What is your method?

In effect, there is no single method; one must take several factors into account, not least the timing. Playing more than an hour of music perfectly is not easy; it is something one must learn to manage and, in fact, programs rarely include all works as a first performance; it is very typical to include a classic showpiece, something already played in the past, and certainly something new. In effect, it is about building a repertoire.

Thus, even in this scenario, one must use 3 different methods for the 3 different situations; in the first case, one must not lose control, in the second, one must regain control, and in the last case, "everything" must be done.

This is a starting point; meanwhile, what do you think about this issue?

I do it like this:
1) Study the life of the composer and the history of the piece
2) Analysis of the piece and memorization
3) Practice hands separately, from slow up to even faster than the performance tempo
4) Practice hands together up to 70/80% of the performance tempo, taking great care of all the details. Here I start recording myself (both audio and video)
5) Practice hands together up to the final tempo
6) If I am able to play the piece satisfactorily from any point and in front of someone, then the piece is ready for a first performance.

The work doesn't end here, however; after the first public performance, I return to point 4 and work to improve even further. I am convinced that one achieves quite good mastery of a piece after the second or third performance.

The discussion seems to have already taken an interesting turn and I agree with the list written by TheKeyboardistZ, and Marta is also right in her own way.

Reading this while it's fresh, I feel I agree with what was written by TheKeyboardistZ; I would only add a couple of "postscripts."

At step 3), in the case of contrapuntal music (see Bach and sons), studying voices separately does no harm; in fact, it is strictly necessary.

At step 6), I would divide it into "sub-steps": in 6a) "someone" is a recorder; only when we are satisfied with what we hear will we then be ready for 6b) where "someone" will be a person of flesh and blood.

I see recording as an indispensable step; it transforms us into real external listeners of what our performance was... and it forces us, in case of dissatisfaction, to cycle even back to point 3, if necessary.

Thinking about it again, I would also make some clarifications regarding point 2); I imagine they are implicitly understood, but analysis should guide our interpretation and consequently the necessary fingering, but also the identification of technical gestures necessary to advance our cause. After having cleared this, I would feel ready for memorization, which however only concerns visual and intellectual memory; kinetic memory, for example, certainly cannot occur before step 5), or at any rate, with mental study it can only occur partially beforehand. And in any case, all 4 areas of memory should be exercised during practical study.

Yessss, registering is very useful!

Personally, speaking obviously of new pieces, I would like to preserve the freshness that I feel I have when I first pick up a piece and which I instead feel I lose along the way, not so much due to repetitive mechanical study (which I believe I avoid as such) but rather due to a sort of intellectual habituation.

In general, as far as I am concerned, after having reasoned through technical gestures, agogics, and phrasing at every step, and thus having identified the most suitable fingering, I do an initial reading with hands separate, often pausing and trying to focus on the final effect.

Then, as soon as possible, I try to combine hands and pedal by studying the whole piece from beginning to end, but always alternating between hands-separate study and playing at speed.

For the technically more complex passages, I precede this hands-separate study or alternate it with brief interludes of exercises invented extemporaneously for that purpose.

Obviously, the time dedicated to hands-separate study progressively reduces and changes purpose (becoming more interpretive and less technical).

Even in hands-together study, I often isolate single phrases, themes, passages, or measures, mainly for memorization. Sometimes, when I feel up to it, I keep going without turning the page.

In reality, I always find myself mixing the various phases, often going back a bit as Frank recommends, although I then find the greatest difficulties in "blending" them.

Another difficulty is the pedal. Personally, I am not comfortable either studying it with the left hand (which leads me to flatten the pedal onto the harmony and neglect the half-pedal), nor reserving it for hands-together study (which would make it impossible for me to calibrate my touch even during hands-separate study).

I think it is important to pay attention from the very beginning, as well as to interpretation, to the interaction between the two hands and the pedal. For this reason, I always try to mix hands-separate and hands-together study (in both cases with the pedal).

