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Hey guys! I got a pretty good reception on my last piano blog, which can be found here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=387189
Thanks for all the support! Now here's part two, which basically consists of from October until now. I actually underwent a lot throughout the past three months, and I guess I'm going to blab about it. ^^
Anyway, so I grew up neglecting any drills of any sort, since my teacher never really assigned any for me to play. I think what I needed to do was be exposed to virtuosity at a young age, so I knew what to work towards. But I didn't, so my first few years of piano playing were not very productive at all; I did not gain very much skill. In fact, in one month in 2010, I gained more skill than I had from 2004-2010. Though I'm not sure if that skill was the best.
As I mentioned in the previous blog, a lot of what I know about piano technique stems from studying my friend Meg as she played. However she eventually got too busy, so what ended up happening was I had to kind of learn on my own, so I picked a lot of motions that were very natural for me. This is one thing that separates me from a lot of my colleagues; I'm not really bounded by rules, and as I would discover later on, this was a good thing...in a sense. It was also really bad. Anyway, later on, a friend of mine named Winfield saw me struggling with certain extremely difficult technical passages [trills, legato thirds, fast runs with chords in both black and white keys, etc], so he recommended the Hanon exercises to me. Actually...he just gave me the whole book. What a nice guy  . Since I was obsessed with getting better...I played Hanon, endlessly, paying attention meticulously to my technique [though I had this stupid tendency to rush], and I had no idea if I was doing it right or not. I fiddled around with relaxation and tension, I tried a whole ton of things.
Hanon helped a lot...but eventually we hit a plateau. There were some exercises [like the tremolo, legato fifths, trills especially] that just would not improve, no matter how much I played it. I meant I already trilled pretty fast, but I wanted to catch up to some of the other people. I know it sounds incredibly unrealistic to achieve what they did in such a short period of time, but I didn't really care; I wanted those fast trills and the fast tremolos and stuff so I worked tirelessly at it.
Then came my first battle with tendonitis/RSI/whatever and what I believe was carpal tunnel, but I'm not quite sure. It hurt so much to play, and my fingers would go really numb whenever I tried, so I couldn't play for a few weeks until it healed. Anyway, after the little episode, I decided to ease up on the Hanon a bit, and I tried relaxation - but I always got tired after playing through the whole book. And I was bored out of my mind too, but the will to acquire technique kept me in there. Eventually I went to only playing Exercises 21-60, skipping some of the scales, since I hated scales XD.
Then eventually I got too busy to play Hanon, so I would just warmup with Exercise 1, play some of the harder stuff, and then go straight to the pieces I was working on. I didn't improve very much though, and after we hit January 2012, I stopped playing again.
Then I started playing again in October. Immediately what a lot of people said about me was that...I had a lot more "fun" at the piano than they did. [Which is true, I have a ton] But I was done with all of my technical difficulties. I turned to my friend the internet, which had the solution for everything, and I began reading articles upon articles of piano technique, which began my new phase: playing around with technique and changing everything every few months :D.
The weird thing about me is that I adjust extremely quickly. I've always loved this about myself, though I think it's just a lot of focus. A LOT of focus. I used to change my hotkey setup in Starcraft every few weeks, and it only took an hour for it to become mindless. So after about a day [or sometimes a week] of practice, the habits that I put on my to-do list would be ingrained into my body. [Though it resulted in a lot of terrible playing].
Anyway, my research began with a series of articles about how to play Hanon, but I was starting to lose faith in my most trusted book of exercises...until I reached Chuang C. Chang's "Fundamentals of Piano Practice." The methods had instant results; I was playing pieces that I had never been able to play before, playing lines I'd never been able to, my trills sped up at a remarkable rate, which really astonished me. The most important lesson that I learned from the book [which made everything else possible], however, was mental play.
Mental Play is the act of playing through the music in your head. I'd always done this before, imagining myself playing through my songs in my head in public so that I could practice in my head [there were missing links]. The rationale was that if I couldn't play it in my head, how could I play it on the piano? Anyway, later on, it occurred to me that I could use mental play while playing the piano. This was probably the biggest breakthrough [though it was written in Chang's book, and I never really picked up on it ^^], and it has improved my playing remarkably.
