Adding the Human Touch - Playing Your Piano Music With Emotion

We’ve done the bulk of the work! You can play the exercise from your book. Perhaps a study piece. Or maybe you’ve been working on an entire sonata and can play it note perfect, pulse perfect and rhythm perfect!

But there’s something missing.

You head over to YouTube and listen to Barenboim play that same Beethoven sonata or Lang Lang play Debussy and it evokes something within. It creates…excitement and thrill. Tears. Maybe even laughter (mentioning no Mozart names…)…and you go back to play yours and it sounds…

…wooden. Lacklustre. Boring.

What have you done wrong?

Let’s dispel your first fear immediately:

You have done nothing wrong. In fact, you have done everything right!

Getting the notes and the rhythm engrained and performing a steady, even pulse is essentially the most important thing for performance - even for music from a later period such as the romantic period (Chopin, Schubert etc.) where rubato (a very loose, non-strict tempo and pulse) is the way forward.

Many pupils learn pieces of music from a book to begin, and these pieces of music are usually simple and designed to focus on a technique. However, they can also be great for helping develop a second nature in adding emotion to your music. So, for this blog I am going to use my own arrangement of a piece that is every pianist’s dream.

No…not Hammerklavier. Not La Campanella.

It’s… ‘Old Macdonald’s Farm’!

Have a look at the score below and try playing it through, keeping steady notes and a steady tempo.

Note how there isn’t much on the score in terms of direction of playing. We have the notes and rhythm as standard, and as for tempo and dynamic we just have our ‘starting command’ and no direction from thereon out.

Does this mean that there is no wiggle room?

Absolutely not!

Before you even try performing the music with a little more oomph, why not try filling in the score with a pencil (or on your tablet if you’re cleverer than I!) and draw in some dynamics, articulation and tempo markings of your own?

Recognising how music rises and falls from a purely visual aspect is a very strong key to this. Naturally, we already know how this fabulous song goes but if we were to look at the score purely visually we can see that the first two bars generally fall downwards and then there is a sudden rise in pitch on bar 3 - the highest pitch yet, in fact. Dynamically speaking, the most natural complement to this movement is to increase volume (crescendo) with notes or phrases ascending and vice versa. Similarly, if we were to incorporate some tempo without playing through the music first and using purely the visuals of the score to assist us, the natural response would be to accelerando (speed up) as the pitch rises and vice versa.

This, however, is not set in stone.

Play through the piece with your own sketches of dynamics etc. and see if they suit your own musical interpretation well and adjust as necessary.

Perhaps you will end up with a score that looks something like this:

So, how (and why) did we reach all these conclusions, I hear you cry!

Let’s break it down into points of consideration to help you progress to playing your own piano music with more emotion:

Dynamic

We are clearly told mezzo-piano in our original score, and this is generally the dynamic that we therefore assume throughout. However, as I always tell my pupil, dynamics have a range. It is not a staircase of dynamics where there is one level of mezzo-piano, one level of mezzo-forte etc. Consider that there is only one dynamic mark between mezzo-piano and forte, yet those dynamic ranges are quite drastically different, so there has to be more than one step!

Consider it more a sliding scale.

Therefore, without dishonouring the arranger’s (in this case it’s only me, so fear not!) original intention, we can stay well within the realm of mezzo-piano but add a swelling effect that we call, aptly enough, a ‘swell’. This is achieved by creating regular rises and falls in the dynamic - in this case a crescendo followed by a decrescendo (as implied by the ‘hairpin clips’ on the score).

Note we have broken the aforementioned logic of following the direction of the music and rising and falling with that. That’s a nice habit to get into for sight reading, but now I’ve played through the song a couple of times, I feel that these swells would (and do) work better. It’s fine to experiment!

