Practice Tips

Here are some tips and useful background reading from the writings of pianists I admire.  The books quoted are not all the latest editions.

Piano Notes Charles RosenPiano Notes
by
Charles Rosen
Penguin Books   ISBN 0-713-99522-X   2002
Piano Notes is a highly readable perspective from an eminent pianist and music historian, a balanced, open-minded take on pianism in its historical context.
Chapter 1 · Body and Mind
There is no such thing as an ideal pianist's hand. (p2)
Not only the individual shape of the hand counts but even the whole corporal shape. That is why there is no optimum position for sitting at the piano, in spite of what pedagogues think. (p3)
Setting the extraordinary technical difficulty of the music of Dominico Scarlatti and Bach against the keyboard music of the later part of the century, one might think that keyboard technique had deteriorated; in fact, the market for piano music had expanded. (p8)
It is important to realize that technical difficulty is often essentially expressive: the sense of difficulty increases the intensity. (p8)
The unthinking, unplanned performance - and this is an incontrovertible fact of modern concert life - is generally far less spontaneous, much more the prisoner of habit, than one that questions the traditional point of view, in which the performer questions his own instincts. (p18)
Chapter 2 · Listening to the Sound of the Piano
Although string and wind players are used to listening to themselves ... pianists forget to do so and have to be reminded. (p36)
... the tone colour of the extreme bass and the extreme treble of the piano are very different. (p45)
... when performing Bach and Bartók: different muscles come into play. Your legato touch will not be the same in Beethoven and Debussey ... (p59)
Chapter 4 · Conservatories and Contests
... for amateur or professional, the life of a pianist is more rewarding the larger the repertory. (p95)
Sight-reading comes more easily to some pianists than to others, but it is an art that is developed almost entirely by practicing it. (p97)
[on exploring repertory] For a pianist who begins to play at the age of four, not to have done all this by the age of twenty is to create a handicap that will last for the rest of life. (p97)
What I regret is the failue to realize that it is often effective and advantageous to play a work at the wrong tempo. (p99)
A student should decide on a tempo not because it is accepted by the academy, but because it is effective or because it suits his or her individual sensibility. (p99)
The greatest teacher does not impose an interpretation but tries to find the way the student wishes to play and to improve the effectiveness of the interpretation. (p101)
Most tolerent of all are composers, who are happy to come upon a new form of interpretation of a familiar piece. (p109)
Chapter 5 · Concerts
Playing in public not only isolates the pianist: it isolates and objectifies the work of music, and it turns the performance into an object as well. A public performance is irrevocable. (p123)
For whom does one play in public? ... One plays for the music. (p124)
... the less one is aware of the audience, the greater the chance of a deep immersion in the music that results in a more satisfactory perfomance. (p131)
... what makes for success is the intensity of listening, the heightened attention awakened in the public. (p140)
Chapter 6 · Recording
It is sometimes mistakenly thought that the more echo or resonance in a hall, the less pedal one should use. The exact opposite is true. (p153)
Overpedaling when there is little resonance or echo and therefore too much clarity is disturbing: it blurs the lines and adds unwanted harmonic ambiguities. In a hall with a warm, rich acoustic, the effect of the pedal merely adds to the resonance and gives greater fullness. (p154)
A unity of interpretation requires a large-scale view of the tempo, even when there is a great deal of rubato or changes of speed, and a control of tone color to hold the piece together. (p169)
Chapter 7 · Styles and Manners
In the 1940s and 1950s the academic way of playing Bach by those who persevered with him on the piano in the teeth of the propaganda for the harpsichord felt that the correct approach was one of sober restraint, and this approach was sanctified by the teaching of the academy. In playing a fugue, it was always thought to be important to bring out every appearance of the theme with the other voices held to a subsidiary dynamic level: in this way a fugue was realized as a series of mezzo forte entries of the theme extracted like plums from the root of the texture, which formed a sort of background cake of neutral flavour. This method did not benefit the fugues of Bach, in which, after all, the principle interest lies not in the main theme but in tha way the theme combines with the interesting motifs of the other voices, themselves often derived from the theme itself. (p196)
The few examples of fingering that have come down to us from Bach himself show that his style of playing was considerably more detached and highly articulated than the one we are used to today. (p202)
