Wow, I can't believe I've never come across the 'zig-zag' method of alternating hands during practice. I'm definitely going to try this out! Many thanks Graham
I think these methods are really good for making you think about what you're playing carefully and not going on auto-pilot. I find that to be a big problem in my practice, so I think these will help me a lot.
Wow, that was an awesome lesson. It has helped me so much in my playing. Previously I could not understand why the pieces I played did not flow. Now I have a valuable tool to use to improve my skills. Thank you!
Thank you so much. Everything you said made sense. I'm going to use these two methods until I come across a problematic area I can't overcome, then i'll treat myself to part 2 of your video. Mr Graham Fitch. Will remember that name and pass it down to my children and grandchildren thank you!
It would be nice to have the sheet music on display while demonstrating. Your videos bring another perspective, another tool, to use. Thank you for that.
Appreciate Video clip! Sorry for the intrusion, I am interested in your initial thoughts. Have you thought about - Riddleagan Possessing Piano Remedy (erm, check it on google should be there)? It is a good exclusive product for learning how to play the piano easily minus the normal expense. Ive heard some unbelievable things about it and my friend Sam after a lifetime of fighting got great success with it.
The really advanced version of this is first playing only half of it and then stopping, and in the end not playing it at all - this is the ultimate challenge
I teach in a similar fashion. I like to play in between phrases, usually go over beats 34/12 to help prevent students from stopping when they get to a difficult part. Helps with flow
Dear Mr. Fitch, your expertise is wonderful and so is the idea of dividing up music into links (I will call that dumil-method) and going for "zig-zag". I am a conductor of a big band and I will try to adept your teachings for my ensemble. Thank you very much, sir.
I taught myself first with that Minuet in G. Many years later I found out that Bach didn’t write it, but Christian Petzold. Or so I was told. I about had a heart attack.
Maxcohen13, I have found that practicing with stopping on the first beat of the next bar helps with the overall flow of the piece. A number of my students seem to have practiced single bars at a time, getting great at every individual bar (which is great- much better than trying to practice a whole page at a time!) but when they'd go to play it through to me, they'd pause in between each bar and lose the flow. I don't think it's too much of an issue if, say, it's the 8th/16th bar and the end of a phrase (and there's a full beat or more of rest at the end of the bar) to practice ending on the bar, but it never hurts to practice to the first beat of the next bar, and often helps bridge bars or phrases together very neatly.
Helpful tricks. I am self-taught to play by ear and I am trying to become competent in reading score for piano. One difficulty that I have been having in focusing on single bars are tied notes from previous bars (suspensions etc.) How might I adapt these techniques for passages like that?
First of all I want to thank you Mr. Fitch about these insights into practicing. I plan to use them everyday now . When I learn new things I think about the possibility of extending the scope of the learning method. I was wondering if it would be helpful to not only count out the remainder of the bar but also count out the bar over again to contemplate how to play the entire new measure before playing it. I'm also wondering if I could apply this to practicing phrases .... to surround them by rests equivalent to the notes that would have been played. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this. The idea of reinforcing beat continuity seem very useful to me - as if I can putting a puzzle together and imaging the surrounding pieces or leaving room for them. Of course these ideas are just extensions of yours I think - so you may already do this - but the presentations are great allowing me to pay full attention to the presentation without my mind wandering. I very much enjoy your succinct presentations.
Hello, does anyone know the title of the music that is played during the intro of the video? It sounds like it’s by a 20th century English composer. Thank you in advance.
I'd like a video on practicing for the adult who plays but is not a concert pianist. I see videos for beginners, advanced, learning new pieces, scales, etc but not a typical practice routine. My repertoire has shrunk over the decades and now consists of Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Brahms, occasionally Bach or Piazzola. Does it matter if one is playing only for pleasure? I'm not even trying to memorize. Today - Rachmaninoff - Prelude E Major, C Minor, G Flat Major, Etude Tableau Op 33 No 1, no 3, Opus 39 No 2, Chopin's "25th Prelude" and two Nocturnes (Op 55 no 2, Op 62 no 2) I no longer rudge through scales but let the music give me lessons.
