How to diagnose your mistakes and remedy them...
Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 11:53 am
Hello Fellow Pianists!!!
Getting frustrated with mistakes? That's your first issue - do not get upset! We're all here to learn and implement teachings from the Playground Sessions catalog. Unless you are a hired musician for the local symphony - you have no reason to be upset.
Relieve the frustration with a laugh instead of a growl. Record yourself on video/audio, review and pay particullar attention to your hands. Have an idea where your fingers should be throughout the recording. Nine times out of ten, you'll see one or many of your fingers doing what you didnt intend. Remember where your hands go "off on their own" and isolate your efforts to practicing that mistake til you remedy it. There are several tools in the Playground Sessions app to help: select measures with your mouse (click and drag), repeat icon, click on the notes in the piece to know which key it is, etc, etc. Put these tools to work, they are ment to help. By the way, keep the recordings for later on so you have something to look back on and have a laugh or two. Still having problems with a particullar lesson even with recording and diagnosing? Here's another tip I've been using during my journey.
I've found that the Playground Sessions application isnt quite keen to knowing the difference between a whole note, half note, quarter...etc. It knows when and which key you should be playing at a certain time only. With that in mind, I've been working through difficult lessons by changing the notation of certain notes as I play. For example, there's a part in Mozart's Sontata #11 in A Major. In the 2nd measure, there's a "E" WHOLE-NOTE (played by the right hand). In the beginning with trying to play this piece, I would only play the "E" as a QUARTER-NOTE so then I could coordinate what would be coming up in the next measure. I also used this tactic with left-hand parts in this Mozart's piece as well. After 3 days of effective practice, I finally could play the piece as orginally written with a score of above 90%.
**Another tip to help train for muscle memory** I've used index cards, rulers, drumsticks, anything solid to act as a "bumper". In some lessons, I've setup these "bumpers" in certain places on the piano in order to help guide my hand in where to be without looking. For my right hand, I've setup just outside of the highest note/octave played in the particullar lesson. For my left hand, the same placement for the lowest note/octave. My pinky fingers knock up against these bumpers again and again, training my brain (and hands) where to go without taking my eyes off of the sheet music. This tip will be most effective if you can find the keys without looking at least 50% of the time.
Dont forget to reach out in the forum. If you are having serious trouble, post it and I'm sure someone will help you through. I hope this posting helps someone out there. Good luck to All and enjoy the journey!
Getting frustrated with mistakes? That's your first issue - do not get upset! We're all here to learn and implement teachings from the Playground Sessions catalog. Unless you are a hired musician for the local symphony - you have no reason to be upset.
Relieve the frustration with a laugh instead of a growl. Record yourself on video/audio, review and pay particullar attention to your hands. Have an idea where your fingers should be throughout the recording. Nine times out of ten, you'll see one or many of your fingers doing what you didnt intend. Remember where your hands go "off on their own" and isolate your efforts to practicing that mistake til you remedy it. There are several tools in the Playground Sessions app to help: select measures with your mouse (click and drag), repeat icon, click on the notes in the piece to know which key it is, etc, etc. Put these tools to work, they are ment to help. By the way, keep the recordings for later on so you have something to look back on and have a laugh or two. Still having problems with a particullar lesson even with recording and diagnosing? Here's another tip I've been using during my journey.
I've found that the Playground Sessions application isnt quite keen to knowing the difference between a whole note, half note, quarter...etc. It knows when and which key you should be playing at a certain time only. With that in mind, I've been working through difficult lessons by changing the notation of certain notes as I play. For example, there's a part in Mozart's Sontata #11 in A Major. In the 2nd measure, there's a "E" WHOLE-NOTE (played by the right hand). In the beginning with trying to play this piece, I would only play the "E" as a QUARTER-NOTE so then I could coordinate what would be coming up in the next measure. I also used this tactic with left-hand parts in this Mozart's piece as well. After 3 days of effective practice, I finally could play the piece as orginally written with a score of above 90%.
**Another tip to help train for muscle memory** I've used index cards, rulers, drumsticks, anything solid to act as a "bumper". In some lessons, I've setup these "bumpers" in certain places on the piano in order to help guide my hand in where to be without looking. For my right hand, I've setup just outside of the highest note/octave played in the particullar lesson. For my left hand, the same placement for the lowest note/octave. My pinky fingers knock up against these bumpers again and again, training my brain (and hands) where to go without taking my eyes off of the sheet music. This tip will be most effective if you can find the keys without looking at least 50% of the time.
Dont forget to reach out in the forum. If you are having serious trouble, post it and I'm sure someone will help you through. I hope this posting helps someone out there. Good luck to All and enjoy the journey!
