Musical Guidance : The Ideal Practising

It's been a long time since the last time I made a post on this blog. Well, since I have been getting new inspiration to make another post again, I think it's best to spill it out immediately.
A few weeks ago, I attended a music seminar. The speaker was Jacqueline Leung, a professional pianist from Hongkong. I felt very lucky for having an opportunity to attend this seminar because the content was incredibly useful. I think I will have to share this guidance for those of you who might need it. At this post, I will share about the lessons that Jacqueline had given about music practising. You might think that there was no big deal about music practising but many people find difficulties in mastering the pieces while they were not doing an effective practice. As a professional piano player, Jacqueline had had a bunch of experience and had a practice method for achieving a great performance that might be applicable to us. So, this post is about how to achieve an effective music practising.

P.S : Though the article will be referring to piano instrument, it is not restricted to piano but might also be worthwhile for other musical instrument player.

Approaching a New Piece

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When you are going to play a new piece that you had never seen before, you might find it kind of difficult because you have not figure out about how to ideally play the piece.

• Study the Score
• Skimming the piece in whole from the beginning to end. You might figure out about the song description and  how the best practice to master the piece.
• The Sections
• Discover the sections such as : Introduction, Verse, and Conclusion. You might split-up your instrument practice based on the sections. So you might have different practice method for each sections.
•  Highlight Melody
• Observe the sections. Where is the dominant melody ? If it is a piano piece, which hand plays the melody ? If the piece was consisted of several instrument, find out which instrument plays the dominant melody during the sections.
• Identify Key Changes
• It is not seldom that a piece contains some key changes. Skimming the piece will help you identify if there were any key changes -- so you will be prepared when you started playing it. 
• Imagine the Character and the Tone 
• Discover the most ideal and convenient way to perform the piece

Have a Practice Plan
Every time you started the practising session, do not play straight through all the practice materials as it will not be effective enough. You must have a practice plan and a time frame. You must have a timely plan for your own effective improvement.

• Monthly plan          : What are the pieces that must be completed for this month ? then the next month
• Daily plan               : What materials will be practiced for today ? then for tomorrow and days ahead
• More specific plan  : Decide - you will play xx minutes for scales, xx minutes for finger exercise, etc.

One important notes that Jacqueline highlight is "Do not try to practice all pieces every day". You have limited time and energy so you must find the most effective way to master your materials. You must decide what you need to work on and the priorities for today and the upcoming days.

Take Breaks
Everyone has limited energy, so do you. You will need to take breaks to rest and refresh your body and brain. Otherwise, you would feel exhausted while effective practising was not achieved either. Jacqueline suggested that you should not practice straight three hours in a row. Your brain and body need to rest. You should take break every hour. While taking a break, you might take notes regarding your practice for evaluation. You also can go outside and get some fresh air before start playing the instrument again.

Bite Size Practising
What a "bite-size" means is to breakdown the passage into groups. You may have your own way to divide the piece into groups, whether is based on bars or the sections. Bite-size practice will help you to focus on specific sections. Started with slow practice per group and as you improve, you can add the groups and eventually, you would have been master the whole piece.

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Improve Your Skill !

Beside just playing the pieces from beginning to end, you might need to improve your technical skill. You can build your finger strength by playing pieces like Hanon. You also can develop finger independence by playing right and left hand separately. Also experiment the weight between when you are playing by pressing the tuts lightly and pressing it heavily. By improving your skill, you'd be prepare for all kind of playing style and find your most convenient ones.

Exploration of Tone

You should discover the tone and the character of the piece you are playing. And you should also find out what message that the composer wanted to deliver. To get the message, we should explore the background of the composer such as where did he come from and in what era did he live ? And also what were trending during that time. Jacqueline told an example of French composer who made a composition based on the painting by the famous french artist, Monet. also a Hispanic composer who wrote a composition that describing matador games.
It is also often that a piece was written with a tempo range (xxx - xxx). You might be able to experiment with the speed while playing to find out the most ideal tempo for you and the song.

Count ! and Use Metronome
Well, keeping up with the tempo is sometimes become a barrier. However, counting is a must so you will play the melody correctly and keep the tempo stable. If you find difficulties in counting, a metronome might be a big help

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• Metronome helps keeping your tempo stability
• When facing challenging passages and you find difficulties in figuring the beat or difficult to keep up the tempo, metronome will help to build up security so you will play the melody correctly

Nonetheless, you should begin with slow tempo until you get used with the passages. Then after you can play the melody correctly, you may increase the speed slowly until you can achieve the real tempo. By the time you could play without being accompanied by metronome, you would have been able to make counts in mind. If you still find it difficult to play without metronome, counting out loud may also help.

