Lessons vs. Practicing

 

My students sometimes ask: "I didn't get to practice much this week; should I still come to my lesson?" Or prospective students ask: "I really want to improve my playing but don't have a lot of time to practice. Is it still worth it to take lessons?"  The answer to both questions is a resounding YES. However, in order for the answer to be yes, you must have the right teacher.

From years of traditional schooling, most of us have gotten used to the idea that you go to class, where the teacher imparts some information, and then you go home and study it. Or, the teacher assigns some work, such as a paper or essay, which you do at home and then return to the teacher for "correcting" and, hopefully, constructive criticism, and possibly grading. You rarely do these assignments in class itself. Therefore it is not surprising that people may think the same model applies to learning an instrument, such as the piano.

Over the years, I have spoken with many people about their lessons with previous teachers. I'm often told that the teacher basically assigned a new piece, maybe went through it a small amount, but instructed the student to "learn" it at home. Then, at the lesson, the teacher might correct "wrong notes" or other problems, and the student would again be sent home to practice with the new "corrections." However, the problem with this is: what if the student doesn't really know or understand how to "learn" the piece for optimal results? The teacher may not even cover this, just assuming that the student knows. There are many ways to approach a new piece. Some are mechanical and joy-killing, and others are a creative process. How to practice well is one of the most important aspects of learning that the teacher needs to address. But many don't, or give it minimal emphasis. In fact, this is why many teachers just do a 30-minute lesson: if you are just correcting errors you may be able to do it in that amount of time. But there is no time to go into any depth on technique, ear-training, musical expression and all the myriad of subtleties that playing the piano requires.

The model  of "assign in class and learn at home" doesn't work at all for a pursuit which is highly physical, such as playing an instrument. The student needs to acquire good technique at the lesson, with the teacher demonstrating and, through various means, manipulating the student's hands and arms until they sense the new technique. The student needs to "experience" the new technique at the lesson, so they can attempt to duplicate it at home. I never let the student leave the lesson until I see that they at least have the beginnings of acquiring the new skill. Technique is just one an example, but the same applies to all aspects of playing. 

Because of this model, students tend to feel that they must "perform" for the teacher at the lesson in order to show what they have accomplished during the week. Whether conscious or unconscious, this idea will likely cause them to have some nerves, and the playing will be worse than the student hopes. As an experienced teacher, I can always tell what is going on, how the student has practiced, and how they have progressed (or not) during the week. If the student can just be relaxed, their playing will probably be better. I continually emphasize that they are practicing to improve and become more skilled, not to perform for me at the lesson.

A better model for the piano lesson would be a session with a personal trainer. If you are seeing a trainer weekly in order to get more fit, and you don't get a chance to exercise during a given week, should you skip your session with the trainer? Of course not. It would be all the more imperative that you go to your session so you at least get one solid exercise session in for the week. When you are with a trainer, he/she shows you the technique and observes you doing it, correcting your form as necessary. This is the most essential benefit of training with a professional, that is, making sure you have the best technique or form before you go home to do it on your own. 

Likewise, I consider the piano lesson to be a supervised practice session. When they are with me at the lesson, the students are doing the highest quality "practicing," and this is what they should be doing at home. Unfortunately, despite my explaining and emphasizing this, I have had some students who go home and do something else entirely, and of course, their results, or lack of results, show it.

At the lesson, the work must be "compressed" in order to get it done in the time allotted. However, the practice session at home should be seen as an "expanded" version of the lesson. In summary, lessons and practicing are not exactly the same, but the student should, ideally, try to replicate what was done at the lesson... again, providing you have the right teacher. If you are currently studying piano with a teacher who uses the "assign and learn at home" model, it's time to find a new teacher.

