Fixed versus Movable Do

 

You've probably heard someone sing a musical scale with the syllables "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, to, do." These syllables are called solfege; they date back to the middle ages, and are derived from the beginnings of Latin words in the Catholic mass. (Some of you may think of the famous song "Do, a deer" from The Sound of Music, where Maria teaches the notes of the scale in a way that was easy to remember.) However, there is actually quite a bit of confusion about these syllables and how they are applied, or not, to the learning of music.

In Asia (including Russia) and some European countries, they teach a system of learning using a fixed do. The note "do" is always the note C; therefore D is "re," E is "mi," etc. If you want to sing a C Major scale, it is straightforward and simple. However, once you want to sing another scale, one containing sharps or flats, use have to use other terms, such as "si" for the sharp above "so." So you actually have to learn 12 syllables, not 7. In some music schools and conservatories, you'd be required to sing complex melodies, using these solfege syllables. It is thought to be a form of ear training. It is quite difficult to learn to do, and, in my opinion, there are better ways to train the ear. I have had quite a few students over the years who were brought up and attended music schools in Russia, and they have described the torture of learning to sing solfege.

Here in the U.S. we use a movable "do." Whichever scale you sing (or play), the first note is do, the second is re, etc., regardless whether the scale begins on a flat, sharp, or natural. The reason why this approach is so superior is that it makes clear that every scale (let's just say a major scale in this example) has the same relationship of its tones to every other major scale. This is the whole point of the scale, in a way. I can sing Happy Birthday in any key (i.e. based on any scale) and it still sounds like Happy Birthday because all its tones have the same relationship to each other, regardless of key. So, too, with the scale itself. With the fixed do approach, every scale would have a different combination of syllables, and therefore, singing the same song in a different key would also require a complete new set of syllables. It emphasizes the individuality of each tone rather than its relationship to other tones. (I think there's a metaphor for life here, possibly.)

The other problem with the fixed do system is that it tends to emphasize what I call a "white key mentality." (See my post with this title.) Since the system is based on C, the C scale is viewed as the basis and everything else is some sort of exception. Composers have written in every key, with no bias towards the key of C. (They may have a few hundred years ago, but not now.) So we, as musicians, must be able to play with equal ease in any key, with no bias for the key of C. For years I had an adult student who grew up in China and learned the fixed do system. He could only play in the key of C. Trying to play in any other key (even by ear!) so disoriented him, he just couldn't cope.

Another problem with the fixed do system is how chords are taught. (I only recently learned about this from one of my Russian students.) Let's take the example of 7th chords (4-note chords). A D minor 7th chord would be learned as "re-fa-la-do," (D-F-A-C). That's easy because they are all white keys. But if the chord is C diminished 7, you would have to sing do- me (lowered mi)- fi (raised fa) - la. So again, every chord would have a completely different "spelling" than every other chord, even if it's the exact same type of chord. This would mean hundreds of combinations to learn. More important, it just misses the whole point of learning chords. To learn 7th chords (or any type of chord) you need to learn how they are constructed (what intervals). Once you know that, you can build any chord on any note.

Taking this one step further, I think we should abandon the solfege system entirely. It is a relic of a bygone age. When teaching people to sight-sing, for example, I just use the numbers of the scale, 1 through 7. It's so much easier to relate to the numbers 1 and 5 being a fifth away from each other, for example, than some arbitrary syllables such as do and so. For non-scale tones, they can be referred to more as how they are functioning (e.g. raised 4 vs. flat 5), rather than fixed syllables. You can sing with equal skill in any key with this method and does more to train your ear, in my opinion, than the fixed do method.

If you happen to be with a teacher who uses the fixed do system and insists you use it, I would absolutely urge you to find another teacher. If your teacher was taught that way and perpetuates that system, they probably are using many other "300-year-old ideas" as well. You would be wise to find someone who has a more modern -- and sensible -- approach.

The Smarter I Practice, the More Talented I Get

 

"The harder I work, the luckier I get." -- Samuel Goldwyn

I always liked the above quote. While perhaps some things can be attributed to luck, there is no doubt that hard work can lead to great success. Someone might appear have just been "lucky," yet they put a great deal of effort, sacrifice, and dedication into getting where they got.

Regarding musicians, people often say that the great performers, composers, etc., were/are just "talented."  While each person may be born with greater or lesser degree of natural abilities in regards to music (or any other discipline), clearly one would need to work hard and put in many hours to achieve a very high level of musical excellence. There are some who even say there is no such thing as talent. You may have heard about the 10,000 hour principle -- that someone who puts in 10,000 hours before the age of 8 or so will achieve mastery, regardless of the innate abilities they were born with. Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this and others have embraced this idea.