Further to the overall dynamic of the piece, I feel that the phrases in bars 3 and 4, 7 and 8 and 15 and 16 (‘EE I EE I O’) should have a bit more prominence than the preceding phrases. Accents will help with this (the upside down triangles above the notes). I may need to practice this a few times as this requires a stronger velocity to create stronger dynamic, yet I want to try and resist pressing so hard into the key that I push into a more mezzo-forte (or even forte) dynamic as that would sound out of place!

Pedal

If you ask 99% of pianists from across all styles and standards how they add more emotion to their playing, the pedal is almost always the answer!

In particular, the sustain pedal.

Sustain pedal is often notated on music, and quite often it isn’t any more than just a ‘ped’ marking at the beginning of a piece. More advanced pieces of classical music may show a continuous line to show the exact points of rise and fall, or more basic pieces - such as this one - may use a star symbol to show when the pedal is to be lifted and then kept up - until otherwise notated.

The pedal is a very personal thing, but I always have a rule of three in my mind in that pedalling comes into its element in at least one of the following for almost every piece in which you wish to incorporate it:

1. At the beginning of every bar

2. When the chord changes

3. When the score tell you

Number 3 is our moot point here, of course, so that leaves us with 1 and 2.

Pedalling at the beginning of every bar is a great when-in-doubt approach as it will create a blank canvas at very regular intervals, meaning that discordance from resonating notes is minimised. However, the problem here is that many pieces of music change within an individual bar meaning that - fair enough, you might clear that discordance quickly enough…but - you still get the clashes!

And so, point 2 comes into play.

It can be a lot harder to pinpoint where chords change in more advanced pieces, but if you do build up your understanding of how chords work together and are arranged it can really help you later on down the line. For pieces of music such as ‘Old Macdonald’, however, the chord changes are very clear. Not only do the left hand parts look notably different to one another anyway, but the chords are actually written along the top line so we can see where we want to raise the pedal.

Now we have established this, we want to skim through and ensure there are no times when playing with the pedal would disadvantage how the music should sound.

And sure enough, bar 3 is our first example of this.

Note how in the left hand we have a crotchet chord followed by a crotchet rest, then another crotchet chord and a crotchet rest. Forgetting anything that’s happening in the right hand for a moment, if we had the pedal down for this whole bar - or even had it down with one rise for the chord change - we’d effectively (and unwittingly) change these crotchet chords into minim ones.

Is that a bad thing?

Not necessarily, but just bear in mind two things:

1. Things are scored a certain way for a reason. Whilst I am very open to interpretation, it is always best to try to honour what a score says in terms of notes, note lengths and rhythms.

   
   

2. Perhaps more importantly for this blog, we’re trying to ‘humanise’ our performance. Contrast is an incredibly strong tool. If you play with the pedal throughout the whole thing, sure it might sound nice. But by removing the pedal and giving some phrases a little more ‘breathing space’, the contrast does, in fact, have a very powerful, human effect.

Phrasing

Note how I have put slurs over some of the phrases?

This is so that I can try and keep those ones together as well as possible.

Slurs and phrase marks are interchangeable. As phrase marks they show notes that ought to group together as one and as slurs they suggest that they should be played with a certain jointedness.

But how do we help our phrasing?

Think lyrically.

This piece - and many practice pieces from beginner books - are deliberately either well-known songs or songs that lyrics are put to.

And why is that an advantage?

Because you can put some context to them and ‘sing’ them. Except you don’t want to sing them - you want the piano to!

Consider where you would join notes together, where you might not and where you would breathe (that’s right - even if a slur ties 100 bars of consecutive notes, you’re allowed to give the odd little pause providing you do so at a time that suits your interpretation of the music!)

Taking bars 1 - 4, the phrase ‘Old Macdonald had a farm’ is one phrase that all joins together beautifully. Sing it - it flows. However, ‘EE I EE I O’ I would like to interpret more as a chanted, slightly disjointed effect, therefore the phrase finishes at ‘farm’ and no phrase mark is assigned on bars 3 - 4. Because I finish my phrase at ‘farm’, I am entitled to a quick snatch of breath here - just as if I were actually singing it - and so my fingers can get away with letting go of that minim slightly early. Not so much that it reduces to a dotted crotchet, perhaps, but enough that it creates a distinction between the phrases.

