useful contents❤(Also your dog is so cute🥰)
Thank You for sharing your piece with us and for the really helpful comments, I really would have a hard time with the off beat rhythms of that piece. For it is wise to slow down and even stop letting things sink In 👂🧠🥴
Very good advice. I need this reminder. Again and again. And again. And I totally get how you have to learn even the pieces you write yourself and not take short cuts! Just doing that right now for something I wrote 25 years ago... Oh, and I hope you like your piece when you can play it!!! :)) Oh, and if you can't play the whole thing, play the end or the hard bit a few times more. And (no-one ever says this) make sure you can play the bit JUST BEFORE the hard bit really well; that gives you more brain space for the hard bit.
Thank you for producing this video. You always make informative and insightful videos that I appreciate. Opening the world of music to others and providing encouragement to “keep going”. This video made me wonder - do those of you who sight reading easily fall into some of these traps more readily (and become frustrated) than those of us who can’t sight read easily? I was fortunate to have studied in graduate school with my mentor who doesn't sight read well at all. However, he had a suitcase of practice technics (tools) that could applied to fix just about any problem. I just had to learn to be patient and not become frustrated. To practice SLOWLY. To practice in rhythms. To practice last note first, then second note to last note, then third to last note (etc.). To cross hands - play right hand an octave lower and the left hand an octave higher (easily done on the organ or 2 manual harpsichord), thereby forcing your brain hemispheres to cross (a technic used on stroke patients). Changing hand positions is almost always where the “accidents” occur - so practice the hand position changes. And so on… The expression - this is a marathon and not a sprint - was branded onto my forehead.
I’ve spent time the last few years working out how to learn pieces more quickly and robustly I’m terrible at memorising so I’ll leave that aside Here is what I’ve learned works for me : Do NOT just sight read through the piece many times each time using whatever finger comes along at the time. Instead, very early on, work out fingers, write them in and always use them Never be afraid to revise fingers. In particular for fast passages, fingers that work at slow speeds may need to be improved at fast speeds When trying to gain speed, use the metronome. Do not proceed to a faster tempo until your current tempo is robust (and for me some of it is technique and some mental ) Practice with more shorter sessions with time in between (there is neuroscience that shows us brain plasticity is at work after the physical component ) Be determined ! Don’t give up if something is not working. Leave it, analyse what is failing (as Nahre says) Record yourself ! Listening whilst playing is tough ! Clearly we must do it but I find listening to recordings a very powerful tool because the doing does not get in the way Be realistic in what you tackle. I’ve learned the Liszt Petrarch sonnets, but you can be sure I’m not learning Feux Follets 😂 Currently I’m learning Scarlatti K427. I’ve failed twice in my life to learn it because I was too lazy to do the hard and structured work. This time (I’m 65 now) I’m finally wrangling it. I’m up to 105 bpm reliable. I’m aiming for 120 (not 150 like Yuja Wang !!!). I’m creeping to the target !
Good advice here. Just out of curiosity: When looking to increase speed, once you have a tempo comfortably secure, how much do you raise the BPM ? For me I tend to raise it 3-5 bpm but of course it depends on the demands of the piece. Always curious what other people try. Thanks for sharing !
@@ankavoskuilen1725 that's not a useful comment. Some pieces go slowly, some go quickly. Scarlatti K427 is marked by the composer "as fast as possible" so therefore, one works on speed as an aspect of the performance.
I love this- your advice and your amazing playing and composition! I'm a guitarist so I'm not sure if it's the same with piano, but I also think it's important to evaluate whether you're struggling with a part because of the novelty of it vs. poor technique. Sometimes what I thought was an exceptionally difficult passage become a lot easier once my teacher pointed out some logistics having to do with my left hand, movement from one voicing to the next, or even posture. This is why I think it's important to use the metronome with incremental increase of speed- and periodically gauge one's comfort when increasing tempo at each higher level. Because sometimes I can sort of make something 'work' at a super slow speed, but if I'm really forcing it rather than it feeling fluid, then I need to diagnose why it's never allowing me to get to the increased tempo. For me, this is where a teacher is especially helpful- I'm often astonished at how rapidly a great teacher will notice a little change in approach to something which makes a world of difference in getting 'unstuck' in a difficult passage. The cool thing is, once you work your way through that new approach, I find invariably that it ends up being applicable to a lot of different situations. Awareness is key!
Transposing the bits that don't register is a good test. If pianist can't transpose it, then the bit isn't quite internalized. Many classically trained musicians only know about transposing scales /arpeggios. Much more effective than repetition. And it avoids "gambling"---can I get it this time? A consolation is: ”Hey, I'm doing this for the first time of my life---this passage in all keys“. Thank you for this window into your practicing. Cheers from Ottawa Canada.
