First published in paperback by

Michael Terence Publishing in 2020

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Copyright © 2020 Christopher Russell

Christopher Russell has asserted the right to be identified as the
author of this work in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
ISBN 9781800940413
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Copyright © 2020 Michael Terence Publishing
 Contents

Introduction
1: Methods of Practising
2. Developing the Musical Ear
3. Technique

4. The Beginnings of: Learning to Play the Piano,

Reading Music and Sight-reading
5. More Advanced Sight-reading
6. Fingering a Piano Piece
7. Interpretation and Stylistic Awareness
8. Memorising

9. The Pianist as a Musical Actor -

the Art of Communication in Performance
10. Aiming for Goals
11. Grade Exams, Festivals and Concerts
12. Choice of Pieces
13. Pedalling
14. Tone-production
15. Some Piano-teaching Anecdotes
 Introduction

This book is an encouraging companion to someone’s piano lessons in

the exciting journey of discovery that learning the piano is all about. Like a
good lesson, it aims to be a catalyst that spurs somebody on to greater
achievements in their piano playing, their piano-teaching, or both. I hope
this book helps many kinds of people: those coming back to the piano after
a long gap for whom it might act as a useful bridge between rustiness and
reaching a satisfying level, perhaps with the help of fresh instruction;
teachers of the piano themselves, or those wanting to teach the piano who
are seeking a little extra motivation; all those with a little prior knowledge
of the piano wanting to read around the subject, and last but not least,
anyone simply curious to know more about how the playing of such a
difficult instrument is possible. “It is a testament to human achievement that
it is possible to play such a challenging instrument” is a view I have heard
expressed sometimes - although usually by people not themselves in the
profession. Others immersed in piano-playing would often not think like
this because it becomes as natural to play the piano as to eat or to drink!
 1: Methods of Practising

Learning the piano is a great adventure. The process of learning so

interesting an instrument should not be a big mystery, but we should always
understand why each thing we are taught is as it is. This needs great
patience and flexibility on the part of the teacher, as the image or
description that helps one pupil may need to be different from the way of
describing the same thing for another. If someone understands why an
aspect of technique needs to be as it is, it is much easier to carry it out
effectively than if the pupil simply does this because the teacher says so
(please note that I am using the word “technique” in the broadest sense in
my book). Also, the pupil should be encouraged to always ask the teacher
about anything he or she is unsure of.
Some pupils may be starting from the beginning in learning the piano,
without having already acquired any bad habits in their playing, therefore,
but others may have had lessons some time ago and there may be “bad
habits” in the playing, acquired during a long period of time practising
without the guidance of a teacher. However, if there are particular
weaknesses, the pupil and teacher can become aware of these early on in
the lessons, and the pupil can keep, during practising, reminding him or
herself of what needs improving, to make any weak areas become gradually
stronger. If we assume this will not be possible to achieve, it is far less
likely to happen than otherwise: in other words, “stay positive”, as the
modern expression goes! Even very persistent “bad habits” can change until
they become “good habits”, through sufficient reminding oneself of what to
be careful of. Also, the person does not need to play correctly the weak
aspect of technique as many times as it has been played incorrectly - the
secret of success is simply to be doing the thing correctly a very high
proportion of the time during practising. In fact, good practising always
tends to rely on getting something right a high proportion of the time. If we
aim to get something totally right each time we try to practise it, then
perhaps we will sometimes make one or two mistakes, whereas if we
assume we will make one or two, we may well, in fact, make four or five
mistakes! Of course, in being really determined to play something
accurately, we will often succeed completely in this.
 The quality of our practising is what makes the most difference to our
efforts to learn to play the piano well, the main goal for most students of the
piano (see chapter 10). A very common misconception about piano-playing
is that quantity of practising is the most important factor, but consider this:
someone practising the piano for ten minutes a day really well will reach a
higher level in their playing than someone who does ten hours a day of bad
practising! Obviously, if that same person instead of doing ten minutes per
day did thirty minutes per day, on average, of really good quality practising,
there would be still better progress.
