I'd like some friendly advice on this. I've been playing the piano for quite a while (self-taught), and I'm pretty good, but I'll never be as good as I'd like. I have like notebooks filled with songs that I simply cannot play because the combination of arranged keys with the speed = me failing :heh:

I'd just like to know what is the best (and fastest) way to being able to play "that song" you're just not good enough to play yet. Be specific; not just "practice" or "take lessons". I learn and do better when I have set goals and directions for me to follow instead of just broad advice.

I'm self-taught, too, and while I haven't been playing for very long, here's what I do: get the sheet music to a song which you also have a midi/mp3 for. I usually listen to the song a few times while looking at the sheet music, just to get the pacing and flow firmly into my mind. Then you take one line of music (usually 3-4 measures) and go through it slowly until you have the music into memory. Now, once you get it, you can either continue to memorize the music, or stop here and perfect the measures so that you can play it without many mistakes. Once you've got the whole piece down, S-L-O-W-L-Y start pcking up speed. If you can only do the piece at half-speed to start, it's okay. Practice playing the piece with emotion and expression, perfecting the fingering and getting comfortable. Picking up speed is as easy as picking up the tempo in your head a little bit. It typically takes me about 2-3 weeks of serious study (as in, actually playing the song for more than 15 minutes a day ^^) to get a song down, and then I never lose it.

Good luck. ^^

I think it depends to what extent the song you're trying to play exceeds your current skills. I'm currently having problems on the piano duet of the "Yellow River Symphony"(Translated from Chinese). I have recordings of it but they are all orchestrations and not the piano duet version that I am trying to learn. One thing I've found that allows me to get a better hold of the song si by splitting it into sections. Then, analyze the sections to see what makes it hard.

eg: the fingering, the runs, the rhythm...

Then practice them accordingly. If it was rhythm, play just the rhythm on one note then once you get the hang of it, put the notes back in. Runs, you can always practice like they're scales. Fingering, well...only thing there is do the hands separately before putting both hands together I guess.

I don't know about that 2-3weeks thing though. depending on the songs, it may take...a bit...longer.

Cool. I usually do the same thing. Since most songs are split up in sections, I usually take it one section at a time and master it. Once I master it, I master the 2nd section and then do the 1st and 2nd together.

But I feel like it takes me way too long to get through one song. Eternal Harvest - FF9 took me about a month and a half to finish! I'm just wondering if there's anything I can do to improve myself that will decrease the time it takes to master a song.

Ask Thorn. Self-taught piano player, and is on this thread under that name.

Also, it might just be raw talent. He worked his way by himself to play Liszt's Etude: Mazeppa. Which is extremely difficult.

Seriously, PM him up and he might be able to help you there.

Or get some lessons, you cheapskate.

haha well what ever way you look at it you can't escape the fact that practice is the key element in it. ANY musician will tell you that in order to perfect a song you have to keep practicing. just take the songa bit at a time and play through it slowly. once you can handle that part of the song and do it by memory then move on to the next part of the song then play all of that song by memory up to the bit you have learnt and carry on. giving yourself penalties help as well. like if you make more than 2 mistakes while playing the song you have to start from the beginning. it helps you to remember where you mess up and so also helps you to remember what keys to hit

two words. SLOW PRACTICE. that's what all piano teachers say (unless they are crap). right hand only, left hand only, put them together and build up speed over time. It takes patience to learn the hard pieces. I advise against memorising because it doesn't allow you to pick up certain skills unless you want to memorise it to show off with. It does help if you know what it sounds like though.

@maestrosetti - some people aren't as rich as you.

Thank you guys so much for the advice! Keep them coming. Here's what I've absorbed so far:

1.) SLOW PRACTICE
2.) Break difficult songs down by piece.
3.) SLOW PRACTICE
4.) Do right hand. Do left hand. Then combine.
5.) SLOOOOOOOOW PRACTICE

Yea, that should work.

serious? whats skills can't you pick up then if you memorise the song. the only skill i can think of would be speed reading when it comes to music as in learning to play the song quicker by reading it off the sheets instead.

@sephi - yeah, you can't sight-read as well, and you tend to miss out other dynamic markings on how you're meant to play the piece i.e. accents and phrasing. These things separate the average players from the better ones. Of course, sheet music on ichigos don't really have many of them. You'd have to play classical music to get a variety of them. You also play the piece slightly inaccurately because your brain is wired to short-cut as much as it can. Rhythmic mistakes and sometimes note mistakes can also occur even though it sounds alright. You can say you're interpreting the piece in your own way to cover that though. This happens when you're using the technique to learn the piece, not if you're intentionally trying to memorise it because when you intentionally memorise a piece, you should be able to play that piece with the music in the first place.

@inferno - yup SLOW PRACTICE! XD

lol well the way i get around that is when i have memorised the song and i know it off by heart i then tend to play it with the actual song playing in the background that way i can synchronise them together. thats how i get round that problem ^_^

Sight-read.

