Hi Nahre, I really love this video. I'm practicing guitar right now and it made me think. And I'm just brainstorming here. Wouldn't it be interesting to show other instrumentalists show how they tackle a problem and break it down? And hear how their teachers told them to break it up in steps.
Hey Nahre, As a multi-instrumentalist I’ve found myself employing this method naturally into every instrument I’ve studied (I should have inserted “self taught” in there somewhere), and after recently picking up piano (Don’t ask me why it took me four instruments before getting to piano) I found myself doing this immediately. You mentioned how you employ this technique to composing as well, and while I can discipline myself to stay focused on the exercise when playing my main instrument, guitar; with piano, it is such a wide open experience that I end up composing something new almost every time I sit down at my keyboard. So for example I’ll be trying to learn something that is usually above my skill level; I employ this method of practice in the area I am having problems with, and then suddenly an entirely new composition is born from it. I’m not technically composing piano music either, while I may be practicing a piano piece, I’m usually composing electronica in the style of early Apparat or even Milosh at times. So I become torn between chasing a new arrangement, and practicing the technique I’m having a problem with in the new piece, or following thru with the piece I’m learning. Since my main objective isn’t really to play other people’s music, but rather to compose my own pieces, where should my loyalties lie? Should I nail the technique within my new composition, or should I continue learning the piece, since the chances are I’ll learn something new from it a few measures later? Then perhaps that will give life to another original composition? It’s a good problem to have no doubt, but I’m just curious what a fellow composer who employs the same method might think my best course of action would be. Thanks. PS, I love the way you teach.
This video actually reminds me of a composition that I kind of let slide because I ran out of ideas for it, but the song was based off a piano duet that my grandma taught me called the 5 Note Waltz (in F major), and the primo part was so easy that literally anyone could play it. And yes, I've tested that. Anyway, one of my ideas was to incorporate some of the technical difficulties encountered in Liszt's La Campanella into the piece, and it worked surprisingly well. First, I used the basic melody, which just has you put your thumb on C5 (an octave above Middle C) and your other fingers on the white keys above, and just go up and down the notes (stripped from the primo part of the original). Then I switched to octaves, then broken octaves, then the huge leaps introduced in La Campanella with the top note being C7, then back to broken octaves, then the sixteenth triplet octaves where the bottom note is played twice, and so on. I might want to get back into that.
I have played for 7 years and believe me I am no wizard. I lost motivation after I started music major (in high school,) and have only recently started playing seriously again. I sound like dog poo compared to everyone else in my major.
Having words for that feeling and being able to watch an example is really helpful and it's attachable to every genre (i play jazzfunk). Reducing things to their very essence is always a good advice. Not only for the motoric part, creativity and exploring taste benefit from a minimalistic starting point as well. Yes, please keep doing this, both of you are masters at teaching.
I'm no where near her level (just an ant), but breaking down the music into small parts left hand and right hand and then together is a basic tool for learning a piece of music. So it makes sense to loop the parts to practice them over and over in a more interesting way.
@@eavening4149 i thought that was the idea, but apparently her "fundamental" is on another level. I did not even pick anything that happened on the left or right hand. Did she fast forward the video while playing?
@@richardvictorjr, no...no she did not. She's just that quick with her hands! And very advanced. I'm reminded of learning chord progressions in jazz. The scales and chords have patterns and loops. Here she's repeating the technique that is giving her problems. Suzuki method says that everytime you make a mistake, it takes playing it correctly 1,000 times to get that 'error' out of your muscle memory.
This is a brilliant summery of how to learn anything actually: 1. try to break what you are trying to learn to smallest blocks possible 2. find a way to make each block "interesting" to do over and over (practice) 3. practice (do) each block over and over and over - "until your face turn blue" only it will, not because you are zoning in and enjoying the repetitive doing more then the final result at some point I do exactly the same when improving and learning to draw and sketch.. the art is to make your practices the main enjoyment more then the end result which becomes a secondary side effect :) This subject is so interesting for me, and even more, is seeing it crosses between skills and arts.. please do more! Subbed! even though I have nothing to do with music creation :)
Well stated. In regards to "the algorithm" to learn a new skill, it's also a general principle as you said. It's so general, that it is one of the fundamental paradigms of problem-solving in the field of algorithm design. The principle is called 'divide & conquer'. Its purpose is to systematically divide a "problem" (a "problem" being anything) into smaller & smaller "subproblems", until it can be divided no more. Once this is done, each of the resulting "subproblems" becomes trivial to understand, and trivial to solve. Once all trivial problems are solved, the problem is systematically put back together. The same is true of course with piano playing. One of the fundamental problems of piano practice (or again any general problem solving) is the inadvertent complecting of 'small subproblems' into a big one, like "practicing repeating an arpeggio until "your face turns blue"" as advised by Nahre's professor. Then practice becomes extremely inefficient and the problem intractable, even if only algorithmically speaking. Any movement over the keyboard, no matter how "simple" it may seem at first glance, is naturally complex, and the speed of improvement one gains by this break-down process is exponential. But the true superpower is joy. With it we do without purpose, without doubt, without fear. We sing for the sake of singing, dance of the sake of dancing, play for the sake of playing, live for the sake of living, Beyond the superficiality of artificiality, beyond the falsehood of our Egos. With its sincerity we become big, brilliant children once more, fully aware, fully present, fully alive. Through it, our minds become free of empty noise, and turn clear, and transparent, and can fully see reality, fully absorb it, fully be filled with it. And our thoughts, free of the squareness of the artificial become in shape and motion as perpetual and infinite as the pattern of waves in the ocean, or the bark on the tree, as infinite as the Nature which lies beneath them from which they spring, and in it our inspiration is revealed once more.
I wish I'd had a piano teacher like Nahre. As a teacher myself (literature and philosophy), I think her system and approach are so precious, it looks like she's teaching a peer, not just a student.
i just got my old synth and old notes out to start learning again and it feels good and it's way easier than when i learn that stuff when i was younger. i noticed that it's very hard on my wrists wich is good since they are very weak!
@@Dindonmasker That's awesome! Just make sure you stay really relaxed and make sure you don't accidentally end up injuring your wrists by overexerting yourself using improper technique. Especially since synth's typically don't have a lot going on in terms of action or key weightedness, so there's less of a cushion in that sense. It can also be hard to tell on a synth sometimes if you're pressing different keys with the same pressure or not since the dynamics can be more forgiving than, say, an acoustic piano, which can be struck at any velocity whereas synth's have a limited number of dynamic presets that can limit tone color ever so slightly and, like I said, lead to slightly different pressures producing the same volume and tone of sound Of course none of that matters much if you aren't in really advanced repertoire anyway, except about your wrists. Please take care of your body. I hope you enjoy playing for a long time to come :)
This is gold. I have learned that I have to think about two things as I play. 1) What I'm playing now and 2) what's next and how does what I'm playing now lead into what's next. If you don't think ahead you can come to the end of a phrase you're comfortable with and then suddenly realize you are not ready for the next phrase. Then you realize you were basking in the phrase you understand and play well and you had stopped thinking. I hate when that happens. It's ok for the listener to just listen and enjoy, but the player can't. The mind of the player must be fully engaged and aware of the harmonics, melody, rhythm and how it's flowing every second.
