As a piano teacher, I agree with everything you said. When I have students that choose pieces too difficult for their level at the time, I offer them a selection of less difficult pieces by the same composer that they can learn at a high level and perform, while learning that 'dream' piece. I find that it's encouraging for those students to perform while learning a very difficult piece that may take a very long time to bring to performance level. I also suggest less difficult 4-Hand repertoire. There is so much out there and it's so satisfying to learn and perform. And with those easier pieces I can get in the reading, harmonic analysis, etc. Thanks so much for sharing your experience.
It took me many years (in fact, into my old age) to realize that although there is some repertoire I dearly love, I need to play and perfect pieces that are interesting and challenging but not those that require hours and hours of technical work or are murky/confusing in my analysis!
Very true! I made a jump in my piano learning and after Haydn and Kuhlau sonatas, simlper Mozart and Beethoven compositions, after struggling (very much) with Bach and a bit of romantic repertoire (simpler Schubert pieces mostly), I started playing Chopin nocturnes and etudes and Liszt and some ton-heavy Bartók works like Out of Doors and other, just because this interested me more. By that time my teacher had recognized that I won't be a musician and she was partner in this journey - and discovering these pieces really gave me a lot. Just, when I proudly took the Etude of Thirds (Op. 25 no. 6) and some more dramatic Nocturnes to a national competition, the jury was very straight and they said my Copin wasn't good BECAUSE my BACH was _bad_. I was stunned because they _were_ crystal clear correct, but hey, just the jury did not hear me playing even a single pitch by Bach ever. It was just very apparent. I than went back to the starting lane. I started learning the Little preludes, the Notenbüchlein, simpler movements from Partitas, Suites, inventions, later the WTC... and also Bartók's Microcosmos pieces, mostly books III-V, Haydn sonatas, Scarlatti, Couperin, and many chamber pieces... but mostly Bach. Many years passed, I also learned partitura playing, playing in transposition at some level, learned singing for 8-9 years (also with a teacher), learned some music theory and composition, the basics of historical music interpretations etc... and I usually say that by even _after_ passing 40 I more or less learned _what_ is piano playing and _how_ we play the piano. But to be honest, well may be I would quit without jumping into the romantic repertoire at around 13-14 for those 4-5-6 "barbaric" years. In essence, the key steps to everything were the partitura playing, singing, and Bach, the "Bach ladder" how I started to call it - a ladder both technically and musically, indeed.
One thing I noticed that mattered a lot for me was to choose the appropriate tempo for a piece. Trying to play at the tempi of top pianists was total waste of time. Often, when I simply accepted that it's ok to play a bit slower, things fell into place much easier.
This is another good point. Actually I've noticed that often times we as pianists don't even realize that we are playing much faster than necessary. It is an odd thing about perspective. There is never only one correct tempo after all. Comparing Kempff's and Schnabel's Beethoven Sonata recordings makes that very clear!
@@TheIndependentPianistIt’s funny. When I now listen to Schnabel’s recording of the first movement of the Hammerklavier sonata, it sounds like a complete mess to me because he is playing it so fast. And I have found that my favorite recording of the Hammerklavier sonata is Glenn Gould, precisely because he doesn’t try to play the first movement so fast. The music really comes through and doesn’t sound slapdash at all. Having said that, my own playing lies in easier Classical sonatas and the like, and nothing as gargantuan as the Hammerklavier lol.
A few years ago, due to life circumstances, I had to stop taking piano lessons, and was able to roam free within the repertoire, throwing myself with unimaginable fervor at pieces well beyond my reach. It took me a year of practicing Chopin’s f minor ballade to realize that this is not working. I could play it to some extent, but I was not satisfied. I decided I need to dial it back a little. I took a look at the Henle website, got some scores that fit my level (around 6-7 Henle level) and just learned one after another… It really is so much more fulfilling. Chopin Mazurkas, Bach preludes and fugues, Schubert impromptus, Mozart sonatas, Brahms intermezzi, etc. Now I have a decently sized repertoire, though I still struggle with playing accurately (I still have many traces of technical lackings). So in conclusion, please do listen to Cole if you are an amateur pianist! I wish I heard this advice sooner (and listened to it) as I would have wasted less time in tackling virtually impossible pieces.
What a great post this is. I could have written this. :) I need to dial it back a little too. I know Cole is right but I'm not happy to hear it. I want to play the solo version of Rach 2 so bad but I think I'll set it aside for later. Maybe one day.
There is so much wisdom in what you say! It is actually quite painful to have it sink in. I have just turned fifty and have the (fortunately now reachable) goal to play pieces well that I have played badly for the last 30 years (my piano is getting a refit that will make it really good). I started seriously studying technical exercises 5 days after graduating. 5 years ago I started seriously to do sight reading. I was so stubborn. And although I still stand by my musical instincts, I was so slow in learning new pieces that I also wasn't prepared to experiment a lot with the wishes of my teacher(s). Why oh why did I spend 2 years on Islamey? I guess I didn't dare to really look into the mirror. I'm convinced that balanced and focussed personality on the students part is part of 'talent'. It also has to be developed if it, at a certain moment, is insufficient. It has been quite a life's journey... My hopes are that I by now have a pretty healty mindset to serve my love of music, in stead of my ego. The near future will tell. 🙂 Thank you for sharing this!
This really resonated with me. I'm 53 and been hacking at the piano on and off for 30+ years. I finally realized this about the same time I found this video. I literally am starting at "the beginning" and going to work hard at my level. Oh, and I need to find a teacher. Love your channel. Instant sub!
Profound video. So basically it's a good idea to keep your sight reading skills AT LEAST on par with the pieces that you're trying to play, and never to neglect daily sight reading exercises of fresh music. I think the true "danger" in trying to take on an overly challenging piece is that if one were to focus exclusively on it for several weeks (or longer), then one's sight reading "muscles" do not get exercised, and therefore, atrophy. I remember lingering for like a month or two on Beethoven's Moonlight sonata (1st movement) (even after blocking it out in chords), and I found that the more I practiced that piece over, my hands "memorized" the chords and tricky sections and that while I was playing through that piece over and over, (thinking I was making progress), the major harm that I was doing was in not also dedicating daily time practicing reading new, fresh sheet music, that I could play through with ease. Then the next piece would also be a struggle to read. And the sheet music would be more of a "lead sheet" to remind me of what note/chord to play, rather than something I was actually reading.
Yeah not sure about that any professional pianist playing for example Messiaen or Prokofiev piano concerto I guarantee you won’t be able to sight read that stuff.
The nice thing is is that there is no shortage of high quality music for piano at the intermediate, late intermediate and early advanced levels. You could spend much time on all this music and make great improvements in your playing while doing it. 😌❤️🎹
Thank you for this most interesting video, which was actually assigned by our piano prof to our piano class to view, as being very important. With piano classes being very diverse these days, notably age wise, number of years studied piano wise etc, even in programs such as bachelor of music etc, there is one factor that cannot be ignored and that is the impostor syndrome factor. One learns to live with it, of course, but it takes having been there to appreciate what it is like to have your rep at minus infinity relative to your virtuoso peers.
Excited to stumble upon your channel! Starting my piano comeback after over two decades, capturing the entire journey on my brand new "RetroKeyed" RUclips channel. Your valuable insights on improving piano play and ensuring progress couldn't have come at a more opportune moment. Big thanks for this video! 🎹✨
Thanks for this very valuable advice and insights. It all totally makes sense. I think I suffered from some of the "don't"s you are talking about. I already tried to fix my approach since I restarted to learn piano and made some progress. Your video helped me to make it all conscious to myself, definitely very helpful! Again: thanks a lot!
Great advice. Now, at the age of 63, I reflect on me as a teenager pianist. I was usually convinced I knew best. At age 16, I began taking private lessons for a prominent pedagogue, which forced me to develop a humble attitude. I did progress faster playing music within my skill level. Yet, due to my insatiable fascination and love of music, nothing could stop me from sightreading a large amount of the solo piano literature, many piano concertos, and lots of chamber music, whether too difficult or within my musical and technical capacity. This truly deepened my understanding and appreciation of the composers and their music, definitely heightening my passion for music. Early on, I also began playing as much chamber music as possible with amateur and semiprofessional instrumentalists and singers, and vocal choirs beginning in my teens, which sparked my particular fascination with performing music together with musicians. To your point in “My tips to speed up piano progress,” playing music of varying technical, structural, harmonic, rhythmic, and polyphonic complexity, clearly reveals what music at the time is within or beyond one’s capability.
