Piano 101: How to Practice a Difficult Piece
- In This Quick Guide:
- What Is Overpracticing?
- Exaggerate Movements
- Practicing Jumps and Leaps
- Double the Notes
- Staying Relaxed
When you’re wrestling with a hard keyboard piece, or a hard passage within a piece, what’s the thing to do? Why, make it harder, of course! That may seem like advice from a masochist, but overpracticing is actually a great technique, and one used in other disciplines. Here’s how you can break the back of even the hardest piano piece.
What Is Overpracticing?
Overpracticing takes whatever is most difficult in a piece, or a portion of a piece, and makes it more difficult. By magnifying whatever you find hard, and practicing it that way, you begin to make the original music seem easier to play. And it’s more than just appearances: the original music is easier to play after practicing it in some more difficult form.
Exaggerate Movements
One basic method of overpracticing that works in almost all keyboard situations is to exaggerate the movements of your fingers. Consider this technique to be a kind of aerobic exercise for your hands.
Normally it doesn’t take much finger movement to push down a key, especially the light plastic keys of an electronic keyboard. When practicing a difficult passage, though, play slowly and lift each finger as high as possible before dropping it down on the note. Gradually, through repetition, increase your speed, but continue lifting your fingers as if they were stepping over high hurdles. It is your priority to lift your fingers high, so don’t go faster than you can while exercising your fingers this way.
Practicing Jumps and Leaps
This overpracticing technique is for when you have a difficult leap to execute on the keyboard. A leap is a quick jump from one part of the keyboard’s range to a higher or lower part with the same hand. Landing accurately on the correct notes at the end of the leap can be tricky. The solution? Add an octave to the leap. Add two octaves. Make it brutally hard.
Go very slowly when you start this particular form of overpracticing. Be very deliberate as you make the leap and land on your destination note(s). Gradually add some speed to the maneuver, until you’re playing it almost at full speed. Use the same fingerings as in the original leap. Finally, when you return to the correct leap as written in the piece, it seems much less treacherous.
Double the Notes
Too many notes? Play twice as many. When you have a fast passage of notes, usually in the right hand, with some zig-zagging configurations that make learning and playing the passage difficult, slow down and practice doubling up the notes. That’s rightplay each written note twice. If that doesn’t seem frustrating enough, play each note three times. (Use the same finger for each repetition.)
This particular brand of sadistic overpracticing helps ingrain the position of the notes in your mind and finger-memory, plus it forces you to slow down.
Staying Relaxed
One of the most difficult parts of playing the piano is staying relaxed while learning a new physical skill. Your wrists, arms, and shoulders should be at ease while playing. Like anything else that’s difficult, it takes practice. It may seem strange, but relaxation is a keyboard skill that can be practiced just like any of the musical challenges discussed in this chapter.
Here are two ways to encourage relaxation in your hands and arms:
- One of the bottlenecks of tension for many keyboard players is the wrist. Ideally, your wrist should be in a state of near-liquid relaxation, enabling you to raise your hand from the keyboard without lifting your forearm. One good exercise for encouraging such relaxation is to, indeed, lift your hand from the keyboard without using your forearm.
- The second exercise really is just a common sense relaxer. Every once in a while, remember to check whether you are in a relaxed state from your shoulders down through your fingers. Adjust your posture by sitting directly in front of the keyboard, both feet on the floor, and your back straight. Are your shoulders hunched? Unhunch them. Are you carrying tension anywhere in your upper body? Do a physical inventory, and deliberately relax any tense spots. Shake your forearms out as if you were doing the French “ooh-la-la” gesture quite vigorously with both hands. In every way you can think of, reestablish your relaxed demeanor before beginning to play again.
For the first exercise, just rest your hand on the keys—don’t worry about hitting any particular notes or chords. Now, lift your hand by pivoting upward from the wrist, and drop it down on the keys. After several repetitions, try the same thing with the other hand. This exercise can be extended by dropping your hand down on predetermined notes or groups of notes. The next figure shows what notes to aim for with the right hand, then the left hand. (You can try both hands together, too.)
This one simple exercise can be repeated often—even every day if you like. Gradually, you should notice that your wrist is naturally more relaxed when you play.
With these practice techniques you can make even a Rachmaninoff piano concerto seem easy. Good luck, and happy practicing!
From The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Piano, Third Edition, by Brad Hill