What is the most tangible benefit of high-quality practising? The answer
is accurate playing. The reason why accuracy is so important in music is
because the atmosphere of a passage of music tends to alter totally if there
is even one wrong note. That said, we must not be afraid of wrong notes in
our practising, but regard them as useful signposts, that show us what needs
improving in our playing, so that we become able to play the piece as we
want to.
The reason why even tiny children can become happily used to doing
regular, good-quality practising is because they so like to be accurate in
their playing - this is much more fun than playing badly, making lots of
mistakes, because the music does not sound nice at all then! Let us now
consider that which motivates an advanced pianist preparing for a diploma,
for instance:-the desire to make the great work by Mozart, or Chopin, for
example, reach a level whereby we feel we are near to what the composer
must have intended becomes overwhelming if we are really interested in the
piece. Both kinds of pianists long to not only play the piece well, so it
sounds wonderful, but want it to become totally easy, so it can come right
whenever they want it to. Of course, in the case of the mature pianist,
different concepts and kinds of language will be used by teacher and pupil
than in the case of the young child-pupil, but it is important to notice that
aiming for accuracy is vital to both kinds of pianist. Whether the pupil is 5
or 50, we are talking about a human being keen to master the instrument,
even if the 5-year-old does not yet know the word “master” but thinks in
terms simply of playing “well”-empathy is very important in teaching. We
have to be able to put ourselves in the pupil’s shoes, so to speak, to really
understand what it is like to be someone of that age and stage, with those
particular strengths and weaknesses of playing, trying to master that
particular piece. You can see why the teacher of piano becomes so patient a
person!
Because quality of practising is so important, we must try to practise at
times when we have enough energy. That may mean practising early, before
going to work, or it may, for instance, mean unwinding, and relaxing in a
chair for half an hour, after coming in from work, before practising. If
someone is so tired that they can only do a little good-quality practising that
evening, then so be it - we can try to do extra practising the next time, to
make up for it. Ten minutes of good practising, for instance, is better than
ten minutes of good practising plus ten minutes of too-tired practising,
because the too-tired practising will probably be full of mistakes, and we
would become used to making those mistakes. In playing the piano, we
have to become conscious of the fact that we are all creatures of habit, so
that we absorb the habits of playing things well, just as we can, if we are
not careful, absorb habits of playing things inaccurately. Therefore,
practising well means always aiming for the acquiring of good habits in a
determined manner. If we make a mistake we have never made before, in a
scale or piece, we have nevertheless started to be in the habit of making that
mistake when it has only happened once, but the good news is that we can,
by being vigilant, spot the mistake, and then, by using good methods of
practising, nip the mistake in the bud. Part of this approach is the using of
the pencil by the pupil. The physical act of putting the marking into the
copy allows what we have to be careful of to stick in the mind, and we
hopefully notice the marking visually when we are about to play the
particular bit in the future, also. At first use of the pencil builds gradually,
but eventually, the pupil finds it so useful a tool that one reaches for the
pencil nearly every time a mistake happens (unless one is, for instance,
doing a complete play-through of the piece). Hopefully, by the time
someone is at the stage of doing a play-through of the piece they are only
making a few mistakes, at the most, and when they reach the end of the
piece there is therefore usually a good chance of remembering where any
mistakes came. We can then use the pencil, and nip those mistakes in the
bud, using our instincts as to which methods of practising would be the
most helpful for the parts affected. These instincts develop by relying on
them more and more.
There is great importance in our practising attached to remembering how
the teacher played or explained something. In this way, we extract the
maximum amount of benefit from each lesson. Also, trying to remember
what the teacher taught us develops the memory, and we become better and
better at remembering what we have been taught as we come to each part of
a piece or scale that needed some work in the lesson. Applying what the
teacher has shown us in our practising is totally linked to the process of
imitating the teacher in the lesson. Imitation in music is one of the greatest
tools in the whole learning process, and teachers find this tool needs to be
used constantly for young children, but a great deal also in relation to
anyone learning the piano at any stage and age.