You bring up some really great points. It is always a great idea to follow one's interests, and to sightread widely, even as one tries to polish up works which are within immediate grasp. Probably I should do a video about sightreading as well, which is another fascinating discussion!
Great comments Cole. I've been guilty of over-reach myself especially with Rach 2. I love the piece so much and can play sections but then the going gets too difficult. I've got a lot to think about that wouldn't have occurred to me without seeing this video. Thanks and Best Regards.
Insightful, as ever, and solid advice about the most profitable way to make desired progress both effectively and efficiently (and relatively painlessly)! Of course, how differently we see the world once we become teachers as to when we were the learners who were pretty convinced we knew it all anyway - and that we certainly knew better than our teachers! Much has been written about hindsight. I wonder if, when you were a teenager, you could have heard your own wise words now, it would have made any difference at all to the journey you chose . . . and the time you feel you wasted? Changing even the bad things that have gone before in our lives would fundamentally change who we eventually turn out to be . . . and whether or not that would be a good thing is pure conjecture! In my 'advanced' years, I can see that life is too short to have any real regrets. Maybe Thomas Jefferson had it right when he said: "Hindsight is an exact science. Hold fast to your dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened."
Yes - I'd agree with what you say about pieces that are appropriate being essential. My Beethoven-line teacher has correctly and very helpfully told me that Schubert's d899 impromptus are all possible for an intermediate pianist like me - also the Beethoven sonatas Pathetique and Moonlight (and even Waldstein and Appasionata, apparently). So I am very happy and making much more progress than when I was trying to do the Rach 3 alt cadenza, Chopin Polonaise no. 6 etc. Schubert's 3 klavierstuck (certainly the numbers 1 and 3 anyway) are both NOT possible (though the slow sections are).
Thank you for your insights. I’m working on Ballade op23 no 1 by Chopin. I’ve been with a teacher for a year now and before that I re taught myself piano. I lost my memory of reading notes after having a stroke and three heart attacks. I performed my first recital playing Fantasy in d minor by Mozart this year. I am finishing up Nocturne op 9 no 2 by Chopin and now starting Ballade . I felt it difficult but my teacher said I can play it after hearing me play the last page. She has her students learn from last measure to the beginning. With your advice, I’m going to see if I can read and play each note from the beginning to see if in reality I can learn this piece. Thank you again for tot videos.
I have been practicing for a couple of years for myself after having taken lessons for a long time. From my experience, I would say it is helpful to challenge yourself, to have certain goals, but you also need to be able to admit when something is too hard, and come back to it later, maybe several times, to be able to judge when you are ready.
Yes, this also is very true. Sometimes I work on a piece and it never seems to click, but then after letting it rest and picking it up again after some weeks or months, everything falls into place.
You are 100% correct in terms of effort, payoff, actually developing skill etc. I also learnt this the hard way - and I see it apply to other skills as well, like maths, language learning, gymnastics etc. But there should maybe be one caveat that it also depends on the student's goals. If a student is obsessed with learning to play one particular difficult work, but doesn't have the time or inclination to otherwise become a good pianist in general... and can't afford to spend a few hours a week every week for five years, then I suppose focusing on it disproportionately is an overall faster way to get to that one, narrow goal - even if it will be far more painful than how they'd learn it after five years' building, it may be more economical than going through the five years' building. But I don't think there are very many students like that.
It’s really great to hear your valuable insight on this and it was articulated really well, thank you! I wasn’t sure what you mean at 12:08 when you say you should be able to “encompass the piece in one sitting, roughly in tempo and with the correct rhythm”. I hope it doesn’t mean sight-reading it the first time! What does “one sitting” mean here? Also what happens when you do disagree with the teacher about how to play a certain part?
I came back to the piano after 30 odd years in 2018 only because I discovered the Goldberg variations on French radio. I made up my mind to learn them but got stuck at the the Aria and the first. I then put the Goldberg aside and learnt works from Brahms, Chopin, Beethoven and Debussy. I got back to the Goldberg starting last year and learnt up to the 11th variation but never played any of them well. Only in the last few months when I decided I would start to memorize them, however slowly, that I began to feel more comfortable playing them. To date, I've memorized the Aria, the first and the 8th variation and have just begun to memorize the third. The one thing I've discovered though, I don't think playing other works actually help prepare you for the Goldberg. The Goldberg is a fingering maze with all the complicated hand crossings that you hardly come across even in other works by Bach. And this is played at speed. So my conclusion is that there is never a good time to start learning the Goldberg variations. Once decided, just jump in at the deep end, no matter how much of a struggle it might turn out to be. But do only a little of it a day, while spending more time on other works with more straight forward fingerings to make the piano experience more enjoyable. And probably, memorizing each voice separately will somehow get you there slightly more easily than other approaches to learning these variations. Most of us will have to devote a lifetime to learning the variations to a decent level, whereas Glenn Gould did it in only three years. At the end of the day, only a select few are naturally endowed to successfully master the Goldberg to performance level within a reasonable amount of time. For the most of us, it's simply a little challenge we put ourselves to spice up our piano practice but never really knowing how well we can eventually play them.
Thanks for your reflections! The Goldberg Variations is kind of a special case, as here we actually have what amounts to 31 separate pieces, with a wide range of difficulty and style. I would say from my own perspective that learning a wide variety of works along with the Goldberg, would, in the long run most likely be helpful, but you always have to consider your own situation. You did mention that you got stuck on the Aria at first, and that after learning some other things you made much more progress, so maybe having some more experience was helpful :-) Still, you are quite right, learning the set as a whole is one of those enormous tasks that nothing can quite prepare anyone for-akin to learning the Diabelli Variations, the Concord Sonata and other similarly imposing works, nothing can completely prepare you for it-so if you feel up to leaping in, why not?
cole, i recently discovered your channel and have been listening with admiration and delight, and with this video about your teaching i hope you'll consider a serious suggestion: in this video you use the expression "play with intelligence," and in another video you quote von bulow saying that pianists don't play with the hands but "with the mind"--would you please do a video about what it means to play "with the mind?"--i propose this because it's a real issue for me, and i don't want to get too personal, but personal enough to give you a context: i'm 76, i make my living as a ballet accompanist, i have pretty bad LH thumb and index arthritis which is making me weed out repertory, re-finger, ossia, and re-learn slow practice, and think for the first time what it means to "play with the mind"--when in this video you say "play with intelligence" i think you mean something quite literal and specifiable, just as i think bulow meant something very definite: play with your mind, play with intelligence--i think you could put it in words, more specifically and definitely--what i've come up with (as, post-pandemic, i began experiencing blanks while playing) is: "think ahead"--i feel sure that you, as a teacher and far more deeply trained and expert technician, know what i mean, and so might have a lot to say
Such an useful and interesting video, thank you!! Just a general question to anyone reading/who could answer…If you’re learning a piece that you find challenging, how long do you think it could take you to learn it? Maybe not to a finished/performable standard, but to a standard you are happy with? Cheers!!!
I cannot agree with you more! This video would be so useful for a lot of students that feel tried-and-true methods of learning piano don’t apply to them. At the same time, not everyone has the same goals, so it’s hard to say… They may look back in the future and think they could have done differently. People do have a tendency to want fulfillment right away. The student who wanted to learn the Goldberg Variations probably felt the bliss of living with it as they practiced. Being an older person, I think it’s so sweet! But, for you as the teacher it must have been complicated… Thank you, Cole, for a meaningful video.
Yes I agree with you. That student who was playing the Goldberg Variations eventually reassured me that all they wanted to do was play the Goldberg Variations, and they didn't care if they ever played it at a "high" level. And why not, after all? If you are finding joy, that is all that is required. And if you are only going to play one piece, that's not a bad one to choose!
@@TheIndependentPianist At some point they're going to want to do more than just play the notes. As they get older they'll notice other musical factors and may never be able to learn those things andworse the Goldbergs in their fingers will never be able to relearn or retool the mechanism and hands to play the music in different ways . I spent an hour lesson on feeling the mechanism in my arms and fingers the opening repeated chords in the Waldstein. My teacher said everyone will wonder how you are doing it if you do it right ! even today it takes a while to really get the feel of a piano's mechanism by trying this opening .
