Transferring

 

[Note: It is helpful to read the previous post, It's All (Neuro)Logical, before reading this one.]

In my teaching and in my own practicing, I use a concept called "transferring." It simply means that after you do one physical movement, followed by a second one, some aspects of what you did the first time transfer over to the second time. Perhaps this is because the nerve impulses travel along the same neural pathways. Another way of putting it is: "The body wants to do what it just did." Although I am not a brain scientist, I know from my many decades of playing and teaching that this is the case. The second time you execute a physical movement will be very similar to the first time, the third time will be even more similar, and so on. Clearly, this is how "muscle memory" works. 

Muscle memory will happen regardless and it is certainly a good thing this is so; otherwise we'd have to learn how to do a given movement every time. Muscle memory may be acquired more or less quickly in different individuals, but it will happen. Notice how you brush your teeth or comb your hair; you likely do it almost identically every time.

Because the "body wants to do what it just did," it behooves us to be very mindful of what we just did! (Remember that when I say "body" I am really referring to the brain -- largely the motor cortex -- where it all happens, as I describe in my previous post.) If you make a physical movement that is tense, stiff, or awkward, the body is likely to repeat that. Naturally, you are not going to make those awkward movements on purpose, but nevertheless it happens, and now you have the likelihood of it happening again. This is how we develop habits, and we all know how hard habits are to change once they are ingrained. (See my post "Everything you do has the potential to become habit.") Likewise, smooth, fluid movements are also likely to be repeated. You probably think I am stating the obvious here. If we could just change our habits at the piano by just wanting to do so, we'd all be virtuosos by now. But when it comes to things that are physical, it takes more than just the desire to change how our bodies move. To make a change to the physical will require something physical.

If you've been reading this blog, you've heard me say it dozens of times: "fixing" wrong notes as you play doesn't work. This is because the so-called "fix" is interpreted by the brain as part of the process, and will therefore likely be repeated again the next time. If you play the "wrong note/right note" sequence, the brain assumes this was intended and will do it again. Haven't we all had that experience?

Another example is playing with incorrect rhythm. Many beginning (and not-so beginning) piano students often will play a passage "just to learn the notes," but with incorrect rhythm. They assume there is no problem with this. But the brain will pick up the incorrect rhythm and likely do it again. I have seen this over and over again. You can't outsmart your brain, oddly enough. It will want to do "what it just did."

I have discussed how to "fix" wrong notes and other errors in previous posts. But here I want to talk about how we can use this feature of our brains for our benefit. This is where "transferring" comes into play.

Let's say you are playing a fast ascending scale in your right hand. You don't feel it is fast enough, or fluid enough, or legato enough. You can play it over and over, trying to get it better, but it just stays the same, or maybe improves, but just slightly. Try this: play an ascending glissando. Since there is no finger action involved in a glissando, it is all about the smooth sweep of the arm. Play the glissando and then the scale normally immediately after. Does it feel and sound better? It is because the sensation of the sweep of the arm transferred to the scale. The body automatically copied an aspect of the first movement when doing the second movement. Specifically, it triggered the body to use few finger movements and more arm, which is more efficient -- and therefore faster -- and creates more evenness. (This also works for an arpeggio.)  This can be done for either hand and for either direction, of course.

There are even things you can do that don't involve playing the actual keys that will transfer to playing. Suppose you have a very fast leap that spans a large number of notes. You do it over and over but consistently miss. This may be largely due to fear of hitting the target. Let's say the leap is from a high note in the treble, played with your thumb, to a note a few octaves lower, played with the third finger. Play the first note and then, as fast as you can, flip the arm towards your chest and touch your chest with the third finger. There is no fear associated with this since it is a larger target and there is no chance you will miss it. Do this once or twice and then play the actual notes. I can almost guarantee you will have better accuracy and speed because the body transferred the quick fearless movement to the actual notes.

Almost anything can be used as a transfer. If there is some piece you play that you feel you play very well, play a few measures of that piece and then go immediately to something else you are working on that you want to improve. Some aspect of how your body moves will transfer over. I have dozens, if not hundreds, of processes I use as transfers, and am inventing new ones all the time. 

Please understand that these "transfers" do not mean that the next day or the next week the problem you were having will have disappeared. Doing a transfer once is probably not a permanent fix. But consistently applied, they WILL improve your technique and the new ways of using your body will become your new, more desirable, habits. You are using the power of "the body wanting to do what it just did" for your own desired ends, not just what it does automatically.

