,Technique, Music, Mental Play
If we concentrate only on developing “finger technique” and neglect music during
practice, we can pick up non-musical playing habits. Non-musical playing is an absolute
no-no at all times because it is one form of mistake. One common symptom of this
mistake is the inability to play the lesson pieces when the teacher (or anyone else!) is
listening. When an audience is present, these students make strange errors that they
didn’t make during “practice”. This happens because the students practiced without
regard for music but suddenly realized that music must now be added because someone
is listening. Unfortunately, until lesson time, they had never really practiced musically!
Another symptom of non-musical practice is that the student feels uncomfortable
practicing when others can hear them. Piano teachers know that students need to
practice musically in order to acquire technique. What is right for the ears and the brain
turns out to be right for the human playing mechanism. Both musicality and technique
require accuracy and control. Practically any technical flaw can be detected in the music.
At the very least, the music is the supreme test of whether the technique is right or
wrong. As we shall see throughout this book, there are more reasons why music should
never be separated from technique. Nonetheless, many students tend to practice
neglecting the music and preferring to “work” when no one is around to listen. Such
practice methods produce “closet pianists” who love to play but can’t perform. If
students are taught to practice musically all the time, this type of problem will not even
exist; performing and practice are one and the same. We provide many suggestions in
this book for practicing to perform, such as video recording your playing from the very
beginning.
Many students make the mistake of thinking that the fingers control the music and they
wait for the piano to produce that gorgeous sound. This will result in a flat performance
and unpredictable results. The music must originate in the mind and the pianist must
coax the piano to produce what s/he wants. This is mental play, introduced above; if you
had never practiced mental play before, you will find that it requires a level of
memorization that you had never achieved before – but that is exactly what is needed
for flawless, authoritative performances. Fortunately, mental play is only a few steps
beyond the memorization procedures in this book, but it accomplishes a giant leap in
your musical capabilities, not only for technique and making music, but also for learning
absolute pitch, composing, and every aspect of piano playing. Thus technique, music, and
,mental play are inseparably intertwined. Once you are deeply involved with mental play,
you will discover that it doesn’t really work without absolute pitch. These discussions
provide a firm basis for identifying the skills we need to learn. This book provides the
practice methods needed to learn them.
Basic Approach, Interpretation, Musical
Training, Absolute Pitch
Teachers play a critical role in showing students how to play and practice musically. For
example, most pieces of music begin and end with the same chord, a somewhat
mysterious rule which is actually a result of basic chord progression rules. An
understanding of chord progressions is very useful for memorizing. A musical phrase
generally starts and ends with softer notes, with the louder ones in between; when in
doubt, this is a good default principle. This may be one reason why so many
compositions begin with a partial bar – the first beat usually carries the accent and is too
loud. There are many books that discuss musical interpretation (Gieseking, Sandor), and
we will encounter numerous pointers throughout this book.
Musical training is most rewarding for the very young. Most babies exposed frequently
to perfectly tuned pianos will automatically develop absolute pitch – this is nothing
extra-ordinary. Nobody is born with absolute pitch, because it is a 100% learned skill (the
exact frequencies of the musical scales are arbitrary human conventions – there is no
natural law that says that middle A should be 440 Hz; most orchestras tune to 442 Hz,
and before it was standardized, there was a much larger range of allowable frequencies).
If this absolute pitch is not maintained, it will be lost later in life. Piano training of young
children can begin around the ages of three to four. Early exposure of youngsters (from
birth) to classical music is beneficial because classical music has the highest musical
content (complex logic) among all the different types of music. Some forms of
contemporary music, by over-emphasizing certain narrow aspects, such as loudness or
simplistic music structures that do not stimulate the brain, can detract from musical
development by interfering with brain development.
Although you need to be musically gifted to compose music, the ability to play the piano
is not that dependent on the musical brain. In fact, most of us are more musical than we
give ourselves credit for and it is the lack of technique that limits our musical expression
, at the piano. We have all had the experience of listening to famous pianists and noticing
that one is different from the other – that is more musical sensitivity than we will ever
need to start playing the piano. There is no need to practice eight hours a day; some
famous pianists have recommended practice times of less than an hour. You can make
progress practicing three or four times a week, one hour each.
Finally, total music education (scales, time signatures, ear training [including absolute
pitch], dictation, theory, etc.) should be an integral part of learning to play the piano
because each different thing you learn helps all the others. In the final analysis, a total
music education is the only way to learn piano. Unfortunately, the majority of aspiring
pianists do not have the resources or the time to follow such a path. This book was
designed to give the student a head start by learning how to acquire technique quickly
so that they can consider studying all the other helpful subjects. Statistically, students
who excel in playing the piano almost always end up composing music of their own.
Studying music composition is not a prerequisite for composing. Some teachers frown on
learning too much composition theory before starting to compose your own music
because that can prevent you from developing your individual style.
What are some unique features of the methods of this book?
1. These methods are not overly demanding, like older methods that require
students to commit to a dedicated lifestyle to fit the piano instruction.
Students are given the tools to pick a specific procedure that will achieve a
defined objective within estimable time limits. If the methods really work,
they shouldn’t require a lifetime of blind faith in order to achieve
proficiency!
