PRACTICE TIPS #16: Three-pencil Practice

[Brent Hugh <bhugh@GRIFFON.MWSC.EDU>]

<x-flowed>===================================================================

PRACTICE TIPS is an occasional email newsletter with practical

piano practice tips and ideas, by Brent Hugh



You are receiving PRACTICE TIPS because you subscribed to PRACTICE

TIPS at the Practice Tips Web Page or because you are a student of

Brent Hugh.  To end your PRACTICE TIPS subscription, see the

instructions at the end of this message.

===================================================================





PRACTICE TIPS #16: Three-pencil Practice

----------------------------------------

Welcome back to Practice Tips after a loooong Christmas break.  To make up 

for the looong break, this issue is really loooong, too.



Note that Missouri Western has changed to new ListServ software, so the 

unsubscribe instructions at the end of this message have changed.  Please 

let me know if you have any problems with the new ListServ.





An Experiment

-------------

This week my college students are doing an experiment with the "Three 

Pencil Practice With Metronome" method. They are choosing a small section 

(4-8 measures) of a brand new piece and learning it from start to finish 

with the three-pencil practice method.



I invite all Practice Tips subscribers to join our experiment, and learn a 

section of a piece from start to finish by the "Three Pencil Practice With 

Metronome" method.  Choose a section you haven't played or practiced 

previously.  By learning a section exclusively by this method, you get a 

good idea of how it works and what its advantages are.  Many of the 

advantages are not apparent at first, but show up at later stages of 

learning the piece, when the solid memory and ease of technique that result 

from this method become more obvious.



Here are the instructions for practicing with this method.  Writing it all 

down makes it seem difficult and cumbersome.  In practice, it's really 

easy--in my studio I can show students how to do this practice method in 

five minutes.





Three Pencil Practice

---------------------

Before starting, divide the music into *small* sections. Before starting to 

practice each section, decide on the fingering for the section and write it 

down in the music.



Imagine that the music shelf on the piano has three positions. You can 

place your pencil in any of the three positions. 1 is the lowest position, 

2 is in the middle, and 3 the highest.



              1                    2                  3



* Pick one of your sections to practice. Place your pencil in position #1.



* Play the passage one time. If you were satisfied with the passage then 

move the pencil to position #2.



* Play the passage again. If again you are satisfied, move the pencil to 

position #3.



* Play the passage again. If you are satisfied this time, then move the 

pencil back to position #1. Now you are ready to move on to another passage 

(or the same passage at a faster tempo--see below).



* If you aren’t satisfied with your performance, move the pencil down one 

position (from #2 to #1, or from #3 to #2—but you can’t go below position 

#1). Then try again.





Three Pencil Practice With Metronome

------------------------------------

* Divide the music into small sections and decide on fingering as in Three 

Pencil Practice.



* Decide on the "Final Tempo" for this section.  This should be (at least 

close to) the performance tempo you are aiming for in this piece.



* Experiment to find the tempo "Beginning Tempo" at which you can play this 

section, right now, with *no* mistakes. If you are a normal human being, 

this Beginning Tempo will be quite slow--perhaps 1/2 to 1/3 of the "Final 

Tempo".  Example: Final Tempo, 180. Beginning Tempo, 60.



* Put the metronome at your Beginning Tempo. Do Three Pencil Practice at 

this tempo.  When you have passed off your three pencils at this tempo, 

move the metronome up a click.



* Proceed this way, practicing three pencils at each metronome click from 

your Beginning Tempo all the way to your Final Tempo



* When you have reached your Final Tempo, give yourself a pat on the back 

(Practice Tips reader Gary at hotmail.com suggests rewarding yourself with 

a sip of wine, but notes that "it gets harder to play it correctly after 

doing this awhile.")  Then go on to the next passage.





What To Do the Next Day

-----------------------

After you have learned a section with the "Three Pencil Practice with 

Metronome" method, you need to keep reviewing it daily for a while.  In 

succeeding days, review each section by playing it again at various tempos, 

starting with your Beginning Tempo and gradually increasing to your Final 

Tempo.  Gauge how much review you need on each section--the exact amount 

will depend on both your abilities and on the music.  In general, your 

review is an abbreviated version of the routine you used to learn the 

section initially.  Instead of moving the metronome up one click, move it 

up by two, three, or four clicks.  Or play at only three tempos (Beginning, 

Moderate, and Final Tempos).  At each tempo, do three pencil positions, 

only two, or just one, as you find necessary.



