jojo recommended a great article on how long / how best to practise, over on the Strings Forum. Click here the discussion on the other thread.

http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/how-man...d-you-practice/

For those who don't use "View New Posts" and might not have spotted it...

Thanks for that - that's a brilliant article.

The rest of the website is very interesting too.

I am interested to hear others' thought processes as they practice in the way that the article describes, regardless of instrument, if anyone is willing to share. So here's an experiment, I will start. If nobody ever replies then I guess this thread will end up like a practice blog.

There is a passage in the left hand of the Chopin Op. 53 Polonaise in A-flat, that has a scale in consecutive octaves (bar 13 if anyone knows the piece). It is difficult. I have not really made any progress with it. Today I tried to think of why I found it difficult and what exactly I needed to think about when I practiced it.

- It is difficult because I have to move my arm at different speeds to play consecutive octaves (E-flat to F is a larger distance than F to G and that itself is greater than G to A-flat). I cannot yet play it evenly at speed.

- Have I had this problem before? Absolutely, when I was learning how to play scales. E-flat to F is still a larger distance than F to G even if you're playing it right hand only. I learnt how to do that with enough practice, therefore I can learn how to do this.

- Why had I made no progress before? The biggest reason was that I thought "I've got small hands, it's difficult". Never stopped to think what the actual thing was that made it difficult, which turns out to have nothing to do with having small hands.

I think that you have just hit the nail on the head. How many of us, truthfully, have actually stopped to think about what we are doing and why exactly we are struggling with a particular piece.

I have a practice room booked tomorrow for a couple of hours and I shall report back once I have actually attempted 'mindful' practising. I doubt that I shall be as great at analysing as concisely as yourself, but I shall give it a go.

Great! Can't wait to hear about it Come one come all...

Edit: I just re-read the small handed pianist thread that I started, and I did apparently realise the different distance thing to do with consecutive octaves - but clearly forgot it again, and never put two and two together that that would have been a problem regardless of whether the scale was octaves or not.

Amazing what a little bit of *thinking* can do.

Now, I think that you have just hit another nail on the head . When we think of why we can't do something we go 'oh, that's why' and then promptly forget about it - because we are moving on. Interestingly, my cello teacher makes me keep a journal but my violin teacher doesn't. I refer back to my cello journal and think...'ah, yes. that's what / how I had to do it', whereas I don't have that point of reference with the violin.

I think that, to go along with my 'mindful' practising, I am going to keep a 'mindful' journal - diary style and I will write down my discoveries...bullet pointed....and then refer back to them for the next practice session. I have decided to do 3 long practice sessions per week - 2 hours per time - (at the music practice room at university, where I can play the same bar over and over) and short - scale and Ivan Galamian type exercises - for the rest of time at home. Exercises to adjust my playing position and 'mindful' practice to hone those skills.

I'm waffling.

Long and short....two nails on the head!

Yes, there's plenty of stuff that relates to common Forumite concerns such as pre-performance nerves.

I'm considering pasting this article on the wall!

I recently read two books to help me practise better (still to put it into practice ): The Perfect Wrong Note by William Westney (advocates a freer, anti obsessive-compulsive approach to practising) and The Practice Revolution by Philip Johnston (quality versus quantity, useful strategies for teachers to use with - mainly younger - students). In case any one wants more reading. Actually, most of the best of the ideas are condensed very well condensed on the Bulletproof Musician website, although "Dr. Noa Kageyama" doesn't actually cite them.

Thanks again to jojo for finding the website.

Not sure if Mad Tom is still posting, but I'm sure he won't mind my mentioning his blog which also gives some interesting insights in this area.


http://worldofpiano.wordpress.com

The stuff on mental practise and finding the right time of day to practise was really good too.

I know I deliberately say right I'm going to take bb.... and play them slowly working on correct attack and accuracy and only work on those bars until they are accurate. I will have a whole list of sections I found difficult last run through. Then at the end of the session I'll have a run through at tempo. Or I'll deliberately timetable a slot as playthrough time without stops and if there are mistakes note them for the next corrective practise session.

When I listen to ESD He just picks up the book and plays through picking things back and repeating back. He would never pick up a rondo finale and start on the last page. I often do. Maybe this is what an age and experience gap of 29 years does. He might learn, but then probably not from me... I'm his mother!

