In the discussion on getting kids to practise, there was a comment that no practise means a lesson on "boring technical work". I am posting this as a new thread as I didn't want to hijack the other discussion but I would love some others' views. At my request, my lessons are one week technical and one week Bach pieces. Of course I love the Bach weeks but I enjoy the technical work. I even enjoy the practice for the technical work. Am I alone in this or shall I put it down to the grey hairs?

Down to grey hairs. Just kidding!

I generally dislike technical work, as there is little melody (for some exercises) or very strict repetitive sections that drive me nuts if I play it too often.

However, I understand the need for practising technical exercises and do not neglect it. I've found Czerny's 'The Art of Finger Dexterity' quite interesting.

Technical work shouldn't be boring - everything can, and should, be played 'musically'. I always enjoyed the fact that I could see results from this practice and try to make it enjoyable for pupils too. If I said 'right ,let's do the boring stuff' they would run a mile!

When I'm spending time doing "boring technical work" I admit to the pupils that this isn't the most inspiring part of the lesson, but is necessary. What's more it will help them learn their song/piano piece/oboe piece.

Often I don't set scales as per the grade requirement. If a piece requires an Arpeggio of a minor and a Dominant 7th of E, then guess what the technical work is? If a song has one interval that catches out the pupil then I drag out the approrpiate Vaccai study. It is only during grade prep that I focus on the grade requirements, otherwise by making the technical work more relevant its better fun.

Technical is important, but sometimes it's hard and boring for the students. You can mix the meeting technique and pieces because you have to teach your student to practice technical first then pieces. When it comes to Bach weeks, it's probably your students only practice the pieces and left out the technical. Then when it comes to technical week, they will be back to the practicing the technical.

Hope it helps.

Every lesson has a balance of technical work and pieces. Indeed I beleive you can teach a tremendous amount of technique through repertoire.

So do I! Even if it means tackling a piece with no intention of perfecting it, as long as the focus is on the technical element that's relevant at the time.

I find technical work - at least for instruments that I really love - to be instructive, annoying, interesting, frustrating, maddening and satisfying ... but rarely boring.

That's not to say that one can always inspire a student to see it the same way *wry grin*

I prefer to learn technical stuff via repertoire, and am also quite happy to make up small exercises to get myself round learning tricky sections; I will turn to a book of exercises by Staeps if I have a problems which might be helped by something in there, but a whole lesson or practice session dedicated to technical development only? zzzzzz. I think it's more an individual thing, then - can't be a grey hair factor, because I have some of that too .

I quite like technical work. Its repetitive, and quite relaxing I think.. But then I am strange!! Every so often I'll pick a scale type and just play every one of that type Though my parents did protest when I did diminished 7ths... I guess it sounded rather ominous!!

I hope theres no grey hair factor!!

... I wonder if it also partly depends what you mean by technical work - if you mean JUST scales and arpegs then that could get dull, but I rarely stick just to that... technique, tone, studies, breathing... etc. (Though even scales etc I find satisfying when I can get them nailed, and I have seen firsthand how much they help my playing so I can't begrudge them too much!)

I think anything played in an "I'm so bored!" kind of manner probably has limited benefit to one's playing anyway... so I say, mix it up!!

I went through a period, after I'd been learning the oboe for about eighteen months, when I was begging my teacher to let me do just technical exercices. (He said I was the only pupil he'd ever had who asked him that ).

The reason was that, because of the huge gap between what I could sight-read and what I could play well, he was giving me pieces to play which were too hard for me. At the time I felt that either I could play a tricky rhythm, or I could use awkward fingerings, or I could think about phrasing, or I could do dynamics but I just couldn't do them all at once. I craved technical exercices because they meant I could work on one of these things at a time.

These days I no longer feel such a desparate need for them, my technique has almost caught up with my reading ability and I can now cope with working on a technical point within a piece of music. That said, I still spend at least part of my practice session doing technical exercices to try improve various weaknesses which I (rather than my teacher) feel I need to do something about.

i LOVE technical work!!

you see, if i'm learning a piece then the piece will sound better each week (hopefully!) but ONLY that piece.

if i'm doing technical work, then ALL my pieces will sound better!

obviously when learning a piece, i look at the technical stuff within it, but you get the gist )

Technical works good when you're in the right mood. Once, I spent (literally) a whole day playing the first 3 Hanon execises (my parents were out at the time though), or i go through phases where i just prefer to play scales to pieces.

I'm not sure I agree with your first statement - learning any piece well should surely impact on your playing as a whole. But certainly technical work can be more of a concentrated dose of "playing getting better".

All practice and learning will have a positive impact on the rest of one's playing, surely? If I play a tricky piece in two or three sharps, and learn it well, then the piece will give me practice in most of the intervals and combinations of notes in that key - more probably than would be found when just playing the scale or arpeggio in that key. So yes, if I practice a piece, it will sound better, but it will also make anything else I play with similar passages in it sound better too.

[quote name='kerioboe' date='Oct 10 2007, 08:56 PM' post='609466']
I went through a period, after I'd been learning the oboe for about eighteen months, when I was begging my teacher to let me do just technical exercices. (He said I was the only pupil he'd ever had who asked him that ).

The reason was that, because of the huge gap between what I could sight-read and what I could play well, he was giving me pieces to play which were too hard for me. At the time I felt that either I could play a tricky rhythm, or I could use awkward fingerings, or I could think about phrasing, or I could do dynamics but I just couldn't do them all at once. I craved technical exercices because they meant I could work on one of these things at a time. "




I like technical exercises because of this too - I can't manage moving the fingers quickly, breathing in the right place, keeping the notes in tune, making it sound like a melody and not just a bunch of notes all at once on a new piece - it's a great relief to just do tone or the relevant scale or extending the breath or getting the fingers to go quickly and accurately.
The Bflat major scale slurred is challenginging me - can't seem to get my brain to put all the practising of sections of it togethher in a musical whole

I love technical work too as you can measure it more when you get it right. In terms of presenting it to kids, i think it helps to show them why they have to do it and the benefits. e.g we were looking at some scalic passages in a Mozart sonata - this demonstrates why they have to practice scales. Once they understand that it's a transferable skill and not some sadistic attack from the teacher, they're happy to practice them.

My technical excersize books escaped the postal strike today My parents will not be happy!

Hehe, that's the trick isn't it, convincing them you're not just being mean and sadistic!!