Piano practise

I thought I'd share my thoughts on playing the piano, or rather practising it. I'm sure you'll see the relevance!

I have a piano lesson each Saturday morning. It's at a time which interferes with my running, particularly during the summer. It's OK in the winter when I'm not too fussed what time I run, but in the hot weather I'd like to go out early before the day heats up, but have to wait till after the lesson. Last Saturday I didn't finish my run until 1pm. Man it was hot!

Motivation to keep up the piano practise can be tough with all the time pressures. That Saturday morning lesson provides me with just enough motivation. I know I have to have at least 1 or 2 practises during the week or I'll turn up at the lesson looking pretty bad - I want to impress the teacher (I always was a swot). Most weeks I manage to get some decent practise in. Some weeks I manage more, and regretfully some weeks I don't manage any. That lesson gives me enough short term motivation to keep me going.

Still though, I feel I ought to be doing more practise. I need a longer term goal. I've thought about doing an exam, but I'd have to do LOTS more practice and I know deep down I'd never find the time. I look back to the golden days when I was learning the Moonlight Sonata. I love that piece of music. Despite my devotion to Underworld, Goldfrapp and Coldplay, I still have time for a piece of music written 200 years ago by a total genius and which has never been equalled by another solo piano piece - feel free to disagree, but I adore it! I will never be able to play the third movement - if you've not heard it, I recommend you seek it out - it's very much a virtuoso piece - but I made it my goal to learn the first movement, which is well within the grasp of any grade 5 player.

I so much wanted to be able to play the Moonlight Sonata, that I'd spend time every day learning it. It took maybe as much as a year, but I did it. I even committed it to memory. Show me a piano anywhere, and I'll sit down without the music and hammer out 7 minutes of heaven - well at least for me anyway - you'll have to excuse a couple of errors along the way probably.

Those daily sessions did so much to improve my playing. It wasn't just the Moonlight Sonata I achieved - my general playing improved so quickly. Having that long term goal really kept me at it, practising consistently.

Since then progress has been rather less spectacular. I practise a couple of pieces at a time. When I've just about learnt to play them, I get bored and discard them, moving on to other fresh pieces. My repertoire, in terms of what I can play well on demand, is still just the Moonlight Sonata.

So I've decided I need to get CPE Bach's Solfeggio in my repertoire. I can play it through slowly with reasonable accuracy, but it needs to be played fast as it's a delicate toccata piece. Simply playing it over and over will produce some improvement, but if I am to get some real speed going, I'm going to have to practise it in small chunks. I need to break it into bits of one or two bars and practise these at full speed over and over until I can play them accurately. Once I can play it fast in small chunks I can put it all together and play the whole thing at that speed.

Does this sound familiar?

How about this then? Setting aside 30 or 40 solid minutes is tricky - I can usually only manage this on a Wednesday. However, far better than one long practise per week would be lots of short practises. Far better to practise daily, even for only 5 minutes. It's far easier to slot in the time - an ad break during CSI for example (or dare I say Big Brother?) - whereas scheduling an entire 30 minutes just means it gets pushed aside. Little and often is the way!

Then there's the technique. I have a habit of stiffening my wrists when playing at speed. I need to keep relaxed in order to play properly. I've heard that one elsewhere too!

I could devote pages on the mental side too. I get very nervous playing in front of people. You have to give yourself 'permission to fail'. Aiming too high can have adverse effects. Enjoying your own level of mediocrity can produce better results, than aiming high and crashing and burning.

So there we are - the world of piano practise. Not a million miles from running!