These few weeks I had been participating in the Toronto Summer Music Festival, where I get to perform in and audit in masterclasses conducted by world-class musicians. I ran into a friend who appeared puzzled when I mentioned that I had been interested in auditing masterclasses of other instrument[...]
Archive for the ‘Practicing Tips’ Category
July 28th, 2010 - 6:05 pm § in Practicing Tips, View all journals ...
Learning Difficult To Memorize Passages
I mentioned a few times that when I learn a new piece, I always immediately start memorizing it. When I encounter seemingly difficult to memorize passage, breaking it down to find out how a composer came up with every single note in that passage will magically make it easy to memorize. This way,[...]
July 28th, 2010 - 5:28 pm § in Practicing Tips, View all journals ...
Solidifying Memory - Playing Backward!
To solidify memory, I will learn to play in reverse (and from memory) sections that trouble me the most! This is really just an extension of the other tools I have explained here already: Solidifying Memory - Mixing It Up! Efficient Memorization Let’s take a passage from Scriabin Sonata No[...]
Suggested Readings for Developing Analytical and Memorization Skills
To help you with Analytical Memory, below are books I read that I find helpful. I didn’t read all of them in great details. My goal was simply to get a superficial understanding of concepts in composition, analysis, and harmony, and be able to come up with some form of analysis that serve as aid [[...]
July 22nd, 2010 - 6:35 pm § in Practicing Tips, View all journals ...
Strategies When Learning New Piece
When I learn a new piece, I do 3 things: always start memorizing a new piece from the start of your learning process (see also my article “Efficient Memorization“) start not necessarily from the beginning of the piece, but with the most difficult passage first - because it will requir[...]
July 21st, 2010 - 6:32 pm § in Practicing Tips, View all journals ...
Solidifying Memory - Mixing It Up!
After I have committed a piece into memory, I will mix things up to solidify it in my mind. I play the following from memory: play a bar, or opening of a bar, then skip a bar or two play a bar, then play the previous bar, or skip a few bars backward pair up like passages from [...][...]
Performing While Unthinking
After five years of experimentation, I believe I finally found a reliable way to perform with confidence that works for me. If you like to read in details my experimentation during past five years, check out this article “Dealing with Stage Fright” which contains a long list of strategi[...]
July 9th, 2010 - 2:01 pm § in Practicing Tips, View all journals ...
Efficient Memorization
Please note the following … 1) Don’t follow blindly my advice! Use my input only as a starting point! 2) Finding the right fingering / hand position is a prerequisite for efficient memorization. . My ‘theory’ Type 1: aural memory - reinforced by hearing or imagining the sound Ty[...]
July 8th, 2010 - 5:31 pm § in Practicing Tips, View all journals ...
Practising Large Leaps
Here is how I practice passages with large leaps. Below is an excerpt from Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz #1: I will practice as follows: practice right hand alone, slowly, and only the thumb. This means: I monitor my hand has no up-down movement, but has only horizontal movement I will place[...]
Blind Practising
Nobuyuki Tsujii (born September 13, 1988) is a Japanese pianist, who won the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009 along with Haochen Zhang of China. Tsujii was born blind. Watch his performance of Liszt’s La Campanella: I remember at a master class of Marietta Or[...]