Adding to these pauses with hands off : If you can get your mind on something completely different while paused, it does help the brain to assimilate the new things you're trying to feed it. So the pattern is work very focused for 5-10-15 minutes then pause 5*10-15 with your mind on something that;s nothing to do with piano or music. Same goes for after the practice session, get your mind off music and piano as much as possible! This is scientifically studied, Andrew Huberman talks quite a lot about that sort of learning "tricks".
Oh, just now I finished my practice session, and I did both of these mistakes that you mentioned in the video. Well, at the beginning I usually practice consciously, but after some time I get brain fog and just repeat passages over and over, without clear intention. This is the exact reason why I don't practice effectively. Thank you, Nahre for your advices!
( ... from Josef Hofmann - and others ... ) -- the best practice is sessions of no more than 20 - 40 minutes at a time, each session focused on a specific goal, and sessions spaced as far apart from each other as possible. So if you want to practice 3 hours a day -- do it in six 30-minute sessions, each with specific goals (i.e. 1st 30 - technic-1, 2nd 30 - repertoire-1, 3rd 30 - sight-reading, 4th 30 - repertoire-2, 5th 30 - technic-2, 6th 30 - fun repertoire). -- Josef Hofmann: "Piano Playing: With Piano Questions Answered " Josef Hofmann on Piano Practice and Technic Etude Magazine. January, 1902 excerpts: “In the division of practice during the important period of acquiring technic, in the earlier days three or four hours daily are necessary for the study of it, but never more than four. In the middle period of study I practiced six hours a day, and of that time I devoted from an hour and a half to two hours to technic pure and simple, the rest of the time I gave to the study of dynamic effects and composition. During the time that I am concertizing I practice only as much as is necessary. “The great danger in the acquiring of technic is overtraining, and that stiffens the muscles instead of developing them. Stop before you are tired. Of course, you may play octaves from the wrist until you are tired, but never finger-work; that stiffens. The sensibility of the muscles is lost when you get cramps. Every finger is an individual; it has eyes. The wrist is a single man; the fingers, ten. But, if you can play finger-work until you are tired, those ten become as one. “One should not become accustomed to practicing at a fixed time every day. Practicing at a certain hour becomes a fixed habit, and as a result hampers the performer, who should be able to play at any time. Practice at different times in the day instead of at fixed ones, and then the muscles will always be ready to act.
Love this - many thanks for sharing! I practice into a DAW with MIDI so can't hide anything - timing & velocities, you can see it and then focus on specific finger strength, fingering, where am I speeding up, etc.
I'm a psychotherapist and I play classical piano for "fun". I found what you discussed in this video applicable in therapy as well! The part where you add gaps between repetitions and let the movement sink in...this could be applied so beautifully in sensorimotor therapy! Loves working with the body. You inspired me to think about how to bring the experience of playing an instrument into therapy
Thank you for this, Nahre. I was excited to hear of your composition you mentioned, and realized you might be on Bandcamp. Sure enough - had to pick up Alice in Wonderland right away - beautiful work! Hope to hear more 😀
Hey Nahre! Did you know about your reface mini keyboard? How you can play a grand piano as the preset. Put the knob of type of instrument you want to play in between two presets. (You’ll have to move the knob and set in between 2 of any presets and have the keyboard in the off position) once you place the knob in between turn your keyboard on and WOW Yamaha secret egg!!! The keyboard just got better! Have fun!
Thank you for all of the beautiful comments! For those of you asking about my piece “Crossroads” - it will be recorded before the end of the year by Tina Chong. I’m unable to share more until then, so please stay posted! I’ll provide links when it’s out :)
That piece sounded really cool, I love quintuple time
Great composition! I'll look out for the recording.
As my jazz sax Dad told me, "Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. " Careful listening, massive focus. Otherwise, you're just cementing bad habits and incorrect playing.
Isn't that "jazz sax Daddy-o"? Ok sorry I'll go away now.
I like that shift! My viola teacher used to say “perfect practice makes perfect.” I think I’ll use both yours and hers.
And the bad habit that SO many music students have of always starting at the beginning of a piece, so that they know the first part really well but never really solidify the 2nd half or the end, etc.
Mathew Walker, in his excellent book about sleep, tells us that a concert pianist spoke to him after a public lecture. He had noticed sometimes when he got stuck and could not fix some fault in a piece despite plenty of practice, after a night's sleep he could play it perfectly. Has anyone else experienced that?
I have noticed that one day I can mess up on a piece - even one I supposedly know pretty well - but oftentimes the next day, I play it without a hitch. Not always, but most of the time!
Definitely, sleeping on it really secures the muscle memory. In fact, sometimes I stop practicing because I know I'll get it in the morning.
This was the story of my life when I sang Cavaradossi in Tosca. Sounded like crap when I was practicing it initially, but it magically got better when I revisited when well-rested.