Also Cole as far as memorising goes..Before Franz everything was played with music.Liszt started the trend of playing from memory.As Albert Einstein said.Why do I need to memorise anything when I have pen and paper.
well, this video really resonated with me, as a teacher I had for several months was telling me ,I was choosing the hardest repertoire, but frankly it really was the only thing that interested me, I wasn’t looking for the hardest pieces. I didn’t know they were the hardest pieces and I don’t know what the easier pieces would be unless they were really beginners pieces. . and I can say honestly that even if I had easier pieces to work on I still made a mess of them and they are filled with mistakes as well. It’s not like there would be any difference so I chose to continue working on these harder pieces because I enjoy their configurations. am I frustrated? Yes, can I find a teacher that is good for me? No. I’ve been through about six in the last five years. The longest was nine months with one and five with another. The rest were one shot deals.
This channel is criminally underrated. I am taking your advice now. It's been a year since I started self teaching myself with a few months with a teacher who taught me theory and corrected my dynamics with grade 0 pieces. I've been playing grade 5 pieces since January and now I tried to play a grade 3 piece and realize I actually struggle to play allegro and my sound is awful even though the notes are simpler than I'm using to. Great video.
As an adult who is in the process of learning the piano I completely agree with you... BUT! 🙂 For instance, I've been playing piano "by ear" for quite a lot of time, and I've developed quite good technique, meaning that I'm able to play even some more challenging pieces. But well, since I've never really studied piano from the sheet music, now I'm trying to fix that part by reading some music every day. Therefore, it's quite hard for me to find balance between my reading and playing abilities which are at very different level. I don't know if you are even going to read this comment, but if you do, some advice would be appreciated. Thank you and I wish you all the best!
similar situation to me - I'm at grade 6 pieces also technically, but my sight reading is at grade 1. I'm working on sight reading in earnest but the progress is very slow.
I usually let a student of mine try a hard piece they wish to desperately learn, for a few weeks. If not enough progress is made, we put it in the fridge. Another idea is to re-learn pieces they have already mastered in the past. Very often they can play those pieces not so well anymore and it is a valuable lesson to go over them again, and the second time they learn them much quicker.
This is real. I am an amateur pianist. The last teacher I had helped me develop good technique. I was at that time learning Schumann’s Carnaval. I was obsessed with it. He told me I needed to let go of it because I wasn’t ready for it. He wanted me to pick up shorter repertoire, I ignored him and insisted. I learned most of the piece but was never able to truly learned it. Then later on in life I learned some of the pieces he recommended, and to my amazement my abilities skyrocketed. Not just technically but musical maturity as well.
@@TheIndependentPianist he recommended I did some of the “easier” Chopin etudes, op. 10 no. 3, op. 25 no1, no2. He also recommended Schubert impromptus, Chopin ballad 2 or 3. None of these I mentioned are by any means easy. But they are less exhausting and taxing as Carnaval which I consider to be a virtuosic and exhausting piece. He told me that there were many beautiful and challenging pieces from which I could enjoy and grow. And he was right. I did not enjoy learning carnaval. It felt like torture. He was also a firm believer in practicing scales and chords. Not hours of scales. He would just give me one scale to practice all week long, with different speeds, different dynamics. The understanding of how to properly play scales smoothly, how to listen to my touch, and to have flexibility all around yet firm fingers, truly took me from playing mediocre to playing proficiently.
I try to get my students to work mainly on pieces at their level, but also sometimes suggest more challenging pieces and also more easy pieces. Think the main thing that you hit on is the more repertoire you learn, the more patterns you start to understand subconsciously, and the more experience you have in problem solving and fingering etc. As long as learning challenging pieces doesn't interupt the flow I think it's ok. Let's say on the ABRSM grade standard, if they are grade 3 level, I'd be suggesting pieces at that level, but also some grade 2 and grade 4 in smaller amounts. I think the easier pieces make clear how much progress they have hopefully made, while the more challenging pieces can be good for motivation since they may be more interesting to study. I suppose the real danger is people playing way above their level, which doesn't seem that useful for almost anything. I disagree quite a bit with you saying you should be able to roughly sightread from the start. I find a lot of more advanced music has sections that actually is quite easy to play and well within my level, but i would be unable to sightread it because of how it looks. A famous example would be the 2nd cadenza from liebestram that has so many notes, but once you understand the pattern it comes together pretty easily.
The student and teacher should come to an agreement on pieces they are willing to work on together. Easier pieces are important as difficult ones. Memorizing the acrobatic movements , the feeling of playing certain jumps etc. constantly thinking all the time(stop if you're not focusing) and telling you're fingers what to do to the point where you do things in a totally relaxed fashion extreme jumps reach their destinations forcing. Playing takes effort but not stress. Relaxation in stretching to mold your fingers to the topography of the keyboard and concentration with practice is key. As for understanding expression the composers intent and balance of sound, that will take more time . Also exposure to playing a variety of technical problems and styles is good with avoidance of over practicing but coming back to a piece later on which may lead to more improvement ( magically!)
Been a professional musician for 11 years as a guitarist and been practicing piano for a very short while. Looking forward to this video. I recently got Microcosmos by Bartok, would you recommend it?
Yes, a great set! They are arranged in gradually ascending difficulty, and they cover every possible kind of pattern. They are also refreshingly "modern" as well.
Thank you Cole, for your interesting work. I started to study piano one year ago. My teacher uses Bastien method which I combine with Hanon exercises . Despite I usually find some difficulties in most of Bastien exercises, I would like to know if following this method is a good idea. I love classical music but taking into account my actually level, I am not probably yet prepared to play an easy classical piece. What do you think about these two questions? Thank you so much!!
Thanks for watching! I think all of the piano methods (Bastien, Alfred, Faber etc) are excellent for building up to being able to play “real” pieces. Actually in the higher levels they usually include some easier works that will ease you into more difficult rep. The idea of combining your method book with some other exercises and scales is also a good idea. Sounds like you are on the right track!
Interesting PoV. How does a person (or their teacher) choose what to play? I've recently restarted lessons after over 40 years. My first teacher (when I was 10 - 17) never told me anything, he used to play and I would imitate. It worked fairly well, he was a RAM medal winner and played well. I used to think this was a bad method but a friend wished her teacher would play to her! I was around UK grade VII in 1981, my teacher after 6 months lessons is suggesting doing grade VIII but I feel that would be too fast. Some returners go back several grades. How do you decide what to play? My new teacher seems to want me to suggest what to play and I'd rather work on diverse pieces to help my technique, as you suggest (I think the old grade system supported this well, with basically a classic a romantic and a modern piece at each grade). I've picked up some old pieces (the Grieg Notturno, some Bach (my favourite), some Debussy. I'm doing some GVII pieces and Maple Leaf Rag (cos I asked the teacher for something to improve my non-existant pedalling technique)... any thoughts on how one chooses?
Hello! Do you know how to train my ear in order to hear two or more notes played simultaneously? I have to inform you, that I am able to hear each scale degree in the established tonality, but I am not able to "isolate" each note when more notes are played in the same time! Do you have any advice? Thank you very much for your detailed answer!
You couldn’t choose a teacher as a child, or rather I would have had no idea how to choose a teacher or know if they were not very good. So I wound up playing (perfectly btw, still surprised at this today) für Elise as my first piece like after two weeks of piano. For some reason I only got to learn stupid exercises and Chopin pieces my mom played that I felt I was interested enough in playing. The teacher had no feedback in selecting pieces whatsoever. Same with my next teacher, so I only played my dream pieces at the time which were certainly above my level but I think I did ok. She tried to suggest other pieces from similar composers but I was not very interested, and did not know how to find things I wanted to play that were worth the effort (sight reading was a lot of effort for me I always finished a piece by ear). Violin was different because you can make anything sound good on it, so I did not care what I played and progressed very well with more technically challenging exercises, unfortunately I decided to take a break when entering high school and never took it back up again. But I think I would have enjoyed playing a lot more if performing came with music theory, so you could also write your own music eventually as a goal, analyze what the composer was doing and learn from it.
Lots of good ideas here. I think you were lucky starting with Für Elise. I get the feeling many would get frustrated starting with a piece like that, but sometimes talent can bring people over certain obstacles early on. Certainly interest is a very important part of learning. For children, it is really up to the parents to find good teachers-a topic for another video! Also I never found it very easy to make anything sound good on the violin, but that may have just been me!
