Purple Day - Tuesday 26th March 2024

As Easter approaches, I think back to Easter of 4 years ago - in particular Good Friday 2020. This was a very different Easter for me, as it was about to change the course of my life.

Prior to this, I had assumed (as many do) that epilepsy was a condition that always manifested as a big seizure (a tonic clonic) and usually (if not always) as the result of lights flashing or photosensitivity.

In a way I'm a bit annoyed that I didn't realised until the day itself (today - Tuesday 26th March 2024!) that it is Purple Day, as I might have been able to organise something such as an event or other fundraiser, or thought of a more ingenious way to spread awareness than putting it onto my blog.

However, here we are, and for what it's worth, I'd be delighted to share with you my experience of Good Friday 2020 in the hope that it might not only educate those who were as unknowledgeable as myself, but also perhaps help some people identify that they, too, may be affected by epilepsy.

"Jerky Hands"

For years and years, I had been plagued with a slight something that I dubbed as my 'jerky hands'. These were involuntary spasms that often affected me in both hands and they would crop up daily - several times a day. They were at their most frequent when I was doing something considered 'hands on' (such as playing the piano, inconveniently!), but I never thought much of it. I actually thought it was normal - that everybody got them.

The sensation was a little sharper than you may expect when I say that it was just that my hands 'jumped away' from certain situations, and it was always accompanied by a little shock in the brain. Not a painful one, mind, but just the type of thing that made me have to reassess where I was up to, what I was doing for no more than a second afterwards. Nonetheless, this is not a good situation for anybody who requires any amount of concentration and fluidity (such as somebody who plays the piano!) - and I did identify that my jerky hands were indeed enhanced, for want of a better term, in one of two instances;

• Stress and / or concentration - contextually, learning a new piece of music could be a nightmare for me!
  

• Alcohol. This one stands to reason, but I have somewhat amusing memories of a different Good Friday making a Simnel Cake and throwing half of the batter around the kitchen rather than in the tin. A worse case of jerky hands than normal, almost certainly down to the after work party we had on the Thursday!

Astonishingly, I never connected any dots. Stress is unpleasant and I figured that if we put ourselves through it, of course it's going to manifest badly somehow. So even if I hadn't considered that the jerky hands specifically were normal, I was on track for assuming that everybody had something as an outlet. And I considered the alcohol thing just stood to reason - probably still does. Alcohol has an uncanny ability to enhance pretty much everything we go through, good or bad.

Good Friday 2020

You must remember that by the time it got to Good Friday 2020, the UK (and the world, frankly) was in a state of misery at having been locked down for the first few weeks. People couldn't go anywhere - not even to work in many cases.

So I figured I'd bring a bit of cheer to people by asking them on Facebook to name me a song that brought them joy and then when I had enough I'd record a medley of me playing through them.

A fairly simple task, especially seeing as the list was made up largely of nice, simple pop songs. From 'Things Can Only Get Better' to 'In My Life', 'Hold On' to 'Three Little Birds' and from 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' to 'Go Your Own Way', this was not a difficult challenge.

So I wired my electric piano into the laptop (luckily, for a microphone would have picked up some soon to be rather unsavoury language - by my standards, anyway!) and set out to recording a melody. What was supposed to be a one take wonder had to be done in many takes and frankly it didn't work.

But because my laptop was recording this video to be uploaded to Facebook to bring a smile, I was able to put together this montage of highlights of me suffering more than I had ever suffered with my jerky hands. Note also, I was getting increasingly stressed and the more I failed to play, the more I concentrated, so that wouldn't have helped either:

Well, this went on for about an hour and I would love to be able to say that I just shut the computer down and decided to come back to it. But me being stubborn and determined that people would have a smile raised at the beginning of their Easter weekend I persisted. Or I tried.

And then I had a complete manifestation of all the warning signs of that past hour - a tonic clonic seizure.

Whilst I do remember the first second or two of the actual seizure itself (somewhat like being in the electric chair, I imagine...), I was grateful that I was unconscious for most of it. And a lot of the aftermath too. First thing I remember is 'waking up' lay down in an ambulance (apparently I'd been talking to the paramedics and even walked myself to the ambulance - who knew?!) being waved goodbye to by my parents. My neck was hurting because evidently I'd fallen backwards off my stool onto the floor, and then straight onto A & E.