Absolutely. I would get so struck on a passage. No matter what I did during practice I couldn't perfect it. Have a good night sleep. The next day I could play it all most perfectly.
@@jemimalamb78thanks!
Playing with a metronome helps you from getting ahead of yourself too. The more frustrated I am the faster I want to play it correctly. LITERALLY
Yes you're right!
🎉
@@NahreSolmetronomes can be toxic..they shud only be used when the basics are secure enough to stretch them
But playing withOUT the metronome sometimes is good too!
@@sharky_spiketoxic how?
This is very hard for us non-professional pianists: say, a decade of childhood piano education, but no conservatory. We don't learn a piece for an audition or an exam, but because we like the piece. It is very hard to stay patient and not just play the fun part.
I think it's not that much easier for professionals, at least from my experience 😅
so true!
@@NahreSol I heard of someone who envied Schiff, how easy it was for him to play everything. Until she found out just how hard he worked. I suppose professionals enjoy practice, mostly, but it is still work.
Thank you so much for this, I’ve recently begun to notice how unproductive my practice sessions can be at times and this is so helpful! Side note, I really appreciate your ability to teach concepts at a deeper level and help explore the “why” of musical concepts and practices. Great stuff, thank you!!
Thank you for your comment! I appreciate it 😊
Particularly important when practicing in isolation, where one is the performer and critic. Recording , whatever the instrument, assists the possibility of honest appraisal and reduces the inevitable self delusion of one’s abilities and progress. Would love to see the unedited video of Nahre in full temper mode🥶
Definitely true!! And an unedited video of my in full temper mode is on the agenda now 😅
@@NahreSol I'm sure that many of us who (... not occasionally -- but rather frequently ... ) get into full temper mode will gladly welcome you to our ranks!.
My full temper mode is when I ...
s l o w . . .
e v e r y t h i n g
w a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a y
d o w n
and get into
*FULL*
*T E M P E R*
*M O D E*
which is ...
I D O NOT HAVE TO
PLAY A SINGLE WRONG NOTE
AND
I D O NOT HAVE TO
PLAY A SINGLE NOTE UNTIL
I AM READY TO .
... even if that means
playing *ONE* note ....
- then having lunch, and then coming back to ...
play the *NEXT* note.
I call it "sarcastically-slow" practice ... i.e. (to self) ... "I'll show *YOU* I can play this ... " -- SEE!
but it *DOES* tend to re-generate focus --- which is usually at the root of the problem ...
.. if you get my drift ... 🙂
@@aBachwardsfellowthat's great dicipline
@@sharky_spike ( ... more like "desperate" ....)
I got lucky and figured out #1 by myself years ago. Closing your eyes works wonders for me. I feel like you become one with the instrument and the sound being produced. As far as #2 goes, it is nice hearing something concretely explained that I had already developed a vague understanding of. I’ll have to try the pausing trick. Thanks for the video.
Thank you for your insights!!
you are not only a brilliant musician, you also are a brilliant teacher. thank you!👍🏻👍🏻🌞🌞🎶🎶
Thank you so much!!
Over that past couple of years, I have learned sooo much from you, Nahre. These small tips are worth their weight in gold. In fact, they are not "small" at all. They are huge. I am a guitarist, not a pianist, but your suggestions directly apply. Thank you! 🙏
Merci for your videos. I'm struggling to learn to be a musician after having started after 65 years of age. I joked that I had been born with two left ears, and I have no singing voice. As I learned piano, I took a deep dive into music theory, without developing my ear. As my ear improved, I started trying to sing. But recently my teacher said I had to quit listening to the music and feeling it. Every time I try a new concept, I have stopped my progress in John Thompson Book 2 and gone back to Book 1. For now the fourth time. I listen to videos of the pieces and now sing along as I read the notes. Will I ever be an in-demand musician? That's not my goal. Music is a part of everyone, and I just want to make a change. Every choir or music teacher made a note on my report card, "Doesn't play well with others". I want to get a better grade to show my parents. They promised me ice cream.
I don’t play the piano, I’m just watching for the cute doggy clips! More doggy videos please!
I'm a guitarist and took your two golden nuggets of wisdom to heart... Thank you!!
Excellent video. Finally a quality content in the industry. I relate to everything you mention.
I think Bobby could practically carry his own channel, he’s just that photogenic.
I think so too! 😅
I came to this exact same conclusion and started to record my practices using my phone…..not only did i not like the way i sounded….its was hard to say exactly what’s happening you are right its hard to listen and concentrate…but you are also right it is sloppy…it is like I was forgiving myself for mistakes because nobody was listening….now I want to hear progress every practice tape. I told a musician I was doing this and they scoffed at me but i dont care because it works for me.
