Unbelievable good practice suggestions! I have been picking up my piano study again more seriously after not having studied since I graduated piano in 1991 and these videos are extremely helpful to fill in my technical gaps. Thanks so much! I subscribed even to the Piano magazine because of them!
Merci for this. Three weeks into piano lessons since my retirement, and I'm discovering a language that I never was able to speak. Very important points taken on the biomechanics of the upper extremity which is my speciality. As a Chiropractor who has suffered a major orthopedic problem in both shoulders, I changed my techniques since I could no longer manipulate. But that opened up a whole new world.
Very well presented and can be easily followed by anyone interested in playing the scales and arpeggios correctly. My piano professors in college taught me almost identical to what you recorded. It works, especially when playing the Masters of piano, Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, etc. Thank you for the video.
Thank you, Graham! I have a problem in that my left thumb is dislocated and cannot be relocated. Hence it is somewhat difficult to use as a lever. I have to use 'thumb over' to accomplish the arpeggios, but am still persevering with my scales and technical work as an amateur. You have helped me in my considerations.
There is one thing to make arpeggios a lot easier if musically feasible: Play all the notes super short and super quiet. Imagine you play c-d-e in the same octave with 1-2-3 and repeat and repeat. That is very easy to play fast and even. Now imagine at the same time, someone moves the piano sideways. Then, the c-d-e-c-d-e... becomes an arpeggio c3-e3-g3-c4-e4-g4 Practically, you just move the arm instead of moving the piano and you have your arpeggio in theory. And what makes arpeggios difficult are the obstructions to the theory: 1) The relative speed between arm and fingers wants your fingers to stay on the keyboard as short as possible 2) The spacing is not uniform, i.e., if you move your arm with uniform speed, you still need some sideways wrist rotation (vertical rotation axis) to compensate. With this technique, any other wrist rotation should be kept to a minimum (you also don't need wrist movement to play c-d-e-c-d-e) What this means practically: a) Equipment is key: You need uniform touch of the keys, and precise acoustic feedback. If you use an electric piano, reduce the release time to a minimum or even practice with clavi so that you can hear how short your notes really are. Dynamical feedback is also important which is a downside of the clavi sound. b) Practice slowly with strong accents: Play every third or fourth note with a strong accent while keeping the rest at piano/pianissimo and staccato. Also change the timing, e.g., let a short break after every accent. c) Don't hesitate to speed up occasionally (without accents) because one can do a lot wrong with the technique at slow speeds, so always check if your current technique is feasible at higher speeds. Particularly, don't do hand staccato but finger staccato at slow speeds. Also check that your wrist movement is small at slow speeds.
Another pianist said one must learn the “one cheek” method of playing the piano. He meant that we we need to move the body as best we can to keep the body in the centre of where the music has taken the hands to.
Having recently spent time in America. It is very refreshing to listen to a speaker who takes trouble to properly pronounce all of the letters in all of the words. The American way appears to be to ignore the consonants at the end of their words.
yea its certainly odd considering that the video has almost 600,00 views but most people probably just don't have the attention span to actually learn the content