Remember that I am also using the pedal on bar 1, so this will help me recognise the first half of this phrasing. Try and remember to still let your fingers do the work. Remember if I lift the pedal at the beginning of bar 2 then it’s all down to my fingers anyway, so I might as well start as I mean to go on. Remember it’s easier to just remove the pedal than it is to remove the pedal and change my finger technique.

Fingering

This isn’t necessarily one that you can do on a whim as using the correct fingers has to be learnt. You can’t effectively learn a piece of music without using the same fingers every time. And which fingers you use isn’t necessarily what feels most comfortable or natural.

Why not?

Because you can get different results by changing the fingers.

In my opening phrase, I have assigned the first 3 notes of the right hand to fingers 3, 4 and 5, although our usual instinct would be to play them all with the same finger. By doing this, I adjust the shape of my hand to allow for each finger to take it in turn to effectively stroke the note (because standard depression of the key wouldn’t be as elegant). Therefore, I get a nicer sound anyway, but consider now that I am working from a slightly stronger finger to a slightly weaker one, which will affect the tone of the notes coming out (not to be confused with the dynamic - I still want this to swell and crescendo).

Tempo

Again, we were given one very general direction - ‘allegro’. Allegro is quick. In BPM it’s quite broad, however, so we can say between 120 - 168 BPM. I would opt for around 150 personally, but remember that if we are playing this piece as an instrumental piano piece then we can also swell the tempo like we did with dynamic - pulling back and then pushing forward into and out of bars and phrases - without destroying the interpretation of it being allegro.

Before attempting this technique, it’s very important to ensure that you have a steady pulse and are able to incorporate all other techniques effectively. Try playing with the metronome first and incorporating all of the above before turning it off and trying a bit of rise and fall. You may find - quite understandably - that other things falter a bit at first. Maybe in trying to get some nice swells in tempo your dynamic struggles or your pedal is forgotten or inconsistent, but - providing you can do each thing effectively individually - it is far stronger to start bringing it all together sooner rather than later.

I have no reason to put a pause sign (fermata) on the very last note, but I felt that - as a solo piano piece, at least - this piece would ritardando (rit - slow down) very effectively. Despite a continual tempo decrease to the end, I feel that a swell in the dynamic would still work nicely for the phrase and so I shall keep this in. The fermata will justify the slowing down nicely.

Conclusion - Playing Piano Music with More Emotion

Remember that it’s essential to get the basics down first, and the basics are - quite simply - the notes and rhythm. With this, you have to be able to play your music with a good pulse, so metronome practice is essential. When you are ready to move on, try incorporating a step at a time. But remember, the sooner you start bringing it all together the easier it will be!

For a video recap, watch below:

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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How to Learn a Piece of Piano Music - from Scratch!

The trick of a good piano teacher is not to sit with their students and ensure that they leave every lesson (or every few lessons, more realistically) with a plethora of good repertoire, but moreover it is to ensure that they have all the knowledge, instincts and techniques required to learn a piece of music for themselves.

However, the thought of this can be very daunting for pianists. The idea of picking up a brand new score and having nobody there to guide them through it and give them the reassurance that they are doing everything right (even if they are overall very confident in their own abilities) can be a terrifying notion.

But there is no need to panic!

