Piano masterclass on Technical Exercises, from Steinway Hall London
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- Опубликовано: 6 ноя 2024
- Graham Fitch's in-depth piano lesson on Technical Exercises. This lesson complements his full-length article inside Pianist No 76, which you can download here: pocketmags.com...
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◼️ LESSON BY: GRAHAM FITCH - Pianist, teacher, writer and adjudicator gives masterclasses and workshops on piano playing internationally. He is also in high demand as a private teacher in London. Graham is a regular tutor at the Summer School for Pianists in Walsall and also a tutor for the Piano Teachers’ Course EPTA (UK). He writes a popular piano blog and has launched an online piano academy. practisingthep...
◼️ FILMED AT: STEINWAY HALL - The masterclass takes place on a Steinway Model D concert grand at Steinway Hall, London www.steinwayhal...
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5:27 extension & finger independence
8:46 Hanon
11:13 scales
12:20 arpeggios
13:19 double notes
14:43 octaves
15:41 chords
16:35 a lovely exercise 😊
Thanks for this 👍👍
Thanks a lot!!!!!!!!!
Thanks
@@kaiqueaugusto7265 Good luck with your studies!
Thank you, Alan.
This is the Internet at it's best; free lessons in piano technique from one of the very best teachers around.
It's thousands of dollars worth of teaching but we had to learn all of the lessons before internet the hard way. It's unbelievable.
This Gent is a master and a wonderful teacher. The understanding the wrist is what controls everything and makes the sound and not the fingers completely transformed my playing.
This man really has a mastery of the piano and it shows 🙏
Amazing teacher, with clarity and purpose and patience. Thank you!
Mr. Fitch has opened a world of piano possibilities through his thorough explanations.
Also the extended arpeggio practice. What a meaningful, useful video! Thanks so much!
Glad you are finding it useful!
The best technical exercise video I have watched! Thank you for sharing!
Graham is THE MAN!
Anyone else taking a break from practicing, by watching videos of other people practicing to build motivation to get back to practicing? 😅
It's actually a smart technique
Exactly me right now
Ha ha maybe
Are you me??
yeah but everybody is sleeping
One of the best masterclasses I've encountered and thankful to the internet and everyone responsible for free quality education on art ❤️💯🙌
Thank you Graham Fitch for showing me the correct way to warm up the hands in preparation to playing the coolest instrument, the piano!
IT IS ALWAYS A JOY STUDYING WITH YOU. PERFECT !
I thinks it's great that you modifiy the Hanon excersises with wrist and forearm movements. This is extremely important in order to avoid injury and tension. Very good!!
- nicely done - I use variations of a number of these myself - VERY helpful!
the sequence I use for arpeggios - using C as an example - is C major root position, lower the E to E-flat for C minor root position, raise the G to A-flat for A flat major first inversion, raise the E-flat back to E-natural for C major augmented, raise the A-flat to A-natural for A minor first inversion, raise the E to F for F major second inversion, and lower the A back to A-flat for F minor second inversion. Play these in parallel for 2 to 4 octaves - using "standard" fingering for each inversion as it's encountered.
NOW the fun begins! - play with the hands 1 note out of phase:
- using the same "standard" fingering for each inversion, play the above sequence starting with your right hand 2nd finger on the third of the chord (i.e. E) and your left 5th finger on the C a 10th below; play in ascending parallel approximately 10ths apart. When your right hand 5th finger reaches the top C, turn around and start descending (down to G) while your left hand thumb plays its last ascending note (C) then starts descending so that you return in parallel at approximately 6ths and 4ths apart. At the bottom your right hand will reach the C first while the left hand is playing its next-to-last descending note (E). The right hand turns around and plays the next ascending note (E-flat) while the left hand plays its last descending note (C), then turns around to follow again for the next chord in the sequence at approximately 10ths.
Then play the entire sequence starting with the left hand 4th finger on the third of the chord (E) and the right hand thumb on C a 6th above; play in ascending parallel in approximate 6ths and 4ths. When your left hand thumb reaches the top C it turns around first and begins the descent to G while the right hand 5th finger plays its last ascending note (C), the right hand then turns around and begins the descent in parallel approximate 10ths; the left hand reaches the bottom first and turns around and heads back up using the next chord, while the right plays its last descending note (C), then turns around and heads back using the same chord up in approximate 6ths and 4ths.
