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There is no
substitute for practice. By
spending a couple of hours with
your instrument every day you
develop a special relationship
with it.
You need to have
a regular practice routine that
contains certain constant
elements (such as warm-up
exercises) as well as variable
elements that address your
current avenue of study. And
performing doesn't count as
practice. Although playing
gigs, performing in Church or
for your personal enjoyment is
an essential part of your
musical development, it won't
replace time in the practice
room.
There are times,
however, when you just can't
maintain a regular practice
routine. All the other elements
of your life crowd in and you
find you have to grab a spare
hour of practice wherever you
can. It seems futile to embark
on any long-range practice
projects that will require weeks
or months of steady work,
because you know it won't
happen.
So should you
give up?
Must you put off
the idea of improving your
musicianship until you have more
time (and are you sure that time
will come)? Here's an
alternative - I call it
"target bombing."
You have an hour to practice.
Find something to practice that
is not currently in your
arsenal. It could be a lick, a
scale, a set of chord voicings,
a section of a tune, a
transcribed solo, anything.
But this is important:
it must be small. Don't set a
general goal (e.g., mastering
the McCoy Tyner style of
pentatonic scale
improvisation). Instead, select
a little piece of business (such
as a particular pentatonic lick
to be learned in 12 keys).
Assume that this is the only
opportunity you'll have to learn
this particular item. Tomorrow
you'll move on to something
else.
Approach the hour's practice
with this attitude:
"What can I do within the next
hour to learn to play piano in
one very small but measurable
way?"
More specifically, "What can I
do to learn to piano so that it
will be self-reinforcing, so
that it will immediately begin
to show up in my actual
performances?"
Your plan is to devour this one
small thing so completely that
it can't slip away.
-
If it's a lick, make it a
short one and learn it in
several keys. Work out the
fingering.
-
Learn to play it over random
ii-V progressions.
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Solo over a few tunes and
work that lick in wherever
you can.
-
If it's a chord voicing,
practice it in 12 keys, work
it into tunes, and make sure
you can make smooth
transitions to and from
other voicings.
If you don't get it by the end
of the hour, you lose it
forever. But if you ingest it
fully enough, then it will
immediately begin to show up in
your performances. It will
become a small element of your
style and you'll never lose
it.
This is target bombing. It's
intense, focused, and can be
tremendously effective and
satisfying. Although at first
it may be a method that you use
because you can't find time for
the more traditional,
routine-oriented practice, you
may find it so successful and
fun that you make it your
primary approach.
After all, you climb a mountain
with thousands of small steps.
Take each step so well that you
never have to take it again.
I've seen this approach work
wonders for many students, and I
use it all the time myself.
I've also seen it fail miserably
for others. It requires a type
of tunnel vision, a willingness
to gnaw on one thing for one
hour without letting other
concerns intrude.
You might feel as if you are
learning to play piano when you
should be working or that
focusing on a tiny area is not
productive when there are so
many major areas to be covered.
But once you successfully target
bomb a few small items, you'll
realize the needlessness of your
concerns.
Any way, try this method on -
see if it fits your style.
Learn to Play
Piano - Preparing to Practice
When the practicing "blahs"
strike, you just need an
attitude adjustment. You don't
have to sweat blood to practice
well. You don't even have to
think of it as work, or duty, or
even something that you ought to
do.
Stop a minute and think about
it. You like music, and you want
to learn to play piano
with some special piece
that really means something to
you. You want it to sound
through you - right through your
fingertips.
Okay? Well, you practice it to
fulfill that desire, not to
frustrate it.
Pause here and ask yourself some
questions:
What if you could look at a
piece of music for the first
time, and play it correctly
straight off, just as fine as
you please?
How would you feel about
practicing and learning
to play piano then?
Or, what if you were practicing
for the Olympic swim meet next
year, and felt deep down that
you had a chance? How would you
feel then about the training?
Would you plunge into it each
morning?
What if you were interrupted at
a good point in yesterday's
practicing? What if you had just
about broken through a tough
spot when you had to stop? Would
you want to get back to it today
as soon as possible?
You answer those questions,
honestly, for yourself. There
are ways to say "YES!" every
day.
But, first, you've got to stop
blaming yourself.
You don't have to be perfect
every time.
You don't have to be the best
player, today. And you don't
have to listen to what other
people say about your playing -
people who are only half
listening, and don't care the
way you do.
Put all that out of your mind.
What matters is your desire to
learn to play piano
as well as possible.
Just start with playing - one
note after another, and keep
going. As the Chinese say, "A
journey of a thousand miles
begins with the first, step."
And, if the very first step
leads to the first slip, be glad
for it. You can't, repeat,
cannot learn without mistakes!
Now, start to think more
personally about your
instrument.
Learning to play
piano,
like the guitar, is a "touchy"
instrument. Touch it, and you
both produce and color its
tones, like a potter molding
clay. Think of the keys, all
gleaming white, as the "skin" of
the piano; you can either please
them or hurt them. Stroke them,
and the sound will come out
mellow and purring. Poke them,
and the sound will either "bark"
sharply or woodenly "thud."