That's a great skill to learn right there. I'm not too well with it. I can look at a piano sheet and tell myself what keys has to play, but I can't really read it and play at the same time. How can I become better at playing and reading at the same time?

I look at it as typing on the keyboard. When we first started, we know the letters on the keyboard; therefore you press them accordingly, but you have to stare at the keyboard in the beginning. When you get better, you can look at the screen and casually glance at the keyboard, and when you master it you never have look at the keyboard.

That's how I want my piano skills to be. Not having to look at the piano at all.

and that takes practice and experience. It'll come with time. You should be able to play with your eyes closed for a lot by that time too i reckon.

I can play certain songs blindfolded. to zanarkand is 1 of them as it is the easiest song to learn. i've said this quite a few times but when playing the piano for a certain time your hands eventually move by themselves. for me it's got to the stage of if i make a mistake and have trouble finding what key it is i have to start from the beginning again. simply because I dont know what keys im hitting, my hands move by themselves in a flow. it's a beautiful thing playing the piano and it is a skill im definately glad i learnt

Great.

While we're still on the subject, I'm going to throw in a question I don't know the answer to.

When should you press/release the pedal? Is it after every measure?

Usually, I just press/hold/release the pedal when it feels right (everything I do is about how it feels). A song like Eternal Harvest - FF9 is fast-paced and holding the pedal down too long mixes in the melodies to the point of distortion fast. But not holding it down enough fails to give the song enough mixture of melodies. Just wondering if there's any rules on pedals.

*EDIT* Oh, and what are your thoughts on piano lesson books? Required? Not necessary? Any recommendations?

Hmmm...

Pedal usuing is more instinctive twoards the song you're playing, that as technical as 'after each measure'.

It is usuing instinct with playing the notes so they either connect, fade, mash, glide, etc. etc.

If you look at a piece with pedal markings in it (Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, IInd Movment for good ex.) it has pedal markings in which it sounds good when it's down, and up. If a piece has no pedal markings, [mostly the publiser doesn't put them in] then you must put pedal markings where it seems the best.

Hope this answers your question.

EDIT - Piano lesson books are good. Etudes or Exercise books [see, Hanon's: The Virtuoso Pianist] are great for practicing technique. Also, something my teachers having me work on, is 'Carl Czerny's 30 New Technical Etudes for Piano, Op. 849' is a great etude/exercise book for an intermediate player

yea i would of said after each measure/bar because if you try dragging it out any longer then it distorts the sound and gives it a terrible echo sound

I base my pedal markings on the sound. You should definately let up the pedal when it starts to roar, as stated above. However I find that certain pieces just don't need pedal as well. Wth Eternal Harvest (and most classical period sonatas), I just don't bother with the pedal until I get to the slow section. That's just me because I like a more hammered approach to my sound. Best I can say is experiment with different pedals and stick with the one you like best.

Ditto on what Maestro said about the lesson books. I have Hanon and Czerny. They both serve me very well. I am pleased. :)

actually you should release the pedal when you're changing chords.

If you're playing an E major chord for more than one bar, and it fits the rest of the music, you'd hold it down enough so that it doesn't mush the notes up played by your right hand. sometimes chords change in the same bar so you'll have to release before playign the next chord which isn't the same chord (if it's just an inversion of the chord you can leave it held down). Usually measures consist of the same chord which is why people have said after every measure but it actually varies depending on the piece you're playing. If the music tells you to release at a certain place you have to follow it. The pedal is meant to sustain harmony, not mix it up.

actually you should release the pedal when you're changing chords.

If you're playing an E major chord for more than one bar, and it fits the rest of the music, you'd hold it down enough so that it doesn't mush the notes up played by your right hand. sometimes chords change in the same bar so you'll have to release before playign the next chord which isn't the same chord (if it's just an inversion of the chord you can leave it held down). Usually measures consist of the same chord which is why people have said after every measure but it actually varies depending on the piece you're playing. If the music tells you to release at a certain place you have to follow it. The pedal is meant to sustain harmony, not mix it up.

I don't fully agree. The one hand may play the same chord for harmony but the other may go chromatic for melody and if the pedal was held through, it won't sound too pleasing. I would rather say you release with the melody. also, it will depend on speed.

Eg: if the melody was CDEFGABC, on an andante quarter notes, I may release once after E, once after A and B for a cleaner finish. If it was on presto sixteenth notes, I would just hold it right through or press the pedal half way down.

By pressing a pedal only half way down, each tone will not last as long as all the way and you get a nice effect where the sound immediately dims so you sort of get the pedal effect and not get the 'roar'. (most of the time)

Great.

While we're still on the subject, I'm going to throw in a question I don't know the answer to.

When should you press/release the pedal? Is it after every measure?

