My thoughts on learning new pieces, and a Day 1 practice video!

Rubens

Alright I'm sick and bored, so decided against my best judgment to post a very short practice video of me starting to learn a new piece, for the first time ever. What a humbling experience to show what happens at the very beginning of the process! I guess I feel, uh, touched for the very first time, haha. Do you recognize the piece? Probably not, because the rhythm is so butchered here (deliberately! more on this below):

But there is method in this madness. Firstly I want to show how much of a struggle it is to learn a new piece, especially one like this, regardless of the years of training, and that it is expected/ok to sound absolutely atrocious at this stage. So the idea is to strive for the "right kind of atrocity", one that would lead to mastering the piece the most efficiently, which leads me to the second point.

Specifically, I am showing in the video a grouping method that has worked very well for me in learning any new piece. Specifically, I deliberately make a pause at every downbeat at the beginning and sometimes middle of each bar. The music sounds distorted but that's part of the (tedious?) learning process. With time, those "hesitations" go away. And the beauty of it is that, even before that, the music starts to sound kind of good as those pauses get shorter because those mini pauses are often idiomatic to the musical expression of the piece, albeit to a much smaller extent than the atrocity that you see in the video (it's Day 1, bear with me). This is an element of the musical principle of "forward motion" proposed by the great (jazz!) pianist and educator Hal Galper (please read on this, as this has changed my piano journey for the best). Another advantage of this learning device is that I don't need to practice with other kinds of groupings to eventually play the piece well. Granted, I may learn the piece faster if I did, but there is a limit to the tediousness that one can endure, and it would be deleterious if it means practicing less.

So I hope this helps. This is probably the fever speaking more than anything. And no, there will be no Day 2+ videos! [Late edit: I lied, sorry!]

P.s. There are certain members that I ignore. You know who you are, so please don't bother. Peace!

twocats

Rubens Specifically, I am showing in the video a grouping method that has worked very well for me in learning any new piece.

That makes sense to me, it's like when you learn phone numbers as groups of smaller numbers it's much easier than trying to learn a 7 or 10 digit number all at once!

rsl12

Is this Scriabin 8/12? Only the ending sounds familiar!! What kind of exercise is this?? Or is there an alternate version that I'm not aware of?

If that's what you are doing, I hope you have fun with it! Learning was slow, performing is painful as lactic acid accumulates in your arms, but pain matches the mood of the piece and my forearms grew an inch thicker as a result.

PS. I don't think beginners will think this sounds atrocious. I certainly don't. They might say things like "you think you know how we BBBs struggle, but you have no idea."

Rubens

rsl12

Good guess! It's indeed that Etude, but his second version that not many people know.
Learning new music is a mentally painful process, but the reward is immense of course. And kudos on the Popeye forearms!😆

rsl12

Oo, just took a listen. Very different! It still looks like it could be painful, but you're going to have to hide your pain since the mood is less so!!!

PS. My forearms have since deflated.

Rubens

rsl12
The pain is indeed less overt in this version. There is a sweetness to it but I think it's deceptive, the way sometimes a fruit can taste sweeter when it's rotten (don't try, I did). There is a "decadent" character that I really like about this version. In fact the reason I'm learning it is because I will go see my Josephine overseas next month and she has recently acquired a Blüthner that has the perfect tone for this piece.
Don't despair about the forearms. My bodybuilding days are long gone and mine are probably smaller than yours now.

Josephine

Rubens

I can't wait to hear you play it on the Blüthner!

rsl12

Rubens I will go see my Josephine overseas next month

I just noticed this. You're going to learn this in less than two months?? Well, your 1-day progress was very good, so probably you can pull it off!

pianoloverus

Can you explain some more about the purpose of taking the breaks at the beginning of each measure or at other places?

thepianoplayer416

Definitely the way I'd learn a difficult piece.

If you find this way of learning useful, you can even turn your "practice" into a "teaching" video. Do it in a tutorial format like you're a teacher. Show people who want to learn this piece or any other piece step by step how you'd start. Will get a big audience for sure...

pianoloverus

Is this approach used just while learning the notes and/or just in the first few days of learning? If so, It might make things easier for some people because it gives one a little extra time to read ahead (although that wouldn't help practicing one's sight reading skills).

