Balancing Act: How to Prioritise and Identify What Requires Practice on Piano

We’ve all been there - a good 30 minutes, 1 hour, full day perhaps, of sitting down at the piano and practising only to go back the next day and be none…the…wiser. But how can this be? When we literally spend so much time concentrating on and thinking about what we are doing, why can’t we always just pick up from where we left off? In fact, why do we sometimes fall backwards and do considerably worse than where we left off? Or even from where we started?

As a very black and white rule, I tell pupils to average roughly 30 minutes a day for practice; that’s a few minutes of warming up then scales and technicals, a good chunk of focusing on their pieces (in particular on problem areas) and then rehearsing performance style at the end (e.g. playing what they have learnt but playing it as more a performance than a rigidly metronomical interpretation). Obviously the timeframe can extend or shorten for different people, but the format is the same and if all areas are addressed correctly - nothing can go wrong!

However, things can go wrong because addressing each area correctly is difficult, and it’s a difficulty that reaches far past what you may refer to as the ‘cop-out’ reasons (“it’s boring to play slowly”, “I can play it well enough” etc.) and actually roots itself in being so difficult because our brains are all wired so spectacularly differently. Not only that, our brains develop and change as our skills develop; not just in piano - but in anything! So for me to say that this way of practising your scales will work and this way will not work is way too generalised!

And that brings me to the purpose of this short but hopefully very informative blog post: how to consider different approaches to practising the same thing.

Before I go on, make sure that a practise session covers a whole load of things. Whilst it’s fine to prioritise scales and give them longer for one session if they’re your pitfall against your pieces, don’t neglect the pieces! Variety is the spice of…the practice session!

Anyway, a couple of tips:…

Intense Repetition vs. Paused Piano Practice

Let’s say that you’re struggling with the B♭ minor scale (a sentiment close to my heart as it’s one of my least favourites too!).

There is without a shadow of a doubt one - and only one - type of learner who I’ve ever experienced when it comes to practising piano: the ‘driller’.

They will play it. Get it wrong. Do it again. Play it. Get it wrong. Do it again. Play it. Get it wrong…etc. etc. - eventuallyyyyyyy they may actually play it correctly but by this point it’s fluke, otherwise it’s not even a part of that same practise session.

Try out this fun little exercise. Choose a random word that has no relevance. Something everyday such as: concrete.

Normal word, right?

Now say it ten times.

And ten more.

How does it sound now?

Little bit odd?

Just to add to the audible weirdness, read the word a few times and see how odd it starts to look too:

Concrete, concrete, concrete, concrete, concrete.

If you wish to take the experiment even further, write it out a few times. You may even start to stumble over the spelling because it’s just lost all meaning and relevance. The word in passing is perfectly viable and usable and you wouldn’t ordinarily hesitate on the word or the spelling, but now we’ve overexposed it. You’ve ‘overpractised’.

So, as an alternative, try this when practising your dreaded B♭ minor scale:

Play it slowly. Observe any issues.

Now wait 30 seconds.

Play it slowly again, focusing on correcting the issue. Observe if it happens again, or if any others happen.

Wait 30 seconds.

Repeat this until your allocated timeframe for scales is up - 5 minutes, for example.

Will it be perfect by the end of 5 minutes?

…NO!

But you’ll have been much more focused on it and thinking about it more than just relying on muscle memory, thus when you go back to it - whether that be a day or a week later (please try not to leave it a week though!) you’ll be able to recall it much more easily.

Not only that, you won’t be tired from 5 minutes of intensive finger workout and stressed from not getting it right!

Same principle goes for problem areas in pieces or finger exercises - memory is a powerful tool that is underestimated in piano. Just make sure you concentrate on what you’re playing and try not to practise to the point of only using muscle memory.

Practical Practice vs. Music Theory

Practical Practice refers to physically playing the instrument, whereas music theory refers to what makes music as we recognise it work: the rules etc., including how to interpret notation.