Besides all the points explained above, Jacqueline also suggested to practice other element to improve your playing skills. Practising fugues can help improving balance shaping and experiment with piano pedal (such as depth and changing points) was also significant in creating different mood. 

All the elements explained were recommendations to achieve an ideal music practising rather than just playing the pieces at once without specific target and objectives. Once you get used with the sequences, it will be easier for you to implement it when you begin new pieces.

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When You Play What You Love

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Sometimes we feel the pressure when we are facing a musical exam or musical performance ahead. Me myself had also been on that situation for several times. But, if you had ever experienced, when we play the musical pieces that we like, do you feel lighter than when you play the song that you did not really like ? What else any convenience you observed when you play the thing that you love ?

I would like to tell a story related to the topic. In the school where I was teaching, at student examination week, the teachers were also being examined by the school owner. So we have our own target to elevate our grades just like the student. At my beginning, before I even teach a single student, I was told that I will also be included in this teacher examination. For the school owner also wanted to know me better. For information, in this city, where I was far away from my hometown, I had not afford to have a piano in my room. Furthermore, I had not been touching the piano for quite a while. Facing the examination that will be held within two weeks time, I had a bundle of examination materials that I had to practice. Having my primary job during working hours made me have to practice at the evening after work. Almost every evening, for a couple hours, I spent for piano practicing. Sometimes I was left alone practicing while the others had gone home.

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And finally the examination day came. Even I had been practicing every evening, I feel that my performance would not be very good enough but just "in average" or "acceptable". Considering my two-weeks-practice was also the first time I touched the piano again after a while. It is unfortunate that during the examination, with my "only average" performance, I found out that I missed several examination materials I had to practice, so the total score was not good enough. I was afraid of failing the test. Then the last part of the test is playing the musical pieces.

I played two musical pieces. With such performances, the examiner rebuked many things such as my incorrect sitting position and my too-many moves. The standard playing position should be : all part of the body was steady, the only body parts moving actively are the fingers -- not your arm, head, or body. There was also critics for playing technique such as pedaling and fingering. With that many critics, I only got acceptable points  for both songs -- not helping enough. Then came the worst part. I should be playing three pieces while I just prepared for two ! I explained that I only had a narrow time to prepare it all but the examiner insisted for another piece. She said "Well, it did not have to a piece from the exam book, you can play any song that had similar difficulties".

Then I just spontaneously took a musical piece from my bag. The piece was ten minutes long composed by Yoshiki Hayashi, my music idol. The piece title was Anniversary - Piano Concerto. I really loved this piece because it was beautiful. Yoshiki obviously put great effort in composing this song (as this song was dedicated for the Japanese Emperor on his birthday). Even I had played this piece before, I completely did not prepare for playing this piece. I did not play this song at my practicing time. Well, I just go through playing this song from the beginning to finish. You know what... The first expression came from her was starring at me and commented "wow, you looked so enjoy playing this song !". I was kind of surprised. The fact is, during the piece playing, I did many more body moves than I did on two previous pieces. I also did not observing my playing technique in details. I just focused in playing the melody and actually, I did enjoy playing it. At that time, I was forgetting that I was on examination and under monitoring. I feel the pressure was released. Another fact was : I think there were quite number of faulty melodies, more than I did on the previous pieces I had practiced but the examiner seemed do not concern too much about it. She did not mention at all regarding my informal body moves and playing technique after I played the last piece.

And you know what.. the last piece helped elevating my score. Even the total score was not that good, I was saved from failing the test. Considering that the last piece was the one I did not practiced and have much longer duration among the other materials, it was such a miracle. And actually, the Anniversary piece was much more complicated the other pieces. Furthermore, the examiner wanted to hear the original music, so I turned on the music from my mobile phone. The original performance was fully orchestrated and, moreover during the evaluation, she said if someday the school was holding an event, I may have the opportunity to perform this piece, accompanied by some kind of orchestra formation. Do you know how shocked I was ? Aside of the "Just Okay" score, I got shifted feeling from gloomy to wonderful.

From this little event, I learned priceless thing that I had experienced myself.

• It is how when you play the song you love, miracle may happen at anytime. 
• And when you play the song that you love, you will be encouraged to do it beautifully.
• Then when you enjoy doing the thing and playing it beautifully, people do not sweat on small mistakes. They will get distracted on how you are being yourself on delivering the melody.

So, when you are facing an musical examination or performance, choose pieces that you really like so you will forget any stress but only drifted away by the melody you played.

I thing it was not only applicable on playing music. On every single thing, we should choose the ones we like most. So, I think it is correct for the proverb : Do what you love, or if you were still not able to do it (such as when you are forced to do the pieces you do not really like), at least : Love what you do.