And of course use varying combinations of dynamics - crescendo both hands ascending, decrescendo descending, vice-versa, and of course crescendo one hand ascending, decrescendo the other, and switch descending - greatly smoothing and giving a fluid independence.
For the insanity challenge play different chords in each hand - in unison, and 1 note out of phase.
PS - this is mainly useful for chords starting on the white keys due to use of the thumb
PPS - starting one note out of phase also works great with the 7th chords - again, those which start on white keys.
If you have always wanted to learn to play the piano but didn't know where to start, then this is for you... VISIT HERE: PianoLessons99.blogspot.com
Thanks Graham for sharing such an awesome techniques, a great gift for all piano learners!!
This is exactly what I was looking for. Been playing a year with good progress but practicing the technical exercises everyday is going to help a lot!
Amazing …. And thanks for freeing my hanon up with a modern mind and technique !! 😍
Thank you soo much for these video I am happy to leran english and having these free information so usefuul I learned more in these video than my past 15 years of clasess
Somehow I just know that was a masterful lesson that I will never forget having seen it just once. Tightening up and stiffening is a human knee-jerk reaction to a situation where you are not in a comfort zone but you are compelled to act nonetheless. Who knows where this comes from. Maybe childhood experiences of being told, “try harder! Put more effort into it! Come on, you lazy mama’s boy (or daddy’s princess)”. But now we sit in front of a piano keyboard because it is something we want to do. You want to be able to play difficult pieces. The old messages creep in. “Work hard to achieve what you want. Try harder. Harder!” You tighten up your shoulders. Your wrists are stiff. Both these take energy to do and they both inhibit good playing. I suppose there are situations in life where stress hormones play a positive role in getting you out of harms way, but playing music is not among them. In fact, stress is a killer, and the road in pursuit of music is littered with dead bodies along the wayside. Music students who forced themselves to follow practice regimes which ingrained bad habits, both mental and physical. They think practicing 20 hours a day, living on cookies and coffee and hardly sleeping will guarantee success for a recital or competition. Then the day comes, and this dedicated student discovers all that effort has culminated into feeling like a WWI battlefield. Be determined, give it effort, but do it relaxed. To play piano well and to sight read well, you must develop good spatial coordination with the keyboard. You don’t need to look at it. You must feel it and “see” it with your hands, fingers, and arms. Your fingers have eyes. Never mind what anatomy books say, your fingers can see. No, no, no. That’s ridiculous. Yes, and so is Quantum Theory and the world of elementary particles. Do an experiment and pretend your fingers can see for six months. Nothing bad is going to happen. Unless you are already Franz Liszt, you’ve got nothing to lose by trying a new mental approach. Plus Franz Liszt’s fingers could see. So could Mozart’s. I never knew either of them personally, but I guarantee you it’s true. Meet the challenges of playing difficult pieces by starting from your comfort zone, and expanding it to include new things. Let this masterclass be your comfort zone. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a pianist’s repertoire.
Thank you for your videos, Mr. Graham! They are professional and priceless!
Great advices!Thank you so much Mister Fitch!
Love this! I’ve been focusing on finger exercises all my life and this video is life changing. Thank you!
It must be great a great lesson since he has most precise and powerfull hands: Thank you so much.
That was Hanon exercise #6. Thanks for a great way to exercise the wrists.
Thank you so much for your precious advices!
A very nice routine, covering a lot of ground. Many pianists will develop their own versions of course, but seeing another pianist actually performing these exercises, especially with such a fine hand, is quite inspiring.
he should do more videos.
Really nice lessons
Many thanks Graham. Am using Lang Lang’s warm ups, same concepts as you discuss. ❤
THANK YOU SO MUCH, SIR!
That exercise on doing octaves on Bach Inventions is VERY interesting!
Loved the arpeggio practice style!!!
Real teaching master, master of piano theacher. Thank you. Xiexie. 谢谢！
This video is the best piano techniques video I’ve ever watched, I will watch it everyday while starting my piano study and try to memorize all the exercise. Could have been better if we were able to see the notes in a better view (with a top view of the fingers)
Basic movements of hands I didn’t know. Very good.
Real masterclass. Thank you!
Thanks very much Graham for wonderful lesson on technique practice..