It's All (Neuro)Logical

 

When people are learning to play an instrument and attempting to learn music and master techniques, they are generally focused on the physical aspects. Pianists are concerned with hands, arms, fingers. It seems like an obvious fact that this is "where things happen." But nothing happens in the physical body without happening in the brain first. 

When beginning piano students complain about how hard it is to play hands together, for example, I remind them that their brains don't yet have what I call the "wiring" for it. It is not a personal failing! The brain is working on developing the wiring to do two different things in the two hands at the same time. But until that wiring is substantial, it will still be difficult. This is true every time you learn a new technique or skill. The brain has to develop all the neurological connections before the hands can execute it. When you've been playing the piano for many years, you basically have the wiring you need to quickly acquire new skills so the whole process is much quicker. 

Of course, the only way to develop the brain wiring is to do the physical work. It will be awkward and perhaps unsuccessful for a while, but you need to be patient. Your brain is saying to you "I'm working on it!" The good news is that once this "wiring" is acquired, it is often permanent.

This is why it is usually advantageous to learn when you are a child. The wiring is acquired more easily when your brain is still in development. It still can be done as an adult, albeit more slowly.

You might think, therefore, that to build this wiring, you should just do as many repetitions of the new technique as possible. I call this the "brute force" method. In fact, this has been the generally accepted view for many years. But the brain is more subtle and, in my experience, does not respond as well to endless repetition as it does to smaller amounts of extremely focused work. There are ways which you can stimulate your brain to work harder and build connections in less time. Here are some examples.

The most powerful tool in my toolbox is transposing. You might be skeptical how this helps with the physical challenges of the piano, but again, it's neurological. When you take a passage in a piece you are working on, or the whole piece, and transpose it to another key, your brain is working overtime to accomplish this. You will undoubtedly go quite slowly when you are new at this, but the challenge for the brain of moving the entire passage to new notes causes it to learn the music more quickly and at a much deeper level because you have just developed new "wiring." Whenever I am having a difficulty in a piece that I think is "technical," I transpose it, and often, voila, it is much improved. Even though transposing is, in itself, a challenge, it is less time-consuming than dozens of repetitions, and more fun. More importantly, you just can't transpose without being 100% focused, and focus is what you want. It is possible to do repetitions with the brain "turned off" or thinking about something else. This will not help develop the wiring as well.

Another incredible tool is playing hands crossed. My students look at me as if I'm crazy when I ask them to do this. Again, you will go slowly, but you play the right's hand's part with the left hand and vice versa. The brain has gotten so accustomed to the normal way that it really has to work hard to do this. You will find you inadvertently keep trying to go back to the original way, but if you keep at it, you will be able to do it. You can almost feel your brain working. Play a passage with hands crossed and then do it normally immediately afterwards; you will feel an immediate difference. Your hands didn't practice a new technique, but your brain has new wiring. 

Playing with eyes closed (once you have a piece memorized, or are playing by ear) is a powerful tool on many levels. Without the ability to look at the keys, the brain is working harder in the auditory and motor cortexes. Do this whenever you can.

Classical musicians rarely improvise, if at all. If you feel that your playing of a particular passage is stiff, un-musical, or just not how you want it to sound, try this: improvise a few phrases with a similar texture as the passage. For example, if it's a melody with chords in the left hand, improvise something like that. If it's polyphonic, do that. Try not to "judge" your improvisation. If you've never done it, you may think it's pretty bad, but it doesn't matter. What we are attempting here is to get the brain to develop new neurological pathways. To make up something on the spot is a real challenge for the brain. After the brief improvisation, immediately play the passage you were working on, and see if it doesn't sound "fresher," more spontaneous. It's because you now have more wiring for that.

There are many other tools I use, but because of their physical or improvisatory nature, they are difficult to fully describe here. Basically, if you are struggling with a particular skill or passage in the music, rather than use the "brute force" method, find of way of doing something similar, but on different notes. Find a similar passage in another piece that you play with ease, and use that as a "transfer." By playing the easier one first and then the more challenging one, the brain has shifted somehow and the passage improves. The skill of "transferring" is a powerful one, and I will discuss this in more detail in a future post.

So when you are practicing, always remember: it's all neurological.

Scales: Part II

 

If you've read my previous post on scales, you'll see that I do not recommend students practice them in the ways that are often prescribed by most teachers of piano. (It is best if you read the previous post before reading this one.)

