PRACTICE TIPS #10: Learn more by playing less!

[Brent Hugh <bhugh@griffon.mwsc.edu>]

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PRACTICE TIPS is an occasional email newsletter with practical

piano practice tips and ideas, by Brent Hugh



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PRACTICE TIPS #10: Learn more by playing less!

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This week's tip is again from George Kochevitsky's book, _The Art of Piano 

Playing: A Scientific Approach_.



Kochevitsky addresses an important point about practicing in sections--that 

is, taking small passages of the music you are learning and practicing them 

repeatedly.  Practicing in sections should be one of the primary ways you 

spend your practice time, and Kochevitsky gives this suggestion for making 

that part of your practice time even more effective:



   We should point out that pupils are often inclined to

   repeat a passage in fast succession, starting the next

   repetition when the preceding one is hardly finished. In

   correct practicing, a slight pause (several seconds) must be

   inserted between repetitions, to give the pianist time to

   check whether everything just performed was correct and

   the results were musically satisfactory, and to prepare

   himself mentally for the next repetition. (p. 28)



Elsewhere in _The Art of Piano Playing_, Kochevitsky makes it clear that 

this "in-between time"--time spent evaluating what you just played or 

planning what you are about to play--is the primary way we have of 

*consciously* controlling the sounds we make and the we way we make 

them.  When we are actually playing, a whole series of reflexive and 

more-or-less unconscious actions must be taking place, and all these 

actions inhibit our conscious control.  Our best chance to consciously 

control what we are playing, is when we not playing at all.



So take advantage of this "in-between time".  Learn more by playing less!



Happy Practicing!



--Brent



P.S.  The Practice Tips Archives are finally online.  Find all past issues 

of Practice Tips at



     http://www.mwsc.edu/~bhugh/practicetipsarchives.html



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PRACTICE TIPS is by pianist, teacher, composer, and internet nerd

Brent Hugh.  Brent knows about practicing mostly because he *does*

it, and in fact is toddling off to do some of it just about now . . .



Thanks to the many people who have written to say PRACTICE TIPS has

been helpful.  I always like to hear what you think of these

ideas and how they worked for you!



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