Patience is traditionally the word that is most often used in piano-
teaching. This is not surprising as the piano, as well as being a wonderful
instrument, is also a particularly challenging one, as it involves using ten
fingers, and therefore the coordination required is complex. The point is
that the brain must become used to this complex hand-eye coordination, and
the process only becomes efficient if we are playing accurately a high
proportion of the time. In order to do this, we have to be patient because
otherwise, we would simply rush through pieces up to speed, straightaway,
making various mistakes, instead of carefully using various methods of
practising to make every aspect of the piece accurate and easy to play.
Often, only determination allows a person to play a difficult bit of a piece
accurately - we must do whatever it takes to learn to be accurate in such a
place, even if it means practising one bar at a time, or even part of a bar at a
time. Indeed, I would say it is possible to become a more patient person as a
result of learning the piano, and in fact, this would usually happen, if
someone reaches a good level in the piano, because the discipline requires a
certain mastery of oneself.
I would like to mention some of the major aspects of patient, careful
practising. It is important in the early stages of piano-playing, in pieces, to
become confident hands separately, before we should even allow ourselves
to imagine putting the hands together. Otherwise, we are trying to run
before we can walk, as it were. Once the pupil can play the piece through
accurately, hands separately, or with only one or two mistakes usually, it is
possible to start trying to play the piece hands together, however, this is the
stage when mistakes appear the most easily, so great caution is required.
Even though all the difficulties may have been mastered, hands separately,
there are often new ones to overcome when we try to put the hands together.
We may have travelled the path already in a simple manner (using hands
separate work), but once we start playing the piece hands together, it is not
only the same path that we have already trodden, as one might think,
although mainly this is so. It must be remembered that at an early stage the
pupil is not yet used to the hand-eye coordination required for hands
together work in the way someone is at an advanced stage, and also there is
not the same facility, in relation to the reading of music, so it is not
surprising that we have to be particularly patient with ourselves. Again,
however, the main motivation that allows this patience to develop is the
desire to be accurate. When first putting the hands together in a particular
piece, even though this pupil, who is at an early stage, has just played the
piece through hands separately, it is nevertheless important to play little
sections hands separately and then hands together, to gain the full benefit of
going from the simpler to the harder, one of the most fundamental
principles of good piano practise. In practising, for instance, a pair of bars
or an individual bar, hands separately then hands together, what we have
just done hands separately is very fresh in the mind. As you will see, this
kind of practising cultivates a certain methodical kind of patience.
In fact, what is called “slow practise” tends to be rather like prayer or
meditation and is enjoyable. This means simply practising a piece more
slowly than the speed indicated so that we have more time to notice all the
details, and more opportunities therefore to be accurate. If, however, it is a
slow piece anyway we may not need to do this, but in general, at whatever
stage the pupil is, slow practising is useful. As even the top pianists tend to
find this helpful, how much more important still must this activity be for the
beginner, for instance? This is a patient activity that is fun, not one that is
boring like having to put the rubbish out, for instance! Indeed, all our
practising should be enjoyable, even the mastering of particularly difficult
things, because it gives a real sense of achievement to feel, hear and see
them improving, and this enjoyment is hardly interrupted if, occasionally,
we have to accept that something will not come right during that practise
session, even though we try various ways of practising it. It might well
come right if we try it again later, giving ourselves a change of scene, as it
were, by doing something else in the meanwhile, or it might come right the
next day. It is no disgrace if occasionally a pupil, at any stage, has to wait
until the lesson to try again a particularly challenging part of a piece - the
thought that the teacher can probably help it to come right is a very
comforting one in fact.
Slow practising may sometimes need to be just a little slower than our up
to speed kind of practising, which is the speed we would use if playing the
piece in a lesson, but it usually needs to be a lot slower. Our instincts
develop increasingly, if we try to rely on them, so that we find more and
more that we know which slow speed we need for a passage of a piece. It is
interesting to notice that in piano-practising in general, if we did not learn
to rely on our instincts we would probably always start from the beginning
of a piece, playing it through to the end up to speed with dire consequences!
If someone does too much playing of a piece up to speed, whatever their
level, mistakes have a habit of creeping in because we are doing too much
playing at the limits of what we can manage, or close to the limits, so you
can see also from this how important slow practising is.