They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good. I see acquaintances and friends Accumulating dividends, And making enviable names In science, art and parlor games. But I, despite expert advice, Keep doing things I think are nice, And though to good I never come-- Inseparable my nose and thumb! ~Dorothy Parker
If someone really has musical talent, insight into music I can't imagine COMPLETELY giving oneself over to a teacher's instruction. A lump of clay being moulded, as you stated. I have my own life and experiences to call upon. Teachers should suggest, offer examples and historical styles, but never DEMAND. My first semester as a university student, seven years into playing, I took on the G minor Ballade, the B minor Scherzo, Bach Italian Concerto, Prokofiev Sonata 3. I performed all but the last one, and successfully. I'm sure my professor had doubts as to whether I could handle these but he never told me I shouldn't try. I had six teachers in my life (I'm 71 now) and the only two I chose not to continue with were strict disciplinarians who told me exactly how a piece should be played. I had too much respect for my talents to let someone do that to me. Teachers need to respect the talents and potential of their students.
This is a very good point. I probably overstated it in my video about allowing oneself to be "molded." I only really meant that one should be totally open to a teacher's advice in lessons, and strive to apply that advice in practice. Of course, you should have your own individuality and ideas about things. Perhaps one should not completely follows those personal ideas completely until enough confidence and experience has been developed under guidance to allow the way forward to be unimpeded by debilitating pitfalls. But after all, the proof is really in the pudding as they say-if you can play it well, then by all means go for it! I'm specifically thinking of people who are stalled in their progress, and who might come to me or another teacher thinking that I might have some magic trick that will help them learn that dream piece. Often times, they don't want to hear that maybe a temporary delay in learning that piece would be the quickest way to move forward. I haven't been much of a disciplinarian in my teaching in general, although sometimes I wonder if I should be. When I think of all the amazing pedagogues who have famously been rather martinets, and the musicians they helped shape, it does cause me to wonder... I had great progress with teachers who were more strict, and some who were much more gentle, so I guess to each their own.
@@eugenelevin9809 there were regular student performances scheduled. The only one that went badly for me was the Italian Concerto. I had developed stage fright and this caused memory lapses. Because I had this one embarrassing performance I gave up my music studies and moved on to other interests. I only began studying piano again seven months ago, after a gap of 52 years. I am very pleased with my piano time and hope to perform some pieces soon. I am no longer under any pressure other than what I choose to place on myself.
So I will stop trying to play Clair De Lune for now. I can’t even figure out the first bar lol. Way ahead of myself. I can play lots of pop songs from chord charts though and like to improvise similar type stuff.
I agree - mostly. I do let students attempt pieces above their ability once in a while. They do not hear Mozart or Haydn in concerts but do hear Beethoven and Chopin. I was a know-it-all teen too and demanded to play Beethoven sonatas. I nearly quit. I secretly learned a sonata and listened to records for the style and approach. I played it for my teacher and she helped me learn it properly. I now have 4 college degrees in music and taught for 40 years, won competitions, and love piano. It did not cause damage to attempt to play over my level at least once in a while. I also taught band and orchestra and gave brass learners lip slurs on day one.
what you said is pretty much why my piano teacher never let me play Liszt or Chopin until my senior year of high school. Well, that and she wasn't a huge fan of either, and thought my time was best spent on lesser-known composers. Why play what judges have heard 199 times badly if you can play something novel and rare well?
It is a fair point, and one reason why I avoided Beethoven sonatas for many years. I think many feel the pressure of "tradition," whereas if you play Ives or Grainger or Gershwin there is a lot more freedom to forge your own interpretations. This of course is also philosophy that someone like Marc-André Hamelin followed successfully to achieve his current eminence (beyond simply being amazing).
“Students should be like clay.” This sounds almost the opposite of what I was told! Teachers should teach you how to practice and be a musician, but I don’t know if that has to amount to being totally submissive
I didn't mean that a student should be totally submissive, rather that during the lesson the student should be open and receptive to whatever ideas are presented. Then, after they leave the lesson, they can choose to disregard the advice they heard. I had in mind mainly students who feel defensive and like they have to argue with the teacher etc. which I think is not very productive. I found I progressed the most when I tried everything my teachers recommended with an open mind before discarding advice that didn't suit me.
@@TheIndependentPianist that sounds reasonable. Funnily enough I knew of a teacher who liked it when students argued with him, because she thought it was fun. And I guess she had nothing to prove and wasn’t defensive
How do you spot a teacher who is jealous of the student and will try to sabotage the progression ? Do you think the student should listen ? I had several teachers like that, one of them was jealous, another one was not competent (for a very specific technical situation), and I am grateful I did not listen to any of them. I think that you are wrong about the fun: fun, pleasure, excitement are very important, and can be or should be a basis for motivation, discovery, progress, fun comes with ease and good self image, and image of a future self/performance/artist. I also think that one could or should start with memorisation first, or at least very soon. For professionals (not teachers but concertists). For beginners I do not have an opinion; I would invite them anyway to do mental work (emotion, movement and analysis) first or everyday, before "practice".
I add more specifics; there is a situation, very common and simple to understand: a teacher can be a narcissist (which is a psychological syndrome and eventually sickness) to a certain degree; so if such teacher feels endangered by another person (involving a "narcissistic collapse"), the teacher might react by making this other person "lower", sabotaging, or in a way, "killing the growth" of the other, in order to preserve the narcissistic self-image of the teacher. Unfortunately, this can be bery common for people looking for attention (job involving stage, performers, entrepreneurs, and eventually others jobs). In the movie "pianoforte", about Chopin competition, Eva Gevorgyan has a horrible teacher, lowering and humiliating her, with inappropriate and irrational behavior, eventually in front of others. I believe this teacher is a very dangerous narcissistic person.
It sounds really bad to conclude that the student should play something easier when he-she is stalling. Don't you think there is some investigation to do ? spotting the weak aspects of the work and work on them ? I do not teach music but that would be the first thing I would do !
So a professional level pianist playing prokofiev piano concerto No 2 would be able to sight read it… yeah no lol. Also student’s absolutely should push themselves to play harder repertoire. Much harder that’s too much for them to handle? Well that’s different but they certainly should push themselves to get better and not only play things that are easy for them. You need to challenge them to get better.
Perhaps we have a different definition of "sight-reading." I don't mean "play through the piece perfectly with no mistakes at tempo," although there are certainly some amazing sight-readers out there who could indeed get through Prokofiev 2nd concerto on their first read at tempo-not perfectly, but no doubt they could do it. What I meant, is that the pianist should be able to read through at a reasonable practice tempo (not glacially slow), with stops and starts and should be able to do that in one sitting-accurately! I think pretty much ANY professional pianist worth their salt could do this with Prokofiev 2nd Concerto, or indeed any other piece in the standard repertoire. I'm not talking about insane things like Opus clavicembalisticum here of course...things like that are more of a special case. I can't tell you how many students I have seen who want to play something like Chopin's G minor Ballade, who, at the same time, can barely get through an easier Mozart Sonata mvt with all the right notes. To improve reading efficiency, a student should indeed play many things that are well within their current ability. Of course they also need things that will challenge them-but they need to be at a place where they can at least "read through" everything in one go to have a hope of mastering a truly difficult work without needing to spend months and months (maybe years) just being able to read the notes. Again, I have run into students who will show me a Beethoven sonata they have been working on for a full year-still full of mistakes, misreadings, wrong rhythms, and played at practically half-speed. This means the repertoire is too hard for them! That is simply the way it works. Inexperienced teachers will lead students on, and allow them to work on repertoire that it is too difficult for their current level, but anyone with more experience really owes it to the student to be honest. Otherwise you are simply wasting their time and money.
As a piano teacher, I agree with everything you said. When I have students that choose pieces too difficult for their level at the time, I offer them a selection of less difficult pieces by the same composer that they can learn at a high level and perform, while learning that 'dream' piece. I find that it's encouraging for those students to perform while learning a very difficult piece that may take a very long time to bring to performance level. I also suggest less difficult 4-Hand repertoire. There is so much out there and it's so satisfying to learn and perform. And with those easier pieces I can get in the reading, harmonic analysis, etc. Thanks so much for sharing your experience.
These are wonderful ideas, thank you!
What would it take for someone like me who has played piano for 3 years, I'm in grade 6 currently, to become a concert pianist by 25 years old.