I also think that the impossibility of hearing ourselves while playing makes a recorder indispensable.
D'other hand, I also think that the recorder does not entirely eliminate the lack of objectivity toward ourselves and, if not used "cum grano salis" [with a grain of salt], it can cause even irreparable psychological damage since spirit and self-esteem are fundamental for a musician.

For this reason, it would be fundamental (at least before having assimilated the piece) to use the recorder while avoiding excessive self-criticism (which is also contradictory since without self-criticism there is no progress).

I have never found a method of my own (which is why I am writing), and I agree with Marta when she says that there isn't "a" method, but different methods for different needs.

Thank you for your contributions, which I share and have found very interesting.

What ThekeyboardistZ says in his message and also Frank's response is truly very interesting and instructive for me. I am at a point where I am realizing that my study method is wrong, perhaps because I don't have a method. I have a great facility for reading, and this is not an advantage because then I avoid studying with hands separate, which seems "useless" to me (and I believe it is quite the opposite), and I play the whole piece too hastily. I don't know if I explained myself well. Instead, I really need an effective tactic that makes the study of a piece and its success lasting over time. The proposed method seems sensible to me, but I would like to understand exactly what is meant in point 2 "analysis of the piece and memorization" and whether point 3 means studying the piece already memorized or with the sheet music in front of you?

my questions are to understand how on earth one memorizes pages and pages of notes, even difficult ones, and plays them with apparent "lightness". I have laboriously managed to memorize a couple of short pieces by Bach, which I promptly forgot when I didn't play them for a week straight.

another question for you experts is: is it really necessary to dedicate an hour a day to technique (such as Hanon with rhythms and in different keys, or specific exercises for the left hand (i.e., Berens), or Mozzati technique etc. etc.)??

thank you very much to everyone

Ceci wrote:

is it really necessary to dedicate an
hour a day to technique (like Hanon with rhythms and in different keys, or specific exercises for the left hand (i.e., Berens), or Mozzati's technique etc etc))??

Useful

http://www.pianoconcerto.it/forum/index.php?/topic/2817-la-tecnica-pianisitica

We talked about memorization here, try giving it a read.

http://www.pianoconcerto.it/forum/index.php?/topic/2488-la-memorizzazione

thank you so much Stellina and Jack. I also wanted to say that some time ago I read, twice, the beautiful book by Carlo Grante on piano technique, which I recommend to everyone.

the book dedicates a large part of the discussion to memorization technique and says that the true pianist, in order to memorize, studies the score at a desk before going to the keyboard, just as one would study a poem. they do not move on to performance before having memorized the passages studied. this seems almost impossible to me, especially for pieces of great difficulty. it is much more likely a combination of kinetic, intellectual, acoustic and visual memory, as described in the discussion suggested by Stellina and which anyway requires a good dose of exercise. i haven't succeeded yet. perhaps because I have never truly applied myself seriously. after a while I get discouraged and give up. certainly youth would help... that has unfortunately passed!!

as for the rest, I will continue with Hanon & C!!! sigh...

Hello everyone, I am new to the forum

Let's just say that I have an unconventional method, but one that is giving me a lot of satisfaction.

The first thing I do is a desk study of the piece. Let's take as an example the third movement of Beethoven's sonata "The Tempest". First of all, I begin by dividing the phrase and trying to understand the discourse where it wants to go, which are the most important notes, and which are the gestures to be sought out.

It is easily argued against me that I should first read the notes and then think about the interpretation. I think one thing: even reading the notes is aimed at an objective, and we must study that objective at our desk.

Another principle: both with reading and with technique, the piano has a great limitation: you can only make music with it! So far from me are "useless" exercises to strengthen the fingers. I have studied anatomy; fingers do not have muscles! The only important muscles of the hand are the thenar and the hypothenar.

After all this, I finally move to the piano.

I start with a slow study, also seeking slowness in depressing and releasing every single key. This is the true secret of knowing how to play the piano!

After "reading" the notes, I try to understand where the energy lies. In this piece, it continuously alternates between the right hand and the left hand. The point of "activity" represents the beginning of the pianistic gesture; the other notes must be played passively.

The pedal is the breath of the piano; it must move with our breath and with that of the piece.

