Here’s a secret I discovered lately.
No, not just practice more. But how to practice.
Inspired by Learning: True Mastery Or Fluency?
I realised I’d been learning music wrong. I’ve always avoided exercises to help me learn a particular section of a piece of music since I saw them as time-consuming, and didn’t help me ‘directly’ with note fluency and musicality.
But I was so wrong. As I read Learning: True Mastery Or Fluency?, I realised I’ve been achieving fluency in my pieces, not mastery. Here’s my process:
Sight read notes
Take note of details like fingerings, articulations, dynamics, phrasing
Using the metronome to drill each section (could be as short as half a bar, typically 2-4 bars or even 1 or 2 systems (the row of bars on a music sheet) if I’m feeling confident
Increase by 2 on the metronome for each successful play practice, and repeat upon failure, sometimes stopping to re-look at certain parts before continuing — do the same for techniques
Increase to performance tempo
Repeat.
Metronoming (as I call it) each section helps achieve fluency. The repetition that comes with each tiny increase in speed helps my fingers get used to the placement, the keys, my eyes to sight-read fluently, and so on.
Taking note of the fingerings that work, articulations which sometimes help with phrasing, and dynamics do help me to learn how to play the piece better with more musicality.
But it doesn’t really help me achieve mastery of the piece. It’s just fluency.
So if you’re learning or practising a song or a piece, look for ways to digest the techniques.
Maybe that’s why I sometimes may not be able to play certain pieces up to the full performance tempo? I’m not sure.
Technique is more than just scales and arpeggios. It’s also learning how to not tense up your fingers, learning how to better play clearer staccatos, and learning how to better voice out the melody lines when you have more than one note going on (which is very common in works written for the piano).
I think we need to be taught how to learn more often, not just what to learn— which I am in college, but haven’t been making full use of it. Because of the fast pace of learning, I’ve been constantly rushing through learning the piece, instead of mastering the piece or techniques that come with the pieces that I learn. I thought using the metronome from the lowest tempo possible to play whatever and eventually raising it up would work.
But sometimes, it just caps at that tempo, which may not be the performance tempo. It does not work. Sometimes, you simply can’t play faster without great technique. Maybe you can, but your fingers may suffer (or cramp up)
Well, I still think yes, it can be time-consuming. The time you use to work on the exercises could be used to practice with the metronome of your pieces. But I think I’ve shortchanged myself by not doing that, almost at all.
Do exercises, reinvent ways you could play the same things differently. It’s not just for beginners learning how to play with two hands, improving finger independence or improving dexterity.
Change rhythms, change articulations, change up any other element.
There are tons of YouTube tutorials on exercises you could use for any instrument. But of course, understand the goal you’re going for.
Oh, etudes work too! —and not just composed for classical pianists.
One example is this etude for Chopin’s Waterfall Etude on the piano. It can be a little technical, which is why I avoid these things at times but do try at least one and apply them to the piece you’re trying to learn. You may just feel and hear the difference.
Try not to skip those. Don’t be like me.