A lot of my pupils are very excited by theory and that’s fantastic, but it’s happened a few times now where they have been so engrossed in the theory that they forget to play! Or, indeed, those who don’t necessarily enjoy the theory as such forget to remind themselves of certain basics because for them, piano is all about sitting at the instrument and only playing the keys.

The reality is that it is like a circle; practising on the instrument and getting yourself used to note position, key signatures, rhythms and harmonies / intervals etc. can naturally improve your theory, whilst studying theory can really put you in good stead when it comes time to sit back at the keyboard.

Not all piano practice has to be physically sat at the keyboard! Next time you are practising a piece - especially one you’re quite new too - try sitting down with a pencil and assessing things first. Draw in lines to dictate rhythms if rhythm isn’t your strong point, identify bigger intervals or extract rhythms from a piece that you can work out first. Putting theory into context is a huge part of music and is one that is often missed out by those who just read up on it. Do this before you try and play the piece and you’ve now ticked off both halves of this point: practical piano practice and learning music theory!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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Handy Tips: Getting Your Hand into a Comfortable Position for Playing Piano

With so many method books out there, it’s exciting to see how different learners can take up skills on the instrument in different ways. Some people learn the white keys first whereas others get used to the black keys. Some learn more theory and then put that into practice, whereas others learn more practical music and then dissect the music. Yet the practical side of playing piano quite often boils down to a few simple rules. And one such rule is:

The hand needs to be in a comfortable position.

With such a plethora of workbooks for learning out there, it is interesting to see that so many of them build the learner up from a simple starting point. This usually involves ‘C Position’, which is where the right hand lays the thumb on middle C, finger 2 on D, finger 3 on E etc. - and the left hand does the same idea but one octave lower and, of course, fingers reversed (finger 5 on C, finger 4 on D etc.).

But…there is one fundamental problem with this technique!

YES - it gets us used to playing at least something from the off.

NO - it doesn’t truly reflect the skills required going forward.

And one of the main things that I find from this is that the hand can struggle to adjust itself to different positions because of how used it gets to C position.

Consider this: C position is all white keys.

If you wish to play a scale of C major - whether that be the full scale or just a pentascale - you can easily do this by keeping your hand in a position that graces toward the edges of the keys. You don’t need those black notes getting in the way!

However, when we finally do introduce black notes - even if only one (for example, an F♯ if we play a piece in the key of G major) - it can lead to all sorts of weird and wonderful acrobatics from the hand because we assume that we need to just grace the edges of the keys for the entire duration - like we do when it’s all on white keys! Thus, when we come to a black note, we literally have to stretch or jump or twist our wrist in order to reach it!

And is this the correct way to play piano?

I’ll let you decide the answer…

And for those who can’t make up their minds…

The correct answer is…

NO!

So let’s investigate just a couple of ways in which the hand position can be developed so they become a much more settled part of our body whilst playing piano:

The Coin on the Back of the Hand Method

This is an oldie but a goldie, and one that tends to be employed right from the off by teachers that wish to use it (I don’t personally use it by default, but if I were to ever come across an extreme example of bad hand position I might try it).

Simple execution: Place a coin on the back of your hand. Play. Keep the coin on the back of your hand.

Note that the coin will probably slide off when you take your hands off the keys, so if you are changing hand position or jumping off keys - particularly with a little vigour - then you can be forgiven for dropping it. But in general, passages of music that you play note after note with your hand should be done so in a way that allows the coin to stay on.

Moreover, you should feel it being still. If you feel it sliding around, you’ll know something’s amiss. And if you feel it start to slide off, you will hopefully be able to pinpoint from that the exact moment that your hand position is losing its discipline.

Improving Hand Position on Piano with Chords

Familiarity of the shape of chords is a good way to practise getting your hand position much stronger, and taking it ascending chromatically (up one semitone at a time) is better still as this will require constant readjustment.