My own taste goes to a performance that preserves the detached articulation intended by Mozart and Haydn, and I think that the quality of the music is enhanced by this fidelity to the phrasing ... (p203)
Historical purity is not the most important goal of a performance, particularly when we consider that we can never be sure that we are getting it right. (p204)
... musicians today often do not realize the rule of eighteenth-century notation still valid in Beethoven that a note before a rest was generally played with less than its written value, never with more. (p208)
It is evident that each historical change of style brings with it a change in piano technique ... (p211)
... Sergei Prokofiev ... who exploited the dry percussive sonorities of the instrument as no one had done before. (p215)
[about Prokofiev] His most remarkable work seems to me the earliest pieces, above all those that combine the dry attacks with a delicate lyricism; certainly if the invention of a new and original style of pianism is the criterion, his masterpiece is the cycle of twenty miniatures, Visions Fugitives. (p215)
[about modernism] It is not, I think, sufficiently recognized to what an extent taste is a matter of will power. (p225)
To appreciate a new and difficult style ... takes an act of will, a decision to experience it again. (p225)
Postlude
... equal temperament obliterated the sense of the direction of modulation. ... the dominant was a source of drama, of raised tension, the subdominant a resolving force and a potential source of lyricism. (p231)
The piano ... helped to confirm the full hierarchical system of tonality in the late eighteenth century ... conspired to destroy authentic classical tonality chromatically from 1830 to the first decades of the twentieth ... (p234)
Notes from the Pianist's Bench Boris BermanNotes from the Pianist's Bench
by
Boris Berman
Penguin Books   ISBN 0-300-08375-0   2000
A holistic wealth of valuable practical advice on important aspects of tone production, interpretation, technique and performing, including insights into the Russian school of practicing.
Chapter 1 · Sound and Touch
... you cannot refine your touch without refining your ear. (p3)
... one physical constant that is indispensable for producing rich, nuanced tone: the flexible wrist. (p10)
[quoting Josef Lhevinne] ... the smaller the surface of the first joint of the fingers touching the key, the harder and blunter the tone; the larger the surface, the more ringing and singing the tone. (p13)
... it is not always necessary to play physically legato to create the legato sound. In fact, efforts to connect notes physically may make the melodic line less smooth than by playing it non legato (naturally, with the help of pedaling). (p13)
Whereas Liszt reached new horizons in matters of velocity, Debussey raised the level of awareness of touch control to an unprecendented height. (p15)
The more notes that are struck simultaneously, the more important the issue of voicing becomes, particularly in loud playing. Nothing on the piano sounds more vulgar than a loud chord in which all notes shout indiscriminantly. (p17)
In classical textures, the highest note of the chord is almost always the melodic one and needs to be highlighted. (p17)
Phrases cannot sing without the pianist listening between the notes. (p20)
Chapter 2 · Technique
I believe that two pillars form the foundation of good piano technique ... The "economy principle" requires the pianist to be economical in his movements, not to use a bigger part of his body ... when a smaller one will suffice ... this formula must address musical needs as well as technical ones. ... The "extension principle" requires us to regard each of the various segments of our piano playing anatomy ... as the continuation of the adjacent parts, with each individual unit always ready to support and share the work with the others. (p28)
The hand becomes the guardian of the position ... (p38)
Excessive and prolonged stretching is, in fact, a frequent cause of hand injuries ... (p38)
... make transitions or leaps smoother by preparing for them as early as possible. (p44)
The pianist should also adjust the position of his body to give more room to the hand if it moves towards the middle of the keyboard. (p45)
For more advanced students I would certainly recommend studies by Czerny, Cramer, Clementi, and Moszkowski before reaching out for Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov, or Scriabin. (p47)
Exercises have advantages over studies because they focus on a specific problem and provide for unsparingly methodical repetition of the same formula in both hands. (p48)
Realizing the musical content of the passage helps the pianist to find the right technical approach. (p52)
Chapter 3 · Articulation and Phrasing
Control over the end of the sound is a powerful means of creating gradation of touch for organists and harpsichordists. ... the ability to establish control of the cutoff moment (executed by the fingers) enriches the variety of articulation. (p55)