... today's mindful practising update is short, and blindingly obvious

It is really difficult to concentrate on practising after a full day at work.

Sometimes I am so fraught and exhausted that practice can be self-defeating.
I wonder how many days of decent practice I can miss in a week and still make progress.
On average I'd say there's usually two I can't.


I think I need to take a leaf out of your book, jod. My teacher wondered last week whether I wasn't doing too many complete playthroughs (guilty of "Glutton" and "Always from the Top" practice flaws, in Philip Johnston's terminology). I used to do just the opposite and then would have problems playing through a whole piece. Now I've gone to the other extreme. Your approach sounds like the best compromise.


Yes indeed!!! In fact, I've wondered whether we shouldn't start a World of Piano thread to post links to interesting stuff on Mad Tom's blog and discuss it (sadly, without he himself). I see he's got another couple of entries up since I last looked.

Doesn't come up on the first page when you Google World of Piano blog, though. Here's wishing Mad Tom lots of readers soon...

I learnt the habit of running through pieces as a singer as when it comes to programme building it comes to a point where stamina work is half of the battle. Now as I approach G8 piano I was noticing I could play through 2/3 pieces perfectly well then piece three was pants and it didn't matter which order I played the pieces in so I deducted that mental/physical stamina was an issue here too.

Hence these sessions were as valuable as the dissection and rebuild sessions.

I am totally guilty of just repeating the whole piece in the attempt to get it right, but I get it wrong more often than not so I have recently changed my practice to address this. The thing bugging me at the minute is, I can play a piece perfectly well at home (A Beethoven Bagatelle) but it falls to pieces when I am at my lesson and teacher is trying to record it. This is partly through nerves, but the mistakes I make tend to be the same ones. So I am going to iron those mistakes out. I have figured out why I am making most of them, but I'm not sure why I make some others lol.

My problem tends to be making different mistakes..... less easy to find the cause.

I love this article. It's actually explained to me why I hated singing practice (and rarely did much) until the last few weeks. I'm approaching my Grade 8 and have finally started to find all the pieces really quite challenging. I've never had to learn ornaments before, for example.

In particular, I've learned how useful it is to break down the section you're getting wrong, and go over it and over it, as slow as you need. I'm sure instrumentalists learn this earlier than singers... I've also discovered that my practice is more fun if I try to get a sense of performance in as early as possible by thinking about the emotional journey of the music. That way, I don't end up sounding like a singing robot when I perform!

In the article, the writing things down tip is especially good. I made a couple of pages for my filofax where I make a note of what pieces I did and any problems I worked on. This is really good for lessons too, because then I cna tell my teacher what I need her help with.

Just a shame all that work can't fix the timing issues on piece three because I don't have a recording of the accompaniment but nevermind, the exam is so close now I refuse to worry!

Mine is also blindlingly obvious - that the more I stress about the high notes and playing them in tune, the worse they sound. If i relax a bit more and don't mentally (and physically tense up) they sound a lot better and a lot more in tune.

Me too

I hope it's OK, if I join in this discussion.

I read the article yesterday. And I've some thoughts on it.

First I restarted to play the flute 3 years ago. I am not sure if I know enough about techniques to always find a solution for special problems. But I always try. And I think I can ask my teacher if I am not able to find a solution on my own.
Second I generaly work like this. Maybe it's a personal thing. I always first face a problem, figure out what it is and what it means and then try to find a solution.

I have been to a training course the past two days, that was pretty exhausting, so not much energy left for mindful practicing with a brain full of new knowledge.

My main focus right know is to improve my tone and to improve working with my lynchpin. Yesterday I faced the problem of playing b flat (second octave on the flute) to f (third octave on the flute) slured as harmonics.
It's nearly impossible for me to do so.

Possible reasons are
- I still fear the f (no kidding)
- I do not use my abdominals enough in this situation
- the fingering of f is still not automatic

Solutions could be
- trying to accept my fear in front of f and any higher notes and try to reduce this by playing them more often with my mind in working mode.
- Only do the fingering for all the dreaded note from f third octave on without the flute at my mouth
- go on playing harmonics to loosen my jaw and getting a feeling for my abdominals for this notes

Beside all that, I also find it hard to practice mindful and not with my brain on autopilot after a long day of work.l

Fear: yes that can really get in the way have you tried self-hypnosis or deep relaxation techniques especially as you also report brain being on auto pilot after work.

