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.
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