I also depart from commonly-held beliefs about scale fingering. For hundreds of years (since the beginnings of keyboard instruments), it was believed that the fingering for all scales beginning on a white key is 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5 (this refers to the ascending scale in the right hand and the descending scale in the left hand), with the exception of F major, which would be 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 for the right hand. All scales beginning on a black key start with the second finger. The reason for this, as you probably are aware, is to avoid having the thumb fall on a black key. Presumably, the thumb, being shorter, had a harder time playing the black keys, which is further in (towards the fallboard). However, the are multitudes of situations when you must have thumb on a black key, such as playing chords which have a black key as the lowest note (or highest, for the left hand). The hand must adjust for this, but it is still entirely comfortable and natural for the hand to do this. So why not for scales?

In the Baroque and pre-Baroque era, most music written for keyboard (harpsichord, primarily) were in keys with very few sharps or flats, in other words, very few black keys. One reason for this had to do with how the instrument was tuned. In those times, C-sharp and D-flat, for example, were not tuned the same, even though they are physically the same note on the keyboard. Therefore, if a piece were to be played in a key with sharps, and the following piece had flats, the keyboard would need to be retuned in between. They avoided this by using a limited number of different keys (tonalities). As composers and musicians wanted to have more range of possibilities, this became a significant obstacle, and the idea of "equal temperament" was born. Now C-sharp and D-flat would be tuned the same. Bach celebrated this new normal by writing his two books of "The Well-tempered Clavier," each of which has one prelude and one fugue in every one of the major and minor keys. One could play them all in succession without the need for retuning.

Before the advent of equal temperament, since most of the keys used for compositions were on primarily white keys, the idea of the traditional scale fingering seemed to make sense; there weren't many situations where you'd need anything else. (Look at the complete list of Scarlatti sonatas; about 80% are in keys using fewer than one sharp or flat,  about 10% use two, and about 10% use three or four.) And although the pieces written for keyboard were not without technical challenges, they did not require the lightning speed and acrobatics of later music, such as Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Brahms. There are many places in the compositions of these composers (and many others) where one needs more tools in their toolbox, so to speak, than just the traditional scale fingering.

The traditional fingering involves what is known as "thumb under," where you pass the thumb under the hand in order to move it to the next hand placement. Every early student of the piano is taught this technique. The goal of this is that there is a smooth (legato) connection. However, when done badly, there can be a "clunk" when the thumb plays. Even when the technique is done well, it is inefficient for extremely fast scales. In addition, there is the possibility of injury. I have met people who injured their thumb joints from too much scale work using the thumb-under method.

It is known that Chopin, and possibly Liszt as well, taught a method they called "thumb over." It is, of course, not possible to pass your thumb over your hand. Many people have tried to figure out what Chopin meant by this. If you do an internet search on this you will find quite a few explanations of what people believe Chopin meant. Some of these are truly bizarre and most are just not really do-able.

The approach I use for scales (and arpeggios), and what I believe Chopin meant, is a very quick "flick" of the arm to the new hand position. I do not pass the thumb under but instead quickly flip the hand to the new place. Like any technique, it needs to be worked at until you master it. But for fast scales, it is the quickest, most efficient, and has the least possibility for strain or injury.  Because you are using the arm (and wrist), you can "flick" to any key, white or black. It is equally easy for both situations. Therefore, I can play any scale that starts on a black key with the same fingering I would use for a white key, with equal ease, speed, and legato. Or I can use 1-2-3-4-5 and then flick, whereas you could never really pass your thumb under the pinky. Depending on the particular scale passage in the piece, I can used the traditional fingering (which still works the best in some situations), or something different. 

I would like to mention that many jazz pianists, who did not have classical training, often employ non-traditional fingerings, and they have lightning speed and agility. This is proof there is always more than one way to do things. We all have hands of different sizes and, to a degree, shapes. Different methods work for different people.

I once had a student whose previous teacher, and older man, once had a melt-down and tore up her music in a rage right in the middle of her lesson when she dared to use a scale fingering other than the traditional. This is absurd (and borderline criminal?). 

If you've been reading this blog from the beginning, you know that I diverge from most traditional beliefs about piano technique and interpretation. Scales are no exception. If you are a student of the piano, make sure you find a teacher who is knowledgeable about, or at least open to, many approaches.