When it comes to music, however, I don't believe that anyone could become a great musician just by  putting in the hours. Everyone is born with a different level of "ear," meaning the sensitivity to and awareness of musical pitch. Some are born with "perfect" or "absolute" pitch, which could be considered the highest level of ear. Others have difficulty singing on pitch and can't even tell whether a pitch goes up or down from the previous pitch. They may say they are "tone deaf," though I do not believe there is any such thing. (People who are "color blind" still see colors, just not as distinctly.) Having a great ear to start with will help someone on their musical journey, but, by itself, does not guarantee success. (And, no matter how good your ear is to start, you can, and must, continue to make it even better.)

Musicians certainly do put in the hours to get to a high level. Many who start at a young age will have a "head start" on the hours. But I am quite convinced that there are many who put in thousands of hours yet do not achieve greatness or anything even close to greatness. People might assume that they just weren't talented enough to begin with. Yet I believe it is more likely to be the quality of the hours, not the quantity.

Many people who have attempted to play the piano waste tremendous amounts of time on practices which do not help them (and can even cause harm). Some examples of this are: finger exercises that do not really improve your technique, spending too much time playing hands separately, playing everything too slowly, using a metronome, excessive repetition (which dulls the mind), playing un-musically, going through the motions while the mind is elsewhere, not really listening to your own playing, and many more. Many of these subjects have been discussed in my previous posts.

The level of achievement or mastery you attain is a direct reflection of the quality of your practice. I'm always amazed that people actually think they can practice one way (e.g. un-musically) and then flip a switch and play differently when it comes to performance time. It just doesn't happen. 

Certain "talents" that you didn't think you had may develop over time if you persistently work towards them. For example, you may think you have no talent for improvising. But if you improvise every day, really listen to what you are doing, assess what could be improved (with the help of a teacher, hopefully), you will get better. After some years of doing this, someone else might hear you play and say, "wow, you really have a talent for improvising!"

My advice to students of the piano would be this: forget about "talent." Spend your time at the piano making your playing as beautiful as you can, and your practice time as efficient and focused as you can. The smarter you practice, the more talented you'll get.

More About Fingering

 

If you read my previous post on fingering, you'll see that I disagree with a lot of the "traditional" beliefs about fingering.

I recently read the blog post of another teacher of the piano, whose advice is basically the same as the old ideas that have been passed down through generations of teachers and pianists. He doesn't offer any new ideas at all. One of his ideas was so bizarre that I want to respond with my own thoughts on this.

He said, when it comes to fingering, "always look back, never forward." Just reading that statement should make you say "huh??" To paraphrase, he says look back to the finger you used on the previous key and that will determine the finger to use on the current one. If fingering were as simple as that, one could, theoretically, determine the finger to use on the first note of the piece and the rest would be obvious. But clearly that is not even remotely the case. Consider this example: when you play a basic scale and start with thumb on the first note and then use the second and third finger, you would presume you would use the fourth finger on the next note, since that would seem to be the logical progression from the third finger on the previous note. But, as we all know, you are almost certainly going to want to get thumb on the next (fourth) note, so that your hand is positioned to complete the remaining five notes of the scale. So in fact, the exact opposite is true: your fingering is determined by where your hand needs to be next. This is such a simple truth that I can't understand how this particular blogger could have missed it. The same would be true of any arpeggio, as well as any phrase that spans more than five notes (the five fingers), which is practically all music! So my motto would be "always look forward, never back."

(The whole issue of crossing the thumb under is also a badly misunderstood concept. Once again, it is not about the thumb at all, but rather about a means of getting your hand to where it needs to be next.)

This person also said that your teacher should write in the fingerings in your manuscript and you should follow it. Sadly, this is what a lot of people do. There are several problems with this idea.

1) It makes you dependent on the written fingerings to the point that you never really know how to figure it out on your own. You will be lose the opportunity to develop your own understanding of fingering, and you will be forever dependent on the teacher. What happens when you are no longer taking lessons? 

2) Most of the fingerings should become obvious to you over time. Again, if you are aware of where your hand needs to go next, all you need is a minimal number of fingerings written in to remind you of this hand position change, and the rest will follow. Writing a finger number over every note is not only distracting, but tends to make you focus on each note separately instead of the whole phrase. It can lead to "note-wise" un-musical playing.