I wish I had had such creative and innovative instruction back when Iwas learning piano as a teenager. I feel like part of the reason I stopped playing was that I just got bored of drilling scales.
Please keep doing such videos! I strongly believe in this idea of isolating the core idea behind technical difficulties, and making "looping" improvisations/compositions using them. It is how I taught myself to play the piano (though not Liszt lol :) ), and I believe it is often much more efficient than blindly practicing. My theory behind this is that it offsets boredom, and greatly increases the number of practice cycles which one can play before diminishing returns set in. I also used to take parts of pieces that were WAY ahead of my skill level, and try to use them as practice exercises. I have, in fact, learned all my technique in a similar manner!
@@NahreSol I do this intuitively too. Currently working on Basic sight reading, and basic Piano technique. Recently for example I decided that I need the ability to play octaves up and down, and other intervals, without looking, or ability to play a triad and move it around the keyboard without looking. Because it helps me to not go insane while playing these beginner pieces, if I can spice them up so they suck less. Solution: Improvise with a simple chord progression in the left hand, until it sounds awesome. Have fun. Get a a muscle memory skill. My wife says I sound better. Still a beginner around here.
To your final point about using very difficult passages as grounds for ad hoc mini-exercises: A great pianist authored a book in which he advocated doing exactly that. At first i thought it was Josef Lhevinne in his 'Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing', but I just speed-read the book again and couldn't find it there -- perhaps I missed it. Long story short: If you got that idea independently, then you're thinking outside the box a lot of other pianists (myself included) are locked. :0)
Take a look at Russian school of pianism, it will be interesting for you. And I’d like to tell a story, that my teacher told me many years ago. So, she was studying in Moscow conservatory and she’ve got a practice room and started in the morning, learning a complicated program. While she was practicing all the time she heard a basic trill from the next room. And this trill was played again and again for hours... just a trill, nothing else. After a few hours she was so interesting - who do this? Playing just a trill the whole day... she came to next room and... saw Sviatoslav Richter there :) yes! And it was time, when he was old already. He practiced a simple trill for hours...
@@XsmaelTheBest7 Trill is a "rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart". Lesson: Hard work (and loads and loads of repetition) makes perfect.
I've been doing something pretty similar on guitar recently. I've been trying to learn flamenco techniques, but I come from a rock background, so everything on the right hand feels like starting all over again. It just so happens, though, that a very stripped down version of Malagueña is one of the first things I learned to play on guitar, and over the years I expanded the elements a little bit while goofing off, based on some of my favorite flamenco players' renditions. It's been allowing me to practice picado and rasgueos without having to think much about what my left hand is doing. Since I already know the notes and chords, I just get to embellish them more and more as my technique improves. And since it's in E phrygian and was first arranged for guitar by flamenco players, it's very rewarding in that it sounds more and more like I'm actually playing flamenco as I go along. It's much more inviting than only doing standard exercises to build chops, so I end up practicing a lot more.
I have been self-teaching the piano for about 4 and a half months now. My hands are nowhere near fast enough to tackle anything like Chopin or Liszt, but the points described here are extremely useful. I was actually surprised to see that the points you talked about (at least, the fundamentals of those points) are strategies I have already been using. Ever since the very beginning, when I try to pick up a new piece, I try to identify any common patterns. If there's a part that I'm really struggling with, I try to find a way to simplify the pattern further and then slowly but gradually work in the rest of the pieces until the pattern is complete. I've never been a big fan of robotic practicing, such as "playing it until your face turns blue." If you are at the point where you just HATE sitting there, you just can't stand practicing the piece you're working on, there is something seriously wrong. You shouldn't EVER hate trying to practice. It should be a fun, pleasant experience. Of course there will be periods of frustration, but it should never be enough to make you wish you were doing anything else. Bashing your face against a brick wall until you get it right just doesn't solve anything. Applying your creativity to figure out a solution to the problem is much better. Instead of playing scales over and over and over and over again, I just take stuff I already know and try to move it into different keys, or break up certain chords and find interesting ways to play them as arpeggios (and then try THOSE in different keys), or just try to find a different flow or rhythm to the piece. Even if I'm playing something I have already technically "mastered", I'm finding new and interesting ways to play it. I'm finding new ways to control the dynamics, I'm finding new ways to control the tone and sound, I'm finding new ways to direct it somewhere else. I basically invent my own practice exercises to help me develop a particular skill. This methodology to practicing has helped me in numerous ways. It's developing my ear, my dexterity, and my overall understanding of how music is actually built. It used to take me hours to learn a small passage to a simple song, and I _had_ to look at music for it. Now I can pick up a small part in about 20 or 30 minutes after listening to it a dozen times (as long as it's simple enough) and improvise a few basic chords here and there. It's just a big massive snowball effect. Great videos, Nahre. Any time I am struggling trying to understand something I always find myself watching one of your videos.
I just got a piano as a gift after talking to someone who knew me and my mom since I was a kid ,they gave me their old (relatively new looking) one so I can’t wait to start practicing! I’m glad I found your channel too I love all your videos Nahre!
Dam y’all so lucky and here I am practicing on an old unwaghted 54 key Yamaha keyboard I’ve started to think I had bad technique being self taught and all but that might not be the case I think it’s because these plastic keys are slippery
I’ve just stumbled onto your videos and I think they are fantastic. I returned to the piano after a 10 year break and am resitting grade 8 in June. You’ve definitely given me much to think about and some really refreshing ideas on how to practice differently. I’m working on a number of the Chopin Etudes and think this will really help. Thank you and keep up the great work.
True Nahre Sol "... ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres, to connect them, till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold, till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere..." Walt Whitman
My mom always got mad at me for playing stuff that wasn't on the page, i'm really glad I ignored her, I think I'm a much better musician because of it, and would have given up long ago if I didn't.
Honestly, that's relatable. I'm sorry it happened to you :( Part of why I quit playing the piano is the fact that practicing what I like (or how I like) - as opposed to just classical music and the 90s pop songs I was given by my teacher (that I don't even like) - was forbidden. I liked football when I was younger, so I learned to play/arrange football anthems by ear (can't really find music sheets for obscure German club songs, can I?) But that's seen as a distraction, as a waste of time. I got angry because I really got bored with classical and 90s. I just drilled scales and arpeggio and stopped because the drills got more fun than the songs, which have become such a burden I stopped practicing. Someday I want to try to relearn the piano, refamiliarize myself with techniques... and maybe make better "by ear" arrangements of football anthems someday. I really want to play jazz standards (well, the Frank Sinatra versions, because that's what I'm currently interested in) for myself and video game/cartoon music for my little sister, so she can sing along to my playing. That'd be more fun, I think! (The other part of why I stopped is chronic pain, but honestly that just means I need more breaks.)
I am so grateful for this! I find repetition so boring and obligation filled. This method meets the need for repetition while also informing improv and composition. SO GREAT, thank you. 😀
This is all terrific advice. You’re a very fine pianist and deeply creative person. Not to mention a very appealing internet personality/teacher. Here’s what this video makes me feel/think-when I hear your intuitively pretty wonderful ways of reharmonizing/rethinking these tough spots, it makes me wish you’d devote yourself way more to composition and not so much to virtuosic piano gymnastics by other folks. You could enrich the world a thousand times more that way. I don’t doubt that your performance of the Liszt Mephisto Waltz would be wonderful, not to mention personal, you're a very fine piano player-but this tired old warhorse has been recorded a gazillion times, including quite a few times by some very great pianists. Your performance wouldn’t enrich the world a fraction of the way in which a new Nahre Sol composition would, were it based on the Liszt or anything else. We don't remember or care about Chopin for his performances of whomever, Hummel. My two cents. Keep up the good work. You’re one of a very few pearls in a sea of internet self-styled musical maven nobodies.
