Practice Makes Promises

It's now been about two and a half weeks since I started reworking the Hindemith Sonata.  Things are going extremely well so far.  I believe I have now officially surpassed my college self in the performance of the difficult passages!  That is to say that the way that I'm playing those passages now is much cleaner and tighter than the way I performed them nearly 9 years ago.  Initially this didn't really make any sense, since I haven't really been playing a lot of "classical" music in the last decade.  But tonight I think I discovered exactly why the piece is coming much quicker this time around.

It isn't because I had previously learned the piece; I've changed almost everything about the way I play it, and it really felt like starting over.  It's the way I've been practicing.  When I was a piano performance major, I had to practice in the practice rooms in the basement of the music hall.  SMSU had some decent pianos to work with, but all of the practice rooms were side by side with other practice rooms.  You could usually hear all 10 pianos from the surrounding rooms at the same time.  The main problem with this, is that you know that they can hear you too.  It makes for a very self-conscious practice session.  I tended to skip the difficult passages and go straight to the ones that I knew well.  It always felt a little like a performance in front of your peers.  

Things are much different in my studio.  I practice with headphones most of the time.  When I started working on this piece, I told myself that I had to keep one truth in my head at all times.  That truth is that any time your hands are on the keys, you are teaching your brain something.  Simple right?  The reason this has become so important to my practicing, is that it reminds me that when I am going over a series of notes- and I hit a wrong note- I have just "rehearsed" the passage with a bad note.  If I play that passage 10 times in a row, and hit that same wrong note 5 or 6 times, I have gained nothing by rehearsing it.  In fact, I will probably have to practice it twice as many times correctly to try to retrain my muscle memory to hit the correct one.  Every key that I hit, is a lesson learned by my brain, regardless of if it's correct or incorrect.  I try to spend at least 85% of my practice time playing at speeds where I am able to clear every measure flawlessly.  This usually means that at the start of my practice (for the Hindemith sonata) I will set the metronome for 90.  I will keep it there for the first two hours, then bump it up about five beats per minute every 30 minutes.  This helps to ensure that I am keeping perfect "performances" even in practice.  

I'm not exactly sure why I decided to write this post.  Many times I write about things that I can't afford to forget, and I suppose this is one of them.  My hope is that even if you don't play the piano, these lessons I've learned can be of some value to some of you.  But that's probably a stretch.  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

By the way, I can currently play most of the piece comfortably at about 120.  The recommended speed is 144.  Glenn Gould plays it at about 180...

Comments

[Todd Gummerman]

cool man! very interesting. you're def one of the best classical players i've heard in person. i always enjoy hearing you play a piece when you've got it close to done. lots of players really seem to underestimate the emotional nuances that make all the difference in pieces. it's just not enough to learn the notes. you gotta try and feel what the creator was feeling, which you seem to have a knack for. i'd like to hear more stuff when you've got it down.

[Marisa]

I don't play the piano, but I think this is great advice for life in general. Keeping your fingers on the keys, replaying and replaying... Go for what you want, and if you make a mistake, it's okay. You can learn from it and move on. That's what I got from it anyways!

[Sarah]

Oh Glenn Gould... listening to fantastic recordings of a piece you're working on can be inspiring yet such a kill joy haha. Oddly enough I was woken up this morning to Glenn Gould playing Bach's italian concerto on the CBC radio, it was as if I was instantly energized.. his tempos.... I found it so funny though considering I had just listened to it in the video you posted. I definitely understand you on the 'peforming' vs 'practicing' in the practice rooms. Ours are the same, you can hear everyone else. I usually go at really early hours or in the evening, by then they are generally cleared out. I agree with you on setting the tempo, it's so important to learn the piece slowly and correctly first, if you play a difficult passage wrong several times... you've just learned it wrong and it's hell trying to fix that in your brain. I must say I'm impressed by how much you're able to practice now! I can only hope I can one day return to more than 2 hours in a day. One trick that my teacher had me use for learning difficult passages (especially in blasted french works! they love to kill the flautist's brain) was to alter the rhythm, I would dot every other note and then switch. It works remarkably well because you're playing half the notes much quicker and then the other half.

[Chris]

Hey Jeremy, I have a quick question for you. Did you play all of the drums in Salvation Club or did Darren King do them for you? I'm currently trying to learn "Purgatory" [on the drums] and I'm hoping to do a drum cover on youtube. It has a really sweet beat and I'm just wondering if you made it or not. To my knowledge, you haven't received drum lessons (I could be wrong here), and it's an impressive/interesting rhythm; even more so if it's made by someone who has just picked up the drums on the go and not received any formal training as such.

[mk]

i know what you mean...! i went to a state school with a very small, homey music program for my undergrad... then went to a very competitive music conservatory for grad school. um INTIMIDATING. i did a lot of practice at home for those two years!

heifetz is the gould of violin for break neck tempos. i always stayed away from recordings of pieces i was working on, to try and find my own voice and interpretation. and it's not all about speed, heifetz said in his later years that many of his earlier recordings were too fast.

[jared]

appreciate the insight...heard this before but the reminder is good.

-violinist