An essential piano practice strategy is to keep it simple! We are often are advised to use the 3 S’s whilst practising piano. That is to say:
- Slowly (slow things right down)
- Separately (practice hands separately)
- Sections (practice in small sections)
All three of these piano practice strategies have one thing in common – they are based on ‘simplification’. After all, playing something slowly is simpler than playing it quickly. Practising hands separately is equally much simpler than using both hands at the same time. Then, of course, small sections are also simpler to master than an entire piece.
Being able to simplify things is essential when a piece is outside our current skill level. This will enable us to work on it in an error free way whilst we build up our skills to play it as written.
Other ways to keep it simple
Whilst I’m a firm believer in each of these piano practice strategies, many others exist and, as amateur pianists, we owe it to ourselves to investigate alternative ways of following this golden rule. Keep it simple!
Any piano practice strategy that is ultimately based on making things ‘simpler’ is very likely to be a winner. Of course, there is no ‘one size fits all’ with piano practice. The best way to approach any piece of music is going to be contingent on two things. First, the piece of music itself. Some pieces might suit a particular piano practice strategy and others not. Secondly, of course, we need to consider our own skills – we need to simplify in a way that helps us build new skills.
I released a video tutorial on Liszt’s Romance S.169 recently. In this tutorial I demonstrated a way of simplifying the middle section for practice purposes. The left hand here is what most people will find challenging with the piece (I certainly did). However, rather than simply repeating the left hand slowly, I adopted a different simplification approach.
Simplifying Liszt Romance
When working out our options, our first port of call is of course the pattern of notes. On careful examination of the score, we can see that we need to regularly change fingers on the same note in the left hand. Moreover, Liszt has chosen to notate in a way that makes it clear he wants an agitated feel rather than buttery smooth arpeggios.
The way I opted to finger this was to play the bass note with my pinky followed by two groups of 3.
Step 1
Therefore, an excellent way of practising the left hand initially is to simply use block chords. These help the hand get used to both the position changes and the shape of the notes under the hand. Moreover, it is infinitely more simple to play block chords than the entire pattern of notes.
Step 2
Equally, once we are comfortable with the left hand as block chords here, we can then move into playing it Hands Together – keeping the left hand as block chords.
Of course, simply practising like this will never actually prepare you to ‘play’ the notes as written. However, it gets you started on the journey.
Step 3
Our next option then is to play only part of the arpeggio and practice this just in the left hand. In this particular piece, for practice purposes, I opted in fact to play each bar twice. First as block chords and then again with the upward part of the pattern. Keeping a steady pulse of 3 to the bar, this again is simpler than the full pattern. Playing like this our left hand has much more time to move back to the bass note for the next bar.
Step 4
Again, once we are comfortable we can put both hands together with this new simplified left hand pattern. This further consolidates our playing whilst still keeping it relatively ‘simple’.
Step 5
As a final practice stage, I opted to play each bar 3 times in succession. Once as block chords, next as the simplified upward pattern and finally as written. You’ll find that doing this still feels much easier than simply playing the left hand as written.
Putting it all together
Once we have been through these intermediate stages, moving to practising the notes as written, even hands separately, miraculously becomes much simpler to do. Ultimately, that is of course the object of the exercise. We are trying to get ourselves to the point that we can actually practice something free of wrong notes and unwanted bumps. I’ve linked the video below for you so that you can see this demonstrated.
The key thing here is to think of each thing as being a ‘stage’. We should not move on to the next stage before we feel that the current one is easy to play. Paraphrasing Louis Kentner (as quoted by Graham Fitch in his Practice eBook Series) – something is either easy to play or impossible. The process by which it moves from one category to another is called practice.
What other options to add to the 3 S’s can you think of to use with the pieces you are practising? Let me know!