So amazing I came across this video tonight. I've just put down my bass from practicing for an hour on a quick-paced solo I'd written but have been trying to play at tempo. My hands and arms are hurting! A minute ago as I stopped for the night I was thinking..."this is ridiculous, I'm a better player than this! I don't need to spend all this time on a lick"! Then I stumbled onto to your video and I watched you play that lightening quick jump with your right hand. Amazing! I know that took some time and practice!! I'm encouraged to try again tomorrow because experience tells me I'll do it better once I sleep on it. But your video will be the reason I'm encouraged to do so. Love!
This is probably how Liszt practiced and learned. It was more of a process of discovery than just practicing until you turn blue. We have accounts of Chopin sitting down and improvising waltzes. The recordings of Rachmaninov's own compositions also have this improvised quality. They aren't always what you find in the printed score. Rachmaninovs cadenza to the 2nd Hungarian rhapsody is another example. I also got frustrated with my teacher's practice techniques so I would try to understand what my teacher was hearing and then try to find my own remedy to the problem.
My great-grandfather was a pupil of Franz Liszt Thank you for who you are and for your achievements, Nahre Sol. Thank you for your incredible talent and your wonderful musicality. Thank you for your invaluable, generous and selfless teachings. Your soul is great ❤
I play the piano for about 15 years now, although I've not owned one for 3 years, and could only play when at my parents house. But I am by no means a master or skilled pianist. I think a large part why is that I never "learned", I was only told to repeat the sheet music over and over but not truly study the music itself and see which notes are repeating or any other sort of backbone of the music. These videos make me able to actually study the music and upgrade my skill like never before. THANK YOU
Btw; funnily enough the only piece I played effortless and without errors over and over again was la valse d'amelie because I understood the repetition and backbone of the music.
This is great! I love this Nahre! The strategies for coming up with practicing all kinds of different ways helps so much when performance time comes. :) It makes it harder to get thrown off by all the distractions that can happen in more unfamiliar environments. ✨💕
This is SUPER! I'm preparing for an upcoming tour, with some BEASTLY passages in some of the songs. What a GREAT way to practice some of these passages!! Also, what you came up with during the "composing/looping" sections could definitely be used in future pieces/songs. Thank you so much! Andrew Colyer, New York
Such an informative video Nahre! It is really rare and great to see that a competent classical pianist is talking about her practice routine. Through your videos I started to realize that piano learning journey is totally about error correction and more than that it’s about preventing bad habits from developing. Since our brains heavily tend to develop habits and it’s extremely hard to break them, one should develop healthy practice habits instead of the bad ones and I am really grateful that, thanks to you beginners like us can grasp this hard lesson from the very beginning of the journey! An amazing video Nahre, please keep up the good work! 😊🙏♥️
I am sure that the great pianists (including you) did not learn to play, using only repetition. There must be fundamental finger-movements and fundamental jumps, + fundamental finger-stretch/spreading which facilitates learning more and more (fantastic) pieces. This video confirms my belief! I would like to device a method for learning the skips/spread in Chopin's Prelude in Eb major. This video is inspiration! ❤ ☺
funny. I know some German and some Portuguese, and when I see her name, I always get an imagining of 'near[ness of] the sun'! She's such a joy and delight. In any language!
Nahre- this is a brilliant, innovative and elegant method. I’ve been away from the piano for a few years and currently I’m trying to get back into it via Chopin and I’m running into difficulty, but I think this method will help me to rediscover the joy of making beautiful music 🥰 thank you SO much!!!
Guitarist here. I tend to compose music beyond my ability. I didn't set out to do that, it just seems to happen. Because of that, I don't really think about the difficulty of what it will take to play my compositions, I just want to hear them from the guitar and not just in my head (or worse, being played as midi). So, my practice has such clearly defined goals. One of the problems with practicing until blue, is that practicing mistakes makes you really good at mistakes. The trick is to structure practice so that you are practicing what's desired, even if it's at a slower tempo. This provides the little successes that reinforce continued practice. As a behavioral psychologist, I can say you are on the right track with what you teach here. Great video!! Cheers.
I read that Pat Metheny said that when he was young he was encouraged to write compositions that he could not play. That this would stretch him both as a player and a composer.
I am so glad I happened upon your channel! I needed some help regarding practicing and you have turned the light on for me!! You play wonderfully! Thank you!! 🎹
Cortot suggests similar methods, although not quite as compositionally extensive. This gives me great ideas in terms of repetitive practice - I was always too scared to deter too far from the original material lest I learn the wrong notes/develop bad habits, but I now see isolating technique and essentially creating your own "etude" is really the way to go about it.
Well, first of all I am feeling really sorry for not having watched your videos as soon as they come out, your content is always getting better! And, about a concept I have difficulty grasping: how can you stay relaxed when playing such fast tempos with big leaps in both hands? I think it's interesting to discuss how to "feel about" relaxiation as you speed up a metronome, for example, or how in slow speeds can you pre-think things to avoid habits that will become tension if sped up. Thanks for the video and the awesome tips, as usual!
YES!! genius way of learning. We learn 10x faster when the lesson is set up as a game rather than mindless repetition and memorization. By the way have you ever read The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten? it's the most amazing book i've read about music.
What a great approach to practicing! I have actually done similar things a lot when i got bored practicing and my teacher told me similar things about playing slowly and repeating which was why i judged myself for not being able to focus on the piece, even though it had noticeably helped me. Thank you so much for this video, it was a great insight for me how you can actually use this to improve your playing. I will definitely try to get into this more, since i have always been playing jazz and improvising a lot. Do you speak some german by any chance? Saw the bach urtext laying there and always wondered how non german musicians pronounce all these german names ;)
On Google Translate, select German->English and write "Inventionen" in the left field, there is a loudspeaker symbol which when activated (clicked) gives a soundbite with the pronunciation. I sought in vain for pronunciation on Wikipedia, but the Google Translate is maybe even more helpful. (Inventionen: == [inventsi'onen])
I am absolutely loving your videos! As someone who has been playing piano for 55 years, I am amazed that I can find people who have such passion for the art form. Right now, you are my favorite!
Crazy hand speed and coordination, Nahre - a wonder to listen to and startling to watch ... while I struggle with my Grade 4 pieces, I am in compete awe of your mastery and 'feel' for the music. Thank you so much!
I stumbled across your Jazz video, got led to your funk video, and ended up here. Your insight into music is enlightening and I wish I had seen something of this sort when I had started learning piano and music in general almost 20 years ago. Now I am not in any condition to play, but your videos have encouraged me to explore music in other ways. Thank you and you have definitely blown me out of the water and earned my subscription. Looking forward to seeing more of your videos in the future.