+maxcohen13 - one of the reasons is to help with transition. When we practice only one idea without the 'link' from one section to another, there is a pause to over come in the future. This method allows one to strengthen the part you are practicing and it's transition into the next part. If you are doing this method, you capture the first note of the next section such that when you pup the two pieces together, the transition is overcome naturally.
I think I prefer that last piece hands separately alternating bars. It can be overwhelming listening to it played hands together straight through at tempo.
Have you made a tutorial on exercises that can be done when away from the piano? I'm thinking of things to improve strength and fluidity of the fingers, hands and wrists. I'm waiting for my model O to be delivered but due to the present pandemic I am without a piano ☹️
Does this mean you have to skip bars when beginning practicing a piece? Like starting by only practicing the first and third bar (because you just count the second)? Thank you very much.
This is not the best way and not in The Tradition that produced Chopin, Liszt, Horowitz and Volondat. The first thing to know is that your memory is perfect. It needs no 'anchoring' or some other crazy psychology thing that sounds logical but is not. The best advice is that at the start of practicing a NEW piece, you never hit a key unless you are absolutely certain that it is the right one. You must take all the time you need. Fingering is less important than the right note and the right key. You should not start with trying to play a tune at speed and then reorganize it as this video suggests. That will confuse your memory. Reorganizing study material comes from psychology, they know next to nothing about learning, they just pretend to know. They try to hide it by things like this video, things that sound logical or interesting. Dump psychs and their faulty ivory tower theories, they will only confuse you. (One can hide incompetency behind a cloak of confusion put over the other person.) If you want to play a piece flawlessly at speed, start by practicing like I indicate here above. The next thing to know is that the slower you practice in the beginning, the faster you can play it in the end. (Frankly, I do not know why that is, but that is how it works.) The reasoning is that an error made when practicing in the beginning, will continue itself because it has stuck itself into memory. Contrary to what psychs say, your memory is flawless, and that is the trouble. Every single error remains in memory. That is why you must never touch a wrong key when practising a piece THE FIRST TIME. For the first time is when your memory records the pitch of the notes and the corresponding key. Capice? THe third thing you need to know is that your attention gets stuck on a point that you do not grasp. So, look over the sheet of music and search for anything that you do not know or are uncertain about of what it means. This goes for anything there is on that page, anything. It clears your mind and frees up your attention tremendously. This is the BIG MISSING DATUM in education. Psychs know it and vehemently deny its importance for anyone who ever studies like this will not be susceptable to their crazy confusing ideas anymore and so their status falls and their income as 'professor in education systems' will vanish. But you will be able to do it anyway and study with speed and make use of your perfect memory. Try my three pieces of advise and you will be able to play Gradus ad Parnassum at any speed you like in no time.
Charles van der Hoog Interesting and I was familiar with the two first points but I don't understand what you mean with the third , could you explain it more , please? Thank you, greetings from Spain
@@raquelgomezrodriguez4042 I think (but I am not sure) that what he says is that : when there is a bar or maybe 2 bars in different sides of the sheet , when you start to play , you subconsciously get anxious about that bar in the middle of the sheet that you don't know well. And what usually happens (that is from my experience) is that you may rush the easy part and not be on rhythm and get stuck in the difficult one . If you play the difficult one many times and you consider that part as an easy one too , then you get to practice the whole piece with attention to every detail and not get distracted. Hope it helps:)
There is a distinction between practice as in a dental practice i.e. noun and practise as in working at something to improve i.e. verb. In America this distinction has been lost.
I don't see how practicing one bar + one note is any different than just one bar at at time. He claims because it _"...wouldn't make much sense to stop on the last beat of the bar. It doesn't really take us anywhere."_ I get that he's trying to say it makes more sense to finish out the cadence, but practicing one bar + one note doesn't take us anywhere differently. It seems to me the point is to focus in _practicing_ the piece, not the piece itself.
as soon as he said "little minuet" i immediately knew which one he was talking about
As soon as he said “Chopin Etude op10 no5” I knew immediately which one he was talking about
Maestro Fitch , sempre illuminante; con competenza assoluta, stile ed educazione. Uno dei Grandi Maestri.