In fact, we all tend to want to play a piece up to speed immediately, and it
is important to be aware of this from the beginning of learning the piano. If
we are aware of this natural impatience within us all, we can be vigilant in
relation to it, and can consciously replace this instinct with a much better,
more patient one, so that that becomes the norm. It is simply a matter, as
with so much in piano-playing, of frequently reminding ourselves about it.
It is because we are all creatures of habit that anything that needs improving
in our piano-playing tends to require us to remind ourselves frequently of
what to be careful of. However, what is positive is that once we have
reminded ourselves enough, and applied the particular improvement needed
enough, that new habit that has replaced the old becomes very deeply
rooted. However, if the bad habit we are replacing is itself really deeply
rooted, we may for a long time, or even always, have to be vigilant, in
relation to that aspect of our playing, although it is a very positive thought
that the new good habit will keep building in strength within us.
Part of our methodical approach should be to often, when something
needs improving, play it correctly two or three times in a row. This is
because we do not, if we are to practise well, simply play something
correctly and think, “Now this will always be correct”. We are not
machines, so that is not how things work for us. We have to become used to
being accurate, whatever the difficulty we are overcoming. This playing
something two or three times in a row must not become a rigid rule,
however. Sometimes, once through correctly is ample. Again, the instincts
are important. Generally, it is not possible to play a whole piece through
completely accurately twice in a row until a certain stage has been reached,
in relation to the mastery of that piece, particularly as I am using the word
“accuracy” in the broadest sense, to include a certain understanding of the
interpretation required for that individual piece, for instance. This
interpretative side tends to require much careful work (see Chapter 7). We
would not generally try to play the whole piece through twice in a row until
we were confident about our playing of it. Our instincts should guide us that
we must not do too much of this anyway, because it would be unnatural, as
a piece is meant to be played once through usually, although there might
sometimes be repeats, however, this is useful sometimes as it allows us to
reinforce habits of accuracy. We need to be careful the second time through
the whole piece that we do not start to play it mechanically. Each play-
through needs to be clearly a separate event.
It is also often important to turn a difficult little section of a piece into a
useful exercise. For instance, if it is difficult to go from one chord to the
next because they are unusual chords and far apart, for instance, it is useful
to practise going from one to the other and then back again, sometimes
repeating this process a few times. You can imagine that we cannot do too
much of this, however, because otherwise it would become tedious and we
would increase the danger of by mistake, for instance, playing an extra
chord not put there by the composer, when we want to play through the
piece. However, used in moderation, the difficulty of the particular section
can disappear, as we become used to the feeling under the fingers, how it
sounds, and how it looks on the piano too, for instance. We can also, in an
instance like this, if we need to, play the first chord, and keep it held, while
planning the shift to the next chord, only going there when we are ready. If
we do this a few times in a row, we are getting used to what to be
particularly careful of, so that it becomes easy to play the two chords in the
normal way. I like to think of the things we have to be particularly careful
of in scales and pieces as landmarks. If we notice them in time, our playing
of the piece or scale will be fine. We become used to the fact that in a
certain piece, for instance, there is a sudden unexpected change of key
signature - even when the piece is thoroughly mastered, this particular
landmark continues to be necessary to notice so that in the end we just
notice it in passing.