Often, to "hit" (excuse the dialectal form, but it conveys the concept better) the gesture, I play all the notes of the gesture together.

Then I play everything in a falling motion and with variations, but remembering that we must not forget to make music.

There! This is how I study!

Francesco's method seems interesting to me. I am reading (actually, I am literally devouring it) Chuan Chang's book "Fundamentals of Piano Study" and a whole new world has opened up to me.

First of all, I realized that no teacher has ever taught me a study method and I have always followed what Chang calls the intuitive method, which is not efficient at all and does not allow one to reach acceptable levels of performance. In fact, I can never play a piece without making some mistakes.

Chang's method is revolutionary in certain aspects, even though I see that some of you are already partially applying it, though I don't know whether consciously or not. He slams Hanon & Czerny, saying they are useless for agility and acquiring speed. It is much better to use Bach's compositions. He strongly suggests studying hands separately to first memorize the two hands separately, then bringing them up to speed, even at 150% of the final tempo, always separately. Only when you have mastered both hands separately without sheet music at the correct speed can you join the hands. And then start studying with hands together again. Naturally, he also says a lot of other very, very interesting things.

I am trying this system and it already seems to be yielding results. The only problem I encounter is that while with Bach studying the left hand from memory is relatively "easy" because it contains a melody anyway, studying the left hand from memory for, say, Mozart, is extremely difficult for me and is discouraging.

Does anyone know this book? And do you have experience with this method? Perhaps you have already discussed it at length in some other forum. If so, please send me the link?

thank you very much

If you like, I would also like to write down some of the methods I use to prepare a piece for a concert.

To be honest, I have never been particularly fond of pre-packaged methodologies, as I consider them standardized for the masses and little inclined toward each person's subjectivity; for this reason, I don't even feel like wasting time reading them. I have had the opportunity to understand, in those few occasions where I acted as a teacher, that the degree of acquisition of knowledge by students varies not only based on their intellectual abilities, but above all in relation to the methodology used for teaching.

How many of us, in high school or university, hated a subject that, over time, turned out to be absolutely enlightening instead?

In essence, most of us are more inclined toward a branch of human experience not only due to intellectual predisposition but also thanks to those who transmitted certain knowledge to us.

Knowing a subject does not at all mean being able to teach it. There are many people who know their subject perfectly but, placed behind a lectern, would not be able to communicate anything of what they know. An example of what I am saying is none other than the scientist Zichichi. Zichichi is an extremely prepared person, but one certainly cannot recognize in him the ability to communicate these notions to others, or rather, to non-experts.

All this talk is to say that each of us understands and comprehends according to a very personal method; a person's cleverness lies in discovering which way the information is most congenial to them.

My methodology, in relation to my process of understanding, is as follows:

We are not always commissioned pieces that we know; sometimes in concerts we have to play something we have never even heard before; therefore, I believe the first stage cannot be anything other than an attentive listening to the score... In the event that I find myself playing an unpublished piece, never played before by anyone, I would ask for a MIDI rendering or I would quickly create a MIDI file myself to be able to learn the melodic and harmonic lines of the piece and to mentally memorize its patterns. In the case of well-known pieces, however, I would not limit myself to the first listening, as this could become misleading and, unconsciously, force me to emulate certain passages that I particularly liked; therefore, I would listen to various interpretations in order to forget others' performances.

This preventive listening will also be very useful when I have to go and read the notes at the piano. Having memorized the various lines, it will not be difficult for me to proceed quickly in reading, aided also by my ear.

The second step will be to perform a quick harmonic analysis of the piece, identifying the various themes and episodes. I believe this analysis is fundamental to understanding the character of the phrases and contexts we are about to study. It can obviously change depending on the type of piece. Probably with Bach, I will take care to highlight all the voices.