Usually, I just press/hold/release the pedal when it feels right (everything I do is about how it feels). A song like Eternal Harvest - FF9 is fast-paced and holding the pedal down too long mixes in the melodies to the point of distortion fast. But not holding it down enough fails to give the song enough mixture of melodies. Just wondering if there's any rules on pedals.

*EDIT* Oh, and what are your thoughts on piano lesson books? Required? Not necessary? Any recommendations?


Point of pedaling is not to let it resound, but to make the piece more flowy. You do not want the sound to ring, so i suggest you at least change (let go and press again) once in every bar. (if your planning to pedal for more than 1 bar that is)

Also you can look at the bass notes for reference on how you press the pedals. Take for example To Zanarken. Change your pedal everytime the bass note changes. (of course if your change isn't clean it will sound pretty bad too)

but try it on To Zanarken, you'll see what i mean. Everytime you play the bass note, change your pedal.

More specifically speaking, when your about to play the next bass note, let go and press the pedal JUST BEFORE/OR JUST ON THE note your about to play. Remember it has to be quick.

(Hope you get that..<.<)

Another point i HAVE to mention is...don't think about pedaling unless you already know the piece really well. I can never stress that enough to self-taught people. It will ruin your finger's strength and individuality, therefore slowdown or ruin your progress.

Once your fingers aren't strong enough, you can't play harder pieces, BASICS AND FUNDEMENTALS ARE REALLY IMPORTANT

Lastly, I suggest you buy some piano lesson books, one of the great ones are the Thompson series, or Beyer (but Beyer stuff are for beginner, like how to read notes, and piano hand positions etc...)

For fundemental learning, and to train your fingers. You can add some studies into your daily practices. Instead of practicing songs you like, maybe you can try some Czerny pieces (boring but really helps).

If you are serious about playing studies, i have more tips and ways to help you, just PM me

while this thread is still open, i'd have a few questions to ask too. Since im a cello player, i play piano because i like it and it helps my treble clef reading, and such but i don't have a lot of time to practice. i can spare about maybe 20 minutes a day out of my daily cello practice to play maybe a line or two and get it down, but the thing is, my fingers don't memorize. like, if i play the whole song over and over and over again for hours, they'll still make mistakes, even on a simple song like yiruma the river flows in you. My fingers are nimble enough, espically my left hand, yet after a lot of practice i still can't get down some of the harder movements. i know with the chord jumps you just have to practice them, its like large shifts, but some of the harder movements like playing a long arpegio with the left hand and right at different times is a lot harder than it seems.
question1. Is there something that people learn with their fingers as in how to move during arpegios? like which fingers to cross over and which ones to bridge

question 2. i can streatch 11-12 notes if i really have to. my hands are technically big, yet i still have problem playing notes that are inbetween. say i have to streatch ten notes, yet the chord is 4 notes, and i have to press on the very top of the white note to play it, so i can reach the other notes as well, which makes chord jumping a lot more difficult. is there some solution to this?

im a cello player

The cello seems like it would be so fun to play.....



i can spare about maybe 20 minutes a day out of my daily cello practice to play maybe a line or two and get it down, but the thing is, my fingers don't memorize. like, if i play the whole song over and over and over again for hours, they'll still make mistakes

Everyone memorizes. It's built in. If you have trouble remembering the notes, you are probably either playing a peice that is too hard for you or you aren't breaking it up enough. Pick any bar in the song. Play it seven times. Play it as slowly as you need to to avoid mistakes. If you can't do that, just do the first half of the bar instead. The key to memorization is obviously repetition, but it only works if you work on small "chunks" of a piece. Trying to play the song over and over start to finish will not help as much as doing each bar seperately.



question 2. i can streatch 11-12 notes if i really have to. my hands are technically big, yet i still have problem playing notes that are inbetween. say i have to streatch ten notes, yet the chord is 4 notes, and i have to press on the very top of the white note to play it, so i can reach the other notes as well, which makes chord jumping a lot more difficult. is there some solution to this?

If you can't hit all the notes at once, roll the chord a bit. No one will care :)

Lots and lots of freaking practice. Me getting through Jeux D'eux was rediculously slow, since I kept playing the same 2 or 3 measures for hours on end until it began to just feel extremely confortable

I'm not even halfway done, but the fact that I got this far with suck obvious lack of experience...

Same with Fantasie-Impromptu.

Took about 2 weeks doing the 5th measure over and over and over so that your hands get that triplets and fourths perfect. It's very, very technical when it comes to timing in that piece as well, though most people just look at the beginning, middle and the end of the measures in that piece, in stead of each beat actually, but you can only do THAT for so long.

My teacher taught me a simple reminder to how 2-v-3 and 3-v-4 should sound:
2-v-3: "not very hard"
3-v-4: "not very difficult"
(only works if you actually work out where they lie first)

Then some composer had the bright idea of putting 7-v-8 x_x

EDIT: This is probably off-topic...I just saw "triplets" and "fourths" and this popped into my head :P