So important to practice well. I’m not much of a composer but I’m excited to try it out on my oboe. Reminds me of something Bozza would do! Love the mind hack 🦄
You are so bloody good it is unbelievable. I'm actually a guitarist and I'm finding a lot of your content useful. I totally get what you are doing here and I can use this sort of idea. Thanks
I cant get enough of these practice videos. They do help tremendously. After not playing guitar for many years, Im struggling relearning difficult songs I wrote from many years ago. Videos like this one do help give me ideas on how to approach difficult music. Whats really cool are the new discoveries along the way while searching for practice approaches. Thank you again..
I'm currently working on Liszts "Liebestraum". It's one of those pieces I come back to every year and work a little bit more on it because it's just for me and for fun. Currently I'm struggling with the fourth page where he also plays in oktaves... It's hard but I know I can do it!
What you described here is another approach that I read about a while ago. I was prepping for a recital and I was playing a movement of a concerto with an extremely isolated fanfare that spanned an octave and a half (from F4 to Bb5) with double tonguing (this is a trumpet concerto), all in the space of a beat and a half at approximately quarter = 132 (it was a cadenza). It was also the very beginning of the work, with only a chord in the piano on the downbeat. I had to play for faculty before I put on the recital, and I bombed that fanfare. They told me to come back again in a week. So I focused on that with my accompanist. I told her that we would do that fanfare until we got it right, then move on to something totally different. Then after maybe 15 minutes, revisit the fanfare, get it right, then go do something else. We did this until our rehearsal time was up. I played for the faculty again and nailed it, then later in the week, hit it perfect at the recital. This was all after reading an article that said to keep your brain engaged while in the practice room by diversifying the 'stuff' you're doing. Keeping yourself actively engaged in what you are doing yields far better results than simply repeating something countless times. Incorporating melodic content into improvisations like you did is a really excellent way to use this method!
I unconsciously used this! I was practicing a chopin etude, but, I became bored with repetition, so I started improvising on it and it was super effective!
Remember this... practicing over and over and over again robotically, has the very real danger of reinforcing the WRONG technique you were already using. It MUST be broken down and assessed along the lines as this video suggests.
I really love your approach to practicing, it has helped me a lot. We viewers can be nothing but thankful for being able to watch this content for free; it's outrageously generous of you. Great job as always!
i came across this video after I actually been doing that on my train back, but it was on garage band, and i set up some nice base and drums and just kept practicing this beautiful major scale repetition on a hard electric guitar and it sounded great no matter how long i repeated the patterns and I could see my improvement in one day, This really is at the basis of a whole new learning system altering education
@@vince-vh8ut Do actually try it! You don't have to do every single note like he does, and it can really make you better in many different techniques, but yes, needs patience, especially when trying it out for the first time ;)
How would you consider doing this for Scriabin Sonata 2 movt. beginning 2 and Chopin Scherzo no. 2 bars 476-490 (sorry about being so picky). Btw love your videos; you are my no. 1 go to youtuber for classical music.
I love this practice method. I'm a piano teacher (though not as good enough to play a piece like this) and I think I just found a way to improve my students' practice. And mine.
This is an unrelated comment, but have you/would you release a CD of either original compositions or established pieces? I personally think it would be really great to have a clear sense of the clearly wide array of music your capable of. Plus your pocket pieces would be fantastic to listen to independently of your videos.
If you are going to do it, can you include your How To Sound Like/Happy Birthday pieces? I find it really fascinating how they are all based on the same motif(?).
This is so smart, like I wonder if a lot of people out there won't realize how much more advanced your thinking about practice is than a lot of practice advice but this is very educationally sound and thought provoking. edit: like i can't understate how smart this is
Wonderful! I've learned a lot of things that I really just don't care to use in my style of playing. Overtime I've learned to learn things when the time comes. To practice what I want to play, I've started composing repetitive pieces that focus on a specific technique. It's made music works a lot more progressive and fulfilling.
Follow-up video giving you more ideas for requested excerpts: th-cam.com/video/PseQ7nzU-vM/w-d-xo.html
Hi Nahre, I really love this video. I'm practicing guitar right now and it made me think. And I'm just brainstorming here. Wouldn't it be interesting to show other instrumentalists show how they tackle a problem and break it down? And hear how their teachers told them to break it up in steps.
Sub I've found a great channel, thanks Nahre!
What was the litz piece that this came from? It's beautiful
Hey Nahre, As a multi-instrumentalist I’ve found myself employing this method naturally into every instrument I’ve studied (I should have inserted “self taught” in there somewhere), and after recently picking up piano (Don’t ask me why it took me four instruments before getting to piano) I found myself doing this immediately. You mentioned how you employ this technique to composing as well, and while I can discipline myself to stay focused on the exercise when playing my main instrument, guitar; with piano, it is such a wide open experience that I end up composing something new almost every time I sit down at my keyboard. So for example I’ll be trying to learn something that is usually above my skill level; I employ this method of practice in the area I am having problems with, and then suddenly an entirely new composition is born from it. I’m not technically composing piano music either, while I may be practicing a piano piece, I’m usually composing electronica in the style of early Apparat or even Milosh at times. So I become torn between chasing a new arrangement, and practicing the technique I’m having a problem with in the new piece, or following thru with the piece I’m learning. Since my main objective isn’t really to play other people’s music, but rather to compose my own pieces, where should my loyalties lie? Should I nail the technique within my new composition, or should I continue learning the piece, since the chances are I’ll learn something new from it a few measures later? Then perhaps that will give life to another original composition? It’s a good problem to have no doubt, but I’m just curious what a fellow composer who employs the same method might think my best course of action would be. Thanks.
PS, I love the way you teach.
This video actually reminds me of a composition that I kind of let slide because I ran out of ideas for it, but the song was based off a piano duet that my grandma taught me called the 5 Note Waltz (in F major), and the primo part was so easy that literally anyone could play it. And yes, I've tested that.
Anyway, one of my ideas was to incorporate some of the technical difficulties encountered in Liszt's La Campanella into the piece, and it worked surprisingly well. First, I used the basic melody, which just has you put your thumb on C5 (an octave above Middle C) and your other fingers on the white keys above, and just go up and down the notes (stripped from the primo part of the original). Then I switched to octaves, then broken octaves, then the huge leaps introduced in La Campanella with the top note being C7, then back to broken octaves, then the sixteenth triplet octaves where the bottom note is played twice, and so on. I might want to get back into that.
Pianists are absolute wizards.
Best regards, drummer.
Good drummers are very impressive.
Best regards, pianist.
I have played for 7 years and believe me I am no wizard. I lost motivation after I started music major (in high school,) and have only recently started playing seriously again. I sound like dog poo compared to everyone else in my major.
Speaking of drummers, Yoyoka is an actual wizard :) Check out her Rosanna cover.
Drummers are the most important part of the band.
Best regards, pianist.
@Bman atleast your fingers are attached, best regards, gutairist.
I love your practice notes videos! Please keep doing them :)
Having words for that feeling and being able to watch an example is really helpful and it's attachable to every genre (i play jazzfunk). Reducing things to their very essence is always a good advice. Not only for the motoric part, creativity and exploring taste benefit from a minimalistic starting point as well. Yes, please keep doing this, both of you are masters at teaching.
@@mirfaelltkeinereiney test
Found this channel from watching enough of your videos Rick, subscribed!
Hold on a second.
Rick why aren't you verified?
@@PinaCoco Oh sweet lord. Let's launch the hashtag #BringBackVerifiedRick !