Tone

 

Much has been said and written about tone quality. Most people would agree you want a beautiful tone at the piano. However, virtually no one can describe what makes a tone beautiful (or not beautiful), much less how to achieve it. As for what makes a tone beautiful, they would probably just say "you'll know it when you hear it" -- not very useful if you are a student of the piano. There are myriad ways that teachers of the piano will tell you how to achieve a beautiful tone, but, as with many other aspects of playing the piano, there is a lot of "hokum" out there, that is, ideas and beliefs that have been passed down from one teacher to the next, and so on, without having been actually investigated to see if those ideas can be substantiated.

Of course, a great deal of the tone quality will be determined by the instrument itself. Its workmanship, materials, overall condition and age will all be very large factors in the tone quality. However, a poor pianist will still not sound beautiful on a magnificent instrument, and a superb pianist can make a mediocre piano sound wonderful. Clearly, there is more to it than just the instrument itself.

On the violin, for example, your left hand is in direct contact with the string, which gives you some control over the sound. However, it is the bow drawing over the string which actually creates the sound, so you are still one step removed, so to speak, from the direct contact with the the string with the right hand, which draws the bow. (The hand on the string creates the vibrato, which is a major element of the sound.)

On the piano, however, neither hand is in direct contact with the strings. Your hands depress the key which triggers the hammer to strike the string. At first glance it might be hard to see how you can have much control at all as to how the hammer hits the string. It is fairly easy to recognize that if the hammer hits the string with more force the sound created will be louder, and softer if it is hit with less force. So the question is, besides dynamics (loud vs. soft), is there any other aspect of tone that we, as pianists, can control? 

Before I answer that, I'd like to tell you what one one my earlier teachers (who had been a famous pianist) told me about tone quality (which was told to him by his teacher, and so on down the line, back many generations). He said that to achieve a beautiful tone, you must depress the key all the way down to the key bed, meaning as far as it can go. It was assumed that going deep into the key translated to a "deep" sound. You can probably see one problem with this right away. How would you achieve the light effervescent sound required by much of Debussy and Ravel? That lighter-than-air, extremely delicate sound (such as in Jeux D'eau by Ravel, which is supposed to evoke the sound of a fountain), could not possibly be achieved by depressing the keys to the key bed. And yet, when well-played, you would certainly say the tone is beautiful.

The other problem with this theory is that the physics, or mechanics, of the piano don't support it. Press a key down slowly and you will feel a point of resistance; it is exactly at that point that the hammer is triggered. You can still depress the key a small amount past that point, but it doesn't do anything at all. So any depression of the key past the point where the hammer is triggered is pure waste. If you were wanting to play lightning fast, for example, you can't afford any waste.

Despite the obvious problems with this idea, it persists among teachers, and students continue to be given this misinformation.

Some people reading this might vehemently disagree with what I am about to say. But here it is: the only thing we pianists have to control the so-called tone are dynamics and timing.

Imagine a long line that you draw with a pen on paper. Now imagine that that line is actually comprised of thousands of tiny dots, or points. (Which it is, according to math!) If any dot on that line is too large, too small, or slightly out of place, you will notice it and the long arc of the line will be disturbed. 

Now imagine that the line is a long phrase in music, and the points are the notes. It is really the line you want to be aware of more than the individual points. This is  the paradox: although the notes make up the phrase, it is really the phrase that you find beautiful. One or two or three notes by themselves are not terribly interesting; you must have the phrase to have music. If, as you are playing a phrase of music, some of your notes are too loud or too soft they may be out of place and the phrase will be disturbed, or broken. When I say too loud or too soft, I mean relative to the notes around it.  Our ear picks up that something has "jumped out" of the line. In other words, the dynamics must be so well-controlled, whether the overall phrase is loud, soft, and moving between loud and soft, that nothing is out of place.

The other way a note (or notes) will be heard to be out of place is if they are out of rhythm, even if only by a fraction of a second. (It's amazing, but true, that our ears can hear this, especially if you are a trained musician.) I'm not speaking here of learning the rhythm incorrectly, but rather of a faulty technique which causes some notes to be a fraction "ahead" or "behind" of where they should fall on the line, again, relative to the notes around them. This is often the result of a technique based solely on fingers. The arm is necessary to create the long line of a phrase.  Whether the particular passage is fast, slow, speeding up or slowing down, timing must be exquisite if the music is to sound beautiful.