However, I was still getting tired while piano playing, and I decided to do more research. Chang simply states that you shouldn't really strain, and that you should never get tired playing a piece, though when playing Chopin Etude Op. 10 No. 5, my hands tend to burn on around the third page, which was weird. So I began to do my research, on all the topics that he kind of skimmed over to make his book concise.
There are a series of books that I discovered and read, [and some DVDs that are on the way], such as Sandor's "On Piano Playing," and stuff of that nature. So now it's just taking their stuff, trying it out, seeing how I like it, if it helps, and then back to the drawing board. I do a new set of technique every week or so, I study famous pianists like Lang Lang [though Lang Lang is extremely muscle based from the looks of it], Yuja Wang [how does she repeat her staccato octaves so fast? HOW!?!?], Vladimir Horowitz [the guy doesn't not move at all and it looks easy...how?], Arthur Rubenstein, etc etc...and then I'll try it out on the keyboard, see how it works, and stuff like that. I'm burning through piece after piece [though terribly], and it's a lot of fun.
Though what happens is that my brain is taking everything I've learned, and just kind of taking the best of all the worlds...so playing piano is slowly becoming easier, more relaxing, and my hands kind of just fly across the keyboard [hitting wrong notes sometimes], and it feels...easy! WHICH IS WEIRD!!!
So yeah, I totally lost faith in Hanon, and am going to update once I find a "master solution."
Thanks for reading!
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got a question:
I recently learned fantasie impromptu (not super fast, but i can play all the notes in the piece which is nice)
But i seems you learned flight of the bumblebee (and at tempo!) much earlier!
I always thought flight of the bumblebee would be much harder technically? Or maybe it isn't? I've never really tried it but it looks like a mystery to me
How hard is it?
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It's a lot easier than it sounds, actually. Go ahead and try it out. Once you realize what the fingering is, you realize it's just simple, straightforward parlor music you can learn. 
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On January 20 2013 05:00 BrTarolg wrote:
got a question:
I recently learned fantasie impromptu (not super fast, but i can play all the notes in the piece which is nice)
But i seems you learned flight of the bumblebee (and at tempo!) much earlier!
I always thought flight of the bumblebee would be much harder technically? Or maybe it isn't? I've never really tried it but it looks like a mystery to me
How hard is it?
It's a fun song, though I don't really play it that much simply because I get lazy and obsessive with other songs ><
And Flight of the Bumblebee isn't that hard, though it depends on the version. The Maskim version [the one I play] isn't that bad, there are a few technical difficulties in there, but with good practice methods you can overcome it. [Note: "At tempo" is a hair slower than Maskim tempo XD]. The Vol du Burbon version...omg how does anyone play it!? AKGHERLGHKAERG
Haha you should try it, it's a fun song, though you might go insane, because I almost did [chromatics constantly for hours a day]. And don't lock your wrists! I see so many people lock their wrists for that song then QQ that it's tiring
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A trick I learned when practicing guitar is that sometimes you have to learn to not distrust your fingers: instead of constantly monitoring the notes that you produce, waiting for confirmation and such - which I think can slow you down - you need to instead trust that the notes that you are playing are correct. I don't know how to go about practicing this for piano, maybe you could get one of those practice pads and do 'dry runs'? (I hope it doesn't sound silly.) I've actually thought the same thing for Starcraft, I think the secret to good multitasking is to be able to order a unit and be able to rely on this unit doing a certain action without you waiting to see what happens. With regards to micro, it's related: if you do high speed micro actions it's not only that you can't confirm what will happen, but also that you can't pause and consider your actions. Again, you need to have the ability to simply do some actions and then move on.
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On January 20 2013 05:23 XDJuicebox wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2013 05:00 BrTarolg wrote:
got a question:
I recently learned fantasie impromptu (not super fast, but i can play all the notes in the piece which is nice)
But i seems you learned flight of the bumblebee (and at tempo!) much earlier!