The third phase will be reading the notes... In this phase, I try to move at different tempos. I read the notes slowly and try to memorize what I have just played. However, I don't spend much time on slow reading but immediately try to speed up to find the right musical sense and the correct fingering. Time, in fact, metronome indications aside, is something that in my opinion is suggested directly by the music, and it is important to try to find as soon as possible the right tempo that will give a complete sense to the entire composition. Besides this, why speed up? Because often at very slow tempos we use a fingering that turns out to be ineffective if performed at a sustained tempo. It is better to try to move immediately at sustained tempos to find a fingering that is comfortable and effective, but above all that conveys the sense of the musical phrase well. For example, I would never use a fingering that, even if comfortable, would lead me to use an uncomfortable 3-4-5-4-5-4-5-4-3; I would try to find another fingering that allows me to execute the same notes with 2-3-4-3-4-3-4-3-2 or even 1-2-3-2-3-2-3-2-1, clearly everything must be contextualized to the musical performance!

Memorization... My weak point. I memorize, but in a concert, I never play from memory... A psychological problem I should have resolved as a child. It often happens that I play from memory in front of people, often in restaurants with a piano populated by people, but not in a concert; in a concert, I have memory block.

Not a bad thing, the important thing is to make good music... This does not change the fact that I do not do a job

ways to memorize pieces.

To memorize pieces, I divide them into phrases and keep the sheet music on a small stand behind my shoulders, so that I am forced to turn around and look at the score, interrupting the performance if I forget something. I play phrase by phrase, staying on the same one until I make no mistakes; only then do I proceed to the next musical phrase.

It is extremely important to learn by heart with hands joined as well as with hands separate. Test your memory every time by playing a composition first with the right hand and then with the left. You will see that you often encounter more difficulty with the left hand, because less importance is given to what is accompaniment and more importance to what is part of the singing. Conversely, you will be surprised to remember perfectly the phrases where the singing passes to the left.

I often test myself by recording myself, or by having someone assist me by listening—not my parents or my girlfriend obviously, they don't affect me one way or the other.

Finally, harmonic analysis aimed at memorization is very important because in case of forgetting, we can always appeal to this additional variable.

In the last instance, I try to find as much information as possible about the author of the piece; I try to know in what contexts they wrote it, if it was dedicated to someone, and what this person represented to the composer. All this information serves to empathize with the author's thoughts at the moment they conceived the composition.

I combine everything and find my own interpretation, which must be consistent both from a historical and an interpretative point of view with the author in question.

I want to point something out to you... Excluding exceptional cases (deliberately with 2 'z's as Abatantuono would want), you will never find two people who will give you the same indications on the interpretation of a composition. At least that has never happened to me, and I have met many people through auditions and masterclasses. The idea I have formed is that once you have studied the author carefully, when you feel you truly possess them, you must have your own idea and you should only consider the interventions you deem right for the idea you have created (as long as these interventions do not belong to those stylistic advice which are instead objective; there is no room for discussion there—for example, romanticizing Mozart too much by playing it as one would play Chopin). If you do not do as I have told you, you will only have mental confusion. You will no longer know how to play because you will have too many conflicting opinions in your head.

This discordance makes me reflect and teaches me one thing. Every person, every teacher who tells you how to interpret a piece, will do so based on their own experiences that none of you can know, and on most occasions they will speak to you about ways of interpreting authors that none of the current teachers have ever had the chance to know. Do you know anyone who was a direct pupil of Mozart? They should be over 200 years old! Some things have been passed down and belong to that lineage of an author's stylistics, while other things are part of one's own experience and what has been understood about an author by listening to and reading the opinions of other people who themselves did not know the author but also base themselves on experience. Well, there are too many uncertain variables to take everything they tell you as gospel; that is indeed why opinions are so discordant. Who to believe? Those whose words we hear say something in agreement with our own idea that we hadn't thought of.

I will give you a brief example by talking about Glenn Gould's interpretations of Mozart's sonatas. Some claim that Gould is a point of reference; in my opinion, he is quite the opposite of a point of reference for Mozart's sonatas... If anything, he is an island in the ocean, but not the point of reference. The point of reference could be a Gieseking, Uchida, or Brendel for piano concertos and orchestra... So how can one say who is right? As you can see, everything is controversial... Once known, one must trust what we have internalized and evaluate what is most right for us.