This is where masterful technique comes in to play -- creating phrase after phrase each of which has a "long line," with nothing jumping out to disrupt it. The phrase is like a wave which propels you forward in the music.

In summary, when you hear someone play and think they have created a beautiful tone, in fact what you are hearing is their beautiful phrasing. 

Practicing to Build Your Brain Power

 

Many of my adult students tell me that one of the reasons they want to play the piano is because they want to keep their brains young and ward off the dreaded dementia of old age. Most people seem to be aware that research clearly shows that certain activities help keep the brain "fit," and playing a musical instrument is high on that list. Playing the piano is said to be at the very top of the list. There are several reasons for this.

But this does not mean that any old way of playing the piano will do the trick. There are certain habits and skills that must be developed in order for the brain to get the most benefit. In this post I will cover the major ways to practice that will keep your brain young. Many of these topics have been covered in previous posts, but here I will highlight how they help the brain.

1. Play hands together as close to 100% of the time as you can. 

Using both hands simultaneously builds the corpus callosum, which is the area between the two hemispheres of the brain. Essentially it is a tightly packed network of connecting nerve fibers. Everyone has this area, but playing the piano causes more connections to be formed. I have read that when an autopsy is done and the brain examined, it can be determined immediately whether the person was a pianist, just by observing the highly developed corpus callosum. People may say "but it's so difficult to play hands together!" That is because the corpus callosum is not yet developed enough. That is why you must play hands together anyway -- so that you build the corpus callosum, which in turn will make it easier to play hands together. Even if you just play a simplified part in one hand -- just so long as one hand is not in your lap -- the corpus callosum will continue to grow.

If you are a more advanced player and want to take your brain skills to the next level, play with hands crossed. I don't mean a whole piece or a difficult piece at full speed. Just start by taking a short passage from the music you are playing and literally cross your hands, so the right hand plays the left hand's part and vice versa, and play as slowly as necessary to accomplish it. Then immediately go back to playing it normally and see if it doesn't feel amazingly easier! I can't explain the scientific reason (although there is some research on this), but I am 100% certain this helps build the brain's capabilities.

2. Develop the ear. 

Of course when we speak of the ear in music, we are talking about the auditory cortex in the brain. Again, the ear is being used and minimally developed even with the most basic playing. But if you want to really develop the ear, you have to challenge it (just like stressing muscles makes them stronger). This can be done by playing by ear and transposing. When I speak of transposing, I am referring to taking a piece of music and playing it in a different key. This can be done by eye (if using written music) or by ear, or a combination of both. Using the ear as much as possible is what will help build the ear. 

Another way to strengthen your ear is to sing! If you stop to think about it, you will recognize that the ear and vocal chords have a direct connection. You cannot see your vocal chords or direct them how to sing a given note; the brain just sends the signal and the vocal chords respond. Many people have trouble singing on key, but this is not a deficiency in their vocal chords -- it is a deficiency in the auditory cortex. So sing whenever possible and make every effort to sing on key. It helps to have a teacher to guide you through this if you find it difficult, but it can be done to some degree on your own. Make a habit of singing. (Hopefully it will also bring you joy!)

3. Memorize.

It is well known that one of the first things to go as most people age is their memory. If you want to keep your memory strong, you must use it! These days with all your phone numbers, birthdays, and much other information programmed into your phone or computer, there are far fewer opportunities to use your memory than there used to be. I recommend you try memorizing the phone numbers and birthdays of several people, just to make sure you can do it. Then expand to more quantity of information. It might seem like a hassle, but your brain will thank you for it.

Memorizing music is among the best ways to keep your memory strong. If you find it difficult to memorize, start with a very simple piece that you have learned and commit it to memory. Then keep going with progressively more complex music. There is a great deal to be said about how to memorize securely, too much for this post. Again, a really great teacher can help you. If you have learned the piece by ear, as opposed to from reading the written notes, then you automatically have it memorized. This proves that ear and memory are intimately connected. The more you build your ear the better your memory will be, and vice versa.

