|
- Free Piano Lesson 40 -
Five Great Practice Ideas I Learned From My
Piano Students!
Piano Lessons Online Week 40
Sometimes the teacher learns more from the student
than the student does from the teacher. Hopefully, not too often, but
today I would like to share with you some great practicing ideas that have
come from my piano students over the years:
1. A Colonel in Virginia that I taught for several years got up at
4AM every weekday morning and practiced on an electronic keyboard with
headphones so he wouldn't disturb anyone at that time of the morning. "I
love the early morning", he said, "because it's so quiet and peaceful and
I'm fresh and raring to go. No phones are ringing, no people walking into
the room, no disturbances at all. I practice for a half-hour, have
breakfast, and then hit it for another half-hour -- all before I have to
show up for work. When I get home in the evening, if I'm too tired to
practice, I don't feel guilty because I've already got my licks in for the
day. And if I'm up to practicing some more -- well, it's a bonus!"
2. An elementary school
teacher in Indiana told me she took each piece I assigned her and
transposed it into all 12 keys -- not written out, but at the piano -- in
her head. She said "It doesn't always sound so hot, but I find that if I
keep at it day after day, I can at least get by in the most difficult
keys, and it makes the easier keys seem real simple. And it gives me a
perspective that I just wouldn't get it I just played it in one key -- the
key it is written in. I've learned that each key has it's own "feel", and
some keys are bright (like "D") and some keys are mellow (like "Db").
3. Another piano student with a similar idea, who was the
Minister of Music in a Catholic church, said he took one whole month of
the year and devoted it to mastering just one key. Since there are 12
months in the year and 12 Major keys, that works out perfectly. So in
January he played everything he could find in the key of C, and transposed
anything that wasn't in C into C. In February he went up 1/2 step to the
key of C# (also known as Db enharmonically) and played everything in Db
and searched for pieces written in the key of Db, and so on. By the time
the year was up, he had a pretty fair grasp on the 12 Major keys. I
suggested that he devote the next year to the 12 minor keys, and the next
year to the modes, and the next year to polytonality, etc., etc. -- but as
I recall he decided to just recycle through the 12 major keys, since he
used them so much more than the ones I suggested.
4. Still another piano student took an idea from me and twisted
it a bit. I suggested that she play along with pieces she liked on tapes
and CD's, so she would get a feel for the motion of the song. (I used to
do that by the hour when I was a teen-ager, and it paid off big time for
me!). She took the idea and tried it and liked it so much that she started
getting videos of people playing the piano. She arranged her TV and video
player so that she could be at her piano while the video was playing, and
she would play along with the pianist on the screen, following her/his
hand motions and arm motions and finger position and thereby getting a
feeling for the flow of the music. (Patterning). Her creativity is paying
off for her -- she is advancing rapidly. (And by the way, don't think she
is "copying" the person she is watching -- not at all. It's the same
principle as watching Michael Jordan moving toward the basket, or watching
Sammy Sosa swing a bat -- it just gets you in the right groove before you
apply your own style to it.)
5. A doctor I have taught for years makes a idea file of
things he has learned about piano playing over the years. He notes where
in a given book or tape or video I discuss such and such a topic, and
files that alphabetically. Then later when he needs to refer to that idea,
he simply looks up the idea in his file, locates the video or cassette or
book, and presto -- he can review that idea or concept almost instantly.
It's like a card catalog in the library -- makes finding things so much
faster than flipping through endless books trying to find that idea you
saw long ago.
With the advent of the computer a person could store and categorize
ideas such as this very quickly.
Hope this gives you some ideas of your own! For a complete listing of
courses that will help you greatly in your piano playing, click
here. |
