Stayin' Alive

 

Not all of you reading this may be old enough to get my reference to the song "Stayin' Alive" from the movie Saturday Night Fever from 1977. "Staying alive" is a concept I use a lot. It means that you stay physically alert, with a feeling of energy running through you.

How does this apply to playing the piano? At all times while playing, whether in fast or slow music, you are aiming to have the feeling of the energy flowing. This means you are physically in motion from note to note, chord to chord, and so on. It is, of course, possible to play a note, then another note, without connecting them via physical movement, but if you do, you will get a sound that we immediately identify as a beginner sound, that is, mechanical and disconnected. In fact, mechanical and disconnected is the hallmark of a beginner's sound.

When you watch a great pianist, you will notice that their hands, arms, and even torso are constantly moving, even if it's only slightly. To an advanced pianist, it feels quite un-natural to just come to a standstill between notes. Many people (non-pianists) have said to me "I thought that was just for show!" There are certainly some pianists who overdo it, possibly for show. But it is inherently natural to want to be in motion. In fact, I believe you can't have emotion without motion.

The skeptics would say this can't be true. They would say that when the hammer hits the string and produces the sound, it doesn't "know" whether you have been in motion or not. This seems logical. However, we know that everything we do physically affects the sound. If you want to play extremely softly, you are doing something physically quite different from what you do when you play fortissimo. There is a wide range of nuance of "touch," as pianists call it, which creates the infinite range of sounds. And all of those nuances are created by something you've done physically.

This all has to do with the "Law of Inertia," which says: bodies in motion tend to stay in motion and bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. If you play a note from the state of inertia, there must be a tiny jolt of energy to get the arm/hand/finger moving. If you return to an inert state, even if only for a nanosecond, and then play another note following the first one, another tiny jolt is needed to overcome inertia. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to make sure these "jolts" were 100% even. If they are not even, then those notes would vary in dynamic level, and even timing, however minutely. While it may be imperceptible to the untrained ear, a musician will hear that those tones were disconnected. On the other hand, if your body (torso, arm, hand, fingers) are smoothly flowing, those separate tones will be heard as if they are on a continuum. When you are already in motion, you have momentum, and there are no individual jolts of energy to disturb the flow. Once you have momentum, it is easier to stay in momentum, provided you don't accidentally fall into inertia. (Isn't it more enjoyable to drive on a road where you can go a long way without stopping, as opposed to a street where you have to brake at every corner for a stop sign? It also uses less gas to go continuously, because all the little "jolts" to get moving again require more gas. I think this is a good analogy.)

I know this may all sound a little "New Age," but the laws of physics really do support this. You can experiment with this yourself. Play a series of tones (five is enough, or you can do a scale) in one hand. With the other hand, hold your arm so that it restricts the movement. You will still be able to play, but it will feel stiff, because of the inertia between tones. Now, play it again (remove your other hand) and try to achieve a "sweep" of the arm, carrying the hand from first note to last. You will hear an immediate difference. I should also add that playing the first way, with minimal movement, doesn't really feel very enjoyable, and in fact feels antithetical to idea of musicality. 

It is much easier to play with momentum when the music is fast. It is less likely that your physical mechanism will fall into inertia in between tones. However, when you play very slowly, you are likely to become inert. My teacher used to say "Beware long notes." If you just "sit" on a long note,  the next thing you play will have to have that little jolt. For this reason, it is extremely difficult for many people to play a beautiful slow movement of a sonata with the musical expression they desire. They say they feel the beauty of the music but can't convey it and don't understand why. I have heard this comment hundreds of times. Inertia is the reason.

Whether fast or slow, we want our playing to have momentum. A river may be rushing fast, with lots of rapids, or it may be slow, moving majestically. But either way, it has momentum to carry forward.

On sure-fire way to fall into inertia is to put your hand(s) in your lap. If you have a passage where one hand doesn't play for a few measures, don't put your hand in your lap. In a sense it will "fall asleep" and need to be woken up again. If you don't feel you like it hovering in mid-air, then let it hover lightly on your lap, but never actually rest.

Violinists can achieve flow or momentum much more easily than we pianists. They cannot just plunk the blow on the string and make a sound. Rather, the bow is constantly in motion, even if playing one long tone. Wind instrument players must keep the flow of their breath continuous. It seems like only pianists have the trap of inertia.