4. Recognize patterns.

Music is full of patterns. Repeating themes and motifs are what hold music together, so to speak. Without patterns it would just be rambling unrelated tones. Some patterns are obvious and some are more subtle. In any music you play, learn to identify the patterns. Pattern recognition is a part of many IQ and other cognitive tests, which shows it is an important skill for the brain. 

It is believed that playing an instrument such as the piano uses more parts of your brain simultaneously than any other activity. It uses the parts of the brain that control motor skills, auditory, visual (as in reading music), cognitive ability and emotions. (Don't forget about always playing with emotional involvement or you will miss out on that part!) So you can see why playing the piano is the ultimate brain-development hobby. No sport or other artistic endeavor can even come close. 

First Do No Harm

You are probably familiar with the Hippocratic Oath, the one that medical doctors take, which says "first do no harm." I also believe in this oath and take it very seriously when it comes to teaching the piano.

I will talk about two kinds of harm: physical and psychological.

Physical Harm

Pianists are prone to all sorts of injuries and chronic issues with their hands, wrists and arms -- IF they don't have proper technique. You can be an advanced player but still have pain if you haven't learned how to use your body ergonomically. The most common problems are tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.
The first thing I cover at the lesson with a new student is how they sit at the piano. Sitting too low causes the wrists to sink below the hands, and puts a lot of strain on the wrist, which is a delicate joint. This can lead to carpal tunnel. Even when you type on a computer keyboard it is recommended you have a pad beneath your wrists so they can't sink. At the piano it is much more critical. You must sit high enough that there is a gentle downward slope from your upper arm to your hand. Sitting too high has different issues, but I find invariably people sit too low, not too high. If your piano came with a standard bench, it may not be the right height for you. Generally the benches are too low for people who are short, and they are absolutely too low for most children. Although I don't teach children anymore, I often am shown videos of kids playing at a recital, for example, and am always appalled at how they are sitting. Sometimes they are so low that there hands are reaching up almost to shoulder-level to get to the keys. Any teacher who allows this to happen, whether at the lesson, at home, or at a recital, is derelict in their duties.
Not only is sitting too low a potential source of injury, it also makes having great technique almost impossible. I say "almost" because there are a few cases of famous pianists who sat extremely low and still had big technique. But this is rare. (And for all we know, they may have had pain but they didn't like to talk about that.) You need the power of your upper arm for any kind of forte (loud) and powerful playing. (You also need it for extremely delicate playing, but it may not appear that way to the novice.) The power of the upper arm is "cut off" if the wrist is below the hand.

Another way that physical harm is done is too much repetition, usually of "exercises." These are often done in a way which emphasizes the small muscles, which can fatigue easily. Pushing through the pain is "supposed" to be the way you get better at it, but it is just a road to problems such as tendinitis, or even dystonia, which can be quite paralyzing. It is not the repetition itself, but the manner in which these exercises are taught which is wrong. Doing them even a little is not good, but doing them a lot is positively harmful. (See my earlier posts on exercises.)

Psychological Harm

Over my many years of teaching I have heard a great deal of what I call "piano horror stories." (I may put them all in a book one day!) That refers to the early years of piano lessons which, people tell me, were negative experiences and almost destroyed their love of the piano. Often, they hated the lessons and begged their parents to let them quit. Teachers would chalk it up to the child "not having enough talent" or "not willing to work hard enough." In fact, it was their psychologically damaging teaching methods that was the cause.
Too much emphasis on dull exercises and repetition (see above), focusing on "wrong notes," and insistence on playing the music the student does not like are just a few of the ways in which teachers harm their students. (See previous posts on these subjects.) They often forget about the "fun." Everyone wants it to be fun!! If the teacher is unable to make it fun, that teacher needs to find another profession. Fun is my top priority, even for the so-called "serious" student. Years after they leave lessons with me, I want them to have only the happiest memories of their time at the piano.