In the serial compositions ... articulation of individual notes is strictly governed by the series, together with pitch, duration and dynamics. (p58)
Dealing with short motives, indicated by articulation slurs, ... the late-nineteenth-century musical phrase is built from one slab of marble, while the eighteenth-century one is built from many small bricks. (p59)
Phrasing is the result of a delicate combination of dynamic shaping and timing. (p61)
the ... task of the performer is to identify the focal point, the "address" of the phrase ... (p65)
... disregarding the inner life of small melodic cells is particularly detrimental to Classical and pre-Classical music. (p66)
Phrasing in twentieth century music is a complex issue given the vast range of existing styles. (p68)
Generally speaking, the more complex and unfamiliar the language of the modern work, the more the listener depends on the performer to provide guidance to him. (p68)
In a polyphonic texture, it is imperative for the pianist to maintain the logic of phrasing in each voice, not allowing any of them, even the leading one, to impose its phrasing on the others. (p69)
With Bach, realizing the inner rhythmic structure is the most important task. The vast majority of his phrasing is iambic, or anacrustic, going from the weak to the strong. (p70)
When applying the iambic phrasing, guard against stressing or "swelling" of the weak beats. The point of this phrasing is to emphasize the forward motion of the phrase toward the downbeat ... (p79)
Chapter 4 · Matters of Time
In a satisfying performance rhythmical steadiness never comes across as rigidity; there is always room for flexibility. (p75)
... performance practice generally moves through the centuries in the direction of greater exactness ... (p77)
Because the purpose of rubato is to add a sense of improvisatory freedom to the performance, one should avoid using the same kind of rubato repeatedly in a piece. Stretching or rushing successive phrases in the same way creates a monotonous sense of predictability that defies the purpose. (p89)
The more elaborate the dynamic phrasing, the less rubato should be used, and vice versa. (p95)
Chapter 5 · Pedaling
But though the harpsichord and clavichord do not have a pedal device, they are built to allow a constant halo of overtones to surround each sound. (p98)
Good pedaling comes more from a discriminating ear and sensitive touch than from foot technique. (p98)
In a multilayered texture, therefore, a half-pedal change will help the pianist to get rid of some of the sounds in the higher register only. (p100)
Very often the best pedaling is done not by the foot but by the so-called finger pedal, when the notes of the texture are held over by fingers to create harmonic continuity. (p102)
[on half-pedaling] ... indispensible for weeding out dissonances without creating moments of harmonic nakedness. It can be very useful in a resonant hall. (p105)
A slow release of pedal ... can produce a magical result with its gradually vanishing sound. (p106)
Another effect is to play without using any pedaling. (p107)
Too often the left pedal is used merely as a mute, when its main purpose should be to add a special colour to the sonority. (p109)
I do not believe in foot technique as such ... The difficulty lies in a subtle collaberation between fingers and foot, controlled by the ear. (p111)
Chapter 6 · Practicing
Learning a new work starts with choosing a good edition. (p113)
I strongly advocate using Urtext editions ... (p113)
Many students turn their practice sessions into repeated run-throughs. This habit is very harmful because it ingrains in the pianist's mind all the faults and imperfections of attempting to perform a piece that has not been learned properly. Although I advocate playing through the work ... each of these infrequent trial performances should be followed by a conscientious "cleanup" with full attention paid to every detail. (p118)
When I practice I try to approximate what I want the music ultimately to sound like. (p118)
By determining the approprate fingering early, they will speed up the process of learning the piece. (p121)
Convenience and efficiency are the important considerations for choosing a particular fingering. (p121)
... a fingering that seems perfectly fine for slow practicing may not be suitable for a piece when they will perform at a fast tempo. (p121)
The best fingering generally is one that fully serves the musical goals of the pianist ... does not allow the pianist to play in any other way. (p122)
I think that one should practice as fast as one's ear can acknowledge every detail and the mind can control every motion. (p127)
If the ear cannot keep pace, the playing will be muddled, even if the desired speed is achieved. (p127)
These mentally skipped parts are easily recognisable by the unmusical, mechanical way in which they are played. (p127)
I suggest that practice sessions include playing through a difficult passage or a work when the performer simulates the emotional state of a concert performance. (p129)
One should practice creatively ... (p129)
In the process of learning a piece, committing it to memory signifies moving to a higher level in mastering it. (p132)