Thank you so much for your videos which are extremely helpful😀
Thank you for this very helpful video, I've learned a lot of it. I believe those are great ways to warm up. Thanks again.
This is great. All I have been doing is hanon.. very helpful!
Lateral freedom: Brahms´51 technical studies - No 16 - is brilliant. One finger fixated, while the other fingers do figures around it - and if you mind relaxation in fingers after stroke - it solves a lot of stiffness/static tension problems.
This guy is good and he knows it.
Thank you so much, great learning video. Hug!
Realy thanks!!!!!!
Very Very Helpful, Awesome
These videos are really great
"flopping around all over the keyboard ... and no sound" -- brilliant! The exercise you describe at 6:20 for large hands can easily be adapted for small hands (like mine). I can't stretch an octave using 2-5, but the exercise can be done with a 7th chord instead, or if even that is too much then an added 6th (such as C-E-G-A) in the left hand and its mirror image (a 4-2 chord, such as F-G-B-D) in the right.
+sgut1947
You are so correct,..''flopping around on a keyboard'' with no immediate sound from what you are doing, only teaches disaster.
I cannot even imagine that, and I practice in the dark and with eyes shut.
The only way you will ever learn correct and instinctive intonation, and split decision making and recovery, and instinct,... is if you identify everything you touch, with the sound that it makes. And the way that you touch it, is an additional giant lesson in music...
The connection in the brain between sound and the touch that produced it,...is priceless, and cannot be gotten out of theory or a book.
Every time I see someone trying to learn music,...on a plastic or fake instrument,..I cringe at what they are setting themselves up for in life,..and what they are cheating themselves out of. And invariably, if you check back on them years later, they have gone no where with it.
There is zero replacement for a real instrument, and zero replacement for the scales that teach you how to think and recover.
I thank God for the parent who forced me to take decades of piano no matter how much I argued and protested, because now I have albums of my accomplishments.
If I had to do my life over again, I would memorize every scale known to mankind, because it would make me 1000 times sharper and better. My only struggle in piano is what I did not memorize,...or refused to..
Um
Excellent! Practical and "to the point".
Rameau is the composer of the opening suite
I love this teacher
+Dreambro1 wtheckk lol
awesome vid. there are very less videos like this on youtube
Some very good suggestions here, though I think that practising trills are also indispensable for a daily regime.
I think it's an illusion to believe that exercises in extension and exercises with fixed position of the hand (for independency of fingers) can be done without *any* tension. A certain amount of tension is needed -- on the moment of striking the key -- and not harmful at all if common sense is used... "technique ends where fatigue begins".
I can recommend the exercises that are collected in Marguerite Long's book "Le Piano". Also the exercises of Pischna and Brahms are very good to develop strength and indepedency of the fingers.
+pianopera Absolutely,..you cannot play, without tension. Tension has to be suitably harnessed. And this is where the skill comes in.
pianoforte
The "technical' issue of tension is this: muscles only contract - they do not "push"
In order to lower a finger, muscles on the underside of the arm contract; to raise the finger, muscles on the upper side of the arm contract.
If you contract both the muscles of the lower and upper sides at the same time you can effectively lock your fingers so that no one can budge them - try it ...
That is the undesirable tension - opposing muscles contracting at the same time.
So - if you're pulling a finger down to play a note, in order to lift it you must first stop pulling it down. Similarly, if you're holding a finger up, you must first stop holding it up before you can pull it down to play. The fatiguing tension occurs when there is overlap - even slight - in this transition so that for some fraction of the time both sets of muscles are contracting at the same time. The fingery harpsichord technique of lifting the fingers is notorious in this respect.
Pianists have solved for this using by using a so-called "close touch" where instead of pulling the fingers down and lifting them up, you pull the fingers down, and then simply stop pulling the fingers down - without really lifting them; simply letting the fingers rest on the keys rather than lifting them off the keys - cf. Theodore Leschetizky.
Great concentrated of useful tips for warming up. Thanks Sir Graham,
I have a old piano MATUSHEK NEW HAVEN..I shortened the 36 black keys 3.5 centimeters and get a gliss in chromatics (in back of the keys)..Very sweet results....Normally pianist uses natural chromatic but with this modification could be beautiful effects..(cut 45 grades to the back of the piano)
Very interesting! I will remember this (especially the undulating palm and the rotating wrist ) when i take up piano again - my teacher told me to keep my wrists raised - i will be seeking out another teacher next time though.
