Looking for something to help you get back into your piano playing …I’d like to tell you about Play it again Piano. These are a couple of books I discovered aimed specifically at people coming back to piano after a break. I also reviewed them on my YouTube channel if you prefer to watch rather than read.
Memories of old
If you’re a returning pianist like myself, you’ve perhaps been frustrated by the lack of material available that is specifically tailored to us. There is a wealth of material available for the beginner and people on an unbroken journey along the pianistic pathway. However, we returning pianists are not beginners either from the Practical or Theoretical point of view so the vary basic material isn’t needed. Nonetheless, because it was often a long time ago when we last called on this knowledge, then we’re certainly very rusty.
Most of that Theory is lurking around somewhere in the back of our minds, we just need to fire those neurones. We don’t need, for example, to be shown how to ‘read’ music nor how to construct a scale of half and whole notes.
Similarly, our fingers remember a remarkable amount when we can just unlock those memories and let the music flow. I was flabbergasted to see that after perhaps 25+ years of not playing, I could almost remember the first part of Rachmaninof’s C Sharp Minor prelude (not to a performance standard of course but my fingers sort of knew where to go).
As a result, going right back to ‘beginner’ level really isn’t necessary (or enjoyable). We need something aimed more at jogging our memories.
For the past 3 years that I’ve been trying to re-learn, I’ve just been choosing pieces from either my piano past or new pieces that I’ve heard and liked. However, I really felt that I wanted something a little more structured to see if this progressive approach would help me re-build and then improve on my old abilities faster than my somewhat more haphazard method.
When researching, I came across a two book series by Melanie Spanswick. Play It Again, Piano Books 1 and 2 – ‘The perfect way to rediscover the piano’.
Play It Again, Piano Books 1 and 2 – the perfect way to rediscover the piano
I recognised Melanie’s name as she is a regular contributor to Pianist Magazine. After checking out the write up on these two books, I thought that Book 2 was probably more appropriate to me given that I was at Grade 8 level when I quit all those years ago and I’ve been trying to re-learn for about 3 years now.
The Book is essentially centred around 21 pieces (some well known, some not so familiar) starting around a Grade 5 or so level. The pieces are categorised as:
- Late Intermediate (Grades 5 to 6)
- Early Advanced (Grades 6 to 7)
- Advanced (Grades 7 to 8)
- Late Advanced (Grade 8 and above)
The Book starts with a short introduction covering some reminders on basic piano technique (such as posture, hand positions and the like), advice on warming up and sight reading and then scales and arpeggio tips.
What I like here is that it is a ‘short introduction’ … just the essentials aimed at reminding someone of things they have already learned – albeit many years ago.
Some of these pieces – even in the Late Advanced section – I did learn all those years ago so are old friends with whom I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself. However, many others are totally new to me.
With each individual piece, Melanie first explains which areas of piano technique that piece will help to improve.
Next she provides a set of Practice Techniques to use for each piece and finally gives some ideas around Interpretation. Again, the book is written at a level of suggesting and reminding rather than trying to go back to first principles.
Solfeggietto in C Minor
Melanie’s Advice
To illustrate, let’s take a look at her advice for CPE Bach’s Solfeggietto in C Minor. This is the first piece in the book – classified as Late Intermediate.
Melanie introduces this piece as being designed to improve technique around:
- Finger strength
- Articulation
- Keyboard Geography
Her first piece of advice is to practice the Scale and Arpeggio of C Minor – so the scale and arpeggio of the Key. I’d recommend equally looking at G Minor and F Minor ones as the opening theme in C Minor is later repeated in each of these keys
Then, Melanie recommends taking just the first four bars extremely slowly but using a variety of touches and rhythms – she gives four examples but reminds there are many possibilities.
I then took these exact same patterns and practiced the G Minor and F Minor sections too.
Next, Melanie goes on to indicate ways of practicing Hands Separately (both left and right) and Hands Together. I found her advice here was mostly aimed at ensuring an evenness of touch and reminding us to use more than just our fingers to get this evenness. She specifically suggests here to use rotation from the wrist.
I won’t go into everything – rather let you discover for yourself when you get the book..
I found that Melanie’s advice was absolutely spot on to get me started. Having some solid ideas to use initially is really helpful. Whilst I was going through the initial ‘learning’ process (so basically getting to grips with the notes so I can play without hesitation), I used all of her techniques on small sections over a period of about a month – taking me about 7 hours all in all until I felt I knew it end to end without hesitation.
My own practice additions
However, we all have different issues with our playing – some things we find easy (or less difficult) and others not so. In this particular piece, Melanie calls out the ‘Leaps’ as an area for focus – however luckily for me these never felt like an issue (and I sort of didn’t really notice them so much).
However, my basic passagework has always been lousy. Playing scale type passages with evenness has always been difficult for me – even though I did all my scales right up to Grade 8. Therefore, I decided to create a set of exercises specifically around the ‘scale and turn’ part in the main theme.
So, each day, I have spent 5 or so minutes drilling this in the 3 different keys (but especially in G Minor and F Minor). I spent about 4 hours over a period of 2 months doing this.
Then, for the remainder of my Solfegietto practice I would play through slowly end to end. Here I use the mixture of rhythms touches I highlighted earlier when learning the first 4 bars. I rarely do end to end as part of my practice routine these days to allow me more time to focus on problem areas. However, given this is such a short piece, then I think there is little time to be gained from splitting it down too much. Nonetheless, I’ve spent time drilling individual areas that weren’t as smooth as others (such as the one octave arpeggio section) whenever I felt a wrong or uneven notes start to creep in.
Finally, I finish off by playing through once at a faster tempo (although taking care not to go so fast that it ‘feels’ out of control).
So far, I’ve put in 9 hours work over the last 2 months with this set of exercises. This brings my total practice time up to about 20 hours.
Is done better than perfect?
I now have it to a ‘reasonable’ standard – not perfect by any means. Do I now put this to one side (I’m up to almost 20 hours working on it) and move on?
There is a school of thought that says you should practice until you ‘can’t get it wrong’. There’s equally another that says ‘done is better than perfect’.
I’m more a subscriber to the second at the moment … I think you get into a diminishing returns scenario at a certain point. Therefore, it’s best to park something, move on and then come back to it maybe even months later.
In Summary
In short, I highly recommend this book if you’re looking for adding some more structure to your practice. It will help gradually re-building and improving technique through a set of progressively more difficult pieces.
As I progress through the pieces, I’ll create short posts on each one for you so you can see how I’ve tailored the advice to my own technique level.
For me, the only downside is that there is no ‘Kindle’ edition … I know many people like a physical book. However I find it so much more convenient simply to have everything on my iPad. This way I can use it whenever I like and wherever I am. Let’s hope Melanie’s publisher adds this option at some point.
Let me know how you find the book if you buy it.