Read on for some useful tips to help you get started with learning your own piece of piano music…

1 - How to Pick a Piece of Music

It can be very tempting for us beginner pianists to strive all too quickly to something that is iconic yet ahead of our skill - even if it sounds simple, and the scores will give you a multitude of information. Thanks to these modern times, we can easily get subscriptions to the like of Musescore or Sheet Music Direct and pay a monthly fee and have unlimited access, meaning that we don’t potentially waste money on a score that’s ahead of our standard. Yet the old fashioned approach is still as strong as ever: avoid buying books online unless you already know it is within your standard. Heading over to a music shop is your best bet, have a peruse through them and use the following to help you decide if the piece is yet appropriate for you:

• What key is the piece in? - ‘Clair de Lune’ by Debussy is one of those hugely sought after pieces to play and, due to its very free tempo we can be lulled into a false sense of security into thinking it’s straightforward. However, if you look at the score, you will see at the beginning of the piece that it is a five flat key signature. Whilst it is possible to deduce the key signature here thanks to tools such as the Circle of Fifths (D♭ major), it is a key that even seasoned pianists can struggle to read. Not to mention that if you haven’t yet worked on the corresponding D♭ scale then it won’t yet feel natural to be playing there anyway. As an additional note, just because a piece of music is in a certain key signature, that doesn’t mean that it will honour the corresponding sharps or flats entirely. Scan through the piece and keep an eye out for sharp, flat and natural signs (♯ , ♭ , ♮ respectively). The odd one here and there is fine - these are accidentals. But if you feel the piece is littered with them, don’t try to be too clever too soon! Focus on enhancing your reading in the context of what you already know and what already comes naturally.

• What time signature is the piece in? - ‘Clair de Lune’ by Debussy yet again rears its head here, for anybody who looks at the score is immediately presented with a 9/8 time signature. Whilst there are ways of considering this to make it more accessible (for example, you could consider it 3/4 with each crotchet beat being broken into quaver triplets), why would you straight away? We’re looking to expand your repertoire and whilst a challenge is fantastic, we also want to develop your confidence in what you know. Simple time signatures of 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 are failsafe, but some compounds can work too if you are looking to push yourself (6/8, 12/8). Have a skim through the piece and check it for time changes too. If it changes time signature regularly and randomly, try to avoid it unless you buy it as an exercise to really help challenge and perfect your sense of pulse etc. The odd time change - even if it’s just for one bar before reverting back - is fine, but make sure you understand how that time works and sounds. For example, can you clap a bar of 4/4 followed by a bar of 7/8 compared to a bar of 4/4 followed by 2/4?

• Where are the clefs? - When we begin learning piano, treble is in the right hand and bass is in the left. Whilst this is quite standard, it isn’t uncommon for pieces of music to swap them around and have, say, both the right and left hand play in treble clef (no prizes for guessing which aforementioned piece starts like this!). This doesn’t necessarily make the piece harder to play, but be aware that it can make it harder to read. From the point of view of playing, however, have a general skim of where the notes are roughly in relation to each other. If you find that the left hand in treble clef has higher notes than the right hand in treble clef, the music may be demanding your left hand goes under / over the right hand, or possibly even encases it, depending on where the lower notes sit. Is this something you feel up to yet?

• Where do the notes sit? - I would always encourage pushing yourself in as far as understanding where the notes are on the stave, however it’s important to ensure you have complete confidence in the basic notes in the first instance. Therefore, if you are still using mnemonics or counting up from certain notes like middle C to identify notes that fit snugly on existing lines or between spaces, perhaps a piece written with many ledger lines is not for you (a ledger line is a line that goes above or below the existing stave to denote extension to the existing five lines the stave keeps us within. For example, one ledger line above the treble clef stave would be the note A if a note head were drawn so the line goes through it. Above this ledger line would be the equivalent of a space, so that would be the note B, after which you would add a second ledger line to get C etc.). A little bit of above and below the stave is fine - especially when played at intervals or chords whereby one or two notes are solidly anchored to the existing lines / spaces, but as you get used to positioning your hands within a certain register as well as reading within a certain range, try to avoid excess. NB Keep in mind that if you are nervous about playing in extreme highs and lows of the keyboard, try to avoid excessive use of clef changes in either hand (see above point) or octave symbols (8va… / 8bv…).