I work on this a lot with my students. Of course it takes many years and a great deal of dedication to train yourself to always be in motion, and not just any motion, but the ways that will produce the best results. But if you have no teacher to guide you, just try to continually remind yourself to move, and not just "sit." A good place to begin is with the torso. People think you just play with hands and fingers, but the torso needs to be active and alert. I can always tell when a student is going to play more musically, because I see his/her torso begin to move, even before playing the first note.

Ideally, this constant flow or motion should carry you from the very first note of the piece to the very last. Even if you are playing a piece with multiple movements, you can try to keep your energy flowing between movements, through the silence. I have found that when I do this, the audience continues to listen (you can just tell when you have their attention). If I "relax" and become inert, so do they. 

Some "experts" will say that you just need to strengthen and train your fingers to play perfectly evenly and that will achieve that "connected" sound. Sorry, but no amount of strength will do this. (How would strength even apply to playing a delicate, ephemeral passage in Debussy?) If it were just a matter of strength, many people could do it, if they put in the hours, like going to a gym. But playing beautifully is much more subtle than that. Remember to always "stay alive."

Hand size and shape

 

Our hands come in all sizes. Some people think there is an ideal hand size for pianists, but this is not the case. There have been great pianists with large hands and great pianists with small hands. Look at many of the incredible modern-day young pianists from Asia, and you'll see their hands are fairly small. And of course there are, and have been, child prodigies who have small hands yet play all the challenging pieces. There have been pianists with short chubby fingers and pianists with long tapered fingers. Rachmaninoff had abnormally large hands due to a genetic condition. The basics of piano technique are largely the same no matter what the size of the hand, though there will be minor adjustments that may need to be made.

When you think about it, our hands are not really "designed" for the piano at all. The fingers are all different lengths, and the thumb is entirely different, yet the piano keys are all the same size and laid out evenly. It is a miracle we can play as we do. 

Although our hands have basically the same shape, there are differences in this area too. For example, I  have a slightly larger than normal space between my fourth and fifth fingers, which makes using the fourth finger instead of the third more comfortable for me on large chords and arpeggios, in some cases.

This is why I am opposed to the idea of having the fingering written into the scores. In many cases the fingering is added by an editor (and what do we know about the editor's skill level? -- probably not much). Even if the fingering is the composer's, your hand may differ quite a lot from his, and the fingering he used may not work for you. 

We also have differences in the normal curvature of our hand. If you relax your hand with the back of the hand on your lap, you will find your normal curvature. No one has hands that are absolutely flat when relaxed, yet many (including myself) have hands that are almost flat. If you had piano lessons years ago (and unfortunately, even now), you were probably told to "curve your fingers." An illustration in one of the commonly-used beginner books shows a hand curved over a tennis ball. This is patently false, and if you try to adhere to this, you will limit the technique you can achieve. You can't possibly curve your fingers when playing even an octave, and certainly not when playing a large chord with four or five notes. The idea of curved fingers originated in the early days of keyboard music when the harpsichord was the primary keyboard instrument. The physical nature of the harpsichord, and the music that was written for it, is worlds away from the modern piano, and music of composers since Beethoven. This is one of the "300-year-old ideas" that I refer to in my earlier post of that name. When you play, you should ideally be using the natural curvature of your hand. If you need to play a very large chord, or the span of a tenth, for example, you will need to open your hand even more, which may make your hand quite flat, though still relaxed. There is no situation I can think of where you would want to, or need to, curve your fingers as if over a ball. 

I recently saw a documentary on the late pianist Vladimir Horowitz. I was again struck by how flat his fingers were when he played. Yet he clearly had huge technique. This flies in the face of what your grandmother's piano teacher would have told you, and sadly, many teachers nowadays as well, regarding curved fingers.

[When I was young, my teachers admonished me to curve my fingers. Therefore, I could never grow my nails even a little bit long, which was very disappointing. If the teachers heard the slightest click of my nails, I was told to go home and cut them even shorter. Later in life, when I learned how to play in a way more natural for my hands, I was able to grow my nails. If you are hearing your nails clicking, it is probably because you are over-curved. You want to be playing on the soft pad of your finger, not the nail tip.]