Shortcuts

In these times when many people are so busy, many products and services advertise themselves as "time-savers." In some cases it is true, and who wouldn't want to buy or use something that enables you to get somewhere or achieve something in less time? We often find ourselves looking for a shortcut....

Piano is no different. People who have always wanted to learn to play, but haven't had a lot of time to devote to it, may be looking for a shortcut, a way to play, at least at a basic level, without a huge investment of time (and money).

So it is no surprise that there would be those who try to capitalize on that desire. They offer books or online courses (even TV shows) that claim "Learn Piano in a Day!" or "Teach Yourself Piano!" They claim to have a method that bypasses all the supposed long hours of lessons and practice. Why would anyone choose the long, possibly difficult path, when there are "shortcuts" available?

Let's explore whether, in fact, there are shortcuts to learning to play the piano.

The shortcuts that you will find all basically boil down to one idea: you learn songs, which of course, being songs, are not originally written to be played on the piano. They are not "piano music." Nevertheless, songs are what a lot of people want to play, because they are familiar with them. You would first need to learn the melody of the songs, played with the right hand, and then you would need to learn chords, or the harmony, played with the left hand. (When people learn to play the guitar, they usually are singing the melody and playing chords on the guitar. It's totally possible and very common to learn to do this on the guitar, at least for simpler songs, providing you can, and want to, sing.)

Let's take each of those elements:
There would be three ways of learning to play the melody. The first is "by ear," which means you just figure it out, using your innate auditory ability, along with some trial and error. Some people can do this but many can't. The second way would be to learn to read music. Musical notation is quite complex, having to convey both the notes and the rhythm, at the very least. So if you can't quite manage to figure out your melodies by ear, you will need to learn to read. Just like when you learned to read English (or any language), you started with VERY simple material and gradually progressed to more complex. Most "shortcut" methods do not teach how to read music, because it takes time and there is really no shortcut. The third way is the "copy me" approach. If your course is online, you would watch the teacher's hands and try to copy exactly. Or, if your book or course has graphics, it may indicate where to place your fingers by means of a dot or other symbol on the key(s) you need to press. Even so, you would need to be quite familiar with the songs, since the dots cannot indicate the rhythm of the melody.
Next, you would want to learn to play chords to harmonize your melody. Again, there are a few ways you might do this. The easiest (or so it may seem) way is for the book or course to just show you which keys to depress for a given chord. Most shortcut approaches will start with three basic chords. There are thousands of songs which can be played with just three or four chords. Or, you could learn to read the chords in actual music notation, but again, reading is a skill that takes time. If you've learned the melody and you only need to use three chords, it seems pretty simple, right? Not necessarily. The two hands doing different things at the same time is the singular challenge of the piano, and you may not be able to master it just by copying someone else. The last method to learn chords -- the best way -- is to really learn the system, the theory, if you will, of chords, which will enable you to learn to construct any chord you want. But again, this takes some time and shortcut approaches wouldn't even try.

I also need to mention that all shortcut approaches will have you playing only in the Key of C, at least for a while, which means you will be playing on all white keys. These approaches will put all the songs you play in that key, which is fine. However, once your course is finished and you find music you want to play that is not in the Key of C,  you won't know the chords you will need and won't be able to figure out how to find them.

With shortcut methods, every time you learn a new song you are starting from scratch. You will always need the teacher or the graphics to show you exactly what to play. You won't have learned "the system" or the skills to do it on your own. As soon as the course is done, you may find it difficult, if not impossible, to continue on your own. You may not even be able to remember the songs you have already learned, unless you go back and watch the video again each time.

Another huge problem with all of the above is that no one is watching you, to see if your physical coordination needs help, or if you are doing things in a way which is awkward and prone to give you problems down the road.

It is a classic case of giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish. The shortcut methods give you one fish at a time; they don't teach you the skill of fishing.