 Another patient but very enjoyable kind of practising is what I call
“quietly on top of the keys practising”. This is useful where it is difficult to
play with one hand more quietly than with the other because the two hands
tend to want to do the same thing as each other. Another example of the two
hands having to do very different things from each other comes when the
pianist has to play legato in one hand, but separated notes or staccato in the
other, the very hardest thing for pianists at an early stage, and I will discuss
how to tackle this also shortly. Firstly, to go back to “quietly on top of the
keys practising”, this needs to be dealt with in three stages. The first stage is
to play the line of music that needs to be quieter than the other one, on its
own, but just touching each note with the tip of each finger, not actually
pressing each note down. This touching feeling is naturally close to what it
feels like to press each note very gently. If the passage is legato, or if it is
staccato, we can still do legato, or staccato, but with this touching
movement, not actually pressing any of the piano keys. Naturally, at first,
there will be occasional notes that do sound by mistake, but very soon this
will not happen, or hardly ever. The next stage is to play with one hand out
loud, but using the other, that is meant to play more quietly, to again do this
touching movement. At first, this second stage feels very difficult, even
though we have just used the hand that will play more quietly to do the
touching movements on its own, because we are trying to use two very
different movements of the hands at the same time. In most human
activities the two hands tend to do the same things as each other, or very
similar things, as in the action of using the steering wheel of a car, for
instance. If this second stage of the “quietly on top of the keys” practising
requires it, we can keep alternating using the hand alone that is doing its
touching movements with trying to use both hands, keeping the one doing
its silent touching movements, the other playing out loud, two or three
times in a row, generally, although, as usual, we should not form a rigid rule
but be flexible. Occasionally we might have to alternate these two kinds of
practising even more than this, but generally “two or three times in a row”
is a good rule of thumb for complicated practising like this as it means we
are hopefully still fresh afterwards rather than our concentration becoming
worse. The third stage, as you probably guessed, is to use both hands
playing out loud, listening carefully to check that one hand is noticeably
quieter than the other. Not surprisingly, as we are using the fundamental
principle of going from the simpler to the harder, we find, at this third stage,
that it is much easier to play more quietly with one hand than the other now.
However, do not be surprised if you need to go through the same three
stages again, for the same passage, on other occasions. However, sooner or
later this particular passage will become easier to play in the way intended,
and also this exercise makes it easier to play similar passages with one hand
louder than the other. There is another method I also use sometimes with
pupils for a passage like this, which is to pretend that the hand that is
supposed to play more quietly is lighter than the other hand, or, sometimes,
it helps to think of it the other way round - that one hand is heavier than the
other. As usual one needs to see which approach helps a particular pupil.
We can use a similar approach for a passage where one hand must be
played legato and one staccato. In this case, alternating hands separately
and hands together tends to be what helps, but also doing this at a tempo
that is slower than if we were playing up to speed usually. In fact, where we
are putting all our concentration into one little bit of a piece, which is what
detailed, accurate practising so often requires, it is usually the case that we
need a slower speed than the up to speed tempo. We have already seen how
useful the general principle of “slow practising” can be.
Another aspect of cautious practising is, before starting any piece, to
make sure we prepare ourselves carefully. This means, even if we are very
used to the piece, noticing again the key it is in, the time-signature, and
what the piece says at the top - the title of the piece and any tempo or
similar marking. It also means looking through the first bar or two,
including thinking of the speed we will use. You will see there are definite
links, therefore, to preparing a sight-reading exercise (see Chapter 5),
although in this case, we are taking a few moments, usually, rather than the
norm of thirty seconds for sight-reading.
Lastly, as part of our patient approach to the piano, I wish to discuss the
matter of finding a balance between relaxation and tension. This is
important in practising and in performing, practising being an aspect of
performing, in any case, and not something separate from it I feel. There is
communication in private practising, in the sense that we should be
allowing the piece to speak to us, feeling the mood deeply, even when
practising an individual bar. This must be why Artur Rubinstein said he
never practised but always played (in other words, there was never the
danger of practising in a mechanical way). Finding a balance between
tension and relaxation must always be important in a performing situation
because it is the only way for us to be at our best, or hopefully near to it, as
much of the time as possible. Otherwise, performing would be too draining
an experience. Even crotchet rests are a little chance for the concentration to
catch its breath, as it were. So, how can we find this balance between
relaxation and tension (a principle which can also be called “relaxed
concentration”, and is used, for instance, in the martial arts)? If in a lesson,
for instance, which is very much a performing situation, we feel we are too
tense, we can consciously relax. If we then feel we are too relaxed, we can
try harder until we feel we have managed to find the right balance between
relaxation and tension. Of course, the right amount of trying hard is not at
all a negative kind of tension, but in fact a rather positive thing - I like to
think of it as a good sort of tension, whereas trying too hard becomes a bad
sort of tension, tending to result in a weaker performance. As we become
increasingly used to applying more relaxation or applying more tension,
according to what is needed, it becomes eventually as easy as turning on a
tap! Once this is so, you can see how we can consciously even use a little
tiny rest as a moment’s relaxation, which helps us to gather up our energy
again in time for the next part of the piece that requires it. If the passage
that follows is particularly demanding in a difficult piece, we are
particularly likely to want to use the rests in this way.