Another misconception about our hands relates to finger strength. For many years it was believed that you would need to strengthen your fingers through specifically designed exercises in order to achieve good piano technique. This, too, is another 300-year-old idea that has been thoroughly debunked. Again, I would point to child prodigies and petite adults, who do not have significant muscle strength in their hands. Along with this was the idea of "finger independence," that is, training the fingers to move independently of one another. If you play this way, the only thing you will achieve is a stilted sound (what I call "note-y"). Technique has more to do with speed and agility than it does with strength. You have all the strength you need in your arms, which is where the power comes from, for instance, for fortissimo playing. In fact, if you "bulk up" your hands with strength training, you will limit your flexibility, as well as your reach. 

Some of my students who have small hands have asked if there is anything they can do to stretch their hands. The answer is no. But you can learn to open and relax them. Just as with yoga and other forms of body work, you can learn to "let go" of the muscles in your hand so you don't hold them so tightly. I can reach a tenth, even though my hands are not large, because, as I like to joke, "I have worked very hard to be this relaxed." If you try to stretch, you will likely injure yourself. If your hands are truly too small to play a particular chord, the chord can be quickly rolled or broken, or a note can be omitted. There are lots of ways to use a little "smoke and mirrors," as many pianists with small hands have done.

Everyone who has worked towards "finger independence" has no doubt heard about the so-called problem with the fourth finger. The fourth finger has less independence than the others due to the nature of the tendons between the fingers. Many pianists have tried to figure out ways to overcome this, and some injured themselves in the process. Schumann injured is hand permanently in the quest to solve the "problem of the fourth finger." The real solution, and the only solution, is for all the fingers of the hand, and the hand itself and the arm, to work together. Not only will this achieve more beautiful playing, it was also enable you to avoid strain and injury.

If you are attempting to learn to play the piano and think that the problems you may be encountering are because your hands are too small, or the wrong shape, I encourage you to find a teacher who can support you in learning to play in a way that works with your hands, not against them.

Time Signatures and what they convey

 

All beginning students of all instruments learn about "time signatures" in the very earliest lessons. But I find that virtually all the early piano books, and many teachers, don't really explain all the information, beyond the mechanics, that time signatures are meant to convey. You might think it's simple enough.... but I have seen so much confusion around this subject, I feel compelled to explain.

The time signature appears at the very beginning of every piece. It's essential that you know it before starting to learn to play the piece. If you are somewhat experienced, you'd figure it out by just seeing the music, even if the time signature were missing, but nevertheless the composer would not omit such an important piece of information.

When you are a beginner, most of your pieces are in 4 - 4 time. (The numbers are actually written vertically. It is important to note here that my use of the dash is not actually the correct notation. Limitations of this software don't allow me to show the time signature with the numbers stacked vertically, with no line between them, which would be the correct way. See below). You learn that the top "4" means 4 beats per measure and the bottom "4" indicates that the quarter note is the unit of the beat. In a piece with this time signature, you will likely encounter one or more whole notes, which get 4 beats each. Later on, you may have a piece in 3 - 4 time; now there are only 3 beats per measure. The quarter note is still the unit of the beat, but you won't be seeing any whole notes, since those have 4 beats.

This might seem a little confusing to the beginner. Why would you have three quarters in a measure, when 3 quarters don't add up to a whole?

The answer is because our musical notation for rhythm was based on the idea of 4. If you go back to my early posts on rhythm, you will see that I use the analogy of a log, which you are chopping in 4 equal pieces. These pieces can be further "chopped" to give eighth notes, sixteenth notes, etc. This is a good representation of the 4 - 4 time signature. Our notation didn't evolve with the idea of three beats.  It is, however, very adaptable and can be used to show 3 - 4, 2 - 4 and others.

When I explain time signatures to my students, I prefer to say that they are telling you the "rhythmic organization" of the piece of music. It may be "organized" around a "log" cut in 4 pieces, or in 3, etc.

Eventually the student will see a piece in so-called "cut time," which is 2 - 2 (again, the dash is not correct). The bottom number 2 indicates that the half-note is the unit of the beat. But when the student looks at the music, it looks identical to 4 - 4. There are still 4 quarters in a measure. Why did the composer choose to write it in 2 - 2 rather than 4 - 4? The composer is telling you to "feel" it in two beats. In other words, there are fewer emphasis points in 2 - 2 than there would be in 4 - 4. Imagine you are marching to music for a marching band; you want to hear 4 strong beats, each syncing with a step. But if the piece had more of a graceful, flowing nature, you'd want fewer strong emphases. The "math" may be the same as 4 - 4, but the musical interpretation of the piece is different. This is an example of why it is important that the teacher explain the intent behind the time signatures, not just the math.

