This post is to go with my YouTube Video comparing Piano Practice to baking a Layer Cake and forms an essential aspect of my approach on how to practice piano effectively.
I often want to tackle pieces that are way beyond my current technical level and I think it is ok for us to learn pieces that are ‘too difficult’. However, this means that by definition I need to gain the technique which I will need in order to be able to manage the new piece.
There is definitely a school of thought that says you can build technique through Scales and Arpeggios, by spending hours going over Hanon and Czerny. I’m not saying that you can’t take that approach, however, I think there is another way.
I’ve discussed before on my blog my view of the value of Scales and Arpeggios to the returning pianist . Have a read … you’ll see I don’t really get the point of doing them and so they are not part of my practice regime. I did hundreds of hours of them back in the day so I certainly know them all – I just no longer practice them.
Practice should be enjoyable
As a returning pianist, I’m also not really interested in trying to learn ‘simple’ repertoire. I have a recollection of being able to play at a certain level so want to play things that are at least at that level – if not beyond. Equally, I also have a very limited amount of time to practice so devoting lots of that time to Scales, Hanon or pieces that don’t inspire me just isn’t for me. Perhaps this is the wrong approach but time will tell.
Louis Kentner (I got this quote from Graham Fitch’s PianoPractice Series) once said that “There is no such thing as a Difficult Piece. A piece is either impossible – or it is easy. The process whereby it migrates from one category to the other is known as practicing”. This is what I believe forms the three stages of learning.
At any one point in time, I have a set of longer term projects that I think might take me up to a year to learn. I also try to have one or two things that I think I should be able to get reasonably under control within a month or two assuming I can practice for about an hour a day.
Peeling an onion?
In my day job, I’m an IT Program Manager. When explaining to clients why things are taking time and the results are not immediate, we use the analogy of peeling an onion. The story is that for any individual problem, it’s like peeling that onion. As you fix one thing, you reveal another problem underneath and it can take some time to get to the real root cause.
I always used to tackle my piano repertoire by just plugging away, often hoping problems would just solve themselves. However, as I pointed out in my article about whether or not we are talented enough to learn piano, this approach will eventually stop working.
From onions to cakes
I’ve now adopted a different way of practicing that brought to mind the Layer Cake analogy. So, rather hammering through, I pro-actively break down my problems into things that I’ll be able to tackle more easily, practice those until they are solid, and then add on the next layer.
I’m not saying I don’t need to figuratively speaking peel onions as I progress, but with proper planning I seem to spend less time now crying over them!
At the moment, my long term projects are:
- Liebestraum No. 3
- Chopin Op 25. No. 2 (the Bees)
- Rachmaninov 18th Variation on a Theme of Paganini
Each of these has sections that I simply can’t play and so I need to work on individual difficulties in isolation, but in such a way that I can progressively build on them to get to the desired result.
Breaking down ‘difficult’ into a number of specific challenges
In my video I go through just bars 41 to 43 of Liebestraum- where the main melody comes back in a fortissimo E Major. This same idea comes back a few measures later too.
This section has a few challenges for me:
- Strong, clear octaves – mine have never been great
- Jumps – with the hands first jumping away from each other
- Jumps – with the hands jumping towards each other
- It is also usually played fairly quickly (which for me makes it even more problematic).
Create exercises to practice the difficulty
When I was practising this piece, I devoted 5 or so minutes each day to a few exercises around just these 3 bars.
Layer 1
I also initially worked Measure by Measure as I talk about in my Four Step Piano Process.
For my first exercises, rather than using an arpeggio, I used a block chord in the centre and then practice jumping both inwards from the octaves to that chord and outwards from the chord to the octaves.
It’s important to stick with this until it feels easy and we can mange all 3 measures together in this way.
Layer 2
Next, I added the 4th Finger of the LH where the right hand isn’t playing such as (prior to jumping to the D Natural and then the C Sharp octaves in the Left Hand). This is to ensure my hands are used to moving at slightly different times here (the Right Hand needs to make the jump first alone with the Left Hand jumping at the last moment).
Next, I do variations where I play all the notes but using two different rhythm patterns.
Layer 3
I use a first rhythm so that I insert a slight pause before jumping from the octave to the broken chord.
So I am practicing the outward jump closer to performance tempo with a pause before the inward jump.
Layer 4
Then a second rhythm that inserts a pause just before returning to the octave.
So, I am practising the inward jump closer to performance tempo but the outward jump after a pause.
You can also follow this in the video – go straight to about 7 minutes 25 seconds to get straight to this part.
Basically, here I’m focussing on practicing each individual difficulty in context, but in a way that separates them from the remainder without losing the context – so here I will have built it up in several different layers. Our final layer is getting to the ‘as written version’.
Layer 5
Finally, its simply a case of removing the pause and adding the measures together and we’ve done it!
Advantages
This has 3 great advantages
- We spend more time practicing the ‘right notes’ rather than ‘wrong ones’ (because it’s a little easier to play this way)
- Our brain is able to focus on one technical problem at a time
- we are already practicing closer to a ‘performance speed’ with the specific element on which you are focussing
I’ve applied this same technique to many pieces over the years which is why it is an important part of my approach on how to practice piano effectively.