Fortunately, I wasn't an urgent case. However, unfortunately for the time this was (COVID), non-urgent cases were extremely low priority. I did, therefore, spend a night in hospital where I was extremely well looked after and fed, sparingly using my phone to save battery (good job I had it - but nobody was allowed to bring me a charger in because of isolation!).

Aftermath

I was initially put onto an extremely high dose of Levetiracetam. I would argue an uncomfortably high dose! The purpose of the medication kicked in right away and suddenly all these jerky hands were at bay. And to be honest, I wasn't necessarily happy about this. In a daft way, it felt like losing an old friend. More interestingly, my brain was still very aware of the need to spasm, got me prepared and then...nothing. Being a completist, this was most inconvenient! However, I got used to it.

I was signed off work for a few days because although I went back on the Tuesday (I worked in the medical centre, so was still fortunate enough to be able to go to work), this was just enough time for the side effects of Levetiracetam to kick in. And this included drowsiness and, as I like to say, 'zombification'. I could barely walk in a straight line and not half as fast as I used to, but interestingly my mind was incredibly active. More-so than ever before. I was requesting to watch films that were much more complex than my usual choices as a means to unwind (I think 'American Psycho' was watched), and I found that I was able to write an entire suite of music because my concentration had drastically improved. My mind was sharp, but it couldn't effectively translate to the rest of me!

Naturally, this led to further consultations and I was moved off that medication to Lamotrigine which cancelled out all the side effects but also cancelled out the effectiveness of keeping little jerks at bay. So I was put onto Sodium Valproate (Epilim), which I remain on.

But in the midst of all this, I sent the consultant the video I put together and asked if this were a warning sign. And he simply referred to them as myoclonic seizures. And so it turns out I'd been having mini seizures for several years! He also referred to 'focal seizure manifestation' - in other words it happens when I concentrate. Something I knew but never considered a condition.

Which opened my eyes to epilepsy. And whilst I'm grateful that it is very much under control, I still do think it is something that we can all learn more about and help to assist people with. I'm OK - aside from the one big seizure my life was hardly debilitated to begin with. However, they were often annoying and inconvenient, and when they were bad they could be preventative of certain things. So if you recognise anything from above in yourself then;

• listen to your body and don't push yourself to the extremes of stress and

• Speak to a GP and see if you can be referred to an epilepsy specialist or neurology clinic.

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#purpleday #epilepsy #pianist #pianoplayer #macclesfield

"8 Effective Practice Techniques for Musicians: How to Perfect the Art of Practising"

You did, in fact, read that correctly!

How many times do you as a pianist - whether beginner, intermediate or advanced, sit down at the piano with the intention of practicing (i.e. not performing or playing) and just stare blankly at your instrument. Or the four walls. Or maybe you just go down a rabbit hole of guilt-playing. That's when you play music because you feel you ought to be, but the intention is no longer there and you're doing it just to fill the audible silence that otherwise pierces the space?

If you have never and do never do this, chances are you're already past the need of reading this article.

But...if you have had this happen to you just once, maybe you just need a read through of the following tips and tricks to help you prepare for your practice sessions and get the most out of them.

Find a Regular Practice Slot

The first thing you need to establish is when you are going to devote to practice. We all lead busy lives - even those of us fortune enough to work as a musician may find it difficult to fit in the time - but practising is something that we should benefit from twofold:

• we should enjoy our practice and

• we should be better as a result of our practice

Regularity does not have to mean daily, although it should be noted that the more you practice, the more you will pick up and learn, reinforce or develop a piece, technique or skill that you are working towards. Our subconscious minds are continually being proven as amazing things - sometimes we can push ourselves so hard in a practice slot that by doing another one too soon after we can overload (even if we practice and reiterate the same things!) - so a break between can sometimes be good. However, humans are also creatures of routine. Thus, if you say you're going to practice Monday, Wednesday and Friday...best try sticking to that as closely as possible!