A real source of confusion comes when you get 6 - 8.  The 6 - 8 time signature arose because the composer wanted the beat (quarter note) to divide in 3. The normal division is in 2, since, again, the notation evolved around the divisions of even numbers, 2 and 4. When the beat divides in 3, it is shown as a triplet. The triplet has to be marked as such, because the division in 2 would otherwise be assumed. If the composer wants triplets for the whole piece, it is cumbersome to have to indicate it everywhere, so the idea of 6 - 8 arose. It would seem to tell you there are 6 beats in the measure and the eighth note gets the beat. However, we would never feel it as 6 beats. We would feel it as two main beats (like 2 - 4), but the beat divides in 3 rather than the normal two. The two main beats is the important point to stress. In 3 - 4 you feel 3 main beats; in 6 - 8 you feel two. A waltz would have to be in 3 - 4 time, but a jig (or gigue) must be in 6 - 8. If the teacher does not explain this, the student would have no way to understand it. Sadly, I have actually seen incorrect information in books. I once saw, in print, the explanation that "6 - 8 was the same as 3 - 4 but faster." Not true in the slightest since the time signature tells you nothing about the actual tempo (speed) of the piece (see below).

There are also time signatures such as 9 - 8 and 12 - 8, which have the beats divide in three just as with 6 - 8.

As you can see, I've gone to some pains to write the time signatures without the slash which you often see when they are written about, but not in the actual score itself. They are not fractions and have nothing to do with fractions. In the score the numbers are written vertically, but there is no line between them, as there would be if they were representing fractions. If time signatures were fractions, then 4 - 4 would equal 1 and 3-2- would equal 1.5 and those number have nothing to do with what is represented in those time signatures. And 3 - 4 and 6 - 8 would be the same, whereas, as we have seen, they are completely different. Again, I recently read a book about music and the brain. The author is a pianist and clearly quite knowledgeable about music, but even she made the mistake of referring to time signatures as fractions.

Which brings me to another misconception about time signatures by beginning students. The time signature does NOT tell you the tempo, or speed, of the piece. A piece in a given time signature can be a fast piece or a slow piece. An indication of the tempo is given at the top of the score with terms such as Allegro or Andante or Largo. (There is no exact speed for these either, which is where the musician has an opportunity for her/his own interpretation.) 

Again, if you think of the time signature as the rhythmic organization, you won't be confused. If your teacher cannot explain time signatures to you, or calls them fractions, you will know that the teacher doesn't actually understand them.

Going Away and Coming Home

 

The phenomenon that I call "going away and coming home" is present in all Western music. (It may be true of other culture's music but I cannot speak to that with any authority.) Going away and coming home is operating on all levels, micro and macro.

"Home" refers to the feeling of being settled. It might be compared to the period at the end of a sentence. "Away" refers to being unsettled, the feeling that more is to come, like a comma in a sentence. The interplay of home and away creates the feeling of movement, the feeling that the music is pulling you forward, its "dynamic" quality. It also gives music its structure. 

You are probably already aware that our music is tonal (with very few exceptions), that is to say, it is based on a scale. A scale is a subset of all available tones, and a scale has specific relationships of the tones to each other.

The scale itself is a perfect illustration of home and away. Play the first note of a major scale. (I'll call the notes of the scale 1, 2, 3, etc.) Then play 1 to 2. As you listen, does the 2 have more energy to move forward, or does it want to fall back to 1? I think you'll find it's the latter. Then play 1-2-3 and ask the same thing. You'll probably agree that 3 has more forward momentum than 2, but not enough; it, too, wants to fall backward to 2 and then 1. Now play 1-2-3-4. It's starting to feel like it finally has some forward momentum, but 4 also very easily can just relax back to 3. Now play 1-2-3-4-5. I think you'll hear immediately that with 5 we have really gotten somewhere; it feels like you have reached the crest of a hill. The note 5 really doesn't want to fall back but has a drive to go forward. As you play 1-2-3-4-5-6, the pull to go forward is stronger still, and when you play 7, the urge to go to 8 is extremely strong. (The 7th note of the scale is sometimes called the "leading tone" for this reason.) If we call the notes 1 and 8 "home" (which they must be, since they begin and end the scale), the note 5 is as "far away" as you can go before you are returning home again. Although the scale appears to be linear when you look at it, musically it is more of a circle. The tones 1 and 5 are are opposite poles of the circle. (For more about the scale itself, see my post "The Cosmic Mystery of the Musical Scale.")