It is prudent to stick to one edition during memorization ... (p133)
[quoting Joseph Hoffmann] There are four ways to study a composition: (1) on the piano with the music, (2) away from the piano with the music, (3) on the piano without the music, (4) away from the piano without the music. (p135)
[on above] The second and the fourth become increasingly important as the piece becomes ready for performance. (p135)
Chapter 7 · Deciphering the Composer's Message
I often find that the humorous, joking aspect of music is missing in many performances, even in those of accomplished artists. (p146)
Chapter 8 · Seeing the Big Picture
Often it helps to know at which point in the composer's life a particular work was written. (p163)
Chapter 9 · Technique of the Soul
... when working on a musical composition, one must do more than define the character of a certain passage; one has to determine whether a new mood develops from the previous one or negates it; or perhaps the mood functions as a diversion, an emotional aside within the general narrative of the composition. (p173)
In compositions with complex emotional content like the late Beethoven sonatas, the transitional passages are often the most important. (p174)
The composer works within his own style, but the performer must be a chameleon, adopting his delivery of the musical material to the style of the music he plays. (p178)
Chapter 10 · At the Performance (and prior to it)
... pianists should work relentlessly during practice sessions to expunge wrong notes. But at performances (including trial performances and run-throughs for oneself) the pianist should let himself go, deal with musical tasks, and not become paranoid about every missed note. (p189)
Real individuality will always be noticeable without one's trying to do something unusual. (p190)
... we do not work piano, mime piano, or suffer through piano, but we play piano. (p191)
... a "perfect" performance is impossible. (p191)
Any occasion for playing in front of an audience ... is important to make sure that your artistic soul will not feel "out of practice". (p192)
[quoting Neuhaus] Talent is passion plus intellect. (p192)
... there are different personalities and different types of artists. More extraverted performers communicate by bringing the music to the listeners, while others draw the listener towards the music, as if into a magic circle. But whatever the approach, interaction with the audience is a crucial part of any public performance. (p193)
... "memory slips" is a misnomer, because the problem is usually not with memory but with concentration. (p194)
During a performance, the artist should avoid turning the mental spotlight from the music to his own well-being. (p194)
Under no circumstances should a mistake be allowed to ruin the remainder of a performance. (p195)
... mistakes loom much larger to the performer than they do to the listeners. (p195)
... in the days leading to the performance do not always practice on the same piano ... (p196)
Enjoy it. (p197)
Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts Alfred BrendelMusical Thoughts and Afterthoughts
by
Alfred Brendel
Robson Books   ISBN 0-860-51187-1   1976
Essays on Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Busoni, Edwin Fischer and pianos. This book is absolutely essential reading. It contains too many gems to quote here.
Beethoven · Notes on a Complete Recording of Beethoven's Piano Works
Beethoven's piano works pointed far into the future of piano building. (p15)
Those performances that are historically 'most correct' are not always the ones that leave us with the most cherished memories. (p25)
[see book for details] It can be seen that Beethoven notates the pedal only when he wishes to obviate misunderstandings, or when aiming at unusual effects. (p34)
... up to the middle of the nineteenth century no distinction was made between ritardando and ritenuto. (p35)
The practice of conducting concertos from the first violin part had survived into our century ... (p36)
The projection of simplicity can be a very complex business. An exceptional reservoir of nuances - even though they may remain unused - and a considerable degree of sensitivity and inner freedom are required if the result is not to be, instead of simplicity, emptiness and boredom. (p37)
We follow rules in order to make the exceptions more impressive. (p37)
Beethoven · Form and Psychology in Beethoven's Piano Sonatas
[Beethoven's instructions, by his pupil Ries] 'If I missed something in a passage, or played wrongly the notes and leaps he often wanted me to bring out strongly, he rarely said anything; but when I fell short as regards expression, crescendos, etc, or the character of the piece, he got exasperated because, as he said, the first was an accident, but the other was a lack of judgement, feeling or attentiveness. The formar happened to him quite often too, even when he played in public.' (p44)
Schubert · Schubert's Piano Sonatas, 1822-1828
... only a few of Shubert's major instrumental works were published during his lifetime ... (p57)