That dog is one hell of a piano player, but he needs to work on his forepaw rotation...😉
I like the idea of including a gap before the next set or reps. Thanks.
What great advice! I'm always getting ahead of myself and then getting frustrated when I find it I just can't play it the next day! And then I get all stressed that I'll never be able to learn it. Definitely will try to be more patient. Thank you.
I recently started a very difficult piece, & got ahead of myself right away. I wasn’t getting it, so I decided not to play any of it faster than one-half tempo. I did this for a week, and then played it flawlessly at full tempo, and it felt effortless. Great advice.
thanks so much for this great video!
some things i do when preparing for performance:
i practice sections slowly with metronome and repeat about ten times striving for perfection. i do this at a slow tempo to insure that i can do it flawlessly. after those 10 repetitions, i move the metronome up a couple notches and do the same process over again. eventually, when i get to a speed where flaws may develop, i stop, take a break and when i come back, i start several notches slower, establishing a comfortable feeling with the passage. then, after a few more repetitions, i move onto something more lyrical and less technical. i wait until the next day to start the process a little slower than i left off. depending on the difficulty, my mastery of the passage may take a week or two and i don’t rush the process of getting comfortable with the passage.
another thing i do is i practice RELAXED. my practice room is welcoming and cozy. i am constantly in tune with my body; my arms, shoulders, back, neck, fingers…i position myself to be relaxed at all times in my practice sessions. that way, when i’m in “the hot seat” at a performance, i will always know which part of my body is tensing up and can quickly and consciously relax it. tension impedes performance and so if you know how it feels (during practice) to play completely relaxed, that will be your default to fall back on in performance. i don’t usually practice hours and hours straight. i take breaks to rest my body and mind to maximize my ability to play without tension. when i go to sleep at night, i clear my mind of cluttering thoughts and allow my subconscious to work on the music while i sleep.
Yes yes yes ... sending this to several of my students! Thank you for this generous Teaching. ❤❤
Completely agree 💯. The power of patience.
This is one of the most valuable treasures on UA-cam. Thanks a lot ❤.
Every time I watch a video like this, I'm grateful for what my piano teacher taught me as a child. She taught me so many good habits instead of music theory and pedals, so I wasn't too happy about that at some point, but there are so many good videos on all kinds of topics these days that it's better this way! New piano players, especially when self-taught, focus far too little on building habits... like sitting down with good posture and making practise effective through analysis and such
Your tips and explanations are sooo helpful, Nahre. I am a guitarist, not a pianist but your ideas apply to my instrument as well. Thank you for what you do. 😊
Thanks for putting this out there, it’s a huge help. The “getting ahead of yourself” should be so obvious; I often start a passage thinking “I’ve got this, I’ll just go over it,” but when I play there’s some mistake. That should be the point where we completely stop and say “nope, I have to break this down and work on it again” but our ego gets in the way and we try to plow through. Definitely getting ahead of ourselves!
Nahre your videos are such fantastic and practical breaks from the typical content we see a lot of musicians posting. Thank you! I'll definitely be trying to put these tips into practice.
Critical listening, like critical thought is both a humbling but empowering exercise.
The stop, move away, return and try again reminds me of throwing hoops at the free-throw line. Those who don't move away and stay frozen in the same position to shoot end up repeating the same opportunity don't build responsive skill.
Your mature outlook (and depth of references -- Bill Evans!!) is astounding.
Thank you, and thank you for your insights!!
I feel like I already "knew of" both of them, but so far failed to clearly define them. Thanks so much, reflecting on it is really helpful.
For #1, doing a recording and pretending to be my own teacher listening and giving advice helps me. But nothing beats having the real teacher listen.
#2 is an ongoing struggle. I found gamification techniques to make sure I confirm a passage again and again but some days I still find find myself circumventing it (too fast too early).
How coincidental, I was watching a take on Itzhak Perlman last night where he addressed the importance of slowing down. These are pearls of wisdom that we have heard but not actually listened to them. So within a period of 12 hours both of you have addressed something so crucial that has hindered the progress of many of us. I am now beginning to have a regular Nahre Sol session every time I practice…….as in Hanon, scales and arpeggios AND NAHRE SOL😂. Thank you, really!
So glad to hear it was helpful in some way!!
love that .. "Perls" of wisdom ...
Great stuff Nahre. I think we all struggle with going slow before we go fast. I constantly have to remind myself of this and I have noticed that if I don't slow down, I start to build in the neural pathways to mistakes.
For me it’s almost a daily reminder 🥲
Exactly -- you learn what you practice! If you practice "play - oops - play - oops - play - oops - play " your brain remembers, you just went "play - oops - play - oops - play - oops - play ". Now you have to tell your brain, "OK, I know you learned "play - oops - play - oops - play - oops - play " -- but NOW what I want you to learn is "play - play - play - play - play - play - play ".