Try having a break and reading a book for 30 mins before practice and eating something not to heavy but nutritious.

Getting the fingering automatic will only come with time silent practise or no silent practise so don't beat yourself up over this.

Try pilates if you want to get intouch with your abdominals. Might help with the relaxation work too. Just a thought.

As promised here is the feedback on my practice session.

Practice time: 2.5 hours (10 min breaks on the hour).

Objectives: Introduce new scales and improve tone on three exam pieces.

AOB: Taped myself on my dictaphone.

Outcome:

I played my current scales well, but intonation was sloppy on position shifting. Improved the intonation by tackling small sections and placing fingers deliberatly until correct pitch was achieved. Added in dominant sevenths, which was enjoyable. Also, added in chromatic scales, which I loved but my brain has a failing on a note descending. Tackled this altering fingering pattern and 'seems' to have solved the problem.

Main pieces were tackled one by one and the stumbling block was not so much on the position shifting but keeping the tempo going. I am happy to position shift but because I do not know the notes yet I am stumbling, which then loses tempo and then I start to feel sorry for myself. Tackled by just attempting the few bars at the beginning of the shift to try and keep the tempo correct - lost intonation, but tempo improved. Will work on intonation but the main thing is tempo.

I lack confidence when fourth finger is involved. Not a fear of using it, but fear that the pitch always sounds dull and therefore when I am approaching fourth finger placing I start to tense up. I hope to overcome this by getting fourth finger exercises from teacher at the weekend.

Observations: I played in a music practice room with a lot of space. I had plenty of time for practice and therefore after my intial tense first ten minutes I could relax completely. I played with gay abandon and that, along with 'mindful' practising, allowed me to relax fully and therefore play like there was no restrictions. Also, the thought of students passing the room and listening also made me want to produce a sound that they would not laugh at. Therefore I understand that I need to take my practice more seriously. I need to make each note count and not rush. I feel that I am being rushed when I practice at home.

As a thought I listened to my recording the next day (from my dictaphone) and I surprised myself. I play better than I think that I do. I think that when the violin is so close to my ear I hear every scrape and scratch and tend to concentrate more on these than the pretty noise that I am making.

I will make a real effort with the mindful practising in future.



This is a really good action plan. I know that my brain fears certain things and that is difficult to overcome, but I think with an action plan it can be worked at.

Sounds a bit like what my teacher said to me last lesson: "Your main problem is that you need to be more patient with yourself!"
Beside that I got physical exercises for my abdominals and a Taffanel/Gaubert Study for getting in touch with my abdominals. I hope it will help.
I think, today I will have a little nap before practicing. I am so tired right now, I start to be crossed-eyed.



I hope, it will work out as a good action plan for me. I will let you know.

Yes, do that please. I think that the more members who post about observations during practice time the more we can learn from one another. Also, it reinforces that we are all feeling the same thing and not alone

Look forward to your update!

That's a really interesting article - it nicely phrased what I've subconsciously realized.

I usually do practice that way, but my problem is that I don't have the physical stamina to match the mental, and I'm more of a visual learner (tough for singing ...). By the time I've figured something out, I can only do a few repetitions before I'm too tired to do any more correctly. It's not enough repeats to build muscle memory, so the next day I end up starting almost from the beginning (but with the "intellectual" knowledge of how I eventually managed to get where I was, and a memory of the physical sensations). A lot of the time, I'll pin-point a problem during my weekly practice and then ask my teacher for exercises that will help.

The flute is much easier since I can see and hear and feel what I'm doing . I usually play through what I'm working on a few times to see which mistakes or problems are consistently showing up. Then I focus on the problem areas.




Does this mean consistently making many different mistakes (i.e. there are many mistakes, but each type of mistake shows up consistently), or that each time you play something, you make a different mistake? When it's the second for me, I usually find that it's because I'm not completely focused on what I'm doing (mind and body), or that I'm trying too hard in certain areas (i.e. tensing up instead of relaxing because I want to make a certain part "perfect", or anticipating something coming after the part where the mistake happens). But, sometimes it happens just because it's "one of those days!"