Balance the amount of practice on each section according to the amount of 

time you have to practice.  If you have an hour to review 10 sections, you 

can do a very thorough job.  If you have only 5 minutes to review 10 

sections, your review will be very abbreviated.  It is important to review 

each section daily, at least for the first several days, even if the review 

on some days is *very* abbreviated.



After you have reviewed sections for several days (most likely finding that 

you can do a more and more abbreviated review of the sections on each 

succeeding day), you can start putting small sections together into longer 

sections.  After a few days of reviewing these medium-sized sections, you 

can start putting the medium-sized sections together to make even longer 

sections.



Somewhere along the line, you will probably discover that you have 

memorized your small sections without really trying.  Memorizing music is 

nothing but learning it really well.  Three-pencil practice is a very 

effective way of learning, so it is not very surprising that memory happens.





Troubleshooting

---------------

* Practicing by the Three Pencil method, you have to change your 

expectations.  Be satisfied with learning a small part of your piece each 

day (typical progress is a line or two per day).  Realize that your are 

saving hours in the long run because you are really learning your music 

well the first time around.  Playing yourself a lot of slow, bad concerts 

is a "fun" way to practice but learning two lines of your piece well really 

does represent *far* more progress than playing through your entire piece 4 

or 5 times at slow tempo with a hundred start-overs and a few thousand 

mistakes.



* Stay with a single section about 5 minutes at most.  Beyond that is the 

point of diminishing returns.  At the 5 minute point, write down the tempo 

you reached today on that section and move along to something different. 

Tomorrow, return to that section, quickly review to get it up to 

yesterday's final tempo, and then continue practicing to the Final Tempo.



* Never practice to the point of boredom or inattention. Note, however, 

that if you start paying *close* attention to *every* aspect of your 

playing, the amount of time you can practice before becoming bored will 

increase dramatically.  It is so easy, and so verrrry boring, to play 

sloppily and un-musically.



* Choosing sections that are too long is the most common mistake with Three 

Pencil Practice.  If you can't play your section with no mistakes, even at 

very slow tempo, the section is too long.  If you start making too many 

mistakes as you increase the tempo, the section is probably too long.  If 

your pencil is going leftwards (mistake) more than it is going to the 

rightwards (correct playing), then your section is probably too long. It is 

not unusual in a difficult piece with a fast Final Tempo for your section 

to consist of something like four sixteenth notes, one hand alone.



The point of this practice method is that, by starting with small sections 

at slow tempo, it is quite possible to learn your piece by playing almost 

always (say 90% or more of the performances of section) with NO 

MISTAKES.  It is a revelation to most pianists when they finally learn 

something with this "low-mistake" kind of practicing.  The end result is 

*much* more satisfying and reliable.  It is actually easier to play the 

right notes than the wrong ones.



* If you have cut down your sections very small, hands alone, and still 

just can't seem to get them up to tempo, that is a good sign that this 

piece is technically too difficult for you.  If there are one or two small 

areas of your piece that have this problem, you might be able to overcome 

them and learn that piece.  But if many or most areas present this problem, 

you probably should postpone learning that piece until your basic technique 

has improved.



* Three Pencil Practice works best with certain types of repertoire.  If 

you don't find success using it to practice one piece, try it on a piece of 

different character.





Happy Practicing!



--Brent





=======================================================================

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 . . .



Please remember that this tip is but one small part of the elephant's

left rear leg--it's not even close to the whole elephant that is

"how everyone in the whole world should practice the piano".



Practice Tips Archives:

           http://www.mwsc.edu/~bhugh/practicetips/



To unsubscribe from PRACTICE TIPS, send a message



     TO: listserv@list.mwsc.edu

     MESSAGE BODY: unsubscribe practice



You are welcome to forward PRACTICE TIPS to others as long as the

ENTIRE message, including this trailer, is forwarded.  Friends can

find out how to subscribe to PRACTICE TIPS at

           <http://www.mwsc.edu/~bhugh/practice-tips.html>

=======================================================================



Online Piano Pedagogy Message Board:

http://www.insidetheweb.com/mbs.cgi/mb175278





+++++++++++++++++++ Brent Hugh / bhugh@griffon.mwsc.edu ++++++++++++++++++

+   Missouri Western State College Dept of Music, St. Joseph, Missouri   +

+               Piano Home Page: http://www.mwsc.edu/~bhugh              +

+ Internet Piano Concert:  http://cctr.umkc.edu/userx/bhugh/recital.html +

++++++++++ Classical Piano MP3s http://www.mp3.com/brent_d_hugh ++++++++++





---

You are currently subscribed to practice as: BHUGH@GRIFFON.MWSC.EDU

To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-practice-6003X@list.mwsc.edu

</x-flowed>