• What tempo is the piece to be played in? - Consider either what type of pianist you are or what type of pianist you are trying to become. Do you favour very quick pieces that demand more of your fingers or do you favour slower pieces that showcase more pedal work and allow for more interpretation between phrases? And are these favours actually achievable for you now? Going back to our friend ‘Clair de Lune’, yes it’s quite laid back in its overall tempo, however to get it to sound good requires a good dynamic control so as not to make it sound overly harsh as well as good pedal control to ensure the whole thing blends together beautifully and not (unwittingly) discordantly. Remember that slow isn’t necessarily always best. On the flip side, you may be able to play something much more upbeat such as Bach’s ‘Prelude in C Major’ - but at a steady tempo. Identify pieces that you feel are either within your current capability or ones that will encourage you to work on certain techniques more in order to achieve a good outcome.

Burgmüller’s ‘Twenty-Five Easy and Progressive Studies’ is a masterclass of music that is designed with the very purpose of helping you advance your skills in many different ways, and so to help demonstrate I am going to use one of these pieces. Arguably the most well known, the second piece: ’Arabesque’ (‘L’Arabesque’) ticks many boxes.

Have a look at the score below:

And now let’s identify the reasons why it is such as good choice in relation to the above points:

• Key Signature: This piece has no sharps or flats written into the key signature, therefore it has to be in either C major or its relative minor - A minor. We can identify that it is the latter because of its first and last chord being an A minor. Our knowledge of harmonic minors being the ‘classical’ minor implies that there may well be one sharp - a G# (the raised seventh) - yet even this only appears twice in the left hand. There are, of course, another couple of accidentals but overall very few.

• Time Signature: Not only is this in the simple time signature of 2/4, but it also stays in this time!

• Clefs: Whilst the clef in the left hand does change from the bass to the treble about halfway through for three bars, we can clearly see that the note position is lower than that of the right hand - which is still in treble clef. Therefore, there is no awkward hand position here. In fact, if you consider where the equivalent notes would be on the bass clef, we would be using excessive ledger lines. We can already see in the bar before the change that there are ledger lines at play, so the clefs are actually being changed for ease of reading the notes on the stave rather than for any drastic change in register.

• Ledger Lines: There are plenty of ledger lines in the right hand at the beginning and end, but if you note the pattern you will observe that they are all consecutive runs up to them from notes that don’t sit all that far above. Therefore, we’re not going to be intimidated by them.

• Tempo: Allegro is, of course, fast, but the semiquavers that really do hold the bulk of that speed are performed in the same vain as pentascales - one finger per note. The quavers won’t be much of a challenge when divided into the bar and the majority of the left hand is vamping chords anyway, so quite easy.

How To Start Learning a Piece of Piano Music

1 - Identification

One great trick towards learning any piece of music is that of identifying things. Have your pencil (and rubber) at the ready as it is worth noting things on as you discover them, and the reinforcement of writing things rather than just thinking them all help go towards it being second nature.

Try to identify the following:

Structure and Rhythm

This is a really powerful one, and in particular with classical music it is a tremendous help! Classical music bases itself around themes, so even when you have sonatas and ballads etc. lasting 20 minutes, you will find the same theme recurring throughout. Granted, it won’t always be a note for note repeat, but have a look through because anything you can hold onto will help make your life easier for learning it.

In ‘Arabesque’, let’s consider bar 1 to be where the repeat mark is (the first two bars we’ll just consider introductory bars for the left hand). Are bars 1 - 8 ever repeated anywhere else?

Well, cast your eyes down to just over halfway down the page - where the text says ‘In Tempo’ (bar 18 according to our counting) we start to repeat. But beware, it is only the first four bars that is a direct repeat. Bars 5 - 8 and bars 22 - 25 are similar, but a variation of one another. The rhythm is almost identical - obviously bar 6 shows a quaver followed by quaver rest followed by crotchet, compared to bar 23’s two crotchets, but that’s more related to note length than rhythm.

Now that we’ve identified that it is effectively ternary form (Theme A, Theme B, Theme A) - although the repeat of theme A is variated slightly - we can shift our attention into the middle section.