It took me many years (in fact, into my old age) to realize that although there is some repertoire I dearly love, I need to play and perfect pieces that are interesting and challenging but not those that require hours and hours of technical work or are murky/confusing in my analysis!
Very true! I made a jump in my piano learning and after Haydn and Kuhlau sonatas, simlper Mozart and Beethoven compositions, after struggling (very much) with Bach and a bit of romantic repertoire (simpler Schubert pieces mostly), I started playing Chopin nocturnes and etudes and Liszt and some ton-heavy Bartók works like Out of Doors and other, just because this interested me more. By that time my teacher had recognized that I won't be a musician and she was partner in this journey - and discovering these pieces really gave me a lot.
Just, when I proudly took the Etude of Thirds (Op. 25 no. 6) and some more dramatic Nocturnes to a national competition, the jury was very straight and they said my Copin wasn't good BECAUSE my BACH was _bad_. I was stunned because they _were_ crystal clear correct, but hey, just the jury did not hear me playing even a single pitch by Bach ever. It was just very apparent.
I than went back to the starting lane. I started learning the Little preludes, the Notenbüchlein, simpler movements from Partitas, Suites, inventions, later the WTC... and also Bartók's Microcosmos pieces, mostly books III-V, Haydn sonatas, Scarlatti, Couperin, and many chamber pieces... but mostly Bach.
Many years passed, I also learned partitura playing, playing in transposition at some level, learned singing for 8-9 years (also with a teacher), learned some music theory and composition, the basics of historical music interpretations etc... and I usually say that by even _after_ passing 40 I more or less learned _what_ is piano playing and _how_ we play the piano.
But to be honest, well may be I would quit without jumping into the romantic repertoire at around 13-14 for those 4-5-6 "barbaric" years.
In essence, the key steps to everything were the partitura playing, singing, and Bach, the "Bach ladder" how I started to call it - a ladder both technically and musically, indeed.
One thing I noticed that mattered a lot for me was to choose the appropriate tempo for a piece. Trying to play at the tempi of top pianists was total waste of time. Often, when I simply accepted that it's ok to play a bit slower, things fell into place much easier.
This is another good point. Actually I've noticed that often times we as pianists don't even realize that we are playing much faster than necessary. It is an odd thing about perspective. There is never only one correct tempo after all. Comparing Kempff's and Schnabel's Beethoven Sonata recordings makes that very clear!
@@TheIndependentPianistIt’s funny. When I now listen to Schnabel’s recording of the first movement of the Hammerklavier sonata, it sounds like a complete mess to me because he is playing it so fast. And I have found that my favorite recording of the Hammerklavier sonata is Glenn Gould, precisely because he doesn’t try to play the first movement so fast. The music really comes through and doesn’t sound slapdash at all. Having said that, my own playing lies in easier Classical sonatas and the like, and nothing as gargantuan as the Hammerklavier lol.
A few years ago, due to life circumstances, I had to stop taking piano lessons, and was able to roam free within the repertoire, throwing myself with unimaginable fervor at pieces well beyond my reach. It took me a year of practicing Chopin’s f minor ballade to realize that this is not working. I could play it to some extent, but I was not satisfied. I decided I need to dial it back a little. I took a look at the Henle website, got some scores that fit my level (around 6-7 Henle level) and just learned one after another… It really is so much more fulfilling. Chopin Mazurkas, Bach preludes and fugues, Schubert impromptus, Mozart sonatas, Brahms intermezzi, etc. Now I have a decently sized repertoire, though I still struggle with playing accurately (I still have many traces of technical lackings). So in conclusion, please do listen to Cole if you are an amateur pianist! I wish I heard this advice sooner (and listened to it) as I would have wasted less time in tackling virtually impossible pieces.
What a great post this is. I could have written this. :) I need to dial it back a little too. I know Cole is right but I'm not happy to hear it. I want to play the solo version of Rach 2 so bad but I think I'll set it aside for later. Maybe one day.
There is so much wisdom in what you say! It is actually quite painful to have it sink in. I have just turned fifty and have the (fortunately now reachable) goal to play pieces well that I have played badly for the last 30 years (my piano is getting a refit that will make it really good). I started seriously studying technical exercises 5 days after graduating. 5 years ago I started seriously to do sight reading. I was so stubborn. And although I still stand by my musical instincts, I was so slow in learning new pieces that I also wasn't prepared to experiment a lot with the wishes of my teacher(s). Why oh why did I spend 2 years on Islamey? I guess I didn't dare to really look into the mirror. I'm convinced that balanced and focussed personality on the students part is part of 'talent'. It also has to be developed if it, at a certain moment, is insufficient. It has been quite a life's journey... My hopes are that I by now have a pretty healty mindset to serve my love of music, in stead of my ego. The near future will tell. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this!
This really resonated with me. I'm 53 and been hacking at the piano on and off for 30+ years. I finally realized this about the same time I found this video. I literally am starting at "the beginning" and going to work hard at my level. Oh, and I need to find a teacher. Love your channel. Instant sub!
Thank you! Glad I was able to provide some insight.
Profound video. So basically it's a good idea to keep your sight reading skills AT LEAST on par with the pieces that you're trying to play, and never to neglect daily sight reading exercises of fresh music.
I think the true "danger" in trying to take on an overly challenging piece is that if one were to focus exclusively on it for several weeks (or longer), then one's sight reading "muscles" do not get exercised, and therefore, atrophy.
I remember lingering for like a month or two on Beethoven's Moonlight sonata (1st movement) (even after blocking it out in chords), and I found that the more I practiced that piece over, my hands "memorized" the chords and tricky sections and that while I was playing through that piece over and over, (thinking I was making progress), the major harm that I was doing was in not also dedicating daily time practicing reading new, fresh sheet music, that I could play through with ease. Then the next piece would also be a struggle to read. And the sheet music would be more of a "lead sheet" to remind me of what note/chord to play, rather than something I was actually reading.
Yeah not sure about that any professional pianist playing for example Messiaen or Prokofiev piano concerto I guarantee you won’t be able to sight read that stuff.
The nice thing is is that there is no shortage of high quality music for piano at the intermediate, late intermediate and early advanced levels. You could spend much time on all this music and make great improvements in your playing while doing it. 😌❤️🎹
Well said Cole
Inspiring - Th
Thank you.
Thank you for that realization.
11:15 currently in this exact phase, thank u for the advice
Good advice. I think many people are obsessed with speed and complexity, but playing an easier piece with emotional skill can be extremely satisfying.
Thank you for this most interesting video, which was actually assigned by our piano prof to our piano class to view, as being very important. With piano classes being very diverse these days, notably age wise, number of years studied piano wise etc, even in programs such as bachelor of music etc, there is one factor that cannot be ignored and that is the impostor syndrome factor. One learns to live with it, of course, but it takes having been there to appreciate what it is like to have your rep at minus infinity relative to your virtuoso peers.
Very good advices, thank you so much
Excited to stumble upon your channel! Starting my piano comeback after over two decades, capturing the entire journey on my brand new "RetroKeyed" RUclips channel. Your valuable insights on improving piano play and ensuring progress couldn't have come at a more opportune moment. Big thanks for this video! 🎹✨
Thanks for this very valuable advice and insights. It all totally makes sense. I think I suffered from some of the "don't"s you are talking about. I already tried to fix my approach since I restarted to learn piano and made some progress. Your video helped me to make it all conscious to myself, definitely very helpful! Again: thanks a lot!
Great advice. Now, at the age of 63, I reflect on me as a teenager pianist. I was usually convinced I knew best. At age 16, I began taking private lessons for a prominent pedagogue, which forced me to develop a humble attitude. I did progress faster playing music within my skill level.
Yet, due to my insatiable fascination and love of music, nothing could stop me from sightreading a large amount of the solo piano literature, many piano concertos, and lots of chamber music, whether too difficult or within my musical and technical capacity. This truly deepened my understanding and appreciation of the composers and their music, definitely heightening my passion for music.
Early on, I also began playing as much chamber music as possible with amateur and semiprofessional instrumentalists and singers, and vocal choirs beginning in my teens, which sparked my particular fascination with performing music together with musicians.
To your point in “My tips to speed up piano progress,” playing music of varying technical, structural, harmonic, rhythmic, and polyphonic complexity, clearly reveals what music at the time is within or beyond one’s capability.