Unfortunately, your brain has now learned two pieces:
"play - oops - play - oops - play - oops - play "
-- and
"play - play - play - play - play - play - play ".
Nahre, I love this video and your insights here. In my own playing, I’m learning that actively listening solves a lot of problems in itself. Actively listen and trust what you’ve practiced. That habit alone takes practice and attention. But when it’s happening, I’m much more prepared to take on the task of not getting ahead of myself. Voila! Practice is interesting and fun instead of work!
Good points. I am telling the same to my students. In fact, I am recording them and have them listen carefully and discover what they can improve.
I appreciate you mentioning this works for improvisors, and playing that clip at the end
The most amazing part of this clip is the music you wrote its just breathtaking and grounding.
I sure am glad to be here hearing words about concepts that have been holding me back (for 20 years in fact). More to the point, you have put each of my limitations into actual words. Who knew it would be that simple a solution. This may seem trivial. Putting things into words, however, is necessary for the solidification of what, to me, has always been conceptual in nature. I’ve been all right brain my whole musical life. I started on strings and have only lately been digging into keys. Thanks so much for the missing piece in my puzzle.
Everything in here was really great and these are immediately applicable for me. These are things I've just been starting to understand after decades of practicing sloppy. There's also some kind of thrill-chasing aspect to playing things that are above your comfort level, and over and over again "getting close" to getting it. I could spend hours doing that but it's a huge grind and it really reinforces sloppy playing to have your brain releasing intermittent dopamine rewards while you're essentially playing the thing wrong for hours.
The part about paying attention to how you feel is really important too. I got this advice recently from a tutorial video by Lucas Brar and I can already say it has made a big difference in my practice. Just breathe and try to relax, when you get tense and stay tense trying not to mess up you're inevitably going to make a mistake, it's just a matter of when (not to mention just tiring yourself out)
This all boils down to self discipline. It's hard to simultaneously be looking at the finish line, then stop ourselves midway to repeat something we just did (right or wrong). Our desires for immediate gratification to finish the overall task outweigh our practical knowledge of what we know is right. Stop in the middle of an incompleted task, focus on the troubled section/bar until it's done right, then move on. I think it's common to assume we'll get it next time or eventually, if we keep hacking at it. However, it only leads to being stuck in an endless loop of failure.
As an alternative (requires delayed gratification -- or "sublimation" ...) - set a different "finish line".
Let your finish line be to learn as much -- and only as much -- as you can without a single mistake to have to unlearn -- i.e. never let your brain experience something to remember that you do not want it to remember. That is the goal. And, of course, to actually accomplish that, you will most definitely need to play as slowly as necessary to prevent feeding your brain an unwanted remembrance ...
@@aBachwardsfellow Yes, very true.
Yeah man. I'd assume bad habits would indeed be related to bad discipline
Your video was a inspiration. I've been playing for 24 years and still have anxiety when l play weekly for my piano teacher. I learn new pieces but they are not "in my bones" and when l go back to an old piece l played years ago, it's as if l had never played it before 😢. Your video has been extremely for me in reviewing my bad habits.
Thank you , Always enjoy and love yr sharing and teaching , God Bless you
This video actually helped me improve my consistency and I will keep your advice in mind. Thank you, Nahre!
Great tips!
I have fallen into both traps many times. Hearing your explanation helped me to recognize these problems in my own practice.
I showed the video to my children who are both learning piano as well.
I agree with everything you’ve said here and have encapsulated the concepts beautifully. Thank you!
Very good , thx for sharing these which everone faced a day or another 😊
Your videos got me thinking about practice and technique in a way that I never had before! I've really started focusing on cleaning up my technique by recording my playing and listening back to it. This has helped me activate my ears and hear how my playing sounds when I'm not focused on playing.
Hi 😅! Thank you for the comment!
Thank you for this video. It's an actual lesson. You're so kind in sharing this information with us.
Well done video. Thank you for clarifying these common problems.
Thank you for sharing this! So inspiring and useful to see how you approach practicing🙏🏻👏🏻
Wonderful and relatable video Nahre. The gaps between repetitions idea that you talk about also has other benefits. Mark Morley Fletcher says that it helps you learn faster and more effectively, as apparently our brains repeat the passage we just played several times faster (think he said 20x) during the gaps, giving us more repetitions in a given time period than if we were to spend the whole time repeating physically.
I completely agree with you. My late professor Jan Kulesza taught:
- to have full control over the sound quality (practice with full concentration/listen to what sound you want to achieve)
- if playing fast doesn't work, practice slowly :)
Nahre, your Yoda dog is brilliant, haha - the perpetual tongue protrusion is endearing, and yes, those HUGE ears!