The middle section - starting at bar 10 - is a different rhythm, although again we can identify similarities between the first six bars in that they all have the same rhythm of a dotted crotchet followed by a quaver in the right hand and a run of four semiquavers and a quaver (or two quavers for bar 15). Try to get a feel for how this rhythm differs from the rhythm before it - use just one note on the piano and take a hand at a time (or you could even just clap the rhythm to begin) and just get a feel for the difference.

One technique that is often powerful for creative learners (young learners especially like this!) is to think of lyrics or words that fit. They have to work with the rhythms and tempi. For example, the run of five notes in the A section (such as bar 1, bar 2 etc.) couldn’t easily fit the word ‘apocalyptic’ to them as it’s the wrong emphasis despite having five syllables. ‘Beneficially’ on the other hand, would work much more smoothly. Similarly, when putting words to phrases such as those in section B - a dotted crotchet followed by a quaver - a two syllable word such as ‘hello’ doesn’t gel due to the lack of need to extend the first syllable. ‘Childhood’, on the other hand, would fit much better.

Notes and Harmony

Are you happy with the structure and rhythm?

Marvellous - remember that rhythm is 50% of the battle with music, and if we don’t get some idea of that to begin with then it can come crashing down on us once we start to play the notes.

However, let’s not just try to sight read it. We’re still in identification mode, remember.

Take a look at the opening chords in the left hand.

What notes are they?

By rights, you should know that the top line of a bass clef is A, yet you may have had to do a little working out and counting up to find the next two line - C and E. This creates an A minor triad.

Try to find the other chords using the principal of not counting up from the A (or whichever note you feel comfortable starting with) but instead working from the start through the passage and identifying the movement of the notes. We have this same A minor triad for the opening 2 bars and then bars 1 - 2, but then in bar 3 we have a slight change. Identify that the note on the bottom stays the same, whereas the top two notes have just moved up one into where the spaces would be. Anybody with a knowledge of the alphabet could identify these three notes as A - D - F, but don’t just think of it as three individual notes. Ask yourself what that creates. Yes, it’s a chord, but what chord?

Answer: D minor second inversion.

Remember that we are in the key of A minor and look at the following four bars.

Bar 5 changes the A minor triad that we have reverted to in bar 4 by one note - the bottom note of A drops down to the space below, creating G - C - E. This creates a C major second inversion.

What’s interesting about this is it suggests a modulation to the relative major - because the halfway point of the whole 8 bar phrase begins with the relative major chord and then the dominant seventh of this chord - G7 - fall typically within a C major key and not an A minor key.

Granted, this is all academic and may not assist your playing of it right now, but it’s worth taking everything into account that you can and try and study the music as you learn it as it does help it to stick.

In the right hand, as already identified, we have very rapid semiquaver passages. But - as already identified - they are consecutive note (stepwise). If you can identify the first note of each group and which finger to play them with, you should easily be able to follow up and down using just white keys (remember there are no sharps or flats in the key signature).

The exact same principle applies for the middle section, but you’ll just need to tweak it according to what needs to be done.

Dynamics, Repeats, Tempo and Articulation

This is more your opportunity to research before you start playing. Do you know what ‘allegro scherzando’ means? How about ‘poco rall’? Are they easy to spot as you play?

If you don’t know what they mean, find out and - if it helps - write on. If you know what they mean but feel you may miss them, highlight them or circle them to make more of a point of them.

This exact same principle needs to be applied to dynamic markings too.

Do you recognise all the symbols throughout the piece? For example, the little upside down triangle over the opening chords (staccatissimo)? Or the semicircle with a dot above the final chord in both hands (fermata)? Have a read up on what they are and - if you are unsure - have a listen to interpretations of the piece you are playing, or look up on YouTube etc. to see if there are any tutorials designed to help you perfect the technique. Don’t assume that just knowing what they are will result in flawless execution of them within the piece - don’t be afraid or put off at the idea of having to do some external exercises to help assist with them.