You bring up some really great points. It is always a great idea to follow one's interests, and to sightread widely, even as one tries to polish up works which are within immediate grasp. Probably I should do a video about sightreading as well, which is another fascinating discussion!
Very wise words.
You can't build much on a shaky foundation.
Great comments Cole. I've been guilty of over-reach myself especially with Rach 2. I love the piece so much and can play sections but then the going gets too difficult. I've got a lot to think about that wouldn't have occurred to me without seeing this video. Thanks and Best Regards.
Insightful, as ever, and solid advice about the most profitable way to make desired progress both effectively and efficiently (and relatively painlessly)! Of course, how differently we see the world once we become teachers as to when we were the learners who were pretty convinced we knew it all anyway - and that we certainly knew better than our teachers! Much has been written about hindsight. I wonder if, when you were a teenager, you could have heard your own wise words now, it would have made any difference at all to the journey you chose . . . and the time you feel you wasted? Changing even the bad things that have gone before in our lives would fundamentally change who we eventually turn out to be . . . and whether or not that would be a good thing is pure conjecture! In my 'advanced' years, I can see that life is too short to have any real regrets. Maybe Thomas Jefferson had it right when he said: "Hindsight is an exact science. Hold fast to your dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened."
Yes - I'd agree with what you say about pieces that are appropriate being essential. My Beethoven-line teacher has correctly and very helpfully told me that Schubert's d899 impromptus are all possible for an intermediate pianist like me - also the Beethoven sonatas Pathetique and Moonlight (and even Waldstein and Appasionata, apparently). So I am very happy and making much more progress than when I was trying to do the Rach 3 alt cadenza, Chopin Polonaise no. 6 etc. Schubert's 3 klavierstuck (certainly the numbers 1 and 3 anyway) are both NOT possible (though the slow sections are).
Thank you for your insights. I’m working on Ballade op23 no 1 by Chopin. I’ve been with a teacher for a year now and before that I re taught myself piano. I lost my memory of reading notes after having a stroke and three heart attacks. I performed my first recital playing Fantasy in d minor by Mozart this year. I am finishing up Nocturne op 9 no 2 by Chopin and now starting Ballade . I felt it difficult but my teacher said I can play it after hearing me play the last page. She has her students learn from last measure to the beginning. With your advice, I’m going to see if I can read and play each note from the beginning to see if in reality I can learn this piece. Thank you again for tot videos.
I have been practicing for a couple of years for myself after having taken lessons for a long time. From my experience, I would say it is helpful to challenge yourself, to have certain goals, but you also need to be able to admit when something is too hard, and come back to it later, maybe several times, to be able to judge when you are ready.
Yes, this also is very true. Sometimes I work on a piece and it never seems to click, but then after letting it rest and picking it up again after some weeks or months, everything falls into place.
You are 100% correct in terms of effort, payoff, actually developing skill etc. I also learnt this the hard way - and I see it apply to other skills as well, like maths, language learning, gymnastics etc. But there should maybe be one caveat that it also depends on the student's goals. If a student is obsessed with learning to play one particular difficult work, but doesn't have the time or inclination to otherwise become a good pianist in general... and can't afford to spend a few hours a week every week for five years, then I suppose focusing on it disproportionately is an overall faster way to get to that one, narrow goal - even if it will be far more painful than how they'd learn it after five years' building, it may be more economical than going through the five years' building. But I don't think there are very many students like that.
It’s really great to hear your valuable insight on this and it was articulated really well, thank you!
I wasn’t sure what you mean at 12:08 when you say you should be able to “encompass the piece in one sitting, roughly in tempo and with the correct rhythm”. I hope it doesn’t mean sight-reading it the first time! What does “one sitting” mean here? Also what happens when you do disagree with the teacher about how to play a certain part?
I came back to the piano after 30 odd years in 2018 only because I discovered the Goldberg variations on French radio. I made up my mind to learn them but got stuck at the the Aria and the first. I then put the Goldberg aside and learnt works from Brahms, Chopin, Beethoven and Debussy. I got back to the Goldberg starting last year and learnt up to the 11th variation but never played any of them well. Only in the last few months when I decided I would start to memorize them, however slowly, that I began to feel more comfortable playing them. To date, I've memorized the Aria, the first and the 8th variation and have just begun to memorize the third. The one thing I've discovered though, I don't think playing other works actually help prepare you for the Goldberg. The Goldberg is a fingering maze with all the complicated hand crossings that you hardly come across even in other works by Bach. And this is played at speed. So my conclusion is that there is never a good time to start learning the Goldberg variations. Once decided, just jump in at the deep end, no matter how much of a struggle it might turn out to be. But do only a little of it a day, while spending more time on other works with more straight forward fingerings to make the piano experience more enjoyable. And probably, memorizing each voice separately will somehow get you there slightly more easily than other approaches to learning these variations. Most of us will have to devote a lifetime to learning the variations to a decent level, whereas Glenn Gould did it in only three years. At the end of the day, only a select few are naturally endowed to successfully master the Goldberg to performance level within a reasonable amount of time. For the most of us, it's simply a little challenge we put ourselves to spice up our piano practice but never really knowing how well we can eventually play them.
Thanks for your reflections! The Goldberg Variations is kind of a special case, as here we actually have what amounts to 31 separate pieces, with a wide range of difficulty and style. I would say from my own perspective that learning a wide variety of works along with the Goldberg, would, in the long run most likely be helpful, but you always have to consider your own situation. You did mention that you got stuck on the Aria at first, and that after learning some other things you made much more progress, so maybe having some more experience was helpful :-)
Still, you are quite right, learning the set as a whole is one of those enormous tasks that nothing can quite prepare anyone for-akin to learning the Diabelli Variations, the Concord Sonata and other similarly imposing works, nothing can completely prepare you for it-so if you feel up to leaping in, why not?
cole, i recently discovered your channel and have been listening with admiration and delight, and with this video about your teaching i hope you'll consider a serious suggestion: in this video you use the expression "play with intelligence," and in another video you quote von bulow saying that pianists don't play with the hands but "with the mind"--would you please do a video about what it means to play "with the mind?"--i propose this because it's a real issue for me, and i don't want to get too personal, but personal enough to give you a context: i'm 76, i make my living as a ballet accompanist, i have pretty bad LH thumb and index arthritis which is making me weed out repertory, re-finger, ossia, and re-learn slow practice, and think for the first time what it means to "play with the mind"--when in this video you say "play with intelligence" i think you mean something quite literal and specifiable, just as i think bulow meant something very definite: play with your mind, play with intelligence--i think you could put it in words, more specifically and definitely--what i've come up with (as, post-pandemic, i began experiencing blanks while playing) is: "think ahead"--i feel sure that you, as a teacher and far more deeply trained and expert technician, know what i mean, and so might have a lot to say
Such an useful and interesting video, thank you!! Just a general question to anyone reading/who could answer…If you’re learning a piece that you find challenging, how long do you think it could take you to learn it? Maybe not to a finished/performable standard, but to a standard you are happy with? Cheers!!!
I cannot agree with you more! This video would be so useful for a lot of students that feel tried-and-true methods of learning piano don’t apply to them. At the same time, not everyone has the same goals, so it’s hard to say… They may look back in the future and think they could have done differently.
People do have a tendency to want fulfillment right away. The student who wanted to learn the Goldberg Variations probably felt the bliss of living with it as they practiced. Being an older person, I think it’s so sweet! But, for you as the teacher it must have been complicated… Thank you, Cole, for a meaningful video.
Yes I agree with you. That student who was playing the Goldberg Variations eventually reassured me that all they wanted to do was play the Goldberg Variations, and they didn't care if they ever played it at a "high" level. And why not, after all? If you are finding joy, that is all that is required. And if you are only going to play one piece, that's not a bad one to choose!
@@TheIndependentPianist At some point they're going to want to do more than just play the notes. As they get older they'll notice other musical factors and may never be able to learn those things andworse the Goldbergs in their fingers will never be able to relearn or retool the mechanism and hands to play the music in different ways . I spent an hour lesson on feeling the mechanism in my arms and fingers the opening repeated chords in the Waldstein. My teacher said everyone will wonder how you are doing it if you do it right ! even today it takes a while to really get the feel of a piano's mechanism by trying this opening .