Thank you so much for the intelligent way to play the piano and things to avoid... like excess tension. Thanks again buddy : )
Master class!
Excellent
Thank you!!!
thank you! very inspiring!
Fantastic!
to everyone who watches this video(wanting to improve their technique)-----do what graham fitch does in this video for 1 or 2 months.it might help you in the first few days, after that stage, if you do not notice anymore improvement, you should stop doing them, and find your own exercises by experimenting.
According to Rosina Lhevinne's student, pianist John Browning, Mme. Lhevinne said that her husband Josef Lhevinne used to warm-up by playing double-sixths, among other things.
Go ahead try double 6ths for a week-----if you don't SHRED your tendons---your the only one.
If you want scales& arpeggios-trills-PlayMozart-Haydn& Scarlatti.If you want double 3rds/ 6ths- play Brahms Paganini & Handel variations& Busoni -Bach transcriptions.If you want chords/ octaves play Liszt Transcendental Etudes-& Rhapsody's.
THEN-you'll have a MUSICALLY serviceable technique NOT based on JUST digitality.
Done.
should i practice those everyday?
Really good advice thank you!
Jailbreaking Hanon......nice to be in the right place! Thanks
Thanks again!
Great advice as always!
Very cool, thanks :D
Thank you very much for your so important informative lessons. I follow you with much pleasure. But I would also like to share your videos with my students in Turkey. They don't know English. That would be wonderful if you could enable the Turkish subtitles translation option so that my students could understand your tecnical advices. Because some of them does not believe me when I talk about arm weight and danger of the finger excersizes. Thank you very much for your kind help in advance and for all your wonderful videos!!! 🙏🙏🙏🙏💐💐💐💐
Should we play them with our left hand under the right like him or should we just have a good posture?
Thanks Graham.
Hanon no.CZerny yes.Clementi etudes and BRahms exercises with DOnyhanni are great for the ear and the fingers.
Loved the Bach 2part practice style!
This is really helpful. But I’m still puzzled about Hanon. I see the exercises as targeting finger strength and independence and hence, the “piston” technique being the way to gain that. Whereas other exercises (or indeed repertoire) seem better for rotation and hand/arm movements. I’m sure I’m wrong, but I know that when I practice Hanon with “piston” fingers, I am gaining strength. Perhaps I am also risking tendinitis?
Thank youuuu
Thanks
THANK YOU
thank you.
Beast man
I Recommend Czerny Op.756, 692, 365, 399, 400, 822, 837 and 364 These books are more difficult than Op.299, 740, Chopin Etudes and Liszt Etudes
Congratulations Sir Graham Fitch! A great gift for everyone, so nice this noble initiative!
Just listen my "Final Contact" Suite.and my "Zirkel"Etude.
Be prepared for major ( and huge) surprises.
A true teacher is a rarest gem.
Ars Plena.Vita Longa. Yan Ayrton
Another good exercise is to stand in front of the piano and gripping it underneath, lift it in the air and hold it for 5 beats and gently set it down. Repeat daily until you have reached the point where you can lift the piano up to your nose and hold it for a full minute. Voila! Progress slowly and incrementally, or else you may have to cancel your performance due to various tendon tears and bone fractures. Be sure to wear to wear steel-toe shoes when you do this exercise!
Jose Iturbi took hisexcerciesfroom the music itself. When I inured my hand, I tried getting my right hand fingers to work by learning Chopin's etude # 1; op. 25 and the revolutionary etude. I hoped that would pick up my fingers.
Thank you teacher
Don't forget about my exercises!
Yes sir..
We won't forget you Charlie. And don't be cheeky Spykee.@@spykeebrar6973
School of velocity 😂
Infinitely forgettable.
It's you! I don''t know you have a youube channel
What did he mean by anything in two parts we can play in octaves?
My fingers are double jointed making this really hard. Will this have a major effect on my playing?
I've always loved Hanon, but only recently realizing that the way I play them is outdated. Now that I'm teaching my kids, I'd like to update this Hanon practice technique. Thank you
Fitch is right that the Hanon must not be played as "finger torture". I use them for myself just as for my students: but TRANSPOSE them to get black notes in the mix. There is an edition in which each of the first 20 are written out in major key transpositions (though doing it in your head is even better). See also "Hanon Revisited" by Gold and Fitzdale. There is counterpoint there.