Stop thinking of yourself as
playing "on" or "at" the piano.
Rather, think of the instrument
as an extension of your own
body. When an artificial leg is
fitted to an amputee, he is then
taught to walk with it.
Gradually, it feels more natural
- more like his own leg walking.
The French call the keys "les
touches," or
"touch-points" - as if the
keys, not you, were doing the
feeling.
Every musician wants to
personalize this instrument.
Take a look at the vocalist who
hugs his guitar, or without a
guitar, woos his microphone, or,
without a microphone, simply
woos the audience?
Every musician seeks to make his
instrument an extension of his
own body, the tool he or she
needs to put across the strong
feelings he as for the music.
Nadia Boulanger, one of the
greatest teachers, put it best:
"Don't speak to me of talent;
speak to me of desire."
Go to the piano or keyboard not
to reproduce a piece, but to
experiment with your best way to
bring out what is there. There
is no one right way to play a
piece - no matter how loudly
some people protest that there
is.
Artists in fact, vary greatly,
and audiences return again and
again to hear the same piece, as
played by pianist X or pianist
Y. You simply cannot play a
piece twice the same way. Try
it!
Here's how to practice an
exercise or a song:
Six quietly, upright and relaxed
Hear the music in your head:
hear it better than life. Sense
its movement and pulse rolling
through you, turning and
adjusting your own pulse, you
are the prime "instrument" of
this music - sitting there
alert, tuned by silence,
vibrating to is rhythm, lending
it your own life entirely.
As you feel the music filling
you, heart and soul, you will
know that it is getting ready to
be born.
When it has stirred you, lift
your hands to the keyboard. This
is the reason you wanted to play
in the first place: to bring
alive what has already moved
you. And, suddenly, by centering
your focus, you've turned
practicing from a duty into an
attraction.
Learn to Play Piano as Fast as
Possible?
One of the rules of
practicing we all hear over and
over is "Be sure to practice
slowly." (I'm guilty of this
too!) Often the result of this
is a feeling of inhibition,
which leads to tedium.
Picture yourself filled with
excitement and yearning in
setting out to learn a new
piece. Suddenly a voice from the
darkness whispers: "Don't
touch those keys! Sit
erect, learn to play
slowly, stay strictly in
time, watch that
fingering..." and your smile
is gone. I'm beginning to feel a
cramp just talking about it.
The fact is, a certain amount
of slow practice and attention
to small scale detail is
absolutely necessary. But there
is something lacking in the
approach so many of us have
taken; we set out to make music,
and end up playing what amounts
to no more than a series of
sterile exercises.
How can we overcome this
problem?
First of all, it's important
to remember that music comes to
life through shading,
dynamics, differences in
touch, the shapes of its
phrases, the rhythmic vitality
that is so much a part of the
right tempo. These qualities are
all missing in a slow, rigid
"practice" version of a piece.
They are just as essential as
correct fingering, and they
don't come across without
careful work.
So, perhaps we should change
that rule from "Be sure to
practice slowly" to "Practice as
fast as possible." But Wait!
This requires some further
discussion. The slow part of
practice helps teach the fingers
where to go, and makes it mush
easier to learn the work. But in
order to learn how to create
music, how to make the piece
sing—we must practice it at a
tempo that will help reveal
musical relationships and
subtleties of form.
Pianists must have the
opportunity to experiment with
touch and phrasing while
practicing, and there is little
chance of boredom when so many
exciting elements are introduced
to the practice session.
In my E-book, I've included
many basic exercises with
background music to assist you
in acquiring this level of
keyboard performance. In other
words, you will be practicing
with other instrumentalists. You
will hear the drums, bass and an
unobtrusive piano accompaniment
that provides an harmonic
blanket for YOU to practice your
course material!
Ideally, then, both ways of
practicing should be used!
First, we should practice
slowly enough to learn the notes
and fingerings. Then, we should
"practice as fast as possible";
that is, as fast as we can
without losing control of the
basics we learned in slow
practice.
Here' how this would work.
Take a short part of the piece;
you might choose a four- or
eight-measure phrase. Practice
it slowly. When you feel
comfortable with the music,
increase the tempo. Don't wait
until you've practiced the
entire work slowly. In this way,
at each sitting you'll get to
learn a little section, bring it
up to tempo, and feel into what
is needed to bring it to life.
At the next sitting, work on
the next four or eight measure.
When you have that section
brought up to tempo, combine it
with the first section. Now, you
will begin to understand how the
phrases relate to each other.
You can introduce the idea of
dynamic shading and decide which
lines to bring out at a given
moment. In fact, you will be
making real, exciting music—even
before you've learned the whole
piece!
As you go on in this way, you
will probably change your mind
about how to play the work as
new sections are added. This is
part of the process of discovery
and experimentation. Concert
artists are always
re-interpreting, because they
think about these elements all
the time.
So learn to play
piano as slowly as you
need to; but as fast as you are
able.
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