All so true And just wanted to say I read in one of my books somewhere years ago from a very professional pianist. I forget who but it doesn't matter.... To learn the hard parts first of a piece, usually there's only a small part that is troublesome in a piece that is within your range, or just above, And when you learn the hard part first and really learn it, that means memorize it and analyze it as in this video, then you take a grade 5 piece down to a grade three piece, whatever. That has really worked for me, I know that feeling of anxiety when you're approaching a passage that you are unfamiliar with, but if you make that part, the strongest part of the piece that anxiety goes away.
Thank you for posting your videos!
I'm totally not listening to anything you said... and I'm totally gettin' ahead of myself here... but in case you don't hear this often enough... you are so freakin' talented. Thank you!!!
Thank you for the video Nahre! Getting ahead of myself is so true for my practice because I am always scared to not be good/fast enough at learning something, but now I will think of it more in a different way which you proposed!
Thank you back!!
For n1, if find it actually helps a lot to record yourself while practicing and review it later. It helps entirely remove the "focused on doing" part, forces you to actively listen and helps planning your practice if you do it at the start of your next session ("I play these two notes too loud, so let's focus on that phrase, then this entire section is too fast, I must make sure to practice it slower and more intentionally..."). And write all of that down if you can, in but a few weeks you'll have an amazing record of the progress you've made!
(thanks for the video, as a teacher I knew all that, but I still frequently fall to these bad habits, seeing a brilliant musician such as yourself doing it too is reassuring ❤)
Much appreciated! Subscribed.
Thank you Nahre! Felt convicted by these !!
Very cool! Nicely put and what a FANTASTIC piano piece! I’d love to hear the whole thing.
Thank you so much!!
Brilliant! Excellent break-down.
Very good tips! I’ve noticed these things in my own practice in the last year, which makes me feel like I’m on the right path. I am nowhere near Nahre’s level yet though 😅.
What a fabulous video. So true to my own practise
Anyone who has taken an extanded break from playing will tell you that when they return, their playing has improved. I didn't play for 18 months and its like my brain forgot all the feasrs I had of playing pieces and things seemed so much simpler. Applying this to practice is equally as true, as you stated, a brief pause is a good thing - hear the music in the room, get slightly ditant from it and let the playing come to you. I can't readlly express it in a simpler way - you'll know what i mean!
Nahre’s playing is so beautiful… ❤
Thank you!
Thank you so much ❤
Thanks for sharing! I'm an amateur organist, and I sometimes find it difficult (as I get older) to learn new material. So I need to listen carefully to what I'm doing, which note I need to hold just a bit longer to keep the music alive.
Additionally, I often rush too much and need to practice much slower and break things down into smaller parts.
Terrific advice. Thanks, Nahre.
I love the sound of your piece.
Thank you! These are really valuable insights 🙏
Спасибо Вам большое! Очень нравятся Ваши видео! Всегда даёте полезные советы. Они очень эффективны. Последние два применяю уже много лет (как-то сама это почувствовала и дошла до такой практики) - в работе очень помогает. 👍
Желаю Вам дальнейших творческих успехов! Берегите себя 🤗
What a coincidence. I started practicing piano again very recently, and these tips were exactly what I needed.
I wish I paid attention more attention to these much earlier. I have an expansive repertoire, but I could use more polish. More intentional practice.
This is an excellent, excellent video.
This is so true. I have been accustomed to the detailed and mindful practice needed with vocals, but have lately been frustrated with the finer motor skills of my hand just bizarrely out of my control in a way I never used to have to think about for years. I know it's a weird off and on Parkinsonian thing. The pressure in an uncontrolled environment somehow is now breaking my signature, after the first three letters of each part. So I just really am noticing the breaking points now, and have known sometimes it doesn't happen when music is playing in the background somewhere and if it's random music I don't know to expect. Hearing you state about concentration on the exact place things keep falling apart, helped me remember how I get myself to hear the correction in my head superimposed over the top of the wrong thing I tend to mindlessly jump track at distracted consistently for who knows why at the same place. I need to hear the magnified fix simultaneously as the botched area I need to have the fix occupy and own now. It changes where I place the beginning and ending of the phrase now from where I assumed it was before. It changes where my mind starts to get ready to head there just very slightly so there is a definite bridge there now with no gap. So now I'm going to let my mind impose an additional syllable on just the letters that happen to be the breaking points on my signatures now. Just practicing those individual letters with the last half's of my signatures. Definitely different fragment combination practices need to happen. ...but only with my name. Till falling off the log becomes very comfortable again. 🙃🙂😀
yes - fortunately -- and "un"fortunately -- your brain remembers what it experiences -- right or wrong. So if you feed it wrong experiences - it remembers; if you feed it right experiences - it remembers. The problem with feeding it wrong experiences is not only is it wasted time initially, but it's added wasted time having to extinguish the wrong memory and separate it from an almost identical - yet different "right" memory. Almost triple the work and time: learn the wrong piece, extinguish the wrong piece, and learn the right piece. So much easier to learn only one piece instead of three ...
