strategies for long pieces

[anacrusis]

Having embarked on a piece which is long-ish in my terms, and challenging, I'm trying to work out how best to learn it, and wondered what everyone else does. It's a theme and variations, and each variation quotes a little chunk from the one before, but they get harder and harder to play.

Should I try to learn the lot all at once, or start with the hardest variation and hope it makes learning the rest a breeze, or do just the most difficult bits of all of them, or how? I rarely get more than a half to a whole hour at a stretch to practise...

[schubertiad]

What piece is it?

[Steve Hopwood]

Is this one of those medium-term project things, perhaps? You know the sort of thing I mean. We learn a bit, then get fed up and abandon the piece. Later we come back to it and learn a bit more etc

Trying to learn the most difficult part of the piece works well when we succeed. It is a so-and-so when mastering the toughest passages proves beyond our capabilities; we can find ourselves abandoning something we would have enjoyed playing had we not been defeated by startimg with the hardest to play bits.

In your position, I go for learning the stuff I can play easily first, then work on mastering the rest because I do not want to waste the effort I put in earlier in the process.

[anacrusis]

I've been tinkering with it for a month or two - a Jakob van Eyck piece, called something like Derde Doen Daphne d'over - the third set of variations on a Renaissance potboiler popular tune. The thing is, I can manage the first three variations well enough that I'm sure I could polish them up, the fourth is probably within reach, and the fifth will without doubt need a lot of work. It's got difficult fingerings and very fast passages which I would want to learn tongued first, and I don't really know whether I could get round it to my satisfaction or not. The dilemma therefore is - do I learn the easier bit properly, and find I don't finish learning it because the last bit is too hard, or do I take the bone-headed view that I will jolly well learn the bl**dy thing, and go for the tough bit first to ensure it happens? I really love the piece....I think, Steve, that your idea of using it as a medium-term project may well prove to be the best one.

Until today, I didn't have any particular project in mind anyway, but that looks as if it's changed since my lesson this evening .

[Steve Hopwood]

This sounds like a classic example of Steve's develop-your-technique-through-playing-repertoire philosophy.

In the same situation, I used to concentrate entirely on the difficult passages (in your case, variations). I would work at them for a few weeks, until they were as good as I could get them at the time, or I was getting fed up.

There comes a point where a variation that is too difficult to master given your current technique, simply will not improve. The secret when you reach this point is to put it away for a month, then return to it and repeat the process. Do this repeatedly until your technique catches up with your aspirations. You might return to the variation for as little as a week each time, but it will get that little bit better every time you do this.

[chocolatedog]

anacrusis said:

I've been tinkering with it for a month or two - a Jakob van Eyck piece, called something like Derde Doen Daphne d'over - the third set of variations on a Renaissance potboiler popular tune. The thing is, I can manage the first three variations well enough that I'm sure I could polish them up, the fourth is probably within reach, and the fifth will without doubt need a lot of work. It's got difficult fingerings and very fast passages which I would want to learn tongued first, and I don't really know whether I could get round it to my satisfaction or not. The dilemma therefore is - do I learn the easier bit properly, and find I don't finish learning it because the last bit is too hard, or do I take the bone-headed view that I will jolly well learn the bl**dy thing, and go for the tough bit first to ensure it happens? I really love the piece....I think, Steve, that your idea of using it as a medium-term project may well prove to be the best one.

Until today, I didn't have any particular project in mind anyway, but that looks as if it's changed since my lesson this evening .

Thought at first it was going to be a piano piece then I saw the word "tongued" - now that would be an interesting piano technique!!!!!

[anacrusis]

*wipes sticky trail off her husband's piano*

[petite joueuse]

Yes, but if you slur your tongue gets trapped between the keys!! OUCH!!

[YetAnotherKlavierist]

My technique for learning long pieces is to use a pipeline - an idea taken from modern computer processors . I see there being, roughly, three stages in learning a piece on piano:

1) Hands separately
2) Hands together
3) Increase speed and polish

I then do the following: split the piece up into chunks of a few bars long. Let's say we have four bar chunks, A-Z in order. My practice chunks would then be spent as follows:

1) A hands separately
2) A hands together, B hands separately
3) A polish, B hands together, C hands separately
4) AB polish, C hands together, D hands separately
5) ABC polish, D hands together, E hands separately

etc.

That way, I always have something to polish, something to work on getting together and something new. Helps break up the monotony.

It's only a heuristic though, and sometimes when I get to polishing a section, I'll go back to working on it slowly hands together, or hands separately etc. Also, I might have a difficult chunk on the go whilst I plough on with the rest of the piece. If all goes well, I find it to be an effective framework.

With woodwind, hands separately practice would probably sound ghastly so I wouldn't advise it . Actually, maybe it would help in certain situations, come to think of it. Or even to keep the hands on the same note and work on the tonguing and breathing to concentrate on that rather than moving ones hands. Either way, it's still possible to chunk the piece and vary practice sessions to do a bit of everything on any instrument .

[Dulciana]

I wish I could be so systematic! I tend to do what I tell my pupils not to do, which is start at the beginning and keep playing to the end! I only really focus on the polish and the very tricky bits when I have a goal or a deadline in mind. So no advice from me, I'm afraid - but YAP's is pretty good! I'm very unwilling to do seperate practice, too, unless it's something of a contrapuntal nature, in which case I have to.

[anacrusis]

Yes, hands separately is not great on a recorder ;D.
My real problem, I guess, is that the piece is a long one to learn, and I'm frightened I'll get so far and then realise I've bitten off more than I can chew after all....

_{whydidIagreewithmyteacherwhenhesaidwhatIneedtodoisanotherexamgrumblemuttermutter}

[YetAnotherKlavierist]

Just as an aside, I've done more practice since this thread started - I can't have a practice technique which is entirely theoretical .

What did your teacher suggest? Begins with an L, four letters?

[anacrusis]

Weird, I'm sure I'd posted a reply, but no sign of it. Must be the effects of blowing down an instrument at such great pressure all the time ;D.

Have been doing some practice myself this afternoon, and embarked on another big piece - "La Tempesta di Mare" by Vivaldi. Have loved this for decades, and am thrilled to find I might actually be able to learn at least some of it .

_{YAP, yes begins with L and ends with L, no thoughts about when though, thank goodness}

[YetAnotherKlavierist]

I have a recording of that on violin, if it's the same piece. Jolly good it is too .

Haven't done any practice today, whoops. Meeting up with violinist again tomorrow afternoon to work on his LTCL pieces and to start working on the Berkeley sonatina for violin and piano. Sorry, I'm taking your thread off topic here, please don't tell the moderators .

[anacrusis]

Time to resurrect this one, as it is an interesting example of Steve's "learn through repertoire" philosophy. I'd put the piece to bed for a long time, still no sign of doing another exam, though have permission for a programme now (sadly minus the Vivaldi). I've been playing all sorts of other stuff, not so very much of it with demisemiquavers or horribly fast tonguing in it, and not so very much of it really any more demanding than what I'd been playing before....

...and yet I can now play it better than I could . How does that one work?

- OK, so I learned Brandenburg 4 in the interim. A total of only two pairs of demisemiquavers at top speed, so hardly good preparation for the van Eyck, which has great big juicy splurges of them for bars at a time. Lots of arpeggios, but there aren't any significant arpeggiated passages in the van Eyck. A huge heap of major co-ordination challenges in remote keys....not directly related to the skills needed for the van Eyck, but maybe that's still somehow been a useful transferrable skill.

Or is it just playing, and playing, and playing which gradually puts a piece in reach?