Also Cole as far as memorising goes..Before Franz everything was played with music.Liszt started the trend of playing from memory.As Albert Einstein said.Why do I need to memorise anything when I have pen and paper.
well, this video really resonated with me, as a teacher I had for several months was telling me ,I was choosing the hardest repertoire, but frankly it really was the only thing that interested me, I wasn’t looking for the hardest pieces. I didn’t know they were the hardest pieces and I don’t know what the easier pieces would be unless they were really beginners pieces. .
and I can say honestly that even if I had easier pieces to work on I still made a mess of them and they are filled with mistakes as well. It’s not like there would be any difference so I chose to continue working on these harder pieces because I enjoy their configurations. am I frustrated? Yes, can I find a teacher that is good for me? No. I’ve been through about six in the last five years. The longest was nine months with one and five with another. The rest were one shot deals.
nice
This channel is criminally underrated. I am taking your advice now. It's been a year since I started self teaching myself with a few months with a teacher who taught me theory and corrected my dynamics with grade 0 pieces. I've been playing grade 5 pieces since January and now I tried to play a grade 3 piece and realize I actually struggle to play allegro and my sound is awful even though the notes are simpler than I'm using to. Great video.
As an adult who is in the process of learning the piano I completely agree with you... BUT! 🙂
For instance, I've been playing piano "by ear" for quite a lot of time, and I've developed quite good technique, meaning that I'm able to play even some more challenging pieces. But well, since I've never really studied piano from the sheet music, now I'm trying to fix that part by reading some music every day.
Therefore, it's quite hard for me to find balance between my reading and playing abilities which are at very different level.
I don't know if you are even going to read this comment, but if you do, some advice would be appreciated.
Thank you and I wish you all the best!
similar situation to me - I'm at grade 6 pieces also technically, but my sight reading is at grade 1. I'm working on sight reading in earnest but the progress is very slow.
I usually let a student of mine try a hard piece they wish to desperately learn, for a few weeks. If not enough progress is made, we put it in the fridge. Another idea is to re-learn pieces they have already mastered in the past. Very often they can play those pieces not so well anymore and it is a valuable lesson to go over them again, and the second time they learn them much quicker.
This is real. I am an amateur pianist. The last teacher I had helped me develop good technique. I was at that time learning Schumann’s Carnaval. I was obsessed with it. He told me I needed to let go of it because I wasn’t ready for it. He wanted me to pick up shorter repertoire, I ignored him and insisted. I learned most of the piece but was never able to truly learned it. Then later on in life I learned some of the pieces he recommended, and to my amazement my abilities skyrocketed. Not just technically but musical maturity as well.
Thank you for this. Just curious, what were some of the pieces that your teacher recommended?
@@TheIndependentPianist he recommended I did some of the “easier” Chopin etudes, op. 10 no. 3, op. 25 no1, no2. He also recommended Schubert impromptus, Chopin ballad 2 or 3. None of these I mentioned are by any means easy. But they are less exhausting and taxing as Carnaval which I consider to be a virtuosic and exhausting piece. He told me that there were many beautiful and challenging pieces from which I could enjoy and grow. And he was right. I did not enjoy learning carnaval. It felt like torture. He was also a firm believer in practicing scales and chords. Not hours of scales. He would just give me one scale to practice all week long, with different speeds, different dynamics. The understanding of how to properly play scales smoothly, how to listen to my touch, and to have flexibility all around yet firm fingers, truly took me from playing mediocre to playing proficiently.
I try to get my students to work mainly on pieces at their level, but also sometimes suggest more challenging pieces and also more easy pieces. Think the main thing that you hit on is the more repertoire you learn, the more patterns you start to understand subconsciously, and the more experience you have in problem solving and fingering etc. As long as learning challenging pieces doesn't interupt the flow I think it's ok. Let's say on the ABRSM grade standard, if they are grade 3 level, I'd be suggesting pieces at that level, but also some grade 2 and grade 4 in smaller amounts. I think the easier pieces make clear how much progress they have hopefully made, while the more challenging pieces can be good for motivation since they may be more interesting to study. I suppose the real danger is people playing way above their level, which doesn't seem that useful for almost anything.
I disagree quite a bit with you saying you should be able to roughly sightread from the start. I find a lot of more advanced music has sections that actually is quite easy to play and well within my level, but i would be unable to sightread it because of how it looks. A famous example would be the 2nd cadenza from liebestram that has so many notes, but once you understand the pattern it comes together pretty easily.
The student and teacher should come to an agreement on pieces they are willing to work on together. Easier pieces are important as difficult ones. Memorizing the acrobatic movements , the feeling of playing certain jumps etc. constantly thinking all the time(stop if you're not focusing) and telling you're fingers what to do to the point where you do things in a totally relaxed fashion extreme jumps reach their destinations forcing. Playing takes effort but not stress. Relaxation in stretching to mold your fingers to the topography of the keyboard and concentration with practice is key. As for understanding expression the composers intent and balance of sound, that will take more time . Also exposure to playing a variety of technical problems and styles is good with avoidance of over practicing but coming back to a piece later on which may lead to more improvement ( magically!)
Been a professional musician for 11 years as a guitarist and been practicing piano for a very short while. Looking forward to this video. I recently got Microcosmos by Bartok, would you recommend it?
Yes, a great set! They are arranged in gradually ascending difficulty, and they cover every possible kind of pattern. They are also refreshingly "modern" as well.
Thank you Cole, for your interesting work.
I started to study piano one year ago. My teacher uses Bastien method which I combine with Hanon exercises . Despite I usually find some difficulties in most of Bastien exercises, I would like to know if following this method is a good idea. I love classical music but taking into account my actually level, I am not probably yet prepared to play an easy classical piece. What do you think about these two questions?
Thank you so much!!
Thanks for watching! I think all of the piano methods (Bastien, Alfred, Faber etc) are excellent for building up to being able to play “real” pieces. Actually in the higher levels they usually include some easier works that will ease you into more difficult rep. The idea of combining your method book with some other exercises and scales is also a good idea. Sounds like you are on the right track!
Interesting PoV. How does a person (or their teacher) choose what to play? I've recently restarted lessons after over 40 years. My first teacher (when I was 10 - 17) never told me anything, he used to play and I would imitate. It worked fairly well, he was a RAM medal winner and played well. I used to think this was a bad method but a friend wished her teacher would play to her! I was around UK grade VII in 1981, my teacher after 6 months lessons is suggesting doing grade VIII but I feel that would be too fast. Some returners go back several grades. How do you decide what to play? My new teacher seems to want me to suggest what to play and I'd rather work on diverse pieces to help my technique, as you suggest (I think the old grade system supported this well, with basically a classic a romantic and a modern piece at each grade). I've picked up some old pieces (the Grieg Notturno, some Bach (my favourite), some Debussy. I'm doing some GVII pieces and Maple Leaf Rag (cos I asked the teacher for something to improve my non-existant pedalling technique)... any thoughts on how one chooses?
Hello! Do you know how to train my ear in order to hear two or more notes played simultaneously? I have to inform you, that I am able to hear each scale degree in the established tonality, but I am not able to "isolate" each note when more notes are played in the same time! Do you have any advice? Thank you very much for your detailed answer!
You couldn’t choose a teacher as a child, or rather I would have had no idea how to choose a teacher or know if they were not very good. So I wound up playing (perfectly btw, still surprised at this today) für Elise as my first piece like after two weeks of piano. For some reason I only got to learn stupid exercises and Chopin pieces my mom played that I felt I was interested enough in playing. The teacher had no feedback in selecting pieces whatsoever.
Same with my next teacher, so I only played my dream pieces at the time which were certainly above my level but I think I did ok. She tried to suggest other pieces from similar composers but I was not very interested, and did not know how to find things I wanted to play that were worth the effort (sight reading was a lot of effort for me I always finished a piece by ear). Violin was different because you can make anything sound good on it, so I did not care what I played and progressed very well with more technically challenging exercises, unfortunately I decided to take a break when entering high school and never took it back up again.
But I think I would have enjoyed playing a lot more if performing came with music theory, so you could also write your own music eventually as a goal, analyze what the composer was doing and learn from it.
Lots of good ideas here. I think you were lucky starting with Für Elise. I get the feeling many would get frustrated starting with a piece like that, but sometimes talent can bring people over certain obstacles early on. Certainly interest is a very important part of learning. For children, it is really up to the parents to find good teachers-a topic for another video! Also I never found it very easy to make anything sound good on the violin, but that may have just been me!