Thank you for the valuable insight!
Nahre you are a great reminder🙏🏻I can relate this traps especially getting ahead of myself.I Love your videos and useful contents❤(Also your dog is so cute🥰)
Thank you!! and hi from my dogs!!
Hey Nahre! I absolutely love your contents ❤ I’m new to the piano world but you are my favorite piano UA-camr
Thank you kindly!! 😊
Thank You for sharing your piece with us and for the really helpful comments, I really would have a hard time with the off beat rhythms of that piece. For it is wise to slow down and even stop letting things sink In 👂🧠🥴
Very good advice. I need this reminder. Again and again. And again. And I totally get how you have to learn even the pieces you write yourself and not take short cuts! Just doing that right now for something I wrote 25 years ago...
Oh, and I hope you like your piece when you can play it!!! :))
Oh, and if you can't play the whole thing, play the end or the hard bit a few times more. And (no-one ever says this) make sure you can play the bit JUST BEFORE the hard bit really well; that gives you more brain space for the hard bit.
Thank you for producing this video. You always make informative and insightful videos that I appreciate. Opening the world of music to others and providing encouragement to “keep going”.
This video made me wonder - do those of you who sight reading easily fall into some of these traps more readily (and become frustrated) than those of us who can’t sight read easily? I was fortunate to have studied in graduate school with my mentor who doesn't sight read well at all. However, he had a suitcase of practice technics (tools) that could applied to fix just about any problem. I just had to learn to be patient and not become frustrated. To practice SLOWLY. To practice in rhythms. To practice last note first, then second note to last note, then third to last note (etc.). To cross hands - play right hand an octave lower and the left hand an octave higher (easily done on the organ or 2 manual harpsichord), thereby forcing your brain hemispheres to cross (a technic used on stroke patients). Changing hand positions is almost always where the “accidents” occur - so practice the hand position changes. And so on… The expression - this is a marathon and not a sprint - was branded onto my forehead.
I’ve spent time the last few years working out how to learn pieces more quickly and robustly
I’m terrible at memorising so I’ll leave that aside
Here is what I’ve learned works for me :
Do NOT just sight read through the piece many times each time using whatever finger comes along at the time. Instead, very early on, work out fingers, write them in and always use them
Never be afraid to revise fingers. In particular for fast passages, fingers that work at slow speeds may need to be improved at fast speeds
When trying to gain speed, use the metronome. Do not proceed to a faster tempo until your current tempo is robust (and for me some of it is technique and some mental )
Practice with more shorter sessions with time in between (there is neuroscience that shows us brain plasticity is at work after the physical component )
Be determined ! Don’t give up if something is not working. Leave it, analyse what is failing (as Nahre says)
Record yourself ! Listening whilst playing is tough ! Clearly we must do it but I find listening to recordings a very powerful tool because the doing does not get in the way
Be realistic in what you tackle. I’ve learned the Liszt Petrarch sonnets, but you can be sure I’m not learning Feux Follets 😂
Currently I’m learning Scarlatti K427. I’ve failed twice in my life to learn it because I was too lazy to do the hard and structured work. This time (I’m 65 now) I’m finally wrangling it. I’m up to 105 bpm reliable. I’m aiming for 120 (not 150 like Yuja Wang !!!). I’m creeping to the target !
Good advice here. Just out of curiosity: When looking to increase speed, once you have a tempo comfortably secure, how much do you raise the BPM ? For me I tend to raise it 3-5 bpm but of course it depends on the demands of the piece. Always curious what other people try. Thanks for sharing !
@@dciccantelli like you , 3-5 max
Speed doesn't equal musicality.
Music is not a race.
@@ankavoskuilen1725 that's not a useful comment. Some pieces go slowly, some go quickly. Scarlatti K427 is marked by the composer "as fast as possible" so therefore, one works on speed as an aspect of the performance.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you very much❤
Refreshing video, gonna utilitize the gaps more! I get frustrated too often but this is a helpful reminder to slow down.
Thank you!!
I love this- your advice and your amazing playing and composition! I'm a guitarist so I'm not sure if it's the same with piano, but I also think it's important to evaluate whether you're struggling with a part because of the novelty of it vs. poor technique. Sometimes what I thought was an exceptionally difficult passage become a lot easier once my teacher pointed out some logistics having to do with my left hand, movement from one voicing to the next, or even posture. This is why I think it's important to use the metronome with incremental increase of speed- and periodically gauge one's comfort when increasing tempo at each higher level. Because sometimes I can sort of make something 'work' at a super slow speed, but if I'm really forcing it rather than it feeling fluid, then I need to diagnose why it's never allowing me to get to the increased tempo. For me, this is where a teacher is especially helpful- I'm often astonished at how rapidly a great teacher will notice a little change in approach to something which makes a world of difference in getting 'unstuck' in a difficult passage. The cool thing is, once you work your way through that new approach, I find invariably that it ends up being applicable to a lot of different situations. Awareness is key!