We all need a degree of tension to play at our best, just not too much. If
we are really trying hard to learn good methods of practicing, we become
more confident in our playing, and that, of course, is the most important
way to not feel too tense in performance. However, for the pianist, as for the
solo singer, there is so much tension to deal with, because of not having
others around you also playing your part, as in an orchestra, or choir, so that
it helps enormously to become used to finding a good balance between
relaxation and tension. In the end, this becomes the norm, if we work at the
habit carefully. Throughout the various stages of learning the piano we must
always aim that weaker aspects of our playing improve until they are as
strong as the strongest areas. However, if someone felt very tense when
performing because of not having practised enough or because of not
having done good enough practising, there would be only a little or no
benefit coming from “relaxed concentration”.
Music is a living, creative force, which is why practising should be a
creative, rather than a dry, mechanical activity. We should be thoughtful in
our practising, therefore, otherwise there is the danger of playing the same
passage with the same mistakes again and again, like an old record with a
scratch, that is stuck on the same bit of music! What should always be our
first impulse when we have made a mistake? Not to straightaway, without
taking any care, play the passage again, as can happen so easily, or, as I say,
the same mistake will tend to be reinforced. Because we want to be accurate
in our playing a high proportion of the time, the first impulse must be to
work out exactly what the mistake is that caused the passage to not sound as
it should (usually the musical ear notices something is not correct because
we are remembering the passage from having heard the teacher play it).
Then we should use the pencil to remind us what to be careful of (most
commonly a ring round something), and then we should work out what
method of practising will help us, using our instincts to guide us, going by
experience. After practising in the best way we can find a little bit of a
piece on its own that contains the particular mistake or mistakes that
happened, it is usually helpful to practise it in context because, when
playing the whole piece, we must be able to keep going throughout.
Sometimes practising it in context means going from the bar before,
sometimes it involves a longer section depending on our stage of
development in our work at the piece.
Because there are so many possible ways one could practise a particular
passage, we need to be very flexible whenever we practise. It is interesting
to notice that although we tend to need to practise something in various
different ways, approaching it from different angles, there is usually one
way that will help a particular mistake to come right the most effectively,
although various other ways of practising that bit can help also. We are like
an artist with a palette of many different colours, if we think of our
knowledge of so many possible ways in which we could practise
something. Therefore, if something does not come right, the fact that we
have another “colour”, another way in which we could practise it, allows us
to “stay positive”, and to remedy the situation straightaway usually. We
must never let ourselves start to go down the road of thinking, “I can’t do
this”, where there are so many helpful ways of practising a piece we can try.
There is the principle of experimenting, to find what method of practising a
piece will have the right effect, just as there is the principle of the instincts
guiding us from experience - therefore, if something goes wrong, there can
hardly ever be grounds for assuming the task is beyond us, particularly as a
teacher is usually careful to make sure that pieces and scales, while often
being stretching, are nevertheless manageable for the pupil.
Part of an approach of flexibility in our practising is to sometimes
practise away from the piano. This is refreshing for the concentration, as we
do so much practising at the piano. Away from the piano, we can do useful
work on interpretation, for instance, thinking the piece through in various
ways. Also, for instance, a particularly difficult trill, requiring, say, fingers
4 and 5, if carried out on a table-top, or the closed piano lid, may be easier,
because we have less to think about, so that when we try it again at the
piano, there is an improvement, again following the principle of going from
the easier to the harder. In fact, principles are more helpful in piano-playing
in general than rigid rules.