3) If your teacher does write fingering in, it had better be based on your hand, not theirs. In my previous post I say that fingering is not a one-size-fits-all. I have heard of teachers who write every finger number in the music before even seeing how the student would play it. Clearly, at the very least, people with small hands may do things differently than people with large hands.

4) Keep in mind that people who play by ear and/or improvise often have astounding technique and play with speed and brilliance without the "benefit" of reading written fingering. It should be obvious that this is possible. And if you are tempted to reply that "those people are just talented," I would say that you want to work towards becoming talented in that way. You will never develop those instincts in you slavishly follow the fingering prescribed by someone else.

The Torso

 

When it comes to piano technique, that is, the physical aspects of playing, you will find the discussion to be almost entirely about the fingers. Thousands of exercises have been written and given to piano students to, supposedly, strengthen and/or train the fingers. Most of the traditional methods barely address the use of the arm. In recent years, thankfully, there have been more teachers who understand the use of the arm in technique. 

However, hardly anyone talks about the torso.

In a sense, the torso is the foundation of technique. The shoulder, which is a ball-and-socket joint, enables our arms to cover the entire width of the keyboard and to move in every direction. It enables us to play octaves and myriad other types of technique which the hands and fingers could not possibly do by themselves. The shoulder joint is the connection point between the torso and the arm.

You might assume, therefore, that the torso just stays inert while the arms do the work. But this is not the case. For example, suppose you are playing a passage where both hands are in the lower register of the piano. If you were to keep your torso inert, right in the center, you would have trouble playing in that register without a significant twist in your wrist in your right hand, the one that has to reach farther. Likewise, if you are playing both hands in the upper register, the twist would be in your left hand. In order to play these types of passages successfully, and more importantly, without stress or strain, it is necessary to shift the torso towards the left or right in order to get the torso and arms in better alignment. If you shift the torso, you will see that twist in your wrist disappears. If your torso and arms are better aligned, you will have more power and better accuracy. I call this your "stance." You might think of it as where you are "centered" relative to your arms. Your torso must anticipate where your arms need to be next. Most of the time, of course, your stance is the center of the keyboard, but definitely not all the time.

You almost certainly need to adjust your stance, at least slightly, when you are playing hands crossed. Otherwise you will again have the twist in your wrist.

I recently have been playing the Bach-Busoni D minor Chaconne. In one section the two hands are in octaves in the lower register, then rapidly jump to the upper register for some big chords, all very loud, and back again. It would be impossible to do without shifting the torso back and forth. Of course I was aware of this yet still kept missing a few of the chords. I discovered that I needed to shift my torso just an inch or two more to the right than I had been doing for the chords in the upper register. Immediately the problem was solved! I had been close to shifting enough, but the additional tiny amount made the difference between missing notes and not. Amazing! It didn't take any extra hours of practice, but instead, an awareness of what the torso was doing.

If you have to shift your stance over to either side by a significant amount, you may feel you are off balance, almost like you could tip over. This is easily solved by moving your left leg farther to the left to balance yourself. You wouldn't be able to move your right leg, since it would be pedalling. I've noticed people rarely talk about how your legs can help you. Once your become more aware of them, you'll find slight adjustments have a positive effect on feeling really "grounded" at the piano.

You virtually never see a great pianist whose torso is inert. The torso wants to move with the music. As an experiment, play with a completely rigid torso and you will find it more difficult to play expressively.

It is important not to slouch or hunch over at the piano. While you'll see pianists who do hunch over, it can create back and neck problems over the years. How you sit will affect all aspects of your technique. See my earlier post entitled "First Do No Harm" for more about this important subject.

Thank Goodness I'm a Pianist!

 

As part of some health-related work I'm doing, I recently had to take a test which measures certain cognitive abilities. It involved a small hand-held device with a screen and two buttons, one on either side. On the screen were displayed one of two patterns; however, they were very similar. For one of the patterns, you were to push the button (either of the two, one for right-handed people, one for left-handed, presumably); for the other, you did not push any button. The images appeared on the screen for only a fraction of a second, so you had to be able to respond very quickly. They also flashed in quicker and quicker succession as the test went on. The test lasted 20 minutes.

Results were measured on two metrics. One was how many errors were made, meaning pushing the button when it shouldn't have been pushed, and vice versa. The other was your response time. The device measured your response time in hundredths of a second. It could also assess whether you got "bored" or weren't able to maintain your accuracy and speed throughout the 20 minutes.