Me: "fundamental practice? that'll be useful"
Video: "plays like a god in first 10 seconds"
Me: "...maybe not."
yup, I feel you xD
I'm no where near her level (just an ant), but breaking down the music into small parts left hand and right hand and then together is a basic tool for learning a piece of music. So it makes sense to loop the parts to practice them over and over in a more interesting way.
@@eavening4149 i thought that was the idea, but apparently her "fundamental" is on another level. I did not even pick anything that happened on the left or right hand. Did she fast forward the video while playing?
@@richardvictorjr, no...no she did not. She's just that quick with her hands! And very advanced. I'm reminded of learning chord progressions in jazz. The scales and chords have patterns and loops.
Here she's repeating the technique that is giving her problems.
Suzuki method says that everytime you make a mistake, it takes playing it correctly 1,000 times to get that 'error' out of your muscle memory.
@@richardvictorjr She's a Julliard graduate, awesome technique is to be expected :)
This is a brilliant summery of how to learn anything actually:
1. try to break what you are trying to learn to smallest blocks possible
2. find a way to make each block "interesting" to do over and over (practice)
3. practice (do) each block over and over and over - "until your face turn blue" only it will, not because you are zoning in and
enjoying the repetitive doing more then the final result at some point
I do exactly the same when improving and learning to draw and sketch.. the art is to make your practices the main enjoyment more then the end result which becomes a secondary side effect :)
This subject is so interesting for me, and even more, is seeing it crosses between skills and arts..
please do more! Subbed! even though I have nothing to do with music creation :)
great summary
Don't forget to add a rhythm
In other words, it is the enjoyment of the experience what matters the most and what brings about the desired results; follow the bliss.
The best comment I ve seen for a while. Man, I don't know, if you are creative in sth, may be you should start your own videos. Greetings
Well stated.
In regards to "the algorithm" to learn a new skill, it's also a general principle as you said.
It's so general, that it is one of the fundamental paradigms of problem-solving in the field of algorithm design.
The principle is called 'divide & conquer'. Its purpose is to systematically divide a "problem" (a "problem" being anything)
into smaller & smaller "subproblems", until it can be divided no more. Once this is done, each of the resulting "subproblems"
becomes trivial to understand, and trivial to solve. Once all trivial problems are solved, the problem is systematically put back
together.
The same is true of course with piano playing. One of the fundamental problems of piano practice (or again
any general problem solving) is the inadvertent complecting of 'small subproblems' into a big one,
like "practicing repeating an arpeggio until "your face turns blue"" as advised by Nahre's professor.
Then practice becomes extremely inefficient and the problem intractable, even if only algorithmically speaking.
Any movement over the keyboard, no matter how "simple" it may seem at first glance, is naturally complex,
and the speed of improvement one gains by this break-down process is exponential.
But the true superpower is joy. With it we do without purpose, without doubt, without fear.
We sing for the sake of singing, dance of the sake of dancing, play for the sake of playing, live for the sake of living,
Beyond the superficiality of artificiality, beyond the falsehood of our Egos.
With its sincerity we become big, brilliant children once more, fully aware, fully present, fully alive.
Through it, our minds become free of empty noise, and turn clear, and transparent, and can fully see reality,
fully absorb it, fully be filled with it. And our thoughts, free of the squareness of the artificial become in shape and motion
as perpetual and infinite as the pattern of waves in the ocean, or the bark on the tree,
as infinite as the Nature which lies beneath them from which they spring,
and in it our inspiration is revealed once more.
I wish I'd had a piano teacher like Nahre. As a teacher myself (literature and philosophy), I think her system and approach are so precious, it looks like she's teaching a peer, not just a student.
I don’t even play piano but I love your vids.
Thank you ❤❤❤
I bet lot of us dont either.
How many viewers can do these exercices... Less than a hundred?
I think you should try
i just got my old synth and old notes out to start learning again and it feels good and it's way easier than when i learn that stuff when i was younger. i noticed that it's very hard on my wrists wich is good since they are very weak!
@@Dindonmasker
That's awesome! Just make sure you stay really relaxed and make sure you don't accidentally end up injuring your wrists by overexerting yourself using improper technique. Especially since synth's typically don't have a lot going on in terms of action or key weightedness, so there's less of a cushion in that sense. It can also be hard to tell on a synth sometimes if you're pressing different keys with the same pressure or not since the dynamics can be more forgiving than, say, an acoustic piano, which can be struck at any velocity whereas synth's have a limited number of dynamic presets that can limit tone color ever so slightly and, like I said, lead to slightly different pressures producing the same volume and tone of sound
Of course none of that matters much if you aren't in really advanced repertoire anyway, except about your wrists. Please take care of your body. I hope you enjoy playing for a long time to come :)
This is gold.
I have learned that I have to think about two things as I play. 1) What I'm playing now and 2) what's next and how does what I'm playing now lead into what's next.
If you don't think ahead you can come to the end of a phrase you're comfortable with and then suddenly realize you are not ready for the next phrase. Then you realize you were basking in the phrase you understand and play well and you had stopped thinking. I hate when that happens.
It's ok for the listener to just listen and enjoy, but the player can't. The mind of the player must be fully engaged and aware of the harmonics, melody, rhythm and how it's flowing every second.
@Second Birth I don't have an answer to your question, but honestly, your English seems to be better than most native English speaking people I know!
I wish I had had such creative and innovative instruction back when Iwas learning piano as a teenager. I feel like part of the reason I stopped playing was that I just got bored of drilling scales.
eslai you do still have to do scales tho
Did you ever get back to playing? Its such a shame to not play again
Please keep doing such videos! I strongly believe in this idea of isolating the core idea behind technical difficulties, and making "looping" improvisations/compositions using them. It is how I taught myself to play the piano (though not Liszt lol :) ), and I believe it is often much more efficient than blindly practicing. My theory behind this is that it offsets boredom, and greatly increases the number of practice cycles which one can play before diminishing returns set in. I also used to take parts of pieces that were WAY ahead of my skill level, and try to use them as practice exercises. I have, in fact, learned all my technique in a similar manner!
Yes, agreed. Thanks!
I will have to do this myself. If it's worked for 3 people, surely I can't go wrong by trying it.
@@NahreSol I do this intuitively too. Currently working on Basic sight reading, and basic Piano technique. Recently for example I decided that I need the ability to play octaves up and down, and other intervals, without looking, or ability to play a triad and move it around the keyboard without looking. Because it helps me to not go insane while playing these beginner pieces, if I can spice them up so they suck less.
Solution: Improvise with a simple chord progression in the left hand, until it sounds awesome. Have fun. Get a a muscle memory skill. My wife says I sound better. Still a beginner around here.
To your final point about using very difficult passages as grounds for ad hoc mini-exercises: A great pianist authored a book in which he advocated doing exactly that. At first i thought it was Josef Lhevinne in his 'Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing', but I just speed-read the book again and couldn't find it there -- perhaps I missed it.
Long story short: If you got that idea independently, then you're thinking outside the box a lot of other pianists (myself included) are locked. :0)
This is a brilliant way of keeping repetition fresh. Amazing.
Make practicing fun again!
🙌
Red hat?
And it takes me usually 3.5 minutes to find and play the C Major chord
Hahaha
Unlucky dude
me too buddy me too
I do it in less than a second
@@omikuron9716?