I always thought flight of the bumblebee would be much harder technically? Or maybe it isn't? I've never really tried it but it looks like a mystery to me
How hard is it? It's a fun song, though I don't really play it that much simply because I get lazy and obsessive with other songs >< And Flight of the Bumblebee isn't that hard, though it depends on the version. The Maskim version [the one I play] isn't that bad, there are a few technical difficulties in there, but with good practice methods you can overcome it. [Note: "At tempo" is a hair slower than Maskim tempo XD]. The Vol du Burbon version...omg how does anyone play it!? AKGHERLGHKAERG Haha you should try it, it's a fun song, though you might go insane, because I almost did [chromatics constantly for hours a day]. And don't lock your wrists! I see so many people lock their wrists for that song then QQ that it's tiring
Yeah i want to try the maksim version
If i've already done fantasie how long you think it will take?
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hanon is actually a decent book, but with technique exercises you must know they're simply exercises, same thing with scales. as in actual sports you must start slowly and warm up the muscles. its kind of drab this way but if you dont play relaxed you'll get into trouble with overworking them when they arent ready, and it also teaches technical discipline. its exactly the same way in sports, you cant just sprint everyday from the get go without stretching or warming up/cooling down otherwise you'll get sore everyday or pull something
fyi all famous pianists have been familiar with hanon, and some have extensively used it, to the point where they knew hanon exercises for all the modes on the piano. there is no master solution, other than doing things correctly.
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On January 20 2013 05:43 Grumbels wrote:
A trick I learned when practicing guitar is that sometimes you have to learn to not distrust your fingers: instead of constantly monitoring the notes that you produce, waiting for confirmation and such - which I think can slow you down - you need to instead trust that the notes that you are playing are correct. I don't know how to go about practicing this for piano, maybe you could get one of those practice pads and do 'dry runs'? (I hope it doesn't sound silly.) I've actually thought the same thing for Starcraft, I think the secret to good multitasking is to be able to order a unit and be able to rely on this unit doing a certain action without you waiting to see what happens. With regards to micro, it's related: if you do high speed micro actions it's not only that you can't confirm what will happen, but also that you can't pause and consider your actions. Again, you need to have the ability to simply do some actions and then move on.
I agree with this. When I started my quest for faster and faster piano play, I found that it went much easier when I just tried going with whatever came out, and then adjusting as necessary after that. But each time I felt like I worked an error or something out, I'd go back to blindly playing because it went much, much faster that way (and when it's faster, any mistakes you'll still make will also be less noticeable!)
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On January 20 2013 06:19 rabidch wrote:
hanon is actually a decent book, but with technique exercises you must know they're simply exercises, same thing with scales. as in actual sports you must start slowly and warm up the muscles. its kind of drab this way but if you dont play relaxed you'll get into trouble with overworking them when they arent ready, and it also teaches technical discipline. its exactly the same way in sports, you cant just sprint everyday from the get go without stretching or warming up/cooling down otherwise you'll get sore everyday or pull something
fyi all famous pianists have been familiar with hanon, and some have extensively used it, to the point where they knew hanon exercises for all the modes on the piano. there is no master solution, other than doing things correctly.
Hanon is very well written, it's prioritized quite well, and you can gain a lot of dexterity. But my qualm with it is that it discourages "putting the body behind the note" and more "building up the finger." There's actually this huge debate about it haha
On January 20 2013 06:05 BrTarolg wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2013 05:23 XDJuicebox wrote:On January 20 2013 05:00 BrTarolg wrote:
got a question:
I recently learned fantasie impromptu (not super fast, but i can play all the notes in the piece which is nice)
But i seems you learned flight of the bumblebee (and at tempo!) much earlier!
