How To Practice the Piano 3 Part Series There are 3 separate skills in learning to play the piano: • Memorizing • Sight Reading • Improvising You can become quite proficient in one or two of these skills and be completely deficient in others. I
When you hear your favorite singer, you know who it is instantly by the voice. Even listening to wind players and string players, you often can identify the player by the tone. What about piano? Can you tell who is playing just from the sound they ge
Welcome to Part 2 in our series on the Chopin G minor Ballade. In Part 1 we discussed how the middle section of this piece requires you to switch your techniques rapidly. We are going to cover the next section which doesn’t get any easier. I’ll provide some tips on how to approach this section and practice techniques that will help you master it.
Let’s discuss this first section:
With the right hand, you have a very quick passage that requires a lot of finger work. As I’ve recommended in the past lesson, try taking the passage slowly and working your way up to speed. Start at a comfortable speed and practice with the metronome. Once you have the section down without any issues turn the metronome speed up one notch and start again. Repeat this process until you have the section up to speed. Make sure that you delineate all notes clearly.
Let’s focus now on the left-hand, which has this particular rhythm:
It’s very snappy and precise and you want to bring out the rhythm of this particular section against the fast passage in the right hand. As always I recommend slow practice but in this particular section, I recommend exaggerating the rhythm. Instead of playing the eighth notes as written, play them as sixteenth notes.
So right here, for example, you can wait an extra sixteenth rest and play the following note as a sixteenth note instead of an eighth note as written. Now why would you want to play the rhythm wrong and not as written? Well, this is only for your slow practice. When the piece gets up to full speed sometimes the eighth notes can sound limp and you want to accentuate the snappy rhythm of these notes. The best way to do this is to wait and play these as sixteenth notes instead of in your slow practice. Once you get this section up to speed, you will be prepared to play these notes quickly enough; you will notice the difference in your playing.
Let’s go on to the next section in this piece:
This section is best practiced by playing two-note groups together in the right hand. Once you start to get comfortable in your slow practice you can break up these chords and play the notes as written. Why should you practice this section in chords? Because you can train your fingers to be in the right position before you have to play the notes. Doing this will greatly benefit your finger positions and allow you to be much more comfortable when playing up to tempo.
I hope this has been helpful to you, there will be more tips coming soon. As always if you have any questions please feel free to email or call us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729.
Welcome to Part 2 in our series on the Chopin G minor Ballade. In Part 1 we discussed how the middle section of this piece requires you to switch your techniques rapidly. We are going to cover the next section which doesn’t get any easier. I’ll p
Welcome to our first in a multiple part series on how to approach the Chopin G Minor Ballade. This is an amazing piece of music that exemplifies the manic emotions of Frédéric Chopin swinging from points of incredibly low despair to the heights of ecstasy. Today we are going to discuss some of the middle section because there are a number of techniques that come one after another very quickly.
You are probably familiar with the big heroic middle section that restates the theme and ends with a flurry of octaves.
Let’s start on the descending diminished chord:
The best way to practice this section is to play it slowly and practice getting your fingers in the right place instantly. So, I suggest playing just a few notes at a time and stopping when the hand changes position. For example here:
Play the first few notes and practice getting your hand in the right position above the chord, but don’t play it. Keep playing the passage over and over and stopping until you can get your hand in the right position over the chord in a relaxed manner. You will want to continue doing this for each subsequent group.
If you practice this way you learn to play this passage with much more fluidity and you’ll be ready for each subsequent hand position before you need to play. You need to be able to play each section with ease and this technique is a great way to achieve this.
The next section we are going to discuss will provide a great example of how to be over note groups, in this case, 2 note groups following the bottom notes going up the scale.
You can also practice these 2 notes groups in different rhythms. By practicing in two-note groups, it will force you to come up with a fingering that will accommodate the passage enabling a smooth execution of the passage. After playing this section in two-note groups and getting 100% comfortable with it, breaking it up as it’s written will be almost effortless.
In the next section you can use another technique:
This section is difficult because you have two completely different techniques in each hand. In the right hand, you will want to play fast and light and in the left hand, you will want to delineate the phrasing clearly.
In the right hand, it’s best to practice with the metronome and gradually get your playing up to speed. Start at a slower tempo and continue to play the section until you are absolutely comfortable. When you feel confident in your playing, put the metronome up one notch and practice it again until you are absolutely comfortable. Keep doing this until you are able to play the passage up to speed without issues. As you get faster, concentrate on lightening up your fingers and keep them very close to the keys.