Scales,..are life. You should play them in your sleep AND on a real instrument,..NOT A toy!!!
Scales will save you from your own performance mistakes, because they program into your instinct, quick decision, and quick mistake recovery.
That is what they are all about, plus building skill, evening the strength and stretch, speed, accuracy, recovery, proper intonation, and proper instinct. There is a giant difference in people who drill on scales, compared to those who do not. You can see it in the way that they approach and recover. The difference is amazing, even if you can hear nothing, you can still see their training in their hands. It shows immediately.
And by the way,..scaling will teach you to compose,..in your sleep. It will open up the world to you in composition and orchestration techniques, because of the way it reprograms your brain waves and chemical trailing in your brain. There is a hand- to vision- to brain connection through scaling, that is not available elsewhere, and this instinct in playing is not matched elsewhere.
+FashionistaDesigner Yes I agree. I'm a new pianist 42 years young and playing for about 9 months now. I practice scales daily without fail, especially in the left hand. Yes, it does develop instincts and I find myself improvising a lot more in different keys.
Loved how you explained this, thanks for the musical wisdom
FashionistaDesigner sight reading is life as it is the most important skill in playing. Even a person like me who has been playing for two years now can see that sight reading must be fluent in order to become a good pianist . A good pianist can play any piece I put on the piano. The key to piano is slow practice not scales. Slow sight reading and slow practice don't rush anything. It doesn't help you in concert engineering to know names of scales you have to act on instinct which will grow the more sheets you have seen the more patterns you know. You can't think of a way to recover from a mistake you have to move on it happens even in concert and I know one thing for sure concert is not musical perfection at all. Knowing scales doesn't help you if you can't properly read a sheet in a slow tempo . This is what makes the difference between a good pianist or a person who plays piano in their free time. They have more experience have seen more patterns and their brain recognize them faster. THE best way to grow is to play as many pieces as possible in order to gain experience. Even a 6 yr old can practice one piece for day and night. You have to differentiate between showmanship and masterclass reading skills. There are people out there who can read music like a book that's the ultimate dream.
J.S. Bach if you don't find value in learning scales you will have a difficult time on your musical journey. Bach is the LAST person I thought I'd be saying this too haha. Look at his music. Just scales and arpeggios. Scales will liberate you to no end. Good luck friend
I disagree, and I don't think this is a good way to put it for new players: the last thing they have to focus on are scales
that hanon modification is so interesting
Lovely
You mentioned that using Hanson exercise are harmful if done badly - it would have been helpful if you gave some examples of what ‘bad technique actually looks like.
so good tutorial ， so good editing！
Some notes at 7.00 to 8.15 need the hammer mating to the string. That removes the squealing sound. You lessons are much appreciated though . What were Steinways thinking ?
Some excellent stuff here Graham but for me Hanon gets unjustified bad press. As you say it can be used in the 'wrong' way but actually every now and then as a purely finger exercise, just to flex individual finger strength, it's great. I've used them all my life as player and teacher and it serves technique well imo. You can use the very first one as individual finger strength upwards towards using hardly any fingers at all using the arm roll and more wrist. Getting pupils to understand the 'feeling' of being relaxed using Hanon in these ways is an excellent resource in my view. Add to that varying degrees of rhythmic variation, dotted notes, triplets. Articulation of varying dynamics. Add to that utilizing Hanon outside of only c major and you have a massive body of technical work. I've heard of teachers that refuse to use Hanon in any way shape or form which frankly baffles me completely. I have never had a student that did not benefit from using Hanon in some way or other. In recent years (like we humans do) we have a tendency to be extreme in our methods as progress moves us 'forward' what was good before now is 'rubbish' . From great teachers I had when younger to this day with all the talk of arms, rotations, wrists, shoulders body weight (all legitimate) it's easy to forget that the very end of all that are? .... our fingers! They are the final touch, the final 'feel', and with the huge reportoire the piano has they do actually need some strength elasticity and power in them to cope with everything we throw at them....Hanon imo helps greatly towards that.
BOOORRRRRIIINNNGG..... i can't imaging spending my time working on these Technical Exercises.
What is the intro piece?!
What’s the tune in the beginning can someone please help me
I was frantically looking for the LOVE button.
Great tips!