It makes sense that if the scale (micro level) embodies home and away, then everything built on the scale will also have home and away.

As you might have guessed, the importance of the tones 1 (I) and 5 (V) are everywhere in our music, and specifically, the chords built on I and V. If you take the simplest of songs, let's say "London Bridge is Falling Down," you will see it is harmonized with just two chords, I and V. This is because every piece of music, no matter how short or simple, must have home (I) and away (V). Having only "home" would be boring indeed, and having only "away" would be almost impossible since, without home, away cannot even be recognized as being away and would be quite disorienting.

While everything other than 1(I) is away, 5 (V) is the most away. The chords of II, III, IV etc. are also away, but the strongest feeling of away is V. You'll find that almost all our music ends with the V and then the I chord. (The remaining ones end with IV to I, which is also a 5 to 1 relationship, but the other direction in the scale and in the circle of fifths; see my explanation in earlier posts.)

On the macro level, sections of music exhibit home-away-home as well. A tremendous amount of our music is based on the A-B-A form. The A section functions as home, where you start, the B as away, and then A as the return to home. Songs have one or more verses (section A), then usually the chorus, or "bridge" (section B), and then end with the verse (A). The simplest classical pieces will probably be A-B-A, and the B section is either different in its thematic material, or it is in a different key, or both. Going to another key is definitely felt as "going away" and the return to the original key has the satisfying feeling of coming home. Larger musical works such as sonatas, symphonies, etc. are all based on some variant of A-B-A. There are some exceptions, of course, but composers (and we listeners) have found this so satisfying that we just don't seem to be able to abandon it.  When you consider that a piece of music unfolds over time (as opposed to a painting where you see everything at once), it is imperative that the music have a structure, or architecture, that can be discerned by the listener. A-B-A does the trick.

I find it endlessly fascinating that, regardless of the complexity of a given piece of music, the going away and coming home is always operating, always pulling us forward. You can study all sorts of complex "music theory" in books or classes, but if you understand "going away and coming home," you'll understand a great deal about music.

One of my pet peeves

 

In my previous post I referred to the term "accidentals." This term is used to refer to notes which are outside the scale in which that the piece (or section of the piece) is written. I don't know how the term "accidental" originated, but it is clearly a misnomer, because they are not accidents.  Any time I hear someone use this term, I just cringe, and cannot resist explaining why it is such a misleading term. It is one of my real pet peeves.

If you are playing in the key of C Major, for example, and encounter an F# (F sharp), people might call that an accidental, because F# does not occur in the key (scale) of C. So what is it doing there? Here are some reasons.

1. The F# may appear because the piece is modulating (moving) to another key, probably the key of G, which does have an F# in its scale. If the piece is going to stay in the new key for a significant amount of time, the composer may write a new key signature for this section; but if it is just "passing through," so to speak, the key signature won't change, and the F# will just be notated as needed. The sudden presence of sharps, flats or natural signs can alert you that the piece is changing keys. Virtually all music will have a key change at some point. The exceptions would be a very short song or a piece written for beginners. A large piece will have several key changes.

2. A chromatic scale would, by definition, need to notate using addition sharps, and/or flats. A chromatic scale is one consisting of all 12 notes within the octave. While our music is not generally based on the chromatic scale (there have been some "experiments" with this), there may be a passage which is chromatic in nature. Not only will the scale be used, but melody and chord patterns which are chromatically-based are common in much of our music. Chopin, for instance, wouldn't be Chopin without it.