I always thought flight of the bumblebee would be much harder technically? Or maybe it isn't? I've never really tried it but it looks like a mystery to me
How hard is it? It's a fun song, though I don't really play it that much simply because I get lazy and obsessive with other songs >< And Flight of the Bumblebee isn't that hard, though it depends on the version. The Maskim version [the one I play] isn't that bad, there are a few technical difficulties in there, but with good practice methods you can overcome it. [Note: "At tempo" is a hair slower than Maskim tempo XD]. The Vol du Burbon version...omg how does anyone play it!? AKGHERLGHKAERG Haha you should try it, it's a fun song, though you might go insane, because I almost did [chromatics constantly for hours a day]. And don't lock your wrists! I see so many people lock their wrists for that song then QQ that it's tiring Yeah i want to try the maksim version If i've already done fantasie how long you think it will take?
If you can play Fantasie, Flight of the Bumblebee is a cakewalk
Well...depends how fast you can play Fantasie. There's this part that I try not to let people notice, but when the left hand is doing the "buzzing" and the right hand does the fast staccato chords, I have to slow down because I my mind can't sync them up as fast, so I end up playing the whole thing that speed. There's also a really annoying difficulty where the top note of the main theme is a chord, and I changed fingering [which you should never do], so it's really slow right now
On January 20 2013 06:39 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2013 05:43 Grumbels wrote:
A trick I learned when practicing guitar is that sometimes you have to learn to not distrust your fingers: instead of constantly monitoring the notes that you produce, waiting for confirmation and such - which I think can slow you down - you need to instead trust that the notes that you are playing are correct. I don't know how to go about practicing this for piano, maybe you could get one of those practice pads and do 'dry runs'? (I hope it doesn't sound silly.) I've actually thought the same thing for Starcraft, I think the secret to good multitasking is to be able to order a unit and be able to rely on this unit doing a certain action without you waiting to see what happens. With regards to micro, it's related: if you do high speed micro actions it's not only that you can't confirm what will happen, but also that you can't pause and consider your actions. Again, you need to have the ability to simply do some actions and then move on. I agree with this. When I started my quest for faster and faster piano play, I found that it went much easier when I just tried going with whatever came out, and then adjusting as necessary after that. But each time I felt like I worked an error or something out, I'd go back to blindly playing because it went much, much faster that way (and when it's faster, any mistakes you'll still make will also be less noticeable!)
Yeah, this is probably the best approach, and if you make mistakes, just go back and fix them later was how I always did it. A lot of people hate for me for it though, but it lets me try new things faster >:D
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The main trick to good piano playing is to slow the fuck down, and practise hands separately, instead of just running the piece at performance speed over and over. It makes your playing go form "being able to hit most of the notes in about the right rhythm " to professional levels of technicality, at least for easier pieces like the fanatasy improptu. You'll have to play around 10 times per hand, very slowly (like at 3 times slower than performance speed, using a metronome to start out with) but you'll notice the difference when you put the hands together. This isn't for learning a piece, it's to tighten everything up.
I never did that many scales or studies at all (in fact, I cannot really remember doing any etude-type stuff apart from when I was just starting out) but I still can play the more difficult pieces using this method. Nowadays I try to practise scales as well, which does help, but isn't (imo) as important as playing slowly, hands separately.
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You need to learn to relax all your muscles (except for fingers) and learn supple wrist movements. Once you become familiar with this approach, your playing will get 2x better: your trills will be faster, your scales even and sparkly, and your chords strong yet refined.
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On January 20 2013 09:07 phosphorylation wrote:
You need to learn to relax all your muscles (except for fingers) and learn supple wrist movements. Once you become familiar with this approach, your playing will get 2x better: your trills will be faster, your scales even and sparkly, and your chords strong yet refined.
Haha yeah I'm getting a lot better about that. I have a lot of back problems, so my rotator cuff likes to tense up a bit when I'm playing, so what I have to do is when it gets tired, just adjust my shoulders a bit. Relaxing was the only thing that made me able to play Bumblebee ^^
To be honest, a weird thing I've noticed is how much of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do [about the body at least] applies to piano playing...and a lot of Wing Chun concepts apply too. Funny how the human body works...