... not only in his piano works does he expand previous dynamic limits to ppp and fff ... (p65)
Schumann ... was full of praise for Schubert's sonorous piano style, which 'seems to come from the depths of the pianoforte'. ... Schubert himself was not a brilliant player; he does not seem to have owned a piano ... (p66)
Schubert's piano style is no less orchestral than it is vocal. In the Wanderer Fantasy, the piano is turned into an orchestra much more radically than had ever been done before; ... (p66)
In Schubert's piano music ... the pedal is the soul of the piano ... (p67)
There are two possible methods of notation: either the composer writes down how long the note should sound, or he indicates how long the finger should or can be kept on the key. We could call these the musical notation and the technical notation. ... Schubert's notation is technical. (p67)
Shubert was an accent maniac. (p70)
But there is hardly a composer after the Baroque age whose rhythm is so frequently 'mis-spelt'. (p70)
Shubert's piano works often surpassed the possibilities of his instruments, as the Great C major Symphony surpassed the size and performing habits of contemporary orchestras. (p73)
Liszt · Liszt Misunderstood
He was first and formost a phenomenon of expressiveness - Schumann called him 'Genie des Vortrags' ('a genius of interpretation') - so much so that he is said to have infused even Czerny and Cramer studies with radiant life. (p79)
Technique served Liszt as a means of opening up new realms of expression. (p79)
The pianist ... should give the passages of religious meditation simplicity, bring out the devilry behind the capriciousness, and convey the profound resignation behind the strangely bleak experiments of his late works. (p80)
Another danger to be avoided is excessive rubato. (p81)
Liszt · Liszt's Piano-playing
Liszt's teaching concentrated on interpretation. ... what he demanded was a 'technique created by the spirit, not derived from the mechanism of the piano'. ... Liszt did not consider himself a piano teacher. (p90)
... curious remark by Stradal, who studied with the master after 1880, that Liszt's entire technique, besides the finger technique, was a wrist technique. (p91)
Liszt · Turning the Piano into an Orchestra
[part IV deals with producing orchestral colours on the piano - in timbre and in manner - and is essential reading for transcription and paraphrase playing, too much to include here.] (p95)
Busoni · A Peculiar Serenity
It is significant that Bach and Liszt were the two nerve centres of Busoni's enormous repertoire: the basis and the apex of pianism. The contemplative inwardness of the one was as congenial to him as the theatrical and mysterious tone-magic of the other. (p108)
The most individual feature of Busoni's pianistic art was his treatment of the pedal. ... In conjunction with a highly refined non-legato technique this new treatment of the pedal produced tone colours and areas of sound of the most delicate transparency. (p110)
The pianist has one implacable enemy: the piano, which continually tempts him to forget the musical meaning of a passage in mastering its mechanical difficulties. Technique can never reach a point where problems cease to exist, precisely because the real problems are not technical, but musical. Liszt's notion of 'technique as the helpmate of the idea' finds a strong exponent in Busoni. (p110)
Edwin Fischer · Remembering my Teacher
As an editor he helped restore the Urtext of Classical masterpieces, ... (p122)
The principal carrier of this expressiveness was his marvellously full, floating tone, which retained its roundness even at climactic, explosive moments, and remained singing and sustaind in the most unbelievable pianissimo. (p122)
Edwin Fischer · Afterthoughts on Edwin Fischer
Piano playing is a strict discipline. Practice - the task of clarifying, purifying, fortifying and restoring musical continuity - can turn against the player. Control can 'sit' on one's playing like a coat of mail, like a corset, or like a well-tailored suit. On lucky occasions it is just there, as if in league with chance. (p124)
... he encouraged us ... to see the detail in the context of the whole. (p125)
Coping with Pianos
How often does the player find a piano he can rely on, a piano which will do justice to the exactness of his vision? Is it to be wondered at that so many of his performances remain compromises? (p130)
Piano (magazine) - Vol. 13 No. 6 Radu LupuPiano (magazine) - Vol. 13 No. 6
by
Radu Lupu
Rhinegold Publishing   ISBN -   Nov/Dec 2005
The magazine for the piano world.
Feature · Light from the Shadows - Lupu at 60
[Practicing] involves constant reassessment, checking, and asking oneself, "How would I sing that?" There's a sense of intensity in producing the sounds as the phrase goes to the highest note or high point. I have to sing it in my inner ear and reproduce what I hear; singing is the most natural way to achieve what I want. Only by going over a phrase many times in this way do I feel comfortable with it. My fingers have to know every weight within a sequence of notes. (p29)