The second.

i've unfortunately not managed to get any practising in since my last post whether mindful or not, but it is really interesting to read everyone's responses. Thanks for sharing!

I did some practice today, but I couldn't work on the mentioned problem. It's a gender problem I face every four weeks. My tone is a catastrophy by then and so are my abdominals. Will update in a few days, when everything is back to normal.

Frustrating, isn't it?! My variation on this is playing something fine a couple of times and then inventing a new way to muck it up. My teacher finds this particularly annoying too.


Replace "flute" with "oboe" and that's me!

A colleague of mine who is a singer was sharing some of her most useful visualisation tips and I think they help with wind instruments too to improve the tone of high notes. One is to imagine coming down onto the note instead of straining up to it as if it were somehow out of reach (a bit like jod's "filling a jar on a high shelf" image on another thread) and another is to imagine yourself much fatter/larger than your normal size.

I have been trying to remove the fear of high notes in scales by learning even higher notes that I'm not really expected to be able to play yet. The variety of possible fingerings seems to get more and more complex the higher you go in the third octave on the oboe. It's totally confusing me - but making third octave E and F relatively easier to remember and less scary.

May I add, imagine a table tennis ball in your mouth? Once I worked with my flute teacher on this problem, she said: "Open your mouth!" After that lesson I thought about an image to do so and found out it works with the table tennis ball.

I think your method is a good idea. My problem is, im not safe enough from A third octave upwards with my embouchure. I can mostly manage the B but only in lucky moments the C. Anyway, I will go on and hope it will work one day.

The gender problem that spells trouble with abdominals every four weeks is an occupational hazard unfortunately and there is nothing for it but to work through it as much as possible so the abdominals are strong enough to cope most of the time.

When it becomes a complete disaster is when it is coupled with menorrhagia and possibly anaemia leaving the poor woman washed out too.

The only solution hot water bottles and analgesics and keep going. In the intervening weeks strengthen the core abdominal muscles.

Thank you for replying on this. It's good to know, that I am not the only woman in the world having this problems.
In my case it seems to be part of the PMS. I hope the exercises to strengthen my abdominals will one day solve this problem. Until then I just take it as it is and concentrate on other things then tone devolpement during the two days.
The effect is, that my tone is extremly harsh during these days.
Today I tried a different strategy. I cleaned up bathroom and citchen before practicing to get some physical treatment. It was a bit better than yesterday, but not good.


Since thursday last week I am in the process of picking the pieces for my grade 7 exam. So a lot of new pieces to work through.
Today I worked through "The song of the wind" from Donjon.
(I will write the names of the notes as I am used to it, for me middle C is c', the next octave is c'', maybe once I will find out the english way of naming the notes )
The key signature of the piece is a flat. I found out, that I tend to forget that this leads to a flat instead of a and d flat instead of d. So I helped myself by adding the flats into the score with pencil. I indeed have to work on this problem by practicing the scales and arpeggios on a flat. But as a first aid it was good to take this way.
The next problem is many parts where it goes like d' - c'' - e' flat - c'' - e' - c'' - f' - c'' - e' - c'' in semiquavers followed by e' flat quaver.
The first time I got mixed up with these parts and there was to much accent on the c''.
I then played through the piece leaving out the repetitive notes to make sure I look more on the chromatic scales. After that I repeated the piece and to me it seemed that it was much better.

And I practiced flageolet for solving the problem with the third octave. It was already better than yesterday.

First time in days that I'm able to practise. First casualty: Fingering. I've been faking it through the left hand of the Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No 3. By "faking" I don't mean not following the fingering in the book, I mean just using whatever necessary to hit anything in the vicinity of the notes on the page, not even consistent from time to time. The section that's causing me pain is the B section (in terms of A-B-A musical form).

I've discovered that I'm good at crashing my way through things, which is great if I have to play something in a pinch. It's not so great when I've supposedly been learning this for the last two years (learning on my own - I don't have a teacher). I know that a few months ago I patiently worked out the notes and fingerings, but that's fallen by the wayside. Time to get back on the wagon.