The second step towards regularity is to do with the time of day in which you practice. This is well worth playing around with and trial-and-erroring to make sure you get the best out of it. For me, personally, first thing in a morning. If I start the day with some technical exercises, I am then motivated to keep practising to develop other pieces I am working on. This isn't to say I can't sit down at a piano in the afternoon - but my focus is completely different.

And believe me - I'm not what you would class a typical 'morning person'!

But doing it first thing with a fresh (if sometimes initially tired!) mind stands me in much better stead. This may not be the case for you of course, but don't forget that it's worth bearing in mind. Practice may be more or less productive for you following two hours of casual playing. It may be more or less productive before or after a day's work (if your neighbours can tolerate it!). But this is really the first obstacle you need to overcome: when?

Structure Your Time

OK, we now have our slot! Excellent news.

What next?

Well, we need to establish how long we're going to spend overall practising. And this varies between person and between standards.

As a general rule I would recommend a 30 minute practice session for an absolute beginner at any one time, whereas those more advanced may spend several hours every day practising. There is an element of trial and error here, too, but ultimately you mustn't forget that we're not talking about playing for fun. We're talking about very focus driven practice here. We can all play for hours on end exploring and learning and playing over and over some nice pieces we enjoy, but practise sessions are a somewhat different ball game.

Now let's work with our 30 minute benchmark (great for the absolute beginner).

How do we structure this?

Your piano teacher will probably be going through things with you and giving you a clear idea as to what you need to focus on, but as a general rule we all have the following things we need to work on:

• technical exercises

• pieces of music

• music theory

Technical exercises are the like of scales, arpeggios, broken chords and - moving into more intermediate / advanced territory - dominant and diminished sevenths, chromatic scales and finger strengthening and independence exercises.

Pieces of music refer to pieces that are in the workbook from which you are working - specifically music that has more contradictory structure between the two hands as well as more discernible melody than technical exercises. Naturally, if you are working towards exams, these will be your grade pieces.

Music theory relates to your understanding of absolutely anything that comes from a working knowledge of music before you even touch the keyboard. How do you know which note is which on the keyboard? How do you know which note is which on the stave? How do you know how quickly to play a piece of music? How can you transpose a piece from C major to D major without the sheet music? A lot of people are tempted to skip past music theory, but it really is an essential part to being the best pianist you can be.

The most obvious division between these three areas is 10 minutes, 10 minutes and 10 minutes if we are looking at a half hour practice session. This may work well, but make sure you are continually aware of what goes well and what goes not so well. If your scales are effortless but a piece you are learning is flawed, just reduce the scales to 5 minutes and have 15 on the music. If you can play a piece of music really well but don't understand fully how the score represents it, replace some (if not all) of your time studying the score and working it out. Don't be tempted to ask your teacher to explain everything, or to Google for advice. Working things out of your own accord is one of the strongest learning tools there is.

Make sure that you give yourself a fair dedication across the week of practice to all areas. If you do substitute music theory for playing one day, make sure you play more the following. Better still, move onto a brand new piece and put your newfound reading music skills to the test!

Write Down Goals

Just head over to Amazon and type in 'music practice journal' or such as the like and you will be treated to a wide array of choice. And these are fabulous because they really do work.

But scientifically (apparently!) we actually respond better for the sake of writing things down anyway. So even if you just write your goals on the back of a napkin (as some of the best ideas allegedly were) you will be well in the running for success!

But you need to ensure that your goals are achievable.

If you have just started learning a piece of music that spans 10 pages and is rather complex (Rachmaninov, Chopin etc.) then your goal by the end of the week may not be to have learnt it. Perhaps you would like to play with reasonable fluidity to the end of page 1. Maybe you would like to play each hand separately to the end of page 1. Maybe you would like to have learnt the first 2 bars. It really doesn't matter as long as it is achievable for you - you know how much you may be able to achieve by the end of the week.