I would like to give a couple more examples of flexibility in our
practising. At an advanced stage particularly, but sometimes at an earlier
stage, a particularly difficult part of a piece can sometimes be helped by
learning to play it well standing up. The point is that if we can master it in
this way, we can play it particularly well sitting down, as that is much
easier. This is an example of going from the harder to the easier, which you
can imagine is far less commonly needed in our practising than going from
the easier to the harder, but even so, can be useful. When practising from
memory (see Chapter 8) we need to also apply a certain flexibility - we
should, for instance, become able to play a piece well from memory slowly,
not just to be able to play it from memory up to speed - again, this is using
the unusual principle of going from the harder to the easier, as it is
paradoxically harder to play or practise something slowly rather than up to
speed, as it requires more concentration. People so often think slow practise
should be easy because it has such a good effect! However, what happens is
that the musical ear latches onto the sound of the piece up to speed, and we
also become used to how that feels under the fingers, so that that is what
particularly sticks in the mind. Also, all too easily people can do too little
slow practising, so they are just not so used to that in the piece. However, as
you will have gathered from what I mentioned earlier, slow practising needs
to become a well-established and in fact enjoyable habit for the pianist at
any stage.
One of the most important principles of good piano practise is to be
aware that what we think of first, if we are wavering between two possible
notes or chords, nearly always turns out to be correct, to such an extent it
seems to apply more than 99% of the time in my experience! Adults
probably remember from their school days being told about this, in relation
to tackling multiple-choice questions. Children also seem to be still, in
general, being taught about this by their schools. If we are wavering
between two possible notes, in our mind, while playing a piece, and we
remember this principle, we may well be able to keep going without making
any mistake! Also, applying this principle means we are in effect relying on
our instincts, which we must do increasingly, as playing the piano is so
complex. Once a pianist has reached an advanced, or very advanced level,
most of the accuracy in a piece is coming from developed instincts. There is
just too much detail for the pianist to be able to notice it all in the conscious
mind - the subconscious is doing a great deal of the work.
I wish to mention the most fundamental principle of all in the rhythmic
side of our piano-playing, which is that we must count throughout pieces,
always being aware of where the beats come in each bar, as well as fitting
individual lengths of notes into this beat structure. It is vital right from the
beginning of learning the piano to start developing the habit of counting in
our pieces. As nearly all rhythmic mistakes are caused by not counting, you
can see why we must keep an eye every so often that we are maintaining
this habit of counting all the way through our pieces. Obviously, there is not
time to check this during every note we play, but we can do this sort of
checking where there is a rest, for instance, or where we come to an easier
bit of the piece. We can sometimes count out loud, to make really sure we
keep the counting going, as long as this does not become too much of a
habit in a particular piece, as it would be most irritating if someone did this
while playing to a friend, for instance!
I also want to mention the three ways of counting that tend to be the most
helpful. Firstly, where we have one note per beat, we can count 1212 and so
on, in two time, or 123123 and so on, in three time, for instance. Secondly,
where two notes per beat is very common in the piece, we can count 1 and 2
and, and so on, in two time, or 1 and 2 and 3 and, and so on, in three time,
dividing each beat in two. You can imagine that this would be a real bore to
maintain throughout a piece, if there were only a few places where the beat
divided in two, however. Also, it is common to need to change our
counting, using this kind of counting in one passage, for instance, and the
first kind in another, where there might not be any dividing the beat in two.
Thirdly, there is another way in which we can count when the beat divides
in two. This is to count 1-un 2-oo 3-ee and so on (in three time). As you can
see, I am using how the word sounds, rather than how it is spelled for this,
as 1-one would be rather confusing, for instance. It works well, I have
found, to only introduce this kind of counting once the pupil is used to
counting 1 and 2 and 3 and, and so on, however, as one does not want to
cause confusion by introducing too many new things too soon. In the long-
term, counting 1-un 2-oo, and so on, is more helpful than 1 and 2 and, and
so on, because it is nearer to counting 1 2, and so on, nearer therefore to the
vital sense of what the basic beat is, besides the awareness of the dividing
of the beat. If our basic beat that has divided in two divides again, we can
go from counting 1-un 2-oo, and so on, to counting 1-u-u-un 2-oo-oo-oo,
and so on! The equivalent, using the other system, is to go from counting 1
and 2 and to counting 1-un a-and 2-oo a-and, useful at an earlier stage as
easier.