2. Every procedure of these methods has a physical basis (if it works, it
always has one; the past problems in piano pedagogy have been in
identifying the correct explanations); it must further contain the following
required elements:
A. objective: what techniques to acquire, i.e., if you can’t play fast enough,
you can’t trill, you want to memorize, etc.,
B. then do: i.e., practice hands separately, use chord attack, memorize as
you practice, etc.,
If we concentrate only on developing “finger technique” and neglect music during
practice, we can pick up non-musical playing habits. Non-musical playing is an absolute
no-no at all times because it is one form of mistake. One common symptom of this
mistake is the inability to play the lesson pieces when the teacher (or anyone else!) is
listening. When an audience is present, these students make strange errors that they
didn’t make during “practice”. This happens because the students practiced without
regard for music but suddenly realized that music must now be added because someone
is listening. Unfortunately, until lesson time, they had never really practiced musically!
Another symptom of non-musical practice is that the student feels uncomfortable
practicing when others can hear them. Piano teachers know that students need to
practice musically in order to acquire technique. What is right for the ears and the brain
turns out to be right for the human playing mechanism. Both musicality and technique
require accuracy and control. Practically any technical flaw can be detected in the music.
At the very least, the music is the supreme test of whether the technique is right or
wrong. As we shall see throughout this book, there are more reasons why music should
never be separated from technique. Nonetheless, many students tend to practice
neglecting the music and preferring to “work” when no one is around to listen. Such
practice methods produce “closet pianists” who love to play but can’t perform. If
students are taught to practice musically all the time, this type of problem will not even
exist; performing and practice are one and the same. We provide many suggestions in
this book for practicing to perform, such as video recording your playing from the very
beginning.
Many students make the mistake of thinking that the fingers control the music and they
wait for the piano to produce that gorgeous sound. This will result in a flat performance
and unpredictable results. The music must originate in the mind and the pianist must
coax the piano to produce what s/he wants. This is mental play, introduced above; if you
had never practiced mental play before, you will find that it requires a level of
memorization that you had never achieved before – but that is exactly what is needed
for flawless, authoritative performances. Fortunately, mental play is only a few steps
beyond the memorization procedures in this book, but it accomplishes a giant leap in
your musical capabilities, not only for technique and making music, but also for learning
absolute pitch, composing, and every aspect of piano playing. Thus technique, music, and
,mental play are inseparably intertwined. Once you are deeply involved with mental play,
you will discover that it doesn’t really work without absolute pitch. These discussions
provide a firm basis for identifying the skills we need to learn. This book provides the
practice methods needed to learn them.
Basic Approach, Interpretation, Musical
Training, Absolute Pitch
Teachers play a critical role in showing students how to play and practice musically. For
example, most pieces of music begin and end with the same chord, a somewhat
mysterious rule which is actually a result of basic chord progression rules. An
understanding of chord progressions is very useful for memorizing. A musical phrase
generally starts and ends with softer notes, with the louder ones in between; when in
doubt, this is a good default principle. This may be one reason why so many
compositions begin with a partial bar – the first beat usually carries the accent and is too
loud. There are many books that discuss musical interpretation (Gieseking, Sandor), and
we will encounter numerous pointers throughout this book.
Musical training is most rewarding for the very young. Most babies exposed frequently
to perfectly tuned pianos will automatically develop absolute pitch – this is nothing
extra-ordinary. Nobody is born with absolute pitch, because it is a 100% learned skill (the
exact frequencies of the musical scales are arbitrary human conventions – there is no
natural law that says that middle A should be 440 Hz; most orchestras tune to 442 Hz,
and before it was standardized, there was a much larger range of allowable frequencies).
If this absolute pitch is not maintained, it will be lost later in life. Piano training of young
children can begin around the ages of three to four. Early exposure of youngsters (from
birth) to classical music is beneficial because classical music has the highest musical
content (complex logic) among all the different types of music. Some forms of
contemporary music, by over-emphasizing certain narrow aspects, such as loudness or
simplistic music structures that do not stimulate the brain, can detract from musical
development by interfering with brain development.
Although you need to be musically gifted to compose music, the ability to play the piano
is not that dependent on the musical brain. In fact, most of us are more musical than we
give ourselves credit for and it is the lack of technique that limits our musical expression
, at the piano. We have all had the experience of listening to famous pianists and noticing
that one is different from the other – that is more musical sensitivity than we will ever
need to start playing the piano. There is no need to practice eight hours a day; some
famous pianists have recommended practice times of less than an hour. You can make
progress practicing three or four times a week, one hour each.
Finally, total music education (scales, time signatures, ear training [including absolute
pitch], dictation, theory, etc.) should be an integral part of learning to play the piano
because each different thing you learn helps all the others. In the final analysis, a total
music education is the only way to learn piano. Unfortunately, the majority of aspiring
pianists do not have the resources or the time to follow such a path. This book was
designed to give the student a head start by learning how to acquire technique quickly
so that they can consider studying all the other helpful subjects. Statistically, students
who excel in playing the piano almost always end up composing music of their own.
Studying music composition is not a prerequisite for composing. Some teachers frown on
learning too much composition theory before starting to compose your own music
because that can prevent you from developing your individual style.
What are some unique features of the methods of this book?
1. These methods are not overly demanding, like older methods that require
students to commit to a dedicated lifestyle to fit the piano instruction.
Students are given the tools to pick a specific procedure that will achieve a
defined objective within estimable time limits. If the methods really work,
they shouldn’t require a lifetime of blind faith in order to achieve
proficiency!
2. Every procedure of these methods has a physical basis (if it works, it
always has one; the past problems in piano pedagogy have been in
identifying the correct explanations); it must further contain the following
required elements:
A. objective: what techniques to acquire, i.e., if you can’t play fast enough,
you can’t trill, you want to memorize, etc.,
B. then do: i.e., practice hands separately, use chord attack, memorize as
you practice, etc.,