One reason why practice journals are so good is because they provide a sort of permanent record of your achievement, and if you don't set yourself achievable goals then you're going to be looking back at all the goals you set and consider yourself having failed at. The truth is...you're not failing. No degree of improvement - no matter how small - is a failure, in fact. And nothing boosts morale, motivates more and just encourages you to keep going than being able to put several ticks against several things. And if you forget something by the time you get to your next practice session? Not a problem - that's your new goal. 'Relearn / Revise this particular passage...' for example.

Re-emphasise or Push Yourself?

Ah, now we get down to the nitty gritty of what transforms a 'practice session' into an actual practice session - and it is so simple that I can't believe it took me so long to realise. And I wish someone had told me sooner.

Practising a piece of music is not about playing it over and over again so that it sticks. Practising is about honing in very specific parts or passages with the intention of getting them performed to the best of your ability.

And it was only when 'practising' scales the other day that I realised this. I don't do scales every day. I do, however, do some sort of warm up every day (technical exercises etc.). So what I had a scale session, what I would do is put the metronome on and play through, say, all the major scales hands together. Maybe play one a couple of times until I got it right. Then moved onto the next.

But I never actually appreciated why I was getting any of them wrong.

PLUS - they never got any better than the stale way they were.

I have been studying so hard as to ways to develop scales since this lightbulb moment and I have been spending 15 minutes at a time focusing on individual octaves in one hand and working on building up comfort and speed - with and without metronome. Getting the thumb under at the right time, moving the fingers into place so I can comfortably continue. Studying my own performance and recognising where I could either feel or hear (if not both) where the drags were. For example, descending in the left hand was almost always more slugging and a bit less regimented - even at the comfortable speeds I'd been playing all through my life.

There is a time to play through your scales and your pieces fully (read on) and a time to really pick them apart. And - surprise, surprise - a practice session is a time to pick them apart!

Identify Pain, Problems, Discomfort and Error

This ties very much into the previous point. If something hurts - why? If something is disjointed, uneven or uncomfortable - why? If you are playing something wrong - why?

Sometimes the answer is not as easy to solve as just slow it down a few times to practice playing the passage or exercise with alleviated tension, so don't be afraid to seek advice from your teacher. Hand position, wrist action (or lack of), fingering etc. may all be the case, and your teacher might further be able to recommend exercises to help alleviate and progress through the problem. If they do, wonderful - schedule it into your practice session! Write a goal in your journal such as 'practice playing ... with emphasised wrist movement' or whatever you need to write.

Unfortunately, pain and discomfort are part and parcel of the practice process. However, the more you work with them the more your technique will develop around them, leading to minimal tension and pain during your actual performances.

Schedule Breaks

Even if you are only working to 30 minutes, you need to schedule at least one break. A break doesn't have to be long. In fact, little and often does well. I like to work with a 5 minutes per 15 minutes structure and it works well. Not only does it help to rest your hands - particularly important if you've been pushing them for the sake of learning an awkward exercise of passage of music - but it actually helps to refocus the brain.

I dare say that you can reward yourself in breaks too. I find a cup of tea on about my third break is always very welcome!

Of course, there are many things you can do to help during your break that aren't specifically related to playing the instrument. You may find stress balls, hand massagers, power balls, heat pads / warm water and even exercise help! Just make sure that you at least give your hands a few minutes to themselves, whatever else you do with them in your break!

Play for Leisure at the End

This is so, so important.

You have got to resist the urge to get carried away and just start playing the piece the way you enjoy playing it during your practice session. Save it all up for the end! We have now entered...rehearsal mode! And rehearsal mode is going to be used interchangeably here with leisure mode.

Everything you have been practising (technical exercises and entire pieces - or as much of them as you have so far learnt) - go for them! But don't just go for them thinking you can stop and start and correct. Consider that you are now in rehearsal mode. Rehearsal mode is different to practice mode because you are no longer focussing on individual aspects of a piece to develop them. You are practising the entire performance of the piece and you need to put the pressure on yourself to keep moving through it with minimal - if any - stops and mistakes (and if you do make mistakes, practice working through them rather than being tempted to stop and go back!).

Rehearsal is the last step for you before you are let loose with a piece of music, so it is in your interest to develop it into the best performance you can. However, there is one final test that you can do to ensure you're up for the job when all your practice sessions towards a particular piece have paid off...