3. If you were to see the notes G-F#-G, for example, it could be part of a scale-like passage, but the G, instead of going to F (natural), goes to F#, which is its "chromatic neighbor." The rest of the passage may stay strictly in the scale, but it could start off with a brief "visit" to the chromatic neighbor. Chromatic neighbors would also be frequently used in a trill or mordent. The chromatic tone, as opposed to the scale tone, lends the trill a bit of dissonance, which gives it the intensity that is often the purpose of the trill. Try playing a trill that is marked with the chromatic tone with the scale tone instead, and you'll hear it sounds flat and bland.

4. Secondary dominants. If you are in the key of C, your final chords (of the whole piece and/or a section) will likely be G7 to C. This is because G is the dominant, or V (five) in the key of C. One could call this the "strongest" ending (or cadence). The G7 may be preceded by a D7 chord. The D7 chord contains an F#. The D7 is called a "secondary dominant" chord, in that it is V(five) of V(five), or dominant of the dominant. The F# in this case is not signaling a modulation to another key nor creating dissonance. It is a strong ending, using the secondary dominant to pull us toward the V7 chord, which, in turn, pulls us to the final I(one) chord.

These are just a few examples (there are others), but they represent very distinct reasons for the existence of non-scale tones. Unfortunately, I hear teachers (and their students) just lump these all together as "accidentals," which does nothing to help the student understand the reasons for their being there. The whole subject of tonality (being in a key) and movement between keys is central to all music in the Western world. If you don't understand tonality, you can still enjoy music, but you can't really understand it. Using ambiguous terms such as "accidentals" does nothing to further the student's understanding, and, in fact, creates wrong impressions.

A few years ago I was having this discussion with one of my 12-year-old students. He agreed with me completely and we decided to come up with a better term for non-scale tones, which we would use exclusively. He came up with the term "purposefuls." I think it's just perfect, and I urge you, whenever you see one or must refer to it, to use the term purposeful.

Ear Training

 

If you've been reading this blog, you know that I emphasize the importance of the ear and of training the ear in order to be a good (or great) musician. To some of you, this will be an obvious fact. To others, especially if you are a beginning student of music, you may not understand why. You may say "Don't I just play the notes I see written on the page? What does ear have to do with it?"

Suppose I wanted to become an artist, or, at least, to develop some skill at art. I am instructed to draw a picture of a tree. Clearly, I have been seeing trees all my life, but the best I would be able to come up with is some sort of stick figure of a tree. (I have no talent at art!) If I really want to draw a tree with any degree of realism, I would have to spend many hours really looking at trees, not casually, but with a higher level of attention, in order to see the intricacies of their bark, their branches, their leaves. In other words, I would need to develop my eye. Every great visual artist must have a highly-developed eye, the ability to see details the average person does not.

Likewise, we have all been hearing and listening to music all our lives, but if you ask the average person to sit down at the piano and play Happy Birthday, for example, they cannot do it, and in fact, probably don't have a clue how to even start. It is not an issue of physical skill -- they could try to do it using just one finger -- but it is a lack of ear. As with the tree analogy, they will need to spend many hours listening to music in a whole different way in order to hear what is actually happening. Luckily, with music, you can listen as you play, and play as you listen, so you get automatic and immediate feedback as to whether your ear is getting better at it. 

It is true that it is possible to just learn to read music, learn how to play the notes you see, and achieve some meaningful level of skill. But without developing the ear as well, you will always be limited. The greatest musicians have the greatest ears. The highest levels of mastery only come with the highest level of ear sensitivity. To give one of the clearest examples: people marvel at the fact that Beethoven was able to compose some of his greatest masterpieces while he was deaf. He did not need to hear the music in the physical realm; he heard everything, down to the smallest detail, in his ear.

One way that you will be limited if you neglect developing your ear is in the area of memory. Hundreds of people, from beginning students to those who are quite advanced and even doing performances, have said to me, "I just can't memorize!" That is because they have primarily muscle memory and not ear memory. (See my post on Memory.) You don't forget how to sing Happy Birthday, even if you haven't sung it in months or years, because it is "in you ear." While a piece you play on the piano is light-years more complex than Happy Birthday, the concept still applies. 

Everyone is born with some degree of ear. Some people can play by ear incredibly well at a very young age. At the other end of the spectrum, some people say they are "tone deaf." (I do not believe anyone is truly tone deaf, but their ear can be very weak.) Anyone, no matter what level, can continually work on their ear and make it stronger. (OK, maybe not Beethoven.....)

So how do you train your ear? I will outline three basic ways, for beginners through advanced students.