Once one has learned the notes, I don't see any purpose of pausing at the end of each measure, and as far as I can tell none has been given yet. The standard way to practice a piece once one has learned the notes and the way almost universally recommended is to repeatedly practice small sections of the piece. Granted, this can become boring so I agree the approach in the video can at least avoid that problem. OTOH If the approach in the video is used during the entire process of learning a piece, it becomes the equivalent of playing the piece from beginning to end over and over which is usually strongly NOT recommend as a good approach.
Or is this approach some way to memorize a piece as one person suggested? Or....?

pseudonym58

I'm not familiar with this piece, but if I wanted to learn it, I would:

Play it slowly at mp, taking time wherever necessary and not worrying about keeping a constant rhythm or tempo.
The same, but this time attempting to keep a consistent rhythm and tempo.
Play a bit louder but still at the same slow tempo.
Gradually increase the tempo through many repetitions.

I wouldn't want to overwork my muscles or tendons, etc., so I would hold off on playing forcefully until I felt confident about playing the notes consistently with the correct rhythm.

That's my two cents, anyway. Others will certainly have methods that work better for themselves.

Rubens

pseudonym58

Agree in part:

About point 1. I don't think I'd find the mf thing useful, but I haven't tried that. Also my dynamic range is all on the softer side (my own musical preference), and have never felt physical pain from playing since my first training years, for what it's worth.
Agree about not worrying about steadiness at first. 👍

About points 2. and 3., I don't find these to be helpful for me but I haven't tried deliberately practicing with modified dynamics. As for point no.2, see my next comment.

About point 4., Agreed. But I will add that the way I gain speed is precisely by practicing with the groupings that I discussed in the OP. After a while I find that I can play at final tempi AND steadily. I acquire this by practicing the groupings at various extents, from barely perceptible to extreme. Curiously, afterwards I don't find it more helpful to practice at steady tempi.

This is all my opinion of course. Who knows, maybe I'd learn my pieces faster if I added all your points above in addition to my practice methods, but personally I would find it tedious to do. Besides I don't mind learning my pieces at my current pace.

twocats

Rubens I use this approach sometimes and it also works for me, you just reminded me to do it more often 🙂

Rubens Also my dynamic range is all on the softer side (my own musical preference)

I'm surprised at this, I would have thought you have fun playing big and loud! Do you mean just for practice?

keystring

Not much to add, except that what I listened to made sense to me. Would you vary the approach, say have more than one approach or variants of it, according to the piece and its demands?

I'm thinking that this video may be important for some learners as a general idea, because so often the perception will be to play through ever larger sections but which are to be perfect in the form of the desired final stage. This is a different concept, and important if not known.

I'm assuming that you are more or less fully trained, already have the technique. For someone like myself: as a child I learned piano self-taught and without ever seeing a model and with limited types of repertoire, so I am acquiring technique and fixing a whole bunch of nonsense. My practise includes getting, especially, at physical technical things. Here I might alter the music, practise "the thing", then add notes or rhythms or whatever back in - it's even more "distorted". The idea of distortion which becomes the real thing is thus not unfamiliar.

Rubens

keystring
I rarely vary from my approach!
I will never consider myself fully trained. I consider that my skills are what is expected from an average person who has gone through formal training up until conservatory level, quit playing for a few years then resumed a few years later, with private lessons. I was just pleasantly surprised that I hadn't lost a step from stopping all those years! I have been participating in a few competitions lately to prove it to myself, only small ones because I am unwilling and probably unable to build and maintain a large repertoire. I did win a few gold prizes for what it's worth, and will probably stop competing now and just record for fun. Why am I telling my life story? Sorry.

Rubens

twocats
Always, not just for practice! During my first years I was definitely the opposite but since then I have been averse to loud sounds. So I try to play my loud dynamics more in terms of character/color/style/whatever than in actual volume/decibel. Of course my f will be louder than my p (duh), but maybe to a lesser extent than most players. I will never project my sound enough for big halls, nor am I interested to. Been there done that.

Rubens

twocats

twocats I use this approach sometimes and it also works for me, you just reminded me to do it more often 🙂

It's actually not that easy to do in the first stages of learning a piece! Focusing on groups of notes rather than on single notes is taxing mentally, which makes it very tempting to focus on single notes again, and that's how we waste time. So I force myself to keep focusing on groups. Each group is considered a unit. Early in the process all units will be played very hesitantly. When I stumble into a particularly bad one (compared to the others) I would repeat it a few times until it sounds a bit less hesitant, before proceeding to the next. I find that by doing that I am able to reach an acceptable level of proficiency in a fairly short time.

Rubens

rsl12
I'm aiming for a month actually. Back in the day the expectation was two weeks. No más, as they say south of the border! And I'll probably take more than a month anyway. The joys of being an amateur!

twocats

Rubens Back in the day the expectation was two weeks.

Yeah, no 😬

I'm giving myself a year to learn my big pieces! That feels like the right amount of time 😂