I believe that if the fingering is consistent with the gesture, it holds true both in slow tempo and at speed. If, instead, a new fingering is required at speed, then it was inconsistent with the gesture.

Moreover, I have my own idea of tempo. There isn't "a specific tempo" for every piece, but there is "the tempo" coinciding with our breath. A largo involves fewer notes per breath, a presto involves many notes within the same breath. But the tempo is always the same! The tempo of our soul! The tempo of our breath! And it is cyclical within the piece. Many will tell me otherwise regarding what I have stated, but this is how I think and this is how I play.

I agree with the Hanon method as long as music is being made. I repeat: with the piano, one can make ONLY music!

Let's take exercise number 1. The pianistic breath is this: you start with calm, you reach the tension of the upbeat, and you return to the calm of the following downbeat. This must be rendered through sound and, to a small extent, also through agogics. It applies to Hanon too, why not! On the upbeat, I would even add a tiny bit of pedal.

Let's apply this reasoning to individual cells: Do mi fa sol la sol fa mi re. The do is in calm, tension increases up to the sol, the la is already in the phase of returning to calm which is realized in the re, and the same game repeats in the next cell.

Then we expand the discussion. The first notes of each cell together form a scale: do re mi fa sol la si do. Same thing: do in calm, maximum tension, the si brings the calm that is realized with the do. We can increase the tension by increasing the dose of pedal at each upbeat of every cell.

You will say: but it's an exercise. And I respond: what better exercise is there than moving the fingers and feet in sync with the breath? If you learn it with Hanon, you can apply it to any piece!

I read both Simon's and Francesco's comments with great interest. I perfectly agree with what Simon says, and it really helps me not to get discouraged, especially when he says that in concert he never plays from memory. !!! finally a human being !!! I am not capable of performing concerts, but I have the dream of playing from memory even just for myself or to be able to satisfy an extemporaneous request in familiar settings without sheet music at hand.... that would already be a true success.

Simon's method seems very, very reasonable to me and I must say it resembles what I am trying to apply. I try to memorize as much as possible, even if I will still keep the sheet music in front of me.

the part regarding the study of the history of the piece and the author's intentions is very interesting. thank you for this suggestion.

as far as Hanon is concerned, it will be difficult for me to abandon it, as Chang would suggest, but playing it musically as Francesco says would be like distracting myself from the more down-to-earth goal of practicing. but I will try. what Francesco says perfectly agrees with what Chang asserts in his beautiful book: one must always play musically, even Hanon...

thank you so much

@francesco

I agree with you on some things, less on others. Since you chose the nickname FrancescoChopin, you should know that Chopin himself was a great expert in piano technique. In Chopin's time, there was no such thing as Hanon, and the exercises proposed by Chopin were contextualized within a purely musical framework, being the great composer he was. Chopin knew very well that physiologically there are weaker fingers in the hand and that any attempt to strengthen these fingers is futile because it is not possible to make the pinky, for example, reach the power of the middle finger, precisely due to anatomical reasons. He therefore proposed technical solutions that were coordinated with the morphology of the hand. Think about how today piano teachers usually have students study scales in order of alterations, starting thus from C Major. Chopin had the study of scales begin with B Major because having to place the hand on all the black keys followed precisely the most congenial shape, with the longer fingers comfortably on the black keys and the shorter fingers (thumb and pinky) on the white keys, further back. In this way, he shaped the pianist's hand on the piano, without effort, without gymnastics, without useless exercises. Despite coming from the Hanon school and the Vitale school, I must say that, as far as I am concerned, Hanon did not bring me great results in terms of piano technique, which I instead learned through other studies—musical this time—aimed at solving the problems I had. In one of the advanced piano mastery courses, a concert pianist completely tore down and rebuilt my technique. Before, I couldn't play for more than two hours in a row and I started to feel pain in my back and behind my shoulders. In a couple of months, I solved problems that years of Hanon never solved, and now I can play (better) in complete relaxation even for 2 days in a row... physical fatigue permitting. It is also true that every hand is different and, referring back to what I said in the previous post, learning methods differ from person to person, so what didn't work for me might perhaps work for others.