My approach to teaching beginners is different. I do stress learning to play melodies by ear, because it is fun, and helps develop your ear, which is essential. (See my post on The Importance of Playing by Ear.) If you are finding it difficult to play by ear, I help you improve that skill. I also teach chords, but I do it by teaching the structure or chords, so you will gradually, over time, be able to find any chord you need. I also teach how to read music. If you already understand chords, for example, it is much easier when you start to read them, because what you are reading will make sense to you.

Learning in this way does take time, dedication, and yes -- money. It is essential to find a highly skilled and intuitive teacher who has an interest in teaching beginners and guiding them through this long -- and rewarding -- process.

It's tempting to find shortcuts. But you may find your shortcut landed you at a brick wall or a dead end.

Everything you do has the potential to become habit

There are thousands of self-help books on how to establish new habits -- for healthy eating or exercise, for example. And equally as many books, I would imagine, on how to break undesirable habits, such as smoking. Our habits determine a huge percentage of what we do in life: our thoughts, our interactions with people, our daily routines, just to name a few. If only we could go back in time, to the time before we developed those habits, and make sure we formed only the most desirable ones! The problem is, however, that most of the time we are developing our habits, we are not even aware we are doing so.

This is true of playing the piano as well. The habits you develop will, to a large extent, determine your physical technique and even how expressively you play. And perhaps most important, your practice habits, what you do (or don't do) when you sit down to practice, will be a huge factor in whether you make progress or spin your wheels.

This is why I tell my students: Everything you do has the potential to become habit.

If you are a student of the piano -- whether beginner or advanced -- you have an opportunity every time you practice to develop the habits you desire and let go of the ones that don't serve you. If you have already played for a number of years, chances are you have developed some "bad" habits that prevent you from playing as well as you would like, or progressing at the rate you want. (This is very likely to be the case if you tried to teach yourself, or had a bad teacher.) Even so, those habits can be replaced with better ones, over time, especially if you have an insightful teacher who can help you become aware of those habits.

I'm still always surprised (and yet also not surprised) that people don't see the connection, for example, between how they practice and how they would ultimately want to play, say, in a performance, even if it's just for friends and family. They mistakenly believe that they can do one thing when they practice, but when it comes to "showtime," they will do something different. (Of course I am not talking about the highest level professional artists here, but of your average person who just wants to learn to play.)

The best example of this is the immediate "correction" of wrong notes. (The reason I put that in quotes is that the wrong note still happened and the new note does not "replace" it. There is no backspace key in music!) Almost everyone has an automatic reaction to playing a wrong note of correcting it with the right one immediately. You usually do it before you even realize it -- it is a knee-jerk reaction. Unfortunately, some teachers will even tell you that this is what you must do, otherwise you will continue to play the wrong note. However, this is not how the brain works. The more autonomic part of the brain does not know you meant the second one you played is the one you want; it just "thinks" this is how it is, the first note followed by the second one, and will very likely continue to make that same mistake. If you don't address the reason you have played the incorrect note (it is very likely having to do with your technique), playing the correct note afterwards won't correct the technical problem. In addition, stopping to "correct" has now destroyed the rhythm of that part of the music, which is something your brain will also absorb. It's funny to me that students are so concerned with getting the right notes, but are willing to throw the rhythm under the bus every time!

I often say that if stopping to correct really worked, we'd all be playing all the right notes all the time by now. But you will find, from your own experience, that is not the case. It may seem counter-intuitive, but you must let the wrong notes go by and focus on playing with continuity and beauty. A better solution is to simplify that passage with fewer notes (see my post on outlining) and gradually build up to all the notes. There are many more techniques to address wrong notes, too numerous and complex to explain here.

In addition, if you always stop and fix, then you can be sure that is what you will do in performance as well, even though you think you won't. After all, it's the habit you developed.

Another example of developing a habit you don't want is practicing without expression and musicality. I can't tell you the number of people with whom I've had this disagreement. They insist that you must first learn "the notes" and then add the expression later. But how can this be? If you are playing with expression, there is something you are doing, physically, that you didn't do when you practiced without it (or vice versa). So why would you practice in a way you don't intend to use later when you perform? You won't be able to change your habit of playing without expression at the flick of a switch.