1. Beginners: I start all my students with playing by ear. (Most teachers start right in with reading from the first lesson, which I strongly disagree with. They probably can't play by ear themselves, so they don't know how to teach it.) You take the simplest of songs, starting with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and figure it out on the piano. I guide you a bit, if you are struggling, but you still have to do the work yourself. Some people can do it easily, some really have trouble. It doesn't matter; as long as you keep working on it, you will "hear" more than you did before, now that you are listening so intently, as opposed to casually. Then we add chords (more complex and more difficult to hear) and continue on to more and more complex songs. (Basic knowledge of theory will help in your ability to find the correct chords, though the ear is still more important.) In my view, this is the most fun way to train your ear. Why do repetitive drills when you can play actual music? It is a great joy to be able to hear a song, say, on the radio, and just go to the piano and play it, even if it's a simple rendition. Many people just assume they can't do this, but the truth is, they've probably never really tried.

2. Intermediate: If you've ever been in a choir, you know that some people are able to see a line of music notation and sing it right off. (In a professional level choir, everyone would be required to have this skill; in an amateur choir, people might largely learn by rote, that is, just listening and imitating.) This is a high form of ear development. You cannot see your vocal chords nor do you know how to manipulate them to make a given sound. Only your ear can direct them how to contract to sing a given note. When you are a toddler and begin to sing, no one can show you how; the voice and the ear have a direct connection, and the voice sings what the ear has directed. If you want to learn how to "sight-sing," as it is called, you will need to start with interval drills. I write out the scale (a major scale, to start), like this: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. You sing the scale, up and down. Then write out various patterns, such as 1-2-3-4-5-3-1, or 1-3-5-6-4-2-1, and sing them. (Later on you can do this with the minor scale as well.) There would be hundreds of patterns you can do with these eight notes. I use numbers, rather than the old "solfege" system (do, re, mi, etc.) because the numbers make the relationship between the tones very obvious. It is easier to recognize that 3 and 5 are a skip away, but not as easy using "mi" and "so." After some amount of doing these drills, take written music with which you are unfamiliar, and sing the main melody line. A Hymnal is great for this (select the ones you don't already know). You can check yourself, if you think you've gotten off, by playing a note or two on the piano, but you must not play the melody on the piano first -- then you'd just be imitating. Continue, progressing to more and more complex music. Your ear will also need to learn how to hear non-scale notes (so-called "accidentals" -- see my next post for more on this term). It should also be noted that you will need to have learned to read and understand rhythmic notation, which is a subject for another post. Although sight-singing does not address the ability to hear chords, in other words, multiple notes at once, it nevertheless strengthens the ability to hear intervals (relationships), which will help with chords indirectly.

3. Advanced. If your ear is quite good, and even if you have "perfect pitch" (also known as "absolute pitch"), which is considered the highest form of ear development, you can still strengthen your ear through transposing. I happen to have perfect pitch and for years, even during my four years at a conservatory, I was actually told there wasn't much more I needed to do. However, after I finished school and found my REAL teacher, Joseph Prostakoff, I discovered, despite my "good ear," that there were many things I couldn't do. The answer was to transpose. The reason transposing is so powerful is that it makes you hear all the relationships between tones, which is what actually makes the music, not the tones themselves. I take all my pieces and play them in other keys. I force myself to do it as much as possible relying only on the ear (as opposed to calculating by eye using the page). Start with very easy pieces and keep moving on to more challenging ones. Of course it is necessary to go slowly, and it can be quite a struggle at first, but as your ear strengthens, it get easier. I guarantee that, after transposing once or twice, you will know the piece better than if you played it 50 times through in the original key. And, after transposing 10 or more times, you will probably not have any trouble memorizing it.

For Intermediate and Advanced, you can, and should, still continue with playing by ear.

I regard these three methods as the best way to develop your ear. Plus, they are the most rewarding, because you are playing (or singing) actual music. 

It can be tempting to take the easy way out and just play the notes you read from the page and not bother with ear training. But if that's all there were to it, there would be many more good musicians than there really are. Just as the visual artist needs to see subtle shadings of color and texture, the musician needs to hear the complexities and subtleties of tone and rhythm, which goes far beyond just "playing notes." And for that, you need a highly-developed ear. 

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.