On the morning I took this test I was feeling a bit tired and wasn't sure I would do my best. When the people administering the test compiled the results on the computer, they informed me that I had done "spectacularly" (their words). They said my response time was far better than average. (The score is based on your age group; I suspect that a 20-year-old who plays a lot of video games might have better response time than I do, at age 70.) In fact, they said my result was the best they had ever seen!

We discussed the results and they agreed that my high level was probably due to my training as a musician. As you've perhaps read, and heard me say in previous posts, learning to play a musical instrument, but especially piano, has powerful effects on the brain.

All I could say afterwards was "Thank goodness I'm a pianist!"

Fast playing

 

Many pieces in the piano literature are meant to be played fast, from moderately fast to lightning fast. Most students of the piano will want to work towards being able to play these pieces. However, a great majority of students will find they never get there. The main reason, in my view, is not an innate lack of ability, but rather that the technique which would allow for fast playing was never really established in the very beginning.

I recently read a blog post by someone who is a teacher and, I believe, may have a fairly large number of followers who read and heed his advice. His recent post was about "how to play fast." His main idea was that you set your metronome to a comfortable speed for the given piece, then move it up a notch at a time until you are able to play it fast. This "method" has been around for decades, if not centuries. When I was a child, I was told to do this, and that was 60 years ago! However, it doesn't work. At some point you will hit a speed which you can't manage, or at least with any accuracy. Or, you can do it, but you experience significant fatigue and even pain in your hands and arms. You don't magically acquire the proper technique just because you try to "fool" your body into going progressively faster a tiny amount at a time. The other problem with this is that using a metronome allows no possibility of any nuances of tempo and your musicality will suffer. Not to mention that this would be incredibly time-consuming. 

The other item mentioned in his blog was that, for very fast playing, you need to have your fingers stay closer to the keys. This should be obvious. If you want to go fast, you need maximum efficiency. When skiers do the slalom, they ski as close to the gates as possible; even an inch too far will cause a loss of perhaps only a 100th of a second, but that's the difference between winning and not winning. Likewise, a fast passage in piano requires that you have little or no extra unnecessary motions. The problem is that this particular blogger, and the vast majority of traditional teachers, will tell you to learn to lift your fingers high when you play. The traditional exercises such as Hanon and Czerny are supposed to be done with exaggerated finger movements. The idea was that this creates strength in the fingers. I don't believe it really creates any strength to speak of (you've heard me say before that those amazing little 6-year-old prodigies don't have much strength and yet they play the big pieces). But it also creates a technique with a total lack of efficiency. This blogger did say that, although you'd need to be close to the keys for fast playing, you could go back to higher fingers for slow playing.

It would be unrealistic, however, to think you can spend hundreds, even thousands, of hours playing with raised fingers, but then magically NOT do that when you want to play fast. Your habit of raised fingers will be too well engrained to change at will. Even if you think you are staying closer to the keys, your hands are still attempting to play in the way to which they are accustomed. The reason you may experience that pain and fatigue is due to the overuse of the small muscles of the fingers. Change to a more arm-based technique and you will have no pain.

If you play slow music with highly raised fingers, you will get an ugly, chopped up, "note-wise" sound that is devoid of subtle phrasing. I'm thinking of a gorgeous Beethoven slow movement or a Nocturne by Chopin; you want the whole thing (certainly the melody) to have a silky smooth tone, which you cannot achieve with separate, highly-raised fingers. 

Equally important, you cannot have two techniques, one for fast music and one for slow music. My approach is holistic. The principles that really work in one place will work everywhere. The fingers, hands, arms (even the torso) are used in synchrony for maximum efficiency and with individual finger movements "absorbed" into the larger motions of hands and arms. Not only will this type of technique enable you to play fast, it will make both slow and fast playing more beautiful. 

There is one other element to being able to play fast, one that almost all other teachers overlook. That is the auditory component. Most of the emphasis is on the physical, but if the auditory is weak, the hands and fingers will not be able to keep up. I like to say that "you can only play as fast as your can hear." Often, when I am having trouble with the speed of a passage -- or, I can play it fast but not with consistent accuracy -- I transpose it several times to strengthen what I call the "auditory image." After transposition, it invariably improves, even without additional "technical" work. When the ear really knows the music, the body follows. In addition to your efforts in acquiring "technique," it is imperative to remember that the ear really runs the show, and to continually work to improve your ear.