For the left hand, you will want to use a similar technique that we discussed in the first section of this lesson and that is getting your hands over the next set of notes instantly. Keep practicing and stopping before the next group of notes. Practice getting your hands and fingers in the correct position before you play the notes. Keep practicing over and over until your hands and fingers go to the correct notes almost instantly and effortlessly.
Combine the hands once you feel confident with each individually. Remember to keep your right-hand fingers very close to the keys. This section is very tricky because you have two different techniques in each hand. That is why practicing hands separately first is so effective in solving the technical issues.
Stay tuned because next time we will cover the next section of this piece and discuss a new set of techniques. Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
Welcome to our first in a multiple part series on how to approach the Chopin G Minor Ballade. This is an amazing piece of music that exemplifies the manic emotions of Frédéric Chopin swinging from points of incredibly low despair to the heights of
Welcome to our ongoing series covering Bach’s French Suites. Last time we covered the Allemande section of the 5th French Suite in G major. Today we will be covering the 2nd movement, the Courante, which is a very difficult movement.
The biggest thing I recommend is playing the eighth notes staccato and the sixteenth notes legato. Not only does this add more energy to the piece but it actually allows you to play the notes a bit slower – when you play the staccato short it gives the impression of a faster tempo than what you are actually playing!
This is actually a trick I learned from listening to Vladimir Horowitz many years ago. He would play notes so cleanly and detached that it sounded faster than everyone else. If you put a metronome to his music though you would realize that this wasn’t always the case.
So why is this technique so effective. One of the reasons is because it brings out the difference between the lines. With the sixteenth notes being legato they are distinctly different from the staccato eighth notes.
The biggest thing to mastering this piece – like any other – is effective practice. When it comes to this piece in particular you will want to practice it very slowly. During your slow practice you will want to exaggerate the difference between legato and staccato; so when you speed up the piece the difference will still be there.
You should really go through the whole piece like this and have the patience to practice it with the metronome. You should gradually bring the piece up to speed but only after you can absolutely master it at a certain speed before increasing it. It’s important to play it cleanly and relaxed. Do not make the mistake of increasing the speed before you are ready.
When it comes to ornamentation I like to use it to enhance certain sections of the piece. In the fourth measure, there is an f sharp and I like to add a trill to it. You will notice if you listen that I always measure the trill; your trill must always be measured. While it might seem like free expression, you will always want it to fit properly within the music and the tempo and it must be measured.
Welcome to our ongoing series covering Bach’s French Suites. Last time we covered the Allemande section of the 5th French Suite in G major. Today we will be covering the 2nd movement, the Courante, which is a very difficult movement. The biggest th
This question comes from a viewer and while this is a very specific example, the solution is something that will help you with a wide range of music. The problem with negotiating this example is that from measure 21 to measure 40, there are a lot of fast notes in the left hand that needs to be played quietly. This can be a huge challenge because it’s extremely difficult playing fast and light on the piano. So how do you overcome this challenge?
Utilizing the weight of the arms and the position of your fingers right above the keys is the way to play this section with fluidity. For this specific piece, there are a lot of broken chords in the left hand and I have a suggestion for you on how to practice this effectively. Start with the first two notes of the section and play them together. They are written separately but for now, play them together. You want to achieve the same level of volume with your pinky and your thumb. This is a great challenge because the thumb is so much stronger than your pinky, but you must achieve a balance in the sound between the two notes. Once you have them equal in volume go ahead and break those notes ever so slightly like playing the bottom note as a grace note. Once you feel comfortable with this, add another note and continue adding notes in this manner.
Every time you start a new group of notes you should approach it as a separate passage. Prepare yourself mentally for each section and practice each section individually. Don’t consider this one long passage of notes. Instead, break it down into digestible chunks you can play in a relaxed manner. Then work on connecting these groups of notes.
This lesson really boils down to keeping your body and arms at the proper position to achieve power with the correct hand positions and finger patterns. These are all lessons I’ve taught in the past that are relevant to so many pieces of music.
If you have any more questions please contact me directly: Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
This question comes from a viewer and while this is a very specific example, the solution is something that will help you with a wide range of music. The problem with negotiating this example is that from measure 21 to measure 40, there are a lot of