@Ceci

Well, one should play from memory for several reasons in a concert, but this is a problem I should have resolved as a child. Elsewhere, I can play for hours from memory—the last time was at the dinner we organized with the members where I played Mozart's Sonata K. 330 from memory—and I don't know if I could do it in a concert; maybe yes, but I don't feel like experimenting. I should preface that this is my own problem and even though the important thing in a concert should be making good music, the eye also has its part to play; therefore, I don't want to look for any excuses. Certainly, one cannot think of going to a concert and reading everything we are playing from scratch, otherwise the interpretation suffers and we cannot enter into the music. That is the worst thing about playing with the score. In my case, I use the score only as a personal security, an anti-anxiety measure; if I forget something, if I have a small memory lapse, I know I can lift my gaze for a moment and glance at the score.

Once I spoke about this with a music critic I met at a conference who had had the chance to listen to some of my recordings. I said: "my biggest problem is memory; I refuse to play without a score, I get anxiety about making mistakes and by doing so I would surely stop because of some blank."
He replied to me (quoting verbatim): "I have heard many of your recordings, you are an excellent pianist, so to hell with this score thing!"

The Simon, I perfectly agree with you

I cited the example of Hanon to demonstrate that it is possible to do "exercise" not only physically, but also mentally, using methods that, unfortunately, are considered merely "gymnastics" for the fingers. Let's say I wanted to demonstrate the existence of a "musicality gymnastics."

I am the first one who uses Hanon very little because I consider it only useful for wasting time (though it depends on case by case, otherwise it wouldn't have been successful; I am speaking about myself).

In fact, I can tell you that I had a leap in quality with Chopin's studies and with the Fantaisie-Impromptu. Many years of Czerny, Cramer, Pozzoli, and good company did not give me the same results. Obviously, I don't want to be extreme: I am speaking about myself, my anatomy, and my sensitivity. However, I can tell you that I am against that school of thought that wants to make the fingers equal to one another: as Chopin used to say and as you also say, the fingers are not equal and this is, paradoxically, at the basis of piano technique. Just think that among my "tricks" for playing some notes softly at specific points in a musical phrase, I use, if possible, the 4th finger, precisely because it is the weakest and, to accentuate the effect, I depress the key at its base to increase resistance against the power in the lever (the key).

I am glad that you have learned firsthand the right path to follow. For years I was literally "ruined" by a sterile technique imposed from above that served me very little and, in fact, only caused me physical pain; unfortunately, many people do not realize this and remain stuck, they do not progress and, in fact, as the years go by, they go backward, ruined by increasingly present physical pains. Fortunately, I understood what the right path was for me, which has brought many more results, and I decided to abandon the advice that was not good for me. Chopin's studies were certainly very useful to me. I am ambidextrous and therefore I have never suffered from great technical inequalities between my hands; my problems were more related to my back being very tall, I wasn't using weight, I played with musculature and this generated tension. The right path to follow—and I feel I can say this objectively, it is not just my personal opinion—is to play without tension, utilizing weights and levers; only in this way is it possible to "sing" and give the right importance to melodic lines without tiring oneself or suffering through the act of playing. Piano masterclasses were also very useful to me, in some of which I was able to learn the wonderful Russian technique regarding weight distribution. I advise everyone to take advanced perfection courses; they are very expensive but there is much to learn. I am of the opinion that certain concert performance tricks can only be learned from those who are professional concert pianists. The fact remains, however, that there is always so much to learn and experiment with, so let's keep working hard and happy music.

I am fortunate enough to study with a concert pianist and it is bringing me many advantages. It has revolutionized my idea of music and technique. I have finally learned how to use the pedal in a certain way: imagine, I took the entrance exam for the bachelor's degree (why the bachelor's? because you make mi...stakes in life!!!) and the examiners were leaning down to look at my feet. Well, there were possible hypotheses: either the pedaling was terrible, or I was using it well, or I had nice shoes!!! With 95/100, first in the ranking, I truly believe it was the use of the pedal that they liked. The grade is not a boast for me, I am a very humble person according to those who know me, but it is the answer that the new "method" I am acquiring works!