Objective
The objective of this book is to present the best known methods for practicing piano. For students, knowing these methods means a reduction in learning time that is a significant fraction of a lifetime and an increase in the time available for making music instead of struggling with technique. Many students spend 100% of their time learning new compositions and, because this process takes so long, there is no time left to practice the art of making music. This sorry state is the greatest hindrance to acquiring technique because making music is necessary for fast technical development. The goal here is to make the learning process so fast that we aim to allocate 10% of practice time to learning and 90% to making music, thus maximizing technical development. Now, in the larger picture, 10% is basically a negligible amount of time -- therefore, what we are saying is that we must start making music as soon as we possibly can.
Here, we define "learning a piece" as memorizing the notes and being able to play the composition basically at speed. One might logically think that learning a piece, and acquiring the required technique to play it, are synonymous. For pedagogical purposes, it helps to define technique more narrowly as the ability to make music; therefore, "technique" will be discussed in some detail below. The reason for this definition has to do with how to practice so that you can perform for an audience, such as your teacher during lessons. Most students have no trouble practicing to play a piece to their satisfaction, yet run into terrible problems when performing. They tend to blame such difficulties on nervousness, but it is much more fundamental -- it is caused by inappropriate practice methods. If we claim here that these practice methods work, then it should follow that nervousness should be greatly reduced and performances should follow naturally. And everything hinges on just one thing -- acquiring technique!
At this point, you can justifiably ask, "How can it be that simple?" Then consider this. Even students who have terrible difficulties during recitals have much less problems performing for the teacher during lessons. The reason for this is that you practice performing for the teacher about once very week. Obviously, if you practice it, you will become good at it. The rest of this book is dedicated to showing you how to practice so that you are basically performing every time you practice. In order to succeed in acquiring technique, you must quickly learn how to make music.
Here, we define "learning a piece" as memorizing the notes and being able to play the composition basically at speed. One might logically think that learning a piece, and acquiring the required technique to play it, are synonymous. For pedagogical purposes, it helps to define technique more narrowly as the ability to make music; therefore, "technique" will be discussed in some detail below. The reason for this definition has to do with how to practice so that you can perform for an audience, such as your teacher during lessons. Most students have no trouble practicing to play a piece to their satisfaction, yet run into terrible problems when performing. They tend to blame such difficulties on nervousness, but it is much more fundamental -- it is caused by inappropriate practice methods. If we claim here that these practice methods work, then it should follow that nervousness should be greatly reduced and performances should follow naturally. And everything hinges on just one thing -- acquiring technique!
At this point, you can justifiably ask, "How can it be that simple?" Then consider this. Even students who have terrible difficulties during recitals have much less problems performing for the teacher during lessons. The reason for this is that you practice performing for the teacher about once very week. Obviously, if you practice it, you will become good at it. The rest of this book is dedicated to showing you how to practice so that you are basically performing every time you practice. In order to succeed in acquiring technique, you must quickly learn how to make music.