Welcome Newcomers, and Happy 2019!

This is just a brief post to welcome the several new students who have started with me the past couple of months, share a bit about what this is, and what I post here.

So first things first... Welcome new students!  Welcome long-time students!  Without you, I'm talking to myself and can't pay my bills.  I'm thankful for all of you, and wish you great musical progress in 2019.

Now, what is this blog?  While I have passions for composition and music theory, this blog focuses on piano.  When I mention something else like composition or theory, it's always in context of playing piano.  This blog is for my piano students, and anyone else who stumbles across it who is just interested in my take on the instrument.

If you look at the past several articles I've posted here, you'll find a trend:  I don't post much about technique.  You'll need to take with me privately to get the hands-on advice.  I post every now and then about something fun or trivial.  But this blog has found a home for me to share what I think is one of my specialties as a teacher: the art of HOW to practice as well as setting and achieving goals.

From age 6 to 18, I had a teacher who was great for challenging me and pretty good for technique.  However, her entire instruction for practice was..."you need to practice."  This was echoed by my parents.  I was encouraged to slow things down when I practiced.  It wasn't until college that I had multiple teachers who discussed how to approach music strategically and how to conquer difficult sections that I was able to understand that practice wasn't simply "play, try again, try again, get angry, try again, take a break, try again, hope it gets a little faster, try again, and get a little lucky."

The fact is: If you just play a piece often enough carefully enough, you will get better.  It may seem like it takes forever, because sometimes it does, but you WILL get better.  Here's an honest confession:  I'm a bit lazy.  I'm also quite busy.  I don't want to spend 2 hours practicing something if there's a way I can accomplish the same result in 30 minutes.

To practice well, you must first commit to the HABIT of practice.  This is why I tell every student the 5-minute rule: "5 minutes are better than no minutes".  Don't skip a day if you can help it.  The habit of practice is the foundation of learning and improvement.  After you've developed the habit, you need to work on your quality.  In private lessons, we address practice for your specific pieces.  This blog will hopefully give you general ideas and motivation in addition to your lessons.

There's 11 months left this year.   Remember this rule.  "Practice makes perfect" "Perfect practice makes perfect!"

Welcome 2015, Becoming Observant

Yes, I am still here.  In 2014, I was involved with 9 shows.  That was more than I did in 2012-13 combined.  Also, I spent the year teaching at a local community college.  Needless to say, many things fell by the wayside including this blog, but I'm not at all short on things I want to share, so I hope to be giving you more frequent things to read.  I am doing fewer shows and only teaching privately, so hopefully this will help.

Coming soon: I will talk about suggested goals for this year.  In the meantime, you may want to read what I suggested for last year.

IMPROVING OBSERVATION

One general way that nearly all of my students need to improve on for becoming better music students is to sharpen their powers of observation.  In music, you need to notice several things:

• Familiar chord progressions and voicings
• Key signatures
• Melodic patterns
• Repeated sections and their variations
• Textual instructions (slow down, up an octave)
• Dynamics
• Fingerings

...and so on.  I can't tell you how much lesson time is spent pointing out to a student that they simply need to look more carefully at what they're playing.  They know what the note is, but they don't notice it until I say "check it again."  They get to a repeated section of something they played well the first time and approach it like it's new material.  Musicians are people who are very observant.  They notice things they see and things they hear.  When my wife logs off on her wii, she tends to do it at the same rhythm to get 3 distinct patterns of 2 notes, 1 note, and 2 more notes.  I went to the piano and found that they make a great waltz.  Did you know that cylindrical fluorescent lightbulbs constantly hum on a Bb?  Have you ever listened to the rhythm of a car alarm, or the complicated songs of birds?

There's late '90s British television show called Spaced that has this one scene that nails how many musicians think.  This minor character, Tyres, is visiting his friends.  He's usually wearing headphones, frequently visits a lot of clubs, and basically transforms everything into music.  Watch what happens inside his head as soon as the phone starts ringing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ0zGZ2t7xE

One exercise I've always suggested to people for improving observations is to select a mundane object, like a clock on the wall, and write down 20 things about it.  Today, I found this article about How to Boost Your Observation Skills and Pay Attention.  Please read it, as I think you will find a lot that will help you with your music and with life away from your instrument as well.

New Year, New Goals

One year ends and another begins.  This is a great time for thinking about new goals and resolutions.   It's a good time to think about what you'd like to do with your piano studies.  Obviously, for a resolution to mean anything, YOU have to commit to it and buy into it.  It's great if you choose and follow your own goals.  However, if you're scratching for ideas, here are some suggestions.

1. Commit to 300 days of practice.

Here's how it works.  You don't plan for 300 days.  You plan for 365 days, but you understand that things come up, and you might not be able to practice every day.  Hopefully, those days where you can't practice won't happen often, but you must commit to achieve this.  300 days is 6 days a week for 50 weeks per year.  To prove you've done this:  keep a log of your practice.  Here's an example of how your log may look.

2.  Add 5 more minutes to your average practice time than you did in 2013.

I hate even suggesting practice times because of differing goals and schedules.  Any time you add, even 5 minutes per day, will make a difference.  But if you really, truly want to make leaps and bounds on the piano, you need to be thinking much more than that.  However, let me offer the next suggestion to go along with this one.

3.  Shoot for at least 3 hours of practice within a week.

If you're keeping track of the numbers, that's 6 days of practice at 30 minutes per day.  Now, maybe you've had a busy day and can only practice 10 minutes.  That means you'll have 20 minutes to make up later on.  A good solution is to plan for, as an example, 45 minutes of practice, which gives you some leeway.  No matter how many minutes you practice, the days matter the most!  4 days X 45 minutes equals 3 hours, but it's not as effective in the long run as 6 days X 30 minutes.  Keep in mind that this suggestion is only intended for those who are not already doing 30 minutes per day on the average.  If you're doing more already, then just see if you apply goals 1 and 2.  30 minutes is a floor, not an ultimate goal.  More practice, provided you're practicing daily and correctly, is always better.

Does your practice schedule match the type of pianist you want to be?

4.  Become an expert at practicing, note reading, and technique.

       A. Practicing - Learn how to aggressively and strategically break a piece down and to overcome any difficulties.  Learn how to estimate the maximum number of measures you should expect to learn in a practice session, and become really good at those, not just barely improved over the whole piece.

      B. Note reading - You need to know all the notes you ever see in a piece of music, AND you need to be able to name the notes without having to think about it.  You should be able to see a note and name it instantly.  If you can't yet do this, go here several days per week at http://www.musictheory.net/exercises/note, click the customize button in the upper right corner to set up your exercise to suit you, and get good on the notes.  Answer 100 notes correctly within 3 minutes, and you are an expert.

     C.  Technique -  Play your scales with the right notes and the right fingerings on every single attempt no matter what the speed.  Learn all your chords and arpeggios for your level.  These are the things you just plug into practice and speed up the process.

What else musically do you wish to accomplish next year?

I want to wish all my students and readers a happy New year, and for a most successful 2014!