You have such command and ease of playing, strangely enough it has a calming effect.
Thank you so much for the lessons on youtube.
Wow, I can't believe I've never come across the 'zig-zag' method of alternating hands during practice. I'm definitely going to try this out! Many thanks Graham
I think these methods are really good for making you think about what you're playing carefully and not going on auto-pilot. I find that to be a big problem in my practice, so I think these will help me a lot.
I call it musical hands, lol. I'll think of it as auto pilot too now.
Thank you Mr Graham for this suggestions. It's only two years I study piano and your lessons are very precious to me. Greetings from Italy. Irene
Amazing tips! Brilliant! Thank you for sharing
Wow, that was an awesome lesson. It has helped me so much in my playing. Previously I could not understand why the pieces I played did not flow. Now I have a valuable tool to use to improve my skills. Thank you!
Thank you so much. Everything you said made sense. I'm going to use these two methods until I come across a problematic area I can't overcome, then i'll treat myself to part 2 of your video. Mr Graham Fitch. Will remember that name and pass it down to my children and grandchildren thank you!
It would be nice to have the sheet music on display while demonstrating. Your videos bring another perspective, another tool, to use. Thank you for that.
One pianist edition with Simone dinnerstein convinced me to continuing practicing and I owe my career to it now
Your career burger flipping?
@@abcd-oh2te pog
@@abcd-oh2te i used to be a concert pianist but drugs addiction got in the way, im a farmer now
@@burgerflipper2494 that sounds like an interesting story, being a concert pianist is an incredible achievement even if it didn't last forever
@@abcd-oh2te u are so weird lol
Lol I remember being SO excited about playing that minuet when I was like 8 hahaha
I remember being excited about playing it when I was 25! haha
Appreciate Video clip! Sorry for the intrusion, I am interested in your initial thoughts. Have you thought about - Riddleagan Possessing Piano Remedy (erm, check it on google should be there)? It is a good exclusive product for learning how to play the piano easily minus the normal expense. Ive heard some unbelievable things about it and my friend Sam after a lifetime of fighting got great success with it.
I was 4 when I practiced this piece. Beautiful melody.
You wanna a cookie 😂🤣
I'm just learning this now at 23 lol
The really advanced version of this is first playing only half of it and then stopping, and in the end not playing it at all - this is the ultimate challenge
You're are amazing Graham! thanks a lot for all your videos.
I applied this technique to my most familiar sheet and I was like a total noob
I teach in a similar fashion. I like to play in between phrases, usually go over beats 34/12 to help prevent students from stopping when they get to a difficult part. Helps with flow
This is very helpful, thank you.
It's a very nice video thanks for sharing
Love your series ❤️of masterclasses
Dear Mr. Fitch, your expertise is wonderful and so is the idea of dividing up music into links (I will call that dumil-method) and going for "zig-zag". I am a conductor of a big band and I will try to adept your teachings for my ensemble.
Thank you very much, sir.
This looks brilliant.. gonna try it out
I love the C minor prelude
Superbly insightful, thanks for making the video.
Oh my god, so funny to read and hear that pretty much everyone played that menuet ahah! Oh those memories from when I was about 7-8!
Very good to learn these lessions
Yes, thanks for the videos! I'm glad I found you.
This put a smile on my face. I feel inspired, this is a great tip
I hadn't thought of this at all! THANK YOU VERY MUCH AS I AM CURRENTLY WORKING ON RACH 2
Thank you, dear man. Jean-Michel of France.
Wow you play so nice
I taught myself first with that Minuet in G. Many years later I found out that Bach didn’t write it, but Christian Petzold. Or so I was told. I about had a heart attack.
Maxcohen13, I have found that practicing with stopping on the first beat of the next bar helps with the overall flow of the piece. A number of my students seem to have practiced single bars at a time, getting great at every individual bar (which is great- much better than trying to practice a whole page at a time!) but when they'd go to play it through to me, they'd pause in between each bar and lose the flow. I don't think it's too much of an issue if, say, it's the 8th/16th bar and the end of a phrase (and there's a full beat or more of rest at the end of the bar) to practice ending on the bar, but it never hurts to practice to the first beat of the next bar, and often helps bridge bars or phrases together very neatly.
thank you❤
Helpful tricks. I am self-taught to play by ear and I am trying to become competent in reading score for piano. One difficulty that I have been having in focusing on single bars are tied notes from previous bars (suspensions etc.) How might I adapt these techniques for passages like that?