I'm also experiencing an attack of slippery fingers. I'll have to think about this more - the last time I had this, it was because of finger weakness, but that doesn't seem to be the cause this time.

Dynamics could be better. I've got a nice range of... mp to mf.

However, I know that when I was a student, i'd have been horribly discouraged by thinking about all of this - or by my teacher pointing it all out at once. Now, it just makes me feel like I know what I have to do, so I can go and do it.





I used to be a horn player - I remember this fear of high notes. One trick that helped me a lot was to really dig in with my feet- press the whole of both feet into the floor (and press down with my backside if I was playing seated). That gave me a very firm base to "rest" the abdominals on.

I still do this if I have to blow up balloons!

Good to hear, that you made it back to practicing.


I thought about this thing of imagining pushing something down if you have to play high notes. I imagined it and watched my abdominals while doing it. What I found out was, that doing this activates exactly the part of my abdominals I was told to use for the high notes.
Right now I am on a level below that. I first have to get the feeling for the different sections of my abdominals and as far as I know myself. Imagining something with it would disturb my concentration on my body. But I will keep this in mind to practice without the flute.

My horn teacher was also a yoga teacher, and she used a lot of yoga ideas in our lessons. Not every student took to this style, but it worked for me. I reckon that any sort of bodywork (yoga, pilates, Alexander technique, ...) would help with body-awareness, and any sort of body-awareness will help with instrument playing of any instrument.

My exercise right now might come from yoga. It definitly will strenghthen my abdominals. And I try to get more body-awareness.

Menses can really disrupt practise schedules for women, but the one area where men are unfortunately correct is if we are to taken seriously is that unless there is an additional problem on top of the regular monthly "curse" then we forfeit our right to be taken too seriously.

However there are times to act. Excessive pain or blood loss both need to be investigated.

Problematic mood swings/ PMS symptoms are worthwhile getting investigated.

There are things that can be done in terms of yoga/pilates type exercises that can help strengthen abdominal muscles and allow people to work through that time, but only when there are no underlying problems.

If despite strengthening core abdominals you still have problems, then go and speak to a GP in the first place.

Tonight I was just too tired to keep up any sort of mindful practice for more than fifteen minutes due to hammering my brain at work. So I just bashed away for fun for the rest of the session. However, I've noticed that the hour or so I spent yesterday has paid massive dividends. I was good and did manage to stay very mindful yesterday so I don't feel guilty.

That's another thing I've had to ditch, the practice guilt! I'm glad I did. Sometimes I just want to play for fun, and I think of the mindful practising as storing up to improve my ability so that when I play for fun, I have more fun than if I didn't.

Err, I *think* that makes some sort of sense

Loads of sense!!

Thanks for that. I will keep it in mind. Took a day off practicing yesterday and today I may better not do my exercises for abdominals.


It does make sense to me.

Today, no big improvements. Small ones - the sort that one could barely hear, but that I can feel. No matter. If I play something 5, 10, 20 times now, i can have the faith that one day it *will* pay off. I know it's ironic that I can only feel this way because there is no pressure - no need for exams or qualifications. If I was a professional musician I think I might find it much more difficult.

Anyway, it's unrealistic to expect big jumps in improvement every day. I used to set myself up for disappointment by expecting too much.

schraeubchen, I was also thinking about what you said about the fear of the high notes - I have a similar problem with piano which is fear of the octaves. I realised today that I was tensing up involuntarily for the running octave passages in the Chopin that I am learning. It is because I expect it to be difficult, therefore I expect to have to make a great effort to play it. I think the right way for me to think about it is "yes it's difficult and that's why i can't do it *yet* but I will learn how". As an adult learner I think that I have forgotten how it was when I first took lessons as a child. I take it for granted because I learnt as a child that I should be expected to know how to do most things, and when I can't, it means that I am incapable forever rather than I just haven't learnt how.

I think this is quite a breakthrough and I know exactly what you mean about no hearing but feeling that there is a difference.

Good report

My teacher has said something rather similar to me. He says he can see when I come to a passage I find difficult because my whole body tenses up and that it is a vicious circle since this tension will always prevent me from playing whatever it is successfully whereas what I should be doing is not saying to myself "I can't do this" but "this is difficult, no-one expects me to play it perfectly straight away, how can I learn how to play it."