Take a look at Russian school of pianism, it will be interesting for you. And I’d like to tell a story, that my teacher told me many years ago. So, she was studying in Moscow conservatory and she’ve got a practice room and started in the morning, learning a complicated program. While she was practicing all the time she heard a basic trill from the next room. And this trill was played again and again for hours... just a trill, nothing else. After a few hours she was so interesting - who do this? Playing just a trill the whole day... she came to next room and... saw Sviatoslav Richter there :) yes! And it was time, when he was old already. He practiced a simple trill for hours...
Wow
@@shivankmenon4722 what's a trill ? and what's the lesson of all that story ?
@@XsmaelTheBest7 Trill is a "rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart". Lesson: Hard work (and loads and loads of repetition) makes perfect.
Oskar Etternavn thanks for answering :)
@@XsmaelTheBest7 my pleasure
Terrifying hand speed :-O
I'm a beginner, so it would take me ten minutes and break for a cup of tea to do one of those traverses :)
I've been doing something pretty similar on guitar recently. I've been trying to learn flamenco techniques, but I come from a rock background, so everything on the right hand feels like starting all over again. It just so happens, though, that a very stripped down version of Malagueña is one of the first things I learned to play on guitar, and over the years I expanded the elements a little bit while goofing off, based on some of my favorite flamenco players' renditions. It's been allowing me to practice picado and rasgueos without having to think much about what my left hand is doing. Since I already know the notes and chords, I just get to embellish them more and more as my technique improves. And since it's in E phrygian and was first arranged for guitar by flamenco players, it's very rewarding in that it sounds more and more like I'm actually playing flamenco as I go along. It's much more inviting than only doing standard exercises to build chops, so I end up practicing a lot more.
I have been self-teaching the piano for about 4 and a half months now. My hands are nowhere near fast enough to tackle anything like Chopin or Liszt, but the points described here are extremely useful. I was actually surprised to see that the points you talked about (at least, the fundamentals of those points) are strategies I have already been using. Ever since the very beginning, when I try to pick up a new piece, I try to identify any common patterns. If there's a part that I'm really struggling with, I try to find a way to simplify the pattern further and then slowly but gradually work in the rest of the pieces until the pattern is complete.
I've never been a big fan of robotic practicing, such as "playing it until your face turns blue." If you are at the point where you just HATE sitting there, you just can't stand practicing the piece you're working on, there is something seriously wrong. You shouldn't EVER hate trying to practice. It should be a fun, pleasant experience. Of course there will be periods of frustration, but it should never be enough to make you wish you were doing anything else. Bashing your face against a brick wall until you get it right just doesn't solve anything. Applying your creativity to figure out a solution to the problem is much better. Instead of playing scales over and over and over and over again, I just take stuff I already know and try to move it into different keys, or break up certain chords and find interesting ways to play them as arpeggios (and then try THOSE in different keys), or just try to find a different flow or rhythm to the piece.
Even if I'm playing something I have already technically "mastered", I'm finding new and interesting ways to play it. I'm finding new ways to control the dynamics, I'm finding new ways to control the tone and sound, I'm finding new ways to direct it somewhere else. I basically invent my own practice exercises to help me develop a particular skill. This methodology to practicing has helped me in numerous ways. It's developing my ear, my dexterity, and my overall understanding of how music is actually built. It used to take me hours to learn a small passage to a simple song, and I _had_ to look at music for it. Now I can pick up a small part in about 20 or 30 minutes after listening to it a dozen times (as long as it's simple enough) and improvise a few basic chords here and there. It's just a big massive snowball effect.
Great videos, Nahre. Any time I am struggling trying to understand something I always find myself watching one of your videos.
I just got a piano as a gift after talking to someone who knew me and my mom since I was a kid ,they gave me their old (relatively new looking) one so I can’t wait to start practicing! I’m glad I found your channel too I love all your videos Nahre!
The-One-And-Only 😂😂😂really? Nice 👍 #GiftSquad
Dam y’all so lucky and here I am practicing on an old unwaghted 54 key Yamaha keyboard I’ve started to think I had bad technique being self taught and all but that might not be the case I think it’s because these plastic keys are slippery
time for you to get a better one then! Not a super expensive one, but at least with weighted keys. If you buy it used, it could be very affordable.
OMG Nahre Sol I LOVE the way your mind works!
I don't think I'll ever fully grasp how good you actually are at the piano... I'm a beginner and your videos always blow my mind..
Shadow practicing is also effective in Tetris.
Sounds like something that would work for guitar, lots of video games, martial arts, dancing, lots of stuff.
Pausing is effective too
Just like every shooter
I’ve just stumbled onto your videos and I think they are fantastic. I returned to the piano after a 10 year break and am resitting grade 8 in June. You’ve definitely given me much to think about and some really refreshing ideas on how to practice differently. I’m working on a number of the Chopin Etudes and think this will really help. Thank you and keep up the great work.
True Nahre Sol
"... ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres, to connect them, till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold, till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere..."
Walt Whitman
Nice. Seeing progress is the best!
Amazing tips, Nahre!
My mom always got mad at me for playing stuff that wasn't on the page, i'm really glad I ignored her, I think I'm a much better musician because of it, and would have given up long ago if I didn't.
Honestly, that's relatable. I'm sorry it happened to you :(
Part of why I quit playing the piano is the fact that practicing what I like (or how I like) - as opposed to just classical music and the 90s pop songs I was given by my teacher (that I don't even like) - was forbidden. I liked football when I was younger, so I learned to play/arrange football anthems by ear (can't really find music sheets for obscure German club songs, can I?) But that's seen as a distraction, as a waste of time. I got angry because I really got bored with classical and 90s. I just drilled scales and arpeggio and stopped because the drills got more fun than the songs, which have become such a burden I stopped practicing.
Someday I want to try to relearn the piano, refamiliarize myself with techniques... and maybe make better "by ear" arrangements of football anthems someday. I really want to play jazz standards (well, the Frank Sinatra versions, because that's what I'm currently interested in) for myself and video game/cartoon music for my little sister, so she can sing along to my playing. That'd be more fun, I think!
(The other part of why I stopped is chronic pain, but honestly that just means I need more breaks.)
I am so grateful for this! I find repetition so boring and obligation filled. This method meets the need for repetition while also informing improv and composition. SO GREAT, thank you. 😀
Liszt simply had largest hand on earth (13 keys)...
me: Looking at my 9 keys finger sadly
Mine is 8
😭😭😭
mine is 8 (sometimes I can stretch it to 9 on a good day) :( nice to see fellow smol hand friends
Mine is 7 unfortunately lol 😂
I got me a decent 10 (:
rip
This is all terrific advice. You’re a very fine pianist and deeply creative person. Not to mention a very appealing internet personality/teacher. Here’s what this video makes me feel/think-when I hear your intuitively pretty wonderful ways of reharmonizing/rethinking these tough spots, it makes me wish you’d devote yourself way more to composition and not so much to virtuosic piano gymnastics by other folks. You could enrich the world a thousand times more that way. I don’t doubt that your performance of the Liszt Mephisto Waltz would be wonderful, not to mention personal, you're a very fine piano player-but this tired old warhorse has been recorded a gazillion times, including quite a few times by some very great pianists. Your performance wouldn’t enrich the world a fraction of the way in which a new Nahre Sol composition would, were it based on the Liszt or anything else. We don't remember or care about Chopin for his performances of whomever, Hummel. My two cents. Keep up the good work. You’re one of a very few pearls in a sea of internet self-styled musical maven nobodies.