I am definitely going to try zigzag today..... in Beethoven sonata 10, that is - just to get the patterns laid out on the keys.
Interesting technique. Thank you!
First of all I want to thank you Mr. Fitch about these insights into practicing. I plan to use them everyday now . When I learn new things I think about the possibility of extending the scope of the learning method. I was wondering if it would be helpful to not only count out the remainder of the bar but also count out the bar over again to contemplate how to play the entire new measure before playing it.
I'm also wondering if I could apply this to practicing phrases .... to surround them by rests equivalent to the notes that would have been played. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this. The idea of reinforcing beat continuity seem very useful to me - as if I can putting a puzzle together and imaging the surrounding pieces or leaving room for them.
Of course these ideas are just extensions of yours I think - so you may already do this - but the presentations are great allowing me to pay full attention to the presentation without my mind wandering. I very much enjoy your succinct presentations.
Sehr hilfreiche und gut erklärte Ratschläge für`s Klavierspiel.
Great exercises. Thank you!
Hello, does anyone know the title of the music that is played during the intro of the video? It sounds like it’s by a 20th century English composer. Thank you in advance.
This is the second movement of Ravel’s Sonatine :)
I'd like a video on practicing for the adult who plays but is not a concert pianist. I see videos for beginners, advanced, learning new pieces, scales, etc but not a typical practice routine. My repertoire has shrunk over the decades and now consists of Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Brahms, occasionally Bach or Piazzola.
Does it matter if one is playing only for pleasure? I'm not even trying to memorize. Today - Rachmaninoff - Prelude E Major, C Minor, G Flat Major, Etude Tableau Op 33 No 1, no 3, Opus 39 No 2, Chopin's "25th Prelude" and two Nocturnes (Op 55 no 2, Op 62 no 2) I no longer rudge through scales but let the music give me lessons.
Dude's a genius
+maxcohen13 - one of the reasons is to help with transition. When we practice only one idea without the 'link' from one section to another, there is a pause to over come in the future. This method allows one to strengthen the part you are practicing and it's transition into the next part. If you are doing this method, you capture the first note of the next section such that when you pup the two pieces together, the transition is overcome naturally.
Excelent advices, thank you!!
Beautiful
What is the name of the intro piece? I have forgotten…
I think I prefer that last piece hands separately alternating bars. It can be overwhelming listening to it played hands together straight through at tempo.
Thank youuu so much!:)
Should you already know the notes or learn them that way? i didn't understand!
I think only when you have learnt (and memorized very carefully) the notes can you do the pratice tips he suggested!
Good question ! is it a way to learn or only a reinforcement on a already knowvn piece?
@@Archeomane both depends if you are good enough to sight read
do you learn these practise routines with sheetmusic or when you already know the piece by hard?
what's the piece in the intro called? :D anybody knows??
ravel sonatine2
Have you made a tutorial on exercises that can be done when away from the piano? I'm thinking of things to improve strength and fluidity of the fingers, hands and wrists. I'm waiting for my model O to be delivered but due to the present pandemic I am without a piano ☹️
Cool!
Ivo Pogorelich on scene (?
I think Fanny Waterman suggests loosing the bar lines completely
I dont even know what he meant by the half bar and also why he did calculate 223 223 (with different numbers)
没有中文字幕呀
Any one knows the title of the 2 songs he played ?
Teo KW one of the bach's prelude and fugue
Well im late but its "Minuet G minor, BWV 114" and the second piece is the "Praeludium II" out of "Bach preludes and fugues" (48 pieces)
ive forgotten about my own comment on this video. 😅
thanks anyway.
what is his name?
If I get a grand piano I have to sleep on it. I prefer piano. My board is glitching out. Should around
This is a good way to practice.😊
You can tell by his accent he’s good at piano
Does this mean you have to skip bars when beginning practicing a piece? Like starting by only practicing the first and third bar (because you just count the second)?