They say of me, and so they should,
It's doubtful if I come to good.
I see acquaintances and friends
Accumulating dividends,
And making enviable names
In science, art and parlor games.
But I, despite expert advice,
Keep doing things I think are nice,
And though to good I never come--
Inseparable my nose and thumb!
~Dorothy Parker
😆
A good point! Although maybe you can do nice things and also follow expert advice 😉
@@TheIndependentPianist I think she means she does what SHE thinks is nice? Not the expert...
If someone really has musical talent, insight into music I can't imagine COMPLETELY giving oneself over to a teacher's instruction. A lump of clay being moulded, as you stated. I have my own life and experiences to call upon. Teachers should suggest, offer examples and historical styles, but never DEMAND. My first semester as a university student, seven years into playing, I took on the G minor Ballade, the B minor Scherzo, Bach Italian Concerto, Prokofiev Sonata 3. I performed all but the last one, and successfully. I'm sure my professor had doubts as to whether I could handle these but he never told me I shouldn't try. I had six teachers in my life (I'm 71 now) and the only two I chose not to continue with were strict disciplinarians who told me exactly how a piece should be played. I had too much respect for my talents to let someone do that to me. Teachers need to respect the talents and potential of their students.
Performed all 3 that same year?
This is a very good point. I probably overstated it in my video about allowing oneself to be "molded." I only really meant that one should be totally open to a teacher's advice in lessons, and strive to apply that advice in practice. Of course, you should have your own individuality and ideas about things. Perhaps one should not completely follows those personal ideas completely until enough confidence and experience has been developed under guidance to allow the way forward to be unimpeded by debilitating pitfalls.
But after all, the proof is really in the pudding as they say-if you can play it well, then by all means go for it! I'm specifically thinking of people who are stalled in their progress, and who might come to me or another teacher thinking that I might have some magic trick that will help them learn that dream piece. Often times, they don't want to hear that maybe a temporary delay in learning that piece would be the quickest way to move forward.
I haven't been much of a disciplinarian in my teaching in general, although sometimes I wonder if I should be. When I think of all the amazing pedagogues who have famously been rather martinets, and the musicians they helped shape, it does cause me to wonder... I had great progress with teachers who were more strict, and some who were much more gentle, so I guess to each their own.
@@eugenelevin9809 there were regular student performances scheduled. The only one that went badly for me was the Italian Concerto. I had developed stage fright and this caused memory lapses. Because I had this one embarrassing performance I gave up my music studies and moved on to other interests. I only began studying piano again seven months ago, after a gap of 52 years. I am very pleased with my piano time and hope to perform some pieces soon. I am no longer under any pressure other than what I choose to place on myself.
So I will stop trying to play Clair De Lune for now. I can’t even figure out the first bar lol. Way ahead of myself. I can play lots of pop songs from chord charts though and like to improvise similar type stuff.
I just purchased the Bach notebook you mentioned. Thanks for the advice!
I agree - mostly. I do let students attempt pieces above their ability once in a while. They do not hear Mozart or Haydn in concerts but do hear Beethoven and Chopin. I was a know-it-all teen too and demanded to play Beethoven sonatas. I nearly quit. I secretly learned a sonata and listened to records for the style and approach. I played it for my teacher and she helped me learn it properly. I now have 4 college degrees in music and taught for 40 years, won competitions, and love piano. It did not cause damage to attempt to play over my level at least once in a while. I also taught band and orchestra and gave brass learners lip slurs on day one.
what you said is pretty much why my piano teacher never let me play Liszt or Chopin until my senior year of high school. Well, that and she wasn't a huge fan of either, and thought my time was best spent on lesser-known composers. Why play what judges have heard 199 times badly if you can play something novel and rare well?
It is a fair point, and one reason why I avoided Beethoven sonatas for many years. I think many feel the pressure of "tradition," whereas if you play Ives or Grainger or Gershwin there is a lot more freedom to forge your own interpretations. This of course is also philosophy that someone like Marc-André Hamelin followed successfully to achieve his current eminence (beyond simply being amazing).
Where are you located? Do you teach online?
“Students should be like clay.” This sounds almost the opposite of what I was told!
Teachers should teach you how to practice and be a musician, but I don’t know if that has to amount to being totally submissive
I didn't mean that a student should be totally submissive, rather that during the lesson the student should be open and receptive to whatever ideas are presented. Then, after they leave the lesson, they can choose to disregard the advice they heard. I had in mind mainly students who feel defensive and like they have to argue with the teacher etc. which I think is not very productive. I found I progressed the most when I tried everything my teachers recommended with an open mind before discarding advice that didn't suit me.
@@TheIndependentPianist that sounds reasonable.
Funnily enough I knew of a teacher who liked it when students argued with him, because she thought it was fun. And I guess she had nothing to prove and wasn’t defensive
How do you spot a teacher who is jealous of the student and will try to sabotage the progression ? Do you think the student should listen ?
I had several teachers like that, one of them was jealous, another one was not competent (for a very specific technical situation), and I am grateful I did not listen to any of them.
I think that you are wrong about the fun: fun, pleasure, excitement are very important, and can be or should be a basis for motivation, discovery, progress, fun comes with ease and good self image, and image of a future self/performance/artist.
I also think that one could or should start with memorisation first, or at least very soon. For professionals (not teachers but concertists). For beginners I do not have an opinion; I would invite them anyway to do mental work (emotion, movement and analysis) first or everyday, before "practice".
I add more specifics; there is a situation, very common and simple to understand: a teacher can be a narcissist (which is a psychological syndrome and eventually sickness) to a certain degree; so if such teacher feels endangered by another person (involving a "narcissistic collapse"), the teacher might react by making this other person "lower", sabotaging, or in a way, "killing the growth" of the other, in order to preserve the narcissistic self-image of the teacher. Unfortunately, this can be bery common for people looking for attention (job involving stage, performers, entrepreneurs, and eventually others jobs). In the movie "pianoforte", about Chopin competition, Eva Gevorgyan has a horrible teacher, lowering and humiliating her, with inappropriate and irrational behavior, eventually in front of others. I believe this teacher is a very dangerous narcissistic person.
holy crap you look dreamy as hell in the thumbnail
(sorry)
Haha, thank you-I'm supposed to look angstful, but I'll take dreamy!
It sounds really bad to conclude that the student should play something easier when he-she is stalling. Don't you think there is some investigation to do ? spotting the weak aspects of the work and work on them ? I do not teach music but that would be the first thing I would do !
Thank you for commenting, I'm going to address this question and your other comment in a future Q&A video.
So a professional level pianist playing prokofiev piano concerto No 2 would be able to sight read it… yeah no lol. Also student’s absolutely should push themselves to play harder repertoire. Much harder that’s too much for them to handle? Well that’s different but they certainly should push themselves to get better and not only play things that are easy for them. You need to challenge them to get better.
Perhaps we have a different definition of "sight-reading." I don't mean "play through the piece perfectly with no mistakes at tempo," although there are certainly some amazing sight-readers out there who could indeed get through Prokofiev 2nd concerto on their first read at tempo-not perfectly, but no doubt they could do it. What I meant, is that the pianist should be able to read through at a reasonable practice tempo (not glacially slow), with stops and starts and should be able to do that in one sitting-accurately! I think pretty much ANY professional pianist worth their salt could do this with Prokofiev 2nd Concerto, or indeed any other piece in the standard repertoire. I'm not talking about insane things like Opus clavicembalisticum here of course...things like that are more of a special case.
I can't tell you how many students I have seen who want to play something like Chopin's G minor Ballade, who, at the same time, can barely get through an easier Mozart Sonata mvt with all the right notes. To improve reading efficiency, a student should indeed play many things that are well within their current ability. Of course they also need things that will challenge them-but they need to be at a place where they can at least "read through" everything in one go to have a hope of mastering a truly difficult work without needing to spend months and months (maybe years) just being able to read the notes.
Again, I have run into students who will show me a Beethoven sonata they have been working on for a full year-still full of mistakes, misreadings, wrong rhythms, and played at practically half-speed. This means the repertoire is too hard for them! That is simply the way it works. Inexperienced teachers will lead students on, and allow them to work on repertoire that it is too difficult for their current level, but anyone with more experience really owes it to the student to be honest. Otherwise you are simply wasting their time and money.