Perform for a 'Crowd' or a Camera

Note the inverted commas on crowd!

Because crowd can be one person.

And if you live alone, set up a camera or your phone and video yourself.

The pressure that you put yourself under in your rehearsal sessions is somewhat superficial - you know you're only accountable to yourself. But, much as audiences are almost always forgiving, you will feel greater pressure playing for even just one other person - or harder yet - recording (I wrote a whole blog on how difficult recording is!)

Parents - be prepared to go to your child at the end of a session and ask them to perform (note perform - not play!) what they have been practising. Ask your husbands and wives, children or flatmates! Don't be shy - even if they really couldn't care less, this is about you getting into the feel of the situation!

That pressure can translate to your performance, but ultimately you have to remember that if you do consider yourself to have made an absolute mess of it, you probably just haven't focused your practice correctly.

Go back to the top of the blog and re-follow the steps and - when you feel ready - try again. Don't forget that even if you're not getting it right, playing with an audience or to a camera is still a great confidence builder for when you really do feel ready to do it!

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#piano #pianist #pianoteacher #pianotutor #learnpiano #pianopractice #pianotips #pianoblog #musicblog #musician #learnmusic #music #instrument

"Which is Best for Musical Mastery: Self Teaching or Private Piano Tuition?"

It seems like a bit of a no brainer - given that I myself am a piano teacher - that it may well be in my best interests to promote the services that can be provided by people such as myself in your journey of piano and musical discovery. However, an alarming number of those who are self teaching are doing so not because of how casually they wish to learn (casual learning is absolutely fine) but instead because of how sure they are that they don't require the services of a piano teacher (i.e. they believe that self teaching is sufficient to get them to achieve their goals that me not, in fact, be as achievable as they believe because they are relying on themselves).

I'm not here to argue about the financial burden of music tuition. Yes, it is pricey. Yes, you may leave some lessons feeling like you've been overcharged because your results might not be immediate. However, let's explore the reason why piano (and other instrumental and vocal) tutors charge what they do - and why it is, in fact, best for you to utilise the services of one to progress your piano learning and ability.

Discipline

We'll start with a very simple one.

If you are learning an instrument, you'll ultimately be doing it for yourself. And if you decide to self teach then that's a great start, however the only person you'll ever need to please is...yourself.

This obviously sounds desirable, but when it comes to the practicality of learning it actually has its limitations;

Being disciplined is not just a case of setting a timer for 30 minutes a night to practice. It isn't even just the habit of goal setting and achieving. It actually relates a lot more to the structure of your lesson schedule. Let's say, for example, that you have a weekly lesson (which is fairly standard). Now you have a job to do. Aside from the fact that you have a week following your lesson to practice and learn things covered in that lesson, you have the motivation of being able to do it for somebody else as well as yourself - so that they too can be pleased with the progress.

I can't begin to tell you how rewarding it is to see improvement in my pupils!

This is why the teacher / pupil relationship is so important; you need to be learning with somebody who encourages and is always on your side. If they are, you'll want to do well for them. It's a simple trait human nature but in the context of learning really does reward!

If you're worried about the notion that motivation alone will not improve your standard, read on;

Habits

I'm sure you've heard this one mentioned many, many times.

Let's say that you're learning from a book. Let's say that the book has one diagram to reference for how your hands should be positioned at the beginning of a piece. There you are, that's your starting point. Now play the following piece and...well, hand position may never be mentioned again.

Your book propped up on the music stand won't stop you to correct hand position if it falls or falters, 'nor will it be able to advise on a better fingering technique if you're either not following the one set (whether deliberately or not) or struggling with it. The book can't hear how quietly you interpret piano, 'nor how cleanly you lift the pedal between measures.

But a piano teacher...well, they can!

And not only can they tell, but they also know what to do either correct it, otherwise know exactly how to go about telling you to work on it (adjustments to technique don't necessarily come straight away, although I dare say if a pupil has very bad technique some adjustments do create a 'lightbulb moment'!)