Thank you very much.
No
i have accomplished that piece today..........
You look a bit like Sergei Rachmaninoff. And I am pretty sure that he would have given similar advices!
lol, who else heard the pedal creak in the intro
If you try Hawaiian shirts you’ll notice a huge improvement instantly.
So the idea is to ignore phrases and the musical idea?, i.e., basically to be as unmusical, nay, anti-musical, as possible? Awesome!
anyone here because of Anita Felix? Okay just me .-.
The FIRST thing you have to do is learn the NOTES. If you don't know what notes to play, you can't even do what you're doing. ;)
This is not the best way and not in The Tradition that produced Chopin, Liszt, Horowitz and Volondat.
The first thing to know is that your memory is perfect. It needs no 'anchoring' or some other crazy psychology thing that sounds logical but is not.
The best advice is that at the start of practicing a NEW piece, you never hit a key unless you are absolutely certain that it is the right one. You must take all the time you need. Fingering is less important than the right note and the right key.
You should not start with trying to play a tune at speed and then reorganize it as this video suggests. That will confuse your memory.
Reorganizing study material comes from psychology, they know next to nothing about learning, they just pretend to know. They try to hide it by things like this video, things that sound logical or interesting. Dump psychs and their faulty ivory tower theories, they will only confuse you. (One can hide incompetency behind a cloak of confusion put over the other person.)
If you want to play a piece flawlessly at speed, start by practicing like I indicate here above.
The next thing to know is that the slower you practice in the beginning, the faster you can play it in the end. (Frankly, I do not know why that is, but that is how it works.)
The reasoning is that an error made when practicing in the beginning, will continue itself because it has stuck itself into memory. Contrary to what psychs say, your memory is flawless, and that is the trouble. Every single error remains in memory. That is why you must never touch a wrong key when practising a piece THE FIRST TIME. For the first time is when your memory records the pitch of the notes and the corresponding key. Capice?
THe third thing you need to know is that your attention gets stuck on a point that you do not grasp. So, look over the sheet of music and search for anything that you do not know or are uncertain about of what it means. This goes for anything there is on that page, anything. It clears your mind and frees up your attention tremendously. This is the BIG MISSING DATUM in education. Psychs know it and vehemently deny its importance for anyone who ever studies like this will not be susceptable to their crazy confusing ideas anymore and so their status falls and their income as 'professor in education systems' will vanish. But you will be able to do it anyway and study with speed and make use of your perfect memory.
Try my three pieces of advise and you will be able to play Gradus ad Parnassum at any speed you like in no time.
Charles van der Hoog
Interesting and I was familiar with the two first points but I don't understand what you mean with the third , could you explain it more , please?
Thank you, greetings from Spain
@@raquelgomezrodriguez4042 I think (but I am not sure) that what he says is that : when there is a bar or maybe 2 bars in different sides of the sheet , when you start to play , you subconsciously get anxious about that bar in the middle of the sheet that you don't know well. And what usually happens (that is from my experience) is that you may rush the easy part and not be on rhythm and get stuck in the difficult one . If you play the difficult one many times and you consider that part as an easy one too , then you get to practice the whole piece with attention to every detail and not get distracted. Hope it helps:)
I hate to be that guy, but shouldn't the title say "Practicing"?
The title is correct. It's you who needs to improve your spelling.
No i'm american and we spell it practicing so i got confused
There is a distinction between practice as in a dental practice i.e. noun and practise as in working at something to improve i.e. verb. In America this distinction has been lost.
984francis Not so much lost as it has been _orwellianated_. lol
This piece is not from Bach, it is from petzold...
practicing weird
I don't see how practicing one bar + one note is any different than just one bar at at time. He claims because it _"...wouldn't make much sense to stop on the last beat of the bar. It doesn't really take us anywhere."_ I get that he's trying to say it makes more sense to finish out the cadence, but practicing one bar + one note doesn't take us anywhere differently. It seems to me the point is to focus in _practicing_ the piece, not the piece itself.
I agree.
wtf?
😂
So helpful. Thank you for this.
Great great advice. Thanks very much for this.