Always check for repeat marks before you start playing, and be aware of 1st time / 2nd time markings in advance so they don’t sneak up on you. This is especially important if you have music that crosses a page / pages, as there’s nothing worse than scrabbling about trying to find where you are going back to or jumping ahead to!

2 - Put Fingers to Keys

The first trick to playing your piece of music is to play it slowly. Whilst this is often a challenge in its own right, it still gives you time to think about what you are doing and how you are doing / going to do it.

Don’t be tempted to tense up just because you’re going slower, mind. Keep a fluid performance.

Listen carefully to what you are doing and try to identify problem areas - or areas that you believe will be problematic when you attempt to play at tempo.

Isolate problem areas and turn them into exercises. For example, if you haven’t much fluidity or evenness in your right hand semiquaver runs, take out the left hand and just repeat - for example - bars 1 and 2 over and over again to help loosen up the fingers. This can be a strong warm up.

Make sure that dynamics are brought in sooner rather than later. It is harder to unlearn dynamics from a piece you have established quite well and try and put the correct ones in than it is to try and put the correct ones into a piece that you don’t know properly yet. This way, it all progresses together. This is, to some extent, true of tempo as well.

However, with tempo be aware that practising different parts at different speeds can lead to disjointedness. No matter how fast you can take, say, the middle section compared to the opening section - don’t. Not unless you’re playing the whole piece at that same speed to try and build up the overall performance. For the sake of practice however, keeping each section moving at the same tempo and into each other will allow you to get a consistent pulse and - eventually - a much smoother and cleaner transition between them.

Try to memorise as much as you can as you learn. This doesn’t mean learn to play it by heart necessarily, but in the same way that we have established some tricks to help you secure the rhythm and the notes / chords, try to remember which ones come where, which notes move where - rather than relying on reading each note individually as it comes. This is yet another powerful tool towards fluidity.

Most of all, however, enjoy!

Psst...if you'd like a video recap, here it is:

In fact, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep up to date with that too!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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#pianoteacher #learnpiano #beginnerpiano #pianomusic #learnmusic #pianolesson

Five Gimmicks to Avoid When Learning Piano

It’s tempting to be swayed into taking the so called ‘easy road’ when learning piano, and time and time again I see things that claim to help beginners in their learning and their progress when actually they can be more of a hinderance.

For those of you thinking of starting - and for those of you already on your way - please try and steer clear of the following:

1 - The Ridley Method

I don’t strongly object to online courses such as those developed by Stephen Ridley in which he teaches you four chords and then teaches you how to embellish them, but ultimately it is setting you up for one thing and one thing alone: a party trick.

Yes, you can impress your friends.

No, a course such as this won’t:

• Improve your understanding of music (including theory)

• Develop your ability to read music

• Focus on proper technique to aid your progress beyond the course’s intention

• Teach you much that is worthwhile to play on its own anyway

Alternative: If you like the idea of learning online / digitally, there are a plethora of apps available to download onto your phone or tablet that can assist. I personally have heard great things about Simply Piano, which opens up a much greater learning opportunity. It should still be noted, however, that you need to source something that will help you focus on getting the right technique and contextualising the music you are learning to help develop your instinct and ear. In other words, apps are a great kickstart but to get the best from them you really need to use them alongside a piano teacher.

2 - Learning Piano with Note Labels

Last year I taught a lady who was suffering with dementia, and I have to say that - whilst the intention of the lessons were to keep her mind active and both myself and her daughter had resolved that she wouldn’t be able to learn the piano in a conventional way - these labels were incredibly useful.

However, I bought them solely for that purpose.

The cognitive approach to learning anything is that you need to give yourself the opportunity to at least try and remember, and all these labels will do is create a safety net that you can continually reference - even if you don’t recognise yourself doing it.