It really annoys and concerns me that many "teachers" are still repeating the same old ideas that have been around for so long and somehow are not questioned. (See my post "Are you using 300-year-old ideas?") Just as with sports, a lot has been learned about how to use our bodies to achieve given results. Playing the piano is quite athletic, if you think about it, and the training you receive should enable you to reach your maximum potential, both physically and musically. You may know of someone who thinks they followed all the traditional advice and still became quite accomplished; there are always those few exceptions. But for every one of those, there are thousands upon thousands of people who never achieved their desires at the piano. Question everything you are told, and see if the ideas really ring true.

Pedal

 

I've noticed that many bloggers about piano have posts about use of the pedal. So I will add my two cents on this subject as well.

Although people will give you explicit advice and instruction regarding the pedal, one thing to remember is that the pedal is not the same on all pianos. Pedaling on a concert grand piano is not the same as one a small upright. Not only does the pedal itself have a different feel and resistance, just as the action of the keys do, but the volume of sound produced also affects how you will pedal.

Inexperienced or poor pianists use the pedal to cover up a multitude of inadequacies in their technique. For example, if you cannot make the music sound legato with your hands, no amount of pedal will make it sound legato, at least to an astute listener. If pedal really could make up for poor technique with your hands and fingers, there would be a far greater number of good pianists than there actually are! 

With beginning students, I have them play with no pedal at all for quite a while. For intermediate and advanced students -- and for myself -- I advise learning a new piece entirely without pedal until the technical and musical challenges of the piece are starting to be mastered. While the pedal adds great beauty to the music, it also creates what I call a "blur in the auditory image." You may think you hear everything clearly, but a slight blurring of the notes can cause you to miss something important, such as the right balance between voices or between hands, slight rhythmic distortions, even an incorrect note. When you do add the pedal, you can focus your listening on the pedaling a bit more. 

Pedaling, to some extent, is a matter of taste. But there is a range that would be acceptable and enjoyable for the listener. Too much pedal and you have a blurry mess. Too little pedal and you have a dry performance which lacks resonance.

Some people believe, for example, that Bach should be played with little or no pedal, since his music would have been played on harpsichord in his day, which had no pedal. I disagree. No one would say to play Bach without dynamics, yet that is what the harpsichord had -- no ability to make the notes louder or softer. If you want Bach to sound "authentic," then play it on a harpsichord. But if you are playing it on the piano, you should use all the resources of the piano, including pedal. Of course, the pedaling will be quite different than you would use in, say, Debussy. Years of experience playing and listening to the enormous range of genres and periods within classical music will help you to know how to pedal for each of these.

One area of confusion for new piano students is the subject of the pedal markings in the music. There are three possibilities here: no pedal markings at all, pedal markings put in by the composer, and pedal markings put it by an "editor." The first situation, no pedal markings at all, does not mean you play without pedal; it simply means you will have to decide for yourself. The second situation, pedal markings original to the composer, should be taken seriously, but still need to be adapted for our modern pianos. There are places where Beethoven has the pedal held down for several measures, which might have sounded good on his piano, but would be way too much accumulation of sound on our modern pianos. The third situation, markings done by the editor, would be something you could take a look at to see if they make sense, but by no means should they be taken as "gospel." Remember, any markings -- dynamics, pedal, and especially fingering -- are just one person's opinion. If you don't even know anything about the editor (was he or she a great pianist?) then you don't need to feel compelled to follow their advice.

Another problem with many inexperienced or badly-taught students is the use of the "soft" pedal. Again, it is used to cover up the lack of ability to control the volume of sound with your hands and arms. This was never the intent of the so-called soft pedal, which is actually referred to as "una corda." Una corda means one string,  as it shifts the keyboard over so that the hammer hits only one string, instead of all three. This creates a more muted, or "flat" sound. Yes, it has less volume, but the difference in sound quality is the more important feature. Learn to create the softness you desire with your hands and arms only. The una corda should be used primarily where indicated by the composer. Debussy, for example, asks for its use with some frequency, as he wished to explore many "colors" of sound. Late Beethoven and others also call for it. However, even this you would have to take "with a grain of salt" because their pianos were far different than our modern pianos. I have noticed that some pianists keep their left foot on the una corda pedal at all times, which I believe is a mistake; they often depress it out of some reflex action and not because they really want that effect.

For either pedal, it is important to not have a "lead foot." Just as with your hands on the keys, you need to sensitize your foot (and leg) to the exact amount to depress the damper pedal. You'll notice that all pedals have some "waste," that is, even after the spot at which the dampers are lifted, the pedal can still be further depressed. That extra amount doesn't have any effect, so pressing the pedal all the way to the floor is a waste of energy, and can detract from the quickness and subtlety of the pedaling.