Don't forget, we learn our technique too, so we know what we're talking about. And the sooner technique etc. is corrected and perfected, the more naturally you will progress through different stages of complexity.

Secondary Ears

This ties loosely into the previous point, and actually it isn't exclusive to beginner pianists. All musicians of all standards can benefit from being heard and reviews by others.

There is definitely a strong case for recording and listening back, and that certainly develops your ear, but little things might allude you. And this goes beyond not realising you're playing a wrong note. At risk of prompting an Eric Morecambe paraphrase, Perhaps you are playing all the right notes. However, notes might not be coming through quite how they should. Maybe your left hand is too heavy and the delicate melody is getting lost. Maybe your pedalling isn't subtle enough and there's a clashing of sound because certain notes are still resonating.

Whatever it may be, your ears aren't necessarily hearing your mistakes - even on a recording after the event. Performer bias may kick in, not to mention that your attention isn't 100% on listening to the music when you're also performing the music, as now we have to think about what notes we play, how hard / soft, what our feet are doing etc.

So a second pair of ears can help, and adjustment to the technique required to bring out the best performance is something that you will seldom find in a self taught player.

Pace

Pace is, in this context, the speed at which you progress through the learning process.

Can you learn quickly? Yes.

Can you learn slowly? Yes.

Is it your decision as to which one you do?

No.

Sorry, but that's the brutal truth.

What you can do is control how quickly or slowly you personally learn by ensuring a regular practice time and structuring it well. However, the whole crash course, 'learn piano in 60 days' etc. that has been trending on the like of YouTube is not only not necessarily true, but it also damages those who are learning (whether it be self teaching or private tuition) because it creates an expectation that we should be progressing faster.

Unfortunately, we as humans all work differently. Therefore, your 60 days may be 7 days. Or 360 days.

When you self teach, it is extremely tempting to gloss over things. And people do. For example, with piano you ought to learn a lot of music theory. Granted, a lot of it does come naturally as you go through, but if you're learning from a book or even a video and they start mentioning music notation, scales and technical exercises, key signatures etc., many people will skip through them. Then be surprised that they're not as good as they should be.

Similarly, they will learn practice pieces from books or online courses to a reasonable extent and not to a final performance extent. Every piece you focus on, no matter how boring or seemingly simple, you should be able to play confidently, with or without metronome and honouring everything asked for such as tempo change, dynamic, pedalling etc.

Sometimes I can spend an entire 30 minute lesson with a pupil developing a simple 8 - 10 bar exercise. If you're not ready to move on and you have a teacher, a good teacher will not allow you to move on if it is deemed too soon for you.

A Change of Instrument

Many of my pupils use electric pianos or keyboards, and this is fine - especially for the beginner pianist. But if you are learning piano, it is really beneficial to get used to playing on the real thing. Even if you have a piano at home, learning on a different instrument is a great way to explore the instrument and get a feel for different tones and different touches.

Whilst this point doesn't really apply to a lot of other instrumental pupils, it is something that will be amiss from self teaching. In this instance, you focus solely on playing well on your own piano / keyboard. Then when the time comes to show off your skills at, say, a party with a piano, it can be a little more misleading.

Many piano teachers do home visits, however this isn't something I actively encourage unless you have good reason to not go out. Instead, consider visiting your piano teacher's home or school and learning on a fresh instrument.

No Stones Left Unturned

Absolutely not! Much as my pupils think they will get away with the odd wrong note - they won't! They must strive to be the best they can be!

Occasionally I might reorder lessons against the books they are working from if there is a particularly difficult section, or one I think is illogically ordered, but overall we work through and don't move until we're happy with everything.

And by happy - I mean happy! Because...

Encouragement

Arguably the most important of all...you are your own worst enemy! But ironically if you teach yourself you start to get this potentially false sense of skill and achievement. Visiting a piano teacher and having regular lessons will not only make you more motivated and feel like you are achieving, but in turn your piano teacher will encourage you and praise you through the good bits! Because, whereas we're all prone to mistakes, it's important to get regular positive feedback as well!

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#pianoteacher #pianotutor #pianotuition #pianist #macclesfield #piano #musictuition #musicteacher #musictuition