Transposing the bits that don't register is a good test. If pianist can't transpose it, then the bit isn't quite internalized. Many classically trained musicians only know about transposing scales /arpeggios. Much more effective than repetition. And it avoids "gambling"---can I get it this time? A consolation is: ”Hey, I'm doing this for the first time of my life---this passage in all keys“. Thank you for this window into your practicing. Cheers from Ottawa Canada.
Nice composition and helpful advice.Thank you
THANK U WE NEEDED THIS 🙌🏼🙌🏼
Thank you back!!
Adding to these pauses with hands off : If you can get your mind on something completely different while paused, it does help the brain to assimilate the new things you're trying to feed it. So the pattern is work very focused for 5-10-15 minutes then pause 5*10-15 with your mind on something that;s nothing to do with piano or music. Same goes for after the practice session, get your mind off music and piano as much as possible! This is scientifically studied, Andrew Huberman talks quite a lot about that sort of learning "tricks".
One of my fav piano teacher.
Thank you! ❤
Love this! I’m a guitarist and about to embark on a new project with some difficult music. Great reminder before starting to work on the new pieces.
Thank you!! Have fun on your journey!!
very helpful! thanks
Oh, just now I finished my practice session, and I did both of these mistakes that you mentioned in the video.
Well, at the beginning I usually practice consciously, but after some time I get brain fog and just repeat passages over and over, without clear intention. This is the exact reason why I don't practice effectively.
Thank you, Nahre for your advices!
Thank you for sharing your experience!! I definitely keep falling into these traps too 😅 not easy…
( ... from Josef Hofmann - and others ... ) -- the best practice is sessions of no more than 20 - 40 minutes at a time, each session focused on a specific goal, and sessions spaced as far apart from each other as possible. So if you want to practice 3 hours a day -- do it in six 30-minute sessions, each with specific goals (i.e. 1st 30 - technic-1, 2nd 30 - repertoire-1, 3rd 30 - sight-reading, 4th 30 - repertoire-2, 5th 30 - technic-2, 6th 30 - fun repertoire). -- Josef Hofmann: "Piano Playing: With Piano Questions Answered "
Josef Hofmann on Piano Practice and Technic
Etude Magazine. January, 1902
excerpts:
“In the division of practice during the important period of acquiring technic, in the earlier days three or four hours daily are necessary for the study of it, but never more than four. In the middle period of study I practiced six hours a day, and of that time I devoted from an hour and a half to two hours to technic pure and simple, the rest of the time I gave to the study of dynamic effects and composition. During the time that I am concertizing I practice only as much as is necessary.
“The great danger in the acquiring of technic is overtraining, and that stiffens the muscles instead of developing them. Stop before you are tired. Of course, you may play octaves from the wrist until you are tired, but never finger-work; that stiffens. The sensibility of the muscles is lost when you get cramps. Every finger is an individual; it has eyes. The wrist is a single man; the fingers, ten. But, if you can play finger-work until you are tired, those ten become as one.
“One should not become accustomed to practicing at a fixed time every day. Practicing at a certain hour becomes a fixed habit, and as a result hampers the performer, who should be able to play at any time. Practice at different times in the day instead of at fixed ones, and then the muscles will always be ready to act.
Love this - many thanks for sharing! I practice into a DAW with MIDI so can't hide anything - timing & velocities, you can see it and then focus on specific finger strength, fingering, where am I speeding up, etc.
Oh! Practicing into a DAW definitely reveals a lot 😄
I 💕 LOVE your dog!
I'm a psychotherapist and I play classical piano for "fun". I found what you discussed in this video applicable in therapy as well! The part where you add gaps between repetitions and let the movement sink in...this could be applied so beautifully in sensorimotor therapy! Loves working with the body. You inspired me to think about how to bring the experience of playing an instrument into therapy
Thank you for this….. I’ll have to keep this in mind…. As difficult as it may be
I love your assistant 🙂
Thank you for this, Nahre. I was excited to hear of your composition you mentioned, and realized you might be on Bandcamp. Sure enough - had to pick up Alice in Wonderland right away - beautiful work! Hope to hear more 😀
Hey Nahre! Did you know about your reface mini keyboard? How you can play a grand piano as the preset. Put the knob of type of instrument you want to play in between two presets. (You’ll have to move the knob and set in between 2 of any presets and have the keyboard in the off position) once you place the knob in between turn your keyboard on and WOW Yamaha secret egg!!! The keyboard just got better! Have fun!
Thank you!