Neat! "From practicing untill your face turns blue" to play and having fun while practicing 😀
So amazing I came across this video tonight. I've just put down my bass from practicing for an hour on a quick-paced solo I'd written but have been trying to play at tempo. My hands and arms are hurting! A minute ago as I stopped for the night I was thinking..."this is ridiculous, I'm a better player than this! I don't need to spend all this time on a lick"! Then I stumbled onto to your video and I watched you play that lightening quick jump with your right hand. Amazing! I know that took some time and practice!! I'm encouraged to try again tomorrow because experience tells me I'll do it better once I sleep on it. But your video will be the reason I'm encouraged to do so. Love!
This is probably how Liszt practiced and learned. It was more of a process of discovery than just practicing until you turn blue. We have accounts of Chopin sitting down and improvising waltzes. The recordings of Rachmaninov's own compositions also have this improvised quality. They aren't always what you find in the printed score. Rachmaninovs cadenza to the 2nd Hungarian rhapsody is another example.
I also got frustrated with my teacher's practice techniques so I would try to understand what my teacher was hearing and then try to find my own remedy to the problem.
My great-grandfather was a pupil of Franz Liszt
Thank you for who you are and for your achievements, Nahre Sol.
Thank you for your incredible talent and your wonderful musicality.
Thank you for your invaluable, generous and selfless teachings.
Your soul is great ❤
4:30 reminds me of the OST of Zelda Breath of the wild combats.
I didn't played the game yet but i love listening to the ost, it's stunning
I play the piano for about 15 years now, although I've not owned one for 3 years, and could only play when at my parents house. But I am by no means a master or skilled pianist.
I think a large part why is that I never "learned", I was only told to repeat the sheet music over and over but not truly study the music itself and see which notes are repeating or any other sort of backbone of the music.
These videos make me able to actually study the music and upgrade my skill like never before.
THANK YOU
Btw; funnily enough the only piece I played effortless and without errors over and over again was la valse d'amelie because I understood the repetition and backbone of the music.
This is great! I love this Nahre! The strategies for coming up with practicing all kinds of different ways helps so much when performance time comes. :) It makes it harder to get thrown off by all the distractions that can happen in more unfamiliar environments. ✨💕
I enjoy the bridges you build between classical music, beautiful exercises and popular music styles.
This is SUPER! I'm preparing for an upcoming tour, with some BEASTLY passages in some of the songs. What a GREAT way to practice some of these passages!! Also, what you came up with during the "composing/looping" sections could definitely be used in future pieces/songs. Thank you so much! Andrew Colyer, New York
Thank you Andrew!! Good luck with the your, that sounds exciting!!
Such an informative video Nahre! It is really rare and great to see that a competent classical pianist is talking about her practice routine. Through your videos I started to realize that piano learning journey is totally about error correction and more than that it’s about preventing bad habits from developing. Since our brains heavily tend to develop habits and it’s extremely hard to break them, one should develop healthy practice habits instead of the bad ones and I am really grateful that, thanks to you beginners like us can grasp this hard lesson from the very beginning of the journey! An amazing video Nahre, please keep up the good work! 😊🙏♥️
This excerpt will be looping in my head all day...thanks lol
I am sure that the great pianists (including you) did not learn to play, using only repetition. There must be fundamental finger-movements and fundamental jumps, + fundamental finger-stretch/spreading which facilitates learning more and more (fantastic) pieces. This video confirms my belief!
I would like to device a method for learning the skips/spread in Chopin's Prelude in Eb major. This video is inspiration! ❤ ☺
Nahre, did you know that Sol means Sun in portuguese? You shine my days with your vídeos. Keep strong. Cheers from Rio de Janeiro.
funny. I know some German and some Portuguese, and when I see her name, I always get an imagining of 'near[ness of] the sun'! She's such a joy and delight. In any language!
Nahre- this is a brilliant, innovative and elegant method. I’ve been away from the piano for a few years and currently I’m trying to get back into it via Chopin and I’m running into difficulty, but I think this method will help me to rediscover the joy of making beautiful music 🥰 thank you SO much!!!
Guitarist here. I tend to compose music beyond my ability. I didn't set out to do that, it just seems to happen. Because of that, I don't really think about the difficulty of what it will take to play my compositions, I just want to hear them from the guitar and not just in my head (or worse, being played as midi). So, my practice has such clearly defined goals. One of the problems with practicing until blue, is that practicing mistakes makes you really good at mistakes. The trick is to structure practice so that you are practicing what's desired, even if it's at a slower tempo. This provides the little successes that reinforce continued practice. As a behavioral psychologist, I can say you are on the right track with what you teach here. Great video!! Cheers.
Completely agreed with you!
I read that Pat Metheny said that when he was young he was encouraged to write compositions that he could not play. That this would stretch him both as a player and a composer.
I am so glad I happened upon your channel! I needed some help regarding practicing and you have turned the light on for me!! You play wonderfully!
Thank you!!
🎹
Cortot suggests similar methods, although not quite as compositionally extensive.
This gives me great ideas in terms of repetitive practice - I was always too scared to deter too far from the original material lest I learn the wrong notes/develop bad habits, but I now see isolating technique and essentially creating your own "etude" is really the way to go about it.
In what book can I read that? I am currently reading Cortot's interpretation course.
There's a Cortot edition of the Chopin etudes in which he discusses practice methods quite extensively.
@@Pakkens_Backyard thank you.
@@Pakkens_Backyard thank you.
Those mini compositions are gorgeous
Well, first of all I am feeling really sorry for not having watched your videos as soon as they come out, your content is always getting better! And, about a concept I have difficulty grasping: how can you stay relaxed when playing such fast tempos with big leaps in both hands? I think it's interesting to discuss how to "feel about" relaxiation as you speed up a metronome, for example, or how in slow speeds can you pre-think things to avoid habits that will become tension if sped up. Thanks for the video and the awesome tips, as usual!
YES!! genius way of learning. We learn 10x faster when the lesson is set up as a game rather than mindless repetition and memorization. By the way have you ever read The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten? it's the most amazing book i've read about music.
Thank you for posting, what an excellent idea!!!
Thank you!!
This is good in many ways. Great contribution.
This is perhaps the single best piece of advice I've ever received in my life as a musician! Thanks a lot
What a great approach to practicing! I have actually done similar things a lot when i got bored practicing and my teacher told me similar things about playing slowly and repeating which was why i judged myself for not being able to focus on the piece, even though it had noticeably helped me. Thank you so much for this video, it was a great insight for me how you can actually use this to improve your playing. I will definitely try to get into this more, since i have always been playing jazz and improvising a lot.
Do you speak some german by any chance? Saw the bach urtext laying there and always wondered how non german musicians pronounce all these german names ;)
Thank you!! Glad it made sense! I don't speak German but am familiar with certain words due to frequent exposure during my studies... :))
On Google Translate, select German->English and write "Inventionen" in the left field, there is a loudspeaker symbol which when activated (clicked) gives a soundbite with the pronunciation. I sought in vain for pronunciation on Wikipedia, but the Google Translate is maybe even more helpful. (Inventionen: == [inventsi'onen])
You are a great and very calming teacher.
