interesting video on technique DOs & DON'Ts

pseudonym58

Pianist Greg Turner discusses some tutorial videos that demonstrate unhelpful and possibly dangerous techniques, as well as others that he finds useful (apologies if this video has been linked before; I found it worthwhile and thought others here might as well).

thepianoplayer416

The man is trying to tell you that it's best to learn from someone who graduated from a proper music college. Some of the advice you get from a techer in your neighborhood may not be sound advice.

Need to analyze each suggestion proposed by a music teacher if it's reasonable. Playing a piece above your level would help your progress but not something many levels higher sort of thing. Finder independence exercises is something to avoid since they encourage you to play with fingers effort than your shoulder, forearm & wrist as a unit.

pianoloverus

The advice in the video may or may not be good. It's important to remember that just because one graduated from a top conservatory does not mean one is a good teacher or even that one understands technique even if one has good technique(which can be assumed if one graduates from Juilliard). If you were an intermediate tennis player, do you think Jannick Sinner would be the best person to coach you?

pseudonym58

All opinions welcome, of course. I think of it more along the lines of having a finite amount of time and energy to devote to piano. Would I rather work on repertoire or divide my limited time between that and Hanon/Czerny, etc.?

LifelongBeginner

It was also interesting to see him critique Jazer Lee (who I always thought had good videos and a pleasant but no-nonsense style) and praise Piano Bestie (whose bite-sized and sped up for Tik Tok approach sometimes left me skeptical). It's a good reminder for me to ultimately judge the content more than the style or delivery.

BartK

LifelongBeginner It was also interesting to see him critique Jazer Lee (who I always thought had good videos and a pleasant but no-nonsense style) and praise Piano Bestie (whose bite-sized and sped up for Tik Tok approach sometimes left me skeptical). It's a good reminder for me to ultimately judge the content more than the style or delivery.

Jazer Lee's advice is generally sound if you're a beginner. Maybe that particular one wasn't so great but in general I think his advice is good.

Aaron Petit (the Feux Follets guy) has some very good ideas for practicing but also has some crazy ideas like in this video. Plus all his videos sound like a guru that knows all the "secrets" if you would only become a disciple and blindly follow him. That approach really puts me off.

The other ones I don't know, although I think I saw the last guy.

thepianoplayer416

There are online teachers who are also professional performers like Josh Wright & Robert Estrin. People don’t usually question their advice.

A while ago came across a teacher online from an Asian background. In a video she talked about the benefits of beginners learning to read notations with 2 staffs because the notes are shown exactly. Students don’t need to guess what to play. She suggested that students read music off 2 staffs for a while before using lead sheets that require knowledge of music theory. Precisely why some beginners would learn from lead sheets that they don’t need to read many notes. Students would use keyboard diagrams to learn the notes of chords, no guessing. Besides reading off sheet music exactly, people also learn to improvise around a theme. They’re not “guessing” notes but being creative.

There is Scott Houston who promotes the use of lead sheets and discourages adults from reading notations off 2 staffs as being too difficult and lacking creativity. He also suggested adults should avoid Classical music. On the other hand, many genres of music are available in the lead sheet format including Classical.

pianoloverus

thepianoplayer416 There are online teachers who are also professional performers like Josh Wright & Robert Estrin. People don’t usually question their advice.

Professional pianists are not always good teachers. They certainly don't always agree in terms of their advice, so if just accepts their advice that could lead to confusion. If two pianists give very different advice, they can't both be right. I think Josh Wright is a far more accomplished pianist and Robert Estrin.

thepianoplayer416

Jazer Lee would bring up the piece "River Flows in You" by Yiruma that many students want to learn since he is ethnic Korean living in Australia. It's a nice piece but not my favorite. His advice is generally sound but don't think he performs regularly as a concert pianist like Robert Estrin or Josh Wright.

TC3

Thanks much for sharing this. Lots to think about.

It's disheartening how little consensus there is about piano pedagogy, including (especially?!) among professional performers / teachers. It's hard to know whose advice to take seriously.

I appreciated his comments about those finger independence exercises. I absolutely HATE them. My whole body tenses up, and it feels really unnatural, unhealthy even. I decided long ago that I'm just not doing them, and if it ruins my piano playing, oh well! I probably wasn't headed for Carnegie Hall anyway ... 😃

Jane

pianoloverus Josh Wright is a far more accomplished pianist and Robert Estrin.

Josh Wright was accomplished enough to make it to the International Chopin Competition, although he was eliminated in the first round. (I intend that statement as a compliment.) wikipedia

He got to the international venue by virtue of winning 5th place in the US Chopin Competition (as well as the special prize for Mazurka). US

Sophia

I usually don’t watch those type of videos because you can go insane trying to follow everyone’s advice. I strongly believe in listening, maybe even trying it out for a little while and then use common sense on how to proceed.

If something starts to hurt physically or takes away my joy, I won’t keep doing it.

But if a piece of good advice helps me further along, then obviously it makes sense to try to follow that.

I also agree that a good pianist is not necessarily a good teacher, and visa versa.

My dad studied clarinet professionally and one piece of terrible advice from his conservatory teacher nearly cost him his career, so he learned the hard way not to be a blind follower.

TC3

Sophia My dad studied clarinet professionally and one piece of terrible advice from his conservatory teacher nearly cost him his career, so he learned the hard way not to be a blind follower.

I started college as a music major, upright bass. During high school I took lessons with the local music school bass instructor, who didn't really talk about technique at all. My college professor did talk about technique, in all the wrong ways. It almost certainly contributed to my RSI issues that caused me to drop out of music school (though I can't lay all the fault with him either), and it was only later that I realized how little he understand human physiology to give the advice that he did. As you can imagine, that contributes to a lot of skepticism on my part ... 🙁

thepianoplayer416

Everyday you come across at least 1 practice advice video from somebody. Many of the tips overlap from teacher to teacher.

Sophia

Great example TC 🙂 In my dad's case, his professor suddenly made him switch clarinet systems almost towards the end of his studies because it was "vastly superior". Of course he followed that advice, which cost him a lot of progress and effort to become equally fluent. He often lamented later that he wished he had stuck to the original system - but of course a student in those days (and probably still) didn't argue back with a professor. Eventually he got used to it and became a professional (first in a national orchestra and later as a teacher).

Nowadays we can get drowned in advice because everyone who ever touched a piano seems to have a Youtube channel - which is nice in a way. I really have learned a lot that way. Funny enough I have learned the most from you guys - my fellow piano aficionados here 🙂

But I still keep that little voice in the back of my head active to not just accept everything that is said, even if the "sayer" has a row of titles and letters behind their name 🙂