Maybe there are some things in life or at the piano that we do that won't become habit. But everything you do has the potential to become habit, and almost certainly will if you do it most of the time. When you sit down to practice, be mindful of this. You have an opportunity every time you play to develop the habits you want.

Musical Numerology

I'm always fascinated by the connection between music and math. Music is full of mathematical relationships. And it seems to be the case that many people who have an affinity for music also have an affinity for math, and vice versa.

There is also a connection between music and numbers themselves. I'm calling this "Musical Numerology."

Many spiritual and philosophical teachings have discussed the importance of certain numbers in our cosmos and in creation. For example, the philosopher/teacher G.I Gurdjieff talked about the "rule of three" and the "rule of seven" as playing a large part in our solar system and in the organization of many aspects of life on earth.

There are three numbers which play an important role in music: three, five, and seven.

Three:
There are many instances of three in our culture, such as the Trinity in Christianity. In Western music, three can be seen in the construction of the most basic chord, a triad, consisting of three notes. In triads and in "expanded" chords, such as seventh and ninth chords, each tone is always separated by the interval of a third.
Many of our forms that larger pieces use are three-part forms. The most common of these is known as an A-B-A form, which consists of a first section (A) followed by a contrasting section (B), followed by another A section, which can be an exact repeat, or somewhat altered. One of the most enduring forms in our music is Sonata Form, which uses this ABA form on both a macro and micro level. Most symphonies, sonatas, concertos, and many of the large-scale pieces from the last three centuries or so have three movements (although many composers deviated from this and had anywhere from two to four movements); the first, in the original key, was often fast; the second movement often slower, and in a contrasting key, and the third movement again in the original key. The first movement itself is in "Sonata Form" which consists of three parts, an Exposition, a Development, and a Recapitulation.
This three-part form has proven to be so satisfying to both the composer and the listener that we just don't seem to be able to abandon it.

Seven:
There are many instances of the importance of 7 in religion and philosophy, probably starting with the Creation Story of 7 days. This of course is why we have seven days in our week.  In Western music we have a basic building block, the scale, consisting of seven tones. Composers have experimented with other options, but none of these have taken hold. There is something about the 7-tone scale that seems cosmically right. It is believed that the Greeks took the "distance" between a given tone and the tone that vibrates at exactly twice the frequency of  the first tone, and the division of that distance into 7 tones ensued from that. (They are not equal divisions of the octave, however.)That distance is referred to as the "octave." (There is quite a bit more complexity to this which goes beyond the scope of this post.)

Five:
The importance of five in music is one of my favorite things to talk about. Many cultures (not ours, however, as explained above) have based their music on a 5-tone, or pentatonic, scale. As an example, just about every Spiritual you can find has a melody based on 5 tones.
In Western music the importance of five can be seen in the Circle of Fifths. On the most surface level, this is a picture of the relationship of the tonalities to each other. The key of C Major has no sharps or flats; go up 5 tones (in that scale) and you get G Major with one sharp. The significance of this is that the most closely-related key or tonality is five tones away. On a deeper level, music tends to want to move by the interval of a fifth. This is seen in the roots of chords as they progress from one to another. The most common cadence (or ending) is V to I. (We use Roman Numerals when we refer to the degree of the scale.) The next most common is IV to I (which can be heard in the "Amen" of almost all religious music). It should be noted, however, that IV to I is also the relationship of a fifth, but going the opposite direction around the Circle of Fifths.  This is not just true of Classical music; in jazz, the most common progression is II-V-I; the II is five away from V, so II-V-I is a "chain" of fifths.

This post just scratches the surface of understanding Musical Numerology. There are hundreds of books and articles written on this subject. I always have felt that music is somehow an auditory representation of our cosmos, closely related to physics, math and astronomy. Hopefully this piques your interest to find out more about this amazing connection.