On January 20 2013 08:41 Ianuus wrote:
The main trick to good piano playing is to slow the fuck down, and practise hands separately, instead of just running the piece at performance speed over and over. It makes your playing go form "being able to hit most of the notes in about the right rhythm " to professional levels of technicality, at least for easier pieces like the fanatasy improptu. You'll have to play around 10 times per hand, very slowly (like at 3 times slower than performance speed, using a metronome to start out with) but you'll notice the difference when you put the hands together. This isn't for learning a piece, it's to tighten everything up.
I never did that many scales or studies at all (in fact, I cannot really remember doing any etude-type stuff apart from when I was just starting out) but I still can play the more difficult pieces using this method. Nowadays I try to practise scales as well, which does help, but isn't (imo) as important as playing slowly, hands separately.
I agree so much with the separate hands. It really does speed things up haha. I learn a song bit by bit [phrase by phrase], hands separate, and then string them all together at the end. I never play at the same speed twice; I keep changing it up so I don't get bored haha but I don't like playing too slow since some motions I use when I play slow are impossible to do fast.
I improvise a lot, and somehow I know all my scales and chords. Which is weeird :O
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Lang Lang would be one of the last pianists on earth I would study from a technical standpoint, he has a disgusting amount of wasted motion for sheer showmanship.
Having your wrist be the source of power for more mechanical passages is a turning point in my learning specifically but it has a big thing to do with long term growth as a pianist. It allows you to tackle more difficult pieces. In terms of not physically straining yourself in training, I'm split on that. Yes it would be preferred, but you won't get meaningful practice at a certain point where you don't leave the piano slightly strained. I'm polishing up Chopin's Gm ballade, the coda. You cannot practice at near tempo for more than 40 minutes without your arms feeling like you weights. I can't imagine a pianist out there that wouldn't have that issue. Even masters. But having said that, it's an interesting concept and I'll look into his works.
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On January 20 2013 10:21 XDJuicebox wrote:
I agree so much with the separate hands. It really does speed things up haha. I learn a song bit by bit [phrase by phrase], hands separate, and then string them all together at the end. I never play at the same speed twice; I keep changing it up so I don't get bored haha but I don't like playing too slow since some motions I use when I play slow are impossible to do fast.
I improvise a lot, and somehow I know all my scales and chords. Which is weeird :O
Yeah, it's good for learning, but it goes way beyond that. Once you've learnt a piece by knowing all the notes and you're able to play it fluently, to take it to the next level you have to disassmble it again and do slow, hands separate practise. It's a bit boring, but that amazing feeling of togetherness and facility which you get when you finally play it at speed and hands together makes it all worth it.
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On January 20 2013 12:29 Badfatpanda wrote:
Lang Lang would be one of the last pianists on earth I would study from a technical standpoint, he has a disgusting amount of wasted motion for sheer showmanship.
Having your wrist be the source of power for more mechanical passages is a turning point in my learning specifically but it has a big thing to do with long term growth as a pianist. It allows you to tackle more difficult pieces. In terms of not physically straining yourself in training, I'm split on that. Yes it would be preferred, but you won't get meaningful practice at a certain point where you don't leave the piano slightly strained. I'm polishing up Chopin's Gm ballade, the coda. You cannot practice at near tempo for more than 40 minutes without your arms feeling like you weights. I can't imagine a pianist out there that wouldn't have that issue. Even masters. But having said that, it's an interesting concept and I'll look into his works.
There are some things that he does with his wrists that are really interesting, and I study the details of the motions that let him play the repeated staccatos so fast, and there actually seems to be a general consensus on it
Slightly strained is normal, it's like after you stand for a really, really long time, you get tired right? The human body can't use itself without getting tired, but I meant like immediately after a piece, you should not feel tired at all. Or at least that's what these books tell me 
I love that piece! :D
I'm reading about methods of playing though where it literally feels like walking; almost effortless. I'll have to get back to you on that though, I just started ^^
[Check out Barbara Lister-Sink]
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EPT
