Classical Pianist Practice Secrets

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#piano

[heartofthekeys]

What are your favorite practice methods? Tell me in the comments❤️

[evanding]

Hi! :) for you guys that are being frustrated from practicing a single part over and over again, try this: practice the part over and over again until you feel semi-comfortable (doesn’t have to be perfect!) and then take a break. This allows your fingers muscle memory to develop while at the same time you are relaxing your mind. Eat something, relax, drink and water, and after like 20-30 min, return to practicing that same spot that you have been practicing so hard on! Guarantee you that you will see results! Also, the period that you wait depends on your hands and how comfortable you are. Your hands will tell you if you are ready to come back!

[RolandHuettmann]

Besides getting an overview or playing through, I take small parts of the piece and play the chosen part for 5 minutes, then stop and turn to another part. Those parts can be really small, even just a few notes. After 20 minutes, I take a small break. After about one hour, I take a longer break. It really helps me to stay focussed and learn through letting the mind have periods of rest. After such practice session I play the whole piece, or somethong else I enjoy. Sessions may repeat during the day, but session breaks should be long enough to give the brain time to process what was learned, and then doing something completely different, or resting, also is important according to my experience..

[stmaosic]

One thing that I found helpful for practicing left hand is to play it alone moved up to the "right hand" register (move your seat so your arm doesn't get into the way). The lighter sound and action allows you to identify problems more easily. It also helps the left hand play lighter.

[arlinpena]

Chopin didn not want his students to practice more than 2 hours per day, one of his students confessed he practiced 4 hours and Chopin became furious!

[robertstorlind]

1. Warm up
2. Try the passage one octave up or down
3. Use a number of pencils to reinforce a passage by keeping track of how many times in a row you played it well

[gerardocardenas]

As for the third technique, it reminded me of John Field, who is said to have worked like a slave on difficult passages. It appears that he would place a box of tokens in front of him and remove one after each successful attempt and not stop until the box was empty.
I think that practicing very small parts will be very useful for me.
Thx a lot, Annique! 🌷

[JamesSmith-mwps]

The pencil/repetition technique is really good for increasing accuracy and reliability. It’s like a fun (but frustrating) game.

[terrypekelny]

I do something I like to call segmenting. It can be likened to programming a computer, but for oneself. You work through little snippets of a piece at a time. Each segment, very short in length, can be highly focused on in this manner. The important thing to bear in mind here is connection. You must always end each segment on the first of the next. So after perfecting one, and doing so on the next, you put them together with that continuity in mind. I find that with such ultra focus, I am able to save a lot of time practicing.

Ultimately, it is a variation on what all music teachers try to drill into their students: repetition. My teacher always used to tell me, “the first 500 times is the warm up, and the next is the practice”.

[abrahammedvin]

Hi Annique...very interesting video...there is a saying "practice makes perfect"...of course the obverse is "practice makes you practice your mistakes"...what constitutes effective practice varies widely between individuals...I think what works for one may not work for another...just do what works (deteminining "what works" for you is easier said than done...lol)...I have a 15 year old son who just won his first piano competition playing Rachmaninoff op39#5 (first he ever entered)...he recieved a 5 minute standing ovation...he does no scales...no finger exercises of any type...and I've never once had to ask him to practice (only asked to let me have a chance on the piano every once in a while...lol)...he only was curious what 39#5 would sound like on a Steinway"D"...not abot winning... Martha Argerich said she has never done scales and considers it "a waste of time"...it worked for her too

[moopey]

Am I the only one that actually finds the first Hanon exercise very musical and very beautiful? Especially when you get up to the F and until the next C, it's weirdly beautiful and nostalgic. I guess it's because of the chords that are created by the exercise it self. Sometimes I'll just play that middle part of the octave in different ways and with some more interesting left hand accompaniment than just mimicking what the right hand is doing, and I'll also like expand the "theme" a bit more, and it can really wonderful. It's also a great exercise in improv and even composition, if you do it the way I described.

[Pianoblook]

Great vid, thanks for the tips.
It was fun to hear your '10 pencil' method. I use & teach a similar trick for juggling - never thought to use it for piano though! Fun way to gamify your practice

[xhenimane]

Greetings from a Classical Pianist from Albania! You are AMAZING

[xthetansiblingsx]

For the sections which I’m not firmilar with, I normally take maximum 4 bars and just keep practicing until I get it. There’s once just fully concentrate on that and I get it in 1hr. I’m not sure if that’s too long for 4 measures or something. The aim is to get it right, then fingering and followed by techniques. I’ve only started in 2018 and there’s a long long way to go 🤗

[amazingcato]

For warmup, I usually play an song I already know that's not too hard.

We all have standby songs we can play at a moments notice. I just play an easier standby song and not the whole song.

I like your pencil method. To play a song perfectly 10 times in a row forces you to concentrate on it.

[Ola.the.pianist]

I love the idea with pencils! I will definitely try it 💗

[kyvanis]

I just love how natural this girl is in front of the camera.

[Cognazzo]

Thank you so much for this video. I practice only one or two measures at a time. I then move on to the next two measures and then try to combine them all once I feel confident enough.

I'm glad you mentioned the thing about scales. I've been playing for around 13 years and I've hardly touched many scales. The fastest I've ever been able to even play one is 80 BPM to the sixteenth note. But, the thing is, my harm was always fatigued and hurt afterwards - particularly my left. So I always felt I was doing them wrong and I've never had a teacher (with the exception of one in college but it didn't work out due to my other classes schedules) to really show me/coach me how to play them better - more properly I guess.

[hnt]

The comment section will be soon flooded by twoset fans.

[pierrechevalier]

Warm up absolutely essential indeed. But personally, I have a hard time with scales and exercices, I just cant motivate myself. So I warm up directly with the piece Im training, playing slowly and exagerating the movements, and then slowly increasing tempo