I think, it is a big improvement to get the feeling that one day it will work. It's an improvement of confidence. In a special way it might be more important than improvement of playing because it will cause a lot of improvement in playing on the long run.

And I like your description of what happens if you fear something. The problem that still is left is, how one can avoid this fear. I think one way is to keep practicing the things you fear. In my special case it's practicing high notes, try to open my mouth (not my lips) as much as possible whilst playing high notes and keep special attention on the support from my abdominals.


During my practice session today I faced especially the big jumps. I found out, it is a good way to be prepared in the way of knowing what to do to get it done in a smooth way.

schraeubchen; I'm planning to work on the high register during the summer break. I don't "fear" the highest notes but know they're too sharp and want to improve intonation. Do you know Jen Cluff's site? She has lots of ideas and you might find something that helps in this;
http://www.jennifercluff.com/tone.htm#highregister
Good luck!

Hi dorfmouse,
thanks a lot for the link.
It seems that my mentining the fear of the high notes gets to get his own life in this thread. I know all the technical stuff about how to play them. It's just a kind of blockade that causes too much tension in my body to play them as smooth as I want them to be. And the basic problem might be not to support them as much, as I should do. Thatfor I work on my abdominals to get them stronger and beside that I have a lot of exercises to practice them in different ways.
The Taffanel/Gaubert no 10 helps a lot to get a feeling for the support of every single note. And beside that it helps a lot to play flageolets. I practiced this again today and it improves.
I know, that on the long run I will be able to play them like I want to. But I am only playing again for three years now, so no need to think it's to late.

sorry to 'butt in' everyone....

I have been reading with GREAT interest everyone's post in this thread and I was so happy that the original posting of the article I had found had 'sparked' this great thread

I hope this thread will 'live' for a long time to come, you are all feeding into it such inspiring experiences/thoughts and opinions/information, thank you, I am learning a lot from it

I also have a BREAKTHROUGH to share with you all!

I have been 'struggling' for 2 and a half years now with trying to achieve a 'nice' and 'proper' STACCATO bowing with my violin bow

I would like one day to play this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mag2mc5Vva0...mp;feature=fvwp

my teacher 2 and a half years ago 'assigned' to me this etude: Kreutzer n4 (violinists will know it), I have been practicing it at first (in my first 18 months) quite religiously almost every day but with no real progress, not being able to achieve much at all

now I have been getting a little 'enough is enough' I really want to get this done! especially as I'd like to learn this piece (above link) and the main block would be the staccato of course!!!

I have been watching the above video LIKE AN EAGLE, I thought Master Heifetz MUST be able to teach me a few things right? even though he can't 'talk to me'

I noticed that he does something different with his DOWN staccato, when he does a down staccato his bow hold changes, he only holds his bow with his thumb and the index finger....mmmmhhhhh and the hand is open, the middle finger, ring finger and pinkie are straight and away from the stick....but seem very relaxed, the bow also....the wooden part is now tilted TOWARDS HIM (normally us violinists have this tilted slightly AWAY from us) AND finally he (on purpose) will draw the bow WONKY with the tip facing away from him and the frog end towards him...mmmmhhhh why does he do that? I thought to myself..... (think think jojo.....)

then.....I read on the top of the page from Kreutzer 4...it says 'The staccato must be practiced very slowly to begin with, detaching all notes with a LOOSE wrist, so that the bow DOES NOT quit the string. This is a sure way to learn this style of bowing well'.

Then I went back to master Heifetz..... looked at him with an eagle eye again....you can't really see him moving his wrist or his hand when he does staccato, it's like he's drawing a straight bow that's how relaxed his bowing arm/hand/wrist is!!!

So then I went to practice, I could not achieve any good results.....Kreutzer 4 was taking my concentration away too much from everything else!

SO I thought: I have to go RIGHT DOWN TO THE BASICS, take away this kreutzer 4 stuff now!

So I decided to do it on OPEN STRINGS! take away the left hand, this is A BOWING PROBLEM/TRAINING ISSUE RIGHT? it's my BOWING ARM/HAND/WRIST I have to train, NOT my left hand for now. I have to teach my right arm/hand/wrist which muscles to 'tweak' to get the staccato going, once I get that sussed out then I can think of doing kreutzer 4!!!