When beginners start to shift between chords, they will often lock their wrists into a set position away from the keyboard - almost like they’ve been shackled from a wall behind them and can only get so close to the piano. Therefore, any exercise in chord shifting becomes an exercise in finger twisting. For example, C major stays at this safe distance away from the piano, but then when E major is attempted, the hand doesn’t move, the E and the B are pressed in about the same place as these are the white keys, yet the third finger attempts to stretch out to play that G♯ rather than just…moving the hand forward slightly!

The reason that chromatic ascension of triad chords is such a good tool to practise with is because it is continuous readjustment of hand position.

If you need help identifying all the chords, read my blog on how to find them here . Even if you only find four or five neighbouring chords, that’s a great start to help you out. But if you do manage all twelve, try playing the major triads of C, C♯, D, D♯, E, F, F♯, G, G♯, A, A♯, B - or, indeed, their minor alternatives.

Don’t race through them.

Take a moment to appreciate the slight adjustments that you are making with your hand. You’re not aiming to just graze the keys by fluke - it has to be a definite depression. Remember the curvature of your fingers at all times.

Twisting

No pain, no gain, right?

Wrong!

You shouldn’t be feeling excruciating pain from this exercise, but it’s important to recognise it and adjust as necessary. It’s also important to recognise when this is just discomfort from a new exercise that you should work through. This usually feels more like fatigue than discomfort or pain. If you’re getting sharp pains, something isn't right and the most likely cause is…twisting!

Using your right hand as an example, the further up the keyboard you get the more lopsided your chords will get. In white note chords such as C, F and G it’s easy to keep the fingers relatively even in length, but as you progress up you will find exceptions. For example, B major has two black notes in fingers 3 and 5, leaving the thumb on a white note which causes a bit of a twist. Work with it and make subtle adjustments to make sure that you are both playing the chord confidently and not causing yourself unnecessary discomfort.

Height

Remember also that height plays a part! Just look at the keyboard and notice that the black keys protrude up by at least 1cm, so to not add a slight bit more elevation in your hand position would be illogical.

Similarly, don’t think you can get around this constant adjustment by always playing with exaggeratedly raised hands. As I always say - pianists are always looking for the easy option, and I can assure you that playing with this added strain is not the easy option. You add a bit more lift when you need to work around the black notes, which has the advantage of naturally curving the fingers round a touch more. In doing so, it increases their precision in hitting the black notes. Let’s not forget they have much less surface area and also - being high - can be ‘slipped off’ if not struck correctly, so do yourself the favour of giving yourself every possible chance of actually playing them!

Incorporating Technique into Musical Passages

When your hand position is feeling much more confident, you can incorporate this into your performance of musical passages too. Before you delve straight into a piece of music you are learning or wish to learn, try it with some of your simple exercises such as scales.

Try a simple 1 or 2 black note scale (G major, D major, F major, B♭ major) and work in your understanding of when your hands needs to push forward ever so slightly and then pull back as well as the moments in which you could advantage the fluidity by lifting your hand (and arm if needed) to accommodate for those black notes.

Don’t forget that we are never seeking exaggerated movements and we certainly aren’t looking for sharp movements. Everything that we seek to do as pianists should be with a fluid movement. A rise and fall like sweeping hills. Not up and down like a zigzag! Try to visualise the movements of your hand (and arm) like waves in the sea as they rise up and down and for the forward and back motion ensure you avoid sharp movements as these will send shock waves down your arm and fatigue and hurt, not to mention affect your playing.

Try it yourself, and for a video demonstration of all I have covered check out below:

Make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel to never miss a video!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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The Devil’s Interval - Introducing Locrian Mode for Halloween

Last week we began learning about modes.

In a slightly more conventional setup, I would follow up last week’s blog with the introduction of minor modes, however today is 31st October and so I have not only broken that tradition - but also the tradition of posting on a Saturday morning - in favour of introducing the Devil’s Interval and the Locrian Mode to you to celebrate the spooky season!

What is Locrian Mode?

Let’s firstly refresh our memories:

Ionian is our major scale that we know and love.