150K?!
Holy crap dude.
I remember subbing to you when you had 50 subs.
So effing proud of you my friend.
330k already :)
I am absolutely loving your videos! As someone who has been playing piano for 55 years, I am amazed that I can find people who have such passion for the art form. Right now, you are my favorite!
I’m having trouble memorising the weird shapes of chord voicings on the bandoneón, since you ask. I think this will be useful. Thanks!
Crazy hand speed and coordination, Nahre - a wonder to listen to and startling to watch ... while I struggle with my Grade 4 pieces, I am in compete awe of your mastery and 'feel' for the music. Thank you so much!
3:57
Sounds a bit like the lavender town theme
I stumbled across your Jazz video, got led to your funk video, and ended up here. Your insight into music is enlightening and I wish I had seen something of this sort when I had started learning piano and music in general almost 20 years ago. Now I am not in any condition to play, but your videos have encouraged me to explore music in other ways. Thank you and you have definitely blown me out of the water and earned my subscription. Looking forward to seeing more of your videos in the future.
So important to practice well. I’m not much of a composer but I’m excited to try it out on my oboe. Reminds me of something Bozza would do! Love the mind hack 🦄
Awesome, thank you!!
That's one of my favorite things about this channel! its so useful and evokes the spirit of the greats!
Hey i play the oboe too!! I wish there was someone like Nahre for woodwinds
for sure!
You are a fantastic pianist! Congratulations!
You are so bloody good it is unbelievable. I'm actually a guitarist and I'm finding a lot of your content useful. I totally get what you are doing here and I can use this sort of idea. Thanks
Nahre Sol x Tiffany Poon collab coming when?
This was epic
I cant get enough of these practice videos. They do help tremendously. After not playing guitar for many years, Im struggling relearning difficult songs I wrote from many years ago. Videos like this one do help give me ideas on how to approach difficult music. Whats really cool are the new discoveries along the way while searching for practice approaches. Thank you again..
I'm currently working on Liszts "Liebestraum". It's one of those pieces I come back to every year and work a little bit more on it because it's just for me and for fun. Currently I'm struggling with the fourth page where he also plays in oktaves... It's hard but I know I can do it!
What you described here is another approach that I read about a while ago. I was prepping for a recital and I was playing a movement of a concerto with an extremely isolated fanfare that spanned an octave and a half (from F4 to Bb5) with double tonguing (this is a trumpet concerto), all in the space of a beat and a half at approximately quarter = 132 (it was a cadenza). It was also the very beginning of the work, with only a chord in the piano on the downbeat. I had to play for faculty before I put on the recital, and I bombed that fanfare. They told me to come back again in a week. So I focused on that with my accompanist. I told her that we would do that fanfare until we got it right, then move on to something totally different. Then after maybe 15 minutes, revisit the fanfare, get it right, then go do something else. We did this until our rehearsal time was up. I played for the faculty again and nailed it, then later in the week, hit it perfect at the recital. This was all after reading an article that said to keep your brain engaged while in the practice room by diversifying the 'stuff' you're doing. Keeping yourself actively engaged in what you are doing yields far better results than simply repeating something countless times. Incorporating melodic content into improvisations like you did is a really excellent way to use this method!
Working on Chopin's op10 no4. Progress is slow, but it's still there lol
Oof! Difficult etude!!
I unconsciously used this! I was practicing a chopin etude, but, I became bored with repetition, so I started improvising on it and it was super effective!
Remember this... practicing over and over and over again robotically, has the very real danger of reinforcing the WRONG technique you were already using. It MUST be broken down and assessed along the lines as this video suggests.
I really love your approach to practicing, it has helped me a lot. We viewers can be nothing but thankful for being able to watch this content for free; it's outrageously generous of you. Great job as always!
That intro is insane!! Is there a name for that as a piece or is it just random improv? I could listen to that for days!
Thanks! You just taught me how to learn Organic Chemistry
How to practice this piece: Install aimbot for your hands
This is super cool, Nahre! I love the accidental compositions that come from this kind of practice.
“This may seem obvious”, ehhh, what the hell is she talking about? 🤔🙈
loll
Me 🤣 i was like obvious what
I strongly relate to this approach. As a composer, I often compose my way out of problems.
This is genius! Thanks Nahre! :)
i can't even play wrong notes that fast
i came across this video after I actually been doing that on my train back, but it was on garage band, and i set up some nice base and drums and just kept practicing this beautiful major scale repetition on a hard electric guitar and it sounded great no matter how long i repeated the patterns and I could see my improvement in one day, This really is at the basis of a whole new learning system altering education
Tokyo ghoul- unravel by animenz, giving me such hard time :)
Sameee
You've gotten further already?
I really like that piece but I'm actually scared to try haha
@@vince-vh8ut Do actually try it! You don't have to do every single note like he does, and it can really make you better in many different techniques, but yes, needs patience, especially when trying it out for the first time ;)
I like the improv of what you’re practicing better than the piece you’re practicing! Thank you for your videos. They are awesome!
Elvin Jones on Black Nile with Wayne Shorter
You never disappoint. Never stop.
How would you consider doing this for Scriabin Sonata 2 movt. beginning 2 and Chopin Scherzo no. 2 bars 476-490 (sorry about being so picky). Btw love your videos; you are my no. 1 go to youtuber for classical music.
Yes I will consider it! :)
@@NahreSol Thx so much. It is really any Scriabin piece and how to manage it.
really appreciate your playing and practicing creativity
0:29 "now this may seem obvious"
Erm, I'm a beginner and haven't a flipping clue what you're on about 😬😂
I think her channel was intended to be created for collage level + up piano students wanting further study.
You are such an amazing and inspiring teacher. I love your videos.
Damn, the speed doesn't look human
I love this practice method. I'm a piano teacher (though not as good enough to play a piece like this) and I think I just found a way to improve my students' practice. And mine.
Those hands are moving so fast they are a blur!!
Beautiful approach to self improvement. I do the same but unconsciously, now taking it from you this will help me be more intentional. Thanks!
This is an unrelated comment, but have you/would you release a CD of either original compositions or established pieces? I personally think it would be really great to have a clear sense of the clearly wide array of music your capable of. Plus your pocket pieces would be fantastic to listen to independently of your videos.
I think I will by the end of the summer :) thanks!!
If you are going to do it, can you include your How To Sound Like/Happy Birthday pieces? I find it really fascinating how they are all based on the same motif(?).
@@NahreSol I am soooooooo looking forward to it!!!
I have my money locked and loaded to throw at the screen 😈
Wonderful mindful practice doctrine. This is a gem of a video. Thank you.
Ahh Ling Ling will be proud of this
you are a wonderful teacher. Happy to meat you!
This is so smart, like I wonder if a lot of people out there won't realize how much more advanced your thinking about practice is than a lot of practice advice but this is very educationally sound and thought provoking.
edit: like i can't understate how smart this is
Is this linglings mom? does she spend 40 hours a day practicing being a good teacher and a good motivational parent because that's how it feels
Wonderful! I've learned a lot of things that I really just don't care to use in my style of playing. Overtime I've learned to learn things when the time comes. To practice what I want to play, I've started composing repetitive pieces that focus on a specific technique. It's made music works a lot more progressive and fulfilling.
i just picked up the piano played guitar for 10 years or so and that s really helping thank you love from tunisia