Therefore, when you remove them (or worse - try and play on someone else’s piano and you don’t have them to hand!) then it can be a significant obstacle. The best thing that you can do is actively learn the notes to begin with.

Alternative: If you are struggling to learn the note names, try one of these whiteboards instead. Before a practice session, write the names of the notes on the keyboard to help secure them in your mind (start in different places each time and try going out of order too!), then if you still require a prompt keep the whiteboard on your music stand / on the wall / on top of the piano for easy reference should you need it. This way, as you look at the keys you aren’t automatically being spoon-fed the information and you can look up only what you need to - and what you do look up is information that you’ve worked out for yourself in the first instance!

3 - Hand Correctors

Spectacularly big no no from me!

Picture the scene: your hands are unique. There is literally not a single pair of hands in the world like yours. Even your two hands aren’t exact mirror images of one another.

Even if you were to meet somebody whose dimensions were exactly the same, you have to take everything into account:

• Your own finger strength

• Conditions that may affect your playing (tendonitis, arthritis etc.)

• Your overall body heat

• Your height and arm length and how this affects the angle of your arm against the piano

On the basis that I have never in my life seen a ‘custom made hand corrector’, I think it’s safe to assume that it is potentially not only a hinderance to you - but actually dangerous - to consider using hand correctors. Especially if you practice and play a lot.

Alternative: At the risk of sounding boring, there isn’t really a better alternative than practising and just getting it right to begin with. You’ll find what works for you. Exercises such as scales and arpeggios and development exercises such as those laid out by Hanon and Schmitt are great starting points for beginners, but the general rule is that if your playing is causing you pain (not to be confused by fatigue if you play a lot which is, I dare say, a lot more normal) then revert back to some basis exercises and pieces and really try and focus on the angle and movements of your hand to ensure minimal strain.

4 - Finger Exercisers

The difference between finger exercisers and hand correctors is that hand correctors put your whole hand into the correct place whilst you play (theoretically) whereas finger exercisers are often portable little tools that you can use to keep your fingers moving. They often have buttons that you click down and make little exercises with - rather like a slightly more sophisticated fidget toy.

And what is wrong with that?

Aside from a repeat of all points above (not catering for everybody’s different fingers, conditions etc.) it actually doesn’t do much good by way of improving the fingers because the motion required of the fingers is very different to the motion required when playing piano. These exercisers rely on you pressing the button down as if it were a button or a valve on a trumpet, whereas - as we know - correct depression of a piano key rarely comes from the fingers alone but from a combination of arm position, wrist movement and then finger strength.

Alternative: Again, I could just repeat the points above and suggest using finger exercises on the actual piano itself seeing as that is the actual instrument that you actually want to strengthen your fingers for (!), and whilst this is true, I will just take the opportunity to throw in the need to keep the wrist exercised and a PowerBall is a great tool for this. The combination of keeping fingers agile and the wrist strong is your best bet at progressing.

5 - Music Stands

This one I put out there to all pupils learning on keyboards and digital pianos. After all, a music stand isn’t actually a gimmick. But…read on!

Unfortunately, thanks to the the way that everything now is a ploy to get you to spend more money, your will find that entry level keyboards and digital pianos usually already force extra investment from you nowadays in the form of a speaker / amp (even if they have them built in, they usually sound poor) and a proper pedal (they usually come with a foot switch).

Increasingly, however - and largely due to the fact they many of these keyboards and digital pianos are being used for live performance, I reckon - they don’t come with a music stand built in.

Here’s what you need to know when learning piano:

A music stand is one of the most fundamental things you can have!

If you are learning on a keyboard or digital piano that doesn’t have a music stand, it’s time to invest in one. Consider it an investment as if you are serious about learning piano then you will be getting a better instrument anyway. The extra money will buy you better sound quality, better pedal, better speaker quality and a music stand which will give you a much better piano playing mindset that trying to squeeze one in behind your existing digital piano.

Alternative: Literally a keyboard / digital piano with a music stand built in!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

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