Lydian is like our major scale except that we raise the fourth note by one semitone.

Mixolydian is like our major scale except that we lower the seventh note by one semitone.

Now let’s consider a little bit of keyboard history:

Modes in History

Once upon a time, at the birth of the first keyboard instruments (not the piano - not even the harpsichord), music was performed on what we now recognise as the white keys of the piano. Therefore, everything could be said to be played in C major / A minor.

However, in order to create different moods, modes were used.

By using the principles of the root scale - in this case C - yet starting on a different note each time, we can perform different modes.

Needless to say, in the key of C major, starting on C is Ionian.

If I played a scale starting on the fourth note - F - and use only white notes as per C major, I get lydian mode.

If I did the same thing but starting on the fifth note - the G - using only white notes as per C major, I get mixolydian mode.

Although not yet covered in these blogs, D, E and A also have their modes - minor modes -, but then we get to B.

And any pupil of mine will tell you that I have a tendency to tell them:

“Ignore the B for now, it’s awkward”.

And awkward it is.

Because if you play a scale starting on B using all white notes, you get Locrian Mode.

Locrian Mode on B

Locrian Mode on B

Locrian Mode Explained

To give a complete rundown of Locrian mode, you have to lower everything by a semitone except for the root / tonic and the fourth.

Therefore, C Locrian would be:

C  D♭  E ♭  F  G ♭  A ♭  B ♭

Locrian Mode on C

Locrian Mode on C

What is a Tritone?

Now comes into play the very crux of the problem of Locrian Mode - at least as far as classical music and earlier goes;

It features an incredibly prominent tritone!

A tritone is - as you can probably guess - the interval made up of a sequence of three whole tones.

So a tone from C - D is one, then D - E is two, but then E to F♯ is three.

Thus, C - F# is a tritone.

C Tritone

We can refer to this one of two ways:

• An augmented fourth

• A diminished fifth

The way in which we refer to it depends entirely on its context. For example, when I refer to the C Locrian mode above, you’ll notice that I don’t mention F ♯ but I do mention G ♭. Although these are harmonically the same note, if I’m referring to it as the latter then I am flattening what would otherwise be C - G (a perfect fifth) thus it is a diminished fifth.

If, however, I were referring to F♯ then I would be sharpening the fourth - F - and turning a perfect fourth: C - F - into an augmented fourth: C - F♯ .

All scales and modes feature a tritone somewhere, however they normally come in a place in which they can resolve easily.

For example, your typical major scale (Ionian) features just one tritone that can be started from the fourth note. So, in C major, this would be F. And the tritone would be F - B (three tones apart). But B is a leading note, so it resolves very pleasantly back to its root / tonic - C!

In Locrian mode, our tonic is the note on which we have our tritone. Worrying! Thus, there is always a sense of apprehension and dissonance within this mode that is much the reason why many classical compositions don’t tend to use it!

It stood against everything that music stood for once upon a time: particularly as music was by and large either a celebratory or religious affair. Therefore, music with such oddity was not at all conventional.

And the tritone did indeed gain the nickname ‘The Devil’s Interval’ although, tragic as this is because the story is fabulous, it was not banned! Just far from the norm.

Music in Locrian Mode

If you wish to go down a rabbit hole and delve into the weird and wonderful world of finding music written in Locrian Mode, I wish you well. Whilst you may come close, you will likely find no examples because it just doesn’t work as well as we’d like harmonically.

If you’d like to hear examples of the Devil’s Interval prominently in action - but not in Locrian - consider a lot of music by Danny Elfman:

• Theme from ‘The Simpsons’

• Theme from ‘Beetlejuice’

• Theme from ‘Tales from the Crypt’

Spot the tritones in both hands of the opening of 'The Simpsons' theme

Or for an examples in the land of musical theatre, consider:

• “Maria” from ‘West Side Story’ (the singing of ‘Maria’ in the chorus is C - F♯ - G)

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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