I went onto open strings and LO AND BEHOLD after 10 MINUTES MAGIC!!! for the first time in TWO AND A HALF YEARS I could do STACCATO A LA HEIFETZ! ok not as good as Master Heifetz, I will never be anywhere near him, but I could do reasonably fast staccato with only the odd slip up on open strings.

AND by the way: I found out WHY Master Heifetz does what he does with his down-bow staccato, down bow staccato is a lot more 'tricky/difficult' than up-bow staccato (I remember my teacher telling me so and telling me how many violinists will try and 'avoid it'), well, doing it the way that Heifetz does it really really helps! having the bow with the wood part tilted towards you and drawing it 'wonky' so that the frog end comes towards your body, gripping the bow just with the thumb and index finger and keeping the rest of the fingers away from the stick and open and relaxed, helps the bow to have a certain 'grip' on the strings that you can't have in any other way, if you don't do this you have to put too much pressure on the bow and your staccato sounds too harsh/gritty or does not come out as 'even' or as effortlessly I have found out

It was very difficult on the G string and it didn't sound so nice there so that will need a lot more practice, but I FINALLY CRACKED IT!!

Now I want to do this on open strings daily for at least a couple of weeks before I attempt to use the left hand with it

thank you for all your posts and keep them coming

Wonderful, Jojo. Inspirational post.

The reason I like this thread is that reading about non-pianists' experience with practising - the kind of things they look out for - has actually been very helpful to me, because it has helped me recognise some things that I can translate into piano playing.

From schraeubchen's earlier post, I realised that the fear of high notes translates for me to fear of octaves, which is a psychological block.

From jojo's post, while I didn't instinctively understand most of the specifics (since I have never been a string player), I realise that often we have to identify the exact physical thing that we have to work on to get something right. I don't fully understand the nuances of up-bow and down-bow and how to tilt your bow to achieve different things -- but I do understand that just a slight physical change can have big effects. For me tonight it was figuring out that I have to lean slightly to the left when playing big octave things in the right hand, because my upper half is in the way otherwise. It isn't a huge movement, and should be barely perceptible to the audience if at all (I really don't want to make anyone seasick), but it allows much greater freedom for right wrist.

I noticed that all of the passages I have difficulty with in the left hand have to do with lack of control in the 3rd, 4tf, 5th fingers. So - nothing for it - I shall have to spend some time exercising only these fingers, so I shall spend 5-10 minutes a day playing chromatic scales just with those fingers.

One of the pieces that's manifesting this problem is the Bach C# major prelude from Book 1 of Well-Tempered Clavier. It has a particular semiquaver motif repeated in alternate hands. Of course, I can play it easily in the right hand but the left hand is all over the place. Tonight I tried to watch both hands while I played this, and I find that my left hand is way off centre when playing the equivalent passage. I know that lack of 3/4/5 finger strength is partly responsible for it sounding rubbish, but I think this off-centredness is too.

that's good

corenfa,
do you often or ever find yourself watching the 'great pianists' how they move and how they use their body/hands/arms/fingers/legs/feet and actually then find yourself trying the same thing to see if it helps you correct or achieve anything in your playing and has it ever helped you?

like it has with me tonight?

ps I know a little of it was also luck but I was so ASTONISHED how after 2 and a half years of hitting a wall all of a sudden it just 'clicked' just by analysing a video of a great master! (and doing some 'mindful practice' of course )

I have not, but I think perhaps I ought to consider it now! I have thought about it before but didn't bother because I know that everyone's physiology is different- most pianists are bigger than me and I was not sure that technique would carry over. I'm also a bit worried that I would try to imitate someone else's technique rather than discovering my own. My horn teacher taught me that it is better to discover how to do things for myself precisely because physiology differs so much between individuals.

However, it is clear that one part of the discovery can be to see how other people do it. So it is definitely something I will consider now.



Hmm I am not so sure I believe in luck in this kind of thing! I think that you were mentally receptive and observant when you were watching the video - so you were able to pick this up - you figured, he MUST be doing something "special" so you tried to watch for it.

Luck's when you buy a lottery ticket and win first prize