I was watching Josh Wright’s recent piano practice tips video and thought I could give some of the suggestions a try. Particularly the tips about more mindful practice. I’ve been following his channel periodically and even purchased one of his lesson on Liszt’s Sospiro as I don’t have a live piano teacher presently. He’s a PhD pianist out of University of Utah. His wife is also a PhD pianist. I wonder if his kids will learn piano.
I’ve been working one two songs recently. The first is one I’ve been “working on” since before Everett was born (Sospiro by Liszt) and the second I just picked up a couple months ago (Hallelujah, arranged by Peter Bence).
Unlike piano when I was practicing as a teenager, here are some differences for better or for worse:
- I try to practice way more efficiently because I don’t have hours to waste letting my mind wander while trying to muscle memory through a piece.
- I don’t do marathon practice sessions, trying more for high yield 30-45 min periods.
- I choose what I want to learn.
- I haven’t seriously done technique (scales, etc) and other aspects of music (ear training, sight reading, theory) systematically.
- Practice environment is not optimized, as I’ve tried to capture in the video below, but I am playing on a nicer piano than as a teenager 🙂
- I don’t have recitals or competitions anymore.
- But I have nightmares about upcoming nonexistent competitions as an adult that I have somehow forgotten to out in my Google Calendar, and am totally not prepared for.
My recent epiphany for musical self-satisfaction is making a video of the piece before I finish and retire it from practice.
My first attempt would have been Linus & Lucy, for the 2020 Christmas video. This wasn’t a difficult piece, but it did include jazz elements that I am not used to playing. In the past, I learned the first part, but never tackled the B and C parts, because I never had any motivation or need to learn the whole piece. Committing to a performance or sorts provided me incentive to learn the piece well.
In the last years, I have learn a bunch of songs, but they’ve come and gone, and now I can’t play them anymore without pretty much relearning, and it seems like it was a waste of time as I don’t have anything to show for the work.
Just as bad, would be the song that I learn 90% of, but then for some reason or another drop. An example of this is Don’t Stop Believin’, arranged by Jarrod Radnich. This song was as hard as hell, and I pretty much had it, and then just stopped playing. I have a clip of me going through it the first day we got our piano, but no polished final performance which is too bad.
So as a goal, I’m hoping to finish up these two pieces properly with a video before setting them aside.