If we use good methods of practising, including attending to technique
(see Chapter 3), and develop the musical ear (see Chapter 2), we are bound
to become more confident in our playing than we would otherwise, because
all this develops our habits of accuracy. Believing we can play the piece
well is of the utmost importance, as part of this process, but of course, we
need good reason to believe we can do a thing, so we must know the
necessary practising has happened. Only very rarely could it help to pretend
we are confident without having done the necessary preparation.
Believing in oneself helps the barriers of the mind to not come down, as
it were (which happens when we are tense), which would block the easy
flow of information that comes from the subconscious. This applies when
playing from memory, but also when playing from the music, because even
then, the memory very much plays a part, if we know the music well, and
adds to what our reading of music skills can contribute (see chapter 8). If
someone plays from the music but knows every part of the piece inside out,
they have to be very careful, however, that they do not sometimes play a
passage totally from memory, or they will probably find they look up and
do not know where they are in the music.
You will see from the above that we ourselves can make all the difference
to the way our playing progresses. We are each the teacher’s assistant, in
effect, a very comforting thought because we can be master of our fate
therefore if we apply thoroughly to our practising what we learn in the
lessons.
 2. Developing the Musical Ear

The musical ear is the most important tool we have for playing the piano,
whereas the fingers are the servants of the brain, although they must be
developed in the right ways for strength and flexibility (see chapter 3). The
musical ear has constantly to judge what we are doing whilst playing and,
therefore, even from lesson one we must be listening throughout. As we
listen while playing scales and pieces, as well as sight-reading, we can
make countless tiny adjustments where needed, for instance in articulation,
rhythm and dynamics.
The musical ear should be thought of as the ear used in conjunction with
the brain and it is inextricably linked to the complex coordination that is
required in the playing of so challenging an instrument as the piano. Indeed,
the whole of technique is like a vast jigsaw puzzle in which everything is
interconnected.
As we develop the habit of listening the musical ear becomes more acute,
and we should do this instinctively even when sight-reading a difficult
passage. This instinctive listening used in parallel with our proficiency in
sight-reading (see chapter 5) will encourage overall accuracy.
The musical ear is also developed well by choir-singing. Pupils who have
sung in choirs, even if some years before, tend to have a head-start when it
comes to the pitch side of the musical ear compared with those who have
not been so fortunate in this way. However, those who have not benefitted
from this training, or who do not have the opportunity, need not regard this
negatively. It is still possible with effort on the part of both student and
teacher to develop the pitch side of the musical ear with enormous success.
Besides the various kinds of aural tests with which the teacher can help
the pupil there are many ways in which the pupil can contribute directly to
the process. Aside from listening whenever playing, which I have already
discussed, the pupil can work at improvising and playing by ear. If the
playing by ear involves melodies the pupil is familiar with, the task of
finding the correct pitches of notes and rhythms is made easier and indeed
the process becomes an encouraging one. Also, it will be easier to find the
chords that go with the melody as the skills of the pupil, in relation to
playing by ear, develop - trial and error is the key. If a pupil is at a stage
where he or she is finding it difficult to find the melody on the piano, trial
and error will help considerably in testing various notes until the pupil can
hear the right ones have been found. The melody will gradually evolve by
experimentation until the pupil is happy with it. If the pupil is more
advanced in playing by ear, experimenting with different chords (until a
much-loved part of the piece sounds as it should) will be a more enjoyable
and rewarding experience. The musical ear can and should develop
throughout our lives.
As well as benefitting from singing in choirs, improvisation and playing
by ear, the pupil can benefit from making up little exercises to complement
the efforts the teacher is making to develop the musical ear. For instance, it
is useful to be able to play a note and then to sing another one at a higher
interval (at first a second, third, fourth or fifth above the first note,
progressing to bigger intervals). It helps to use the structure of the basic
triad as a help here - for example, C - F is reached easily by thinking C-E-F,
using the E as a springboard to help find the F. Similarly, C-A is reached
easily by thinking C-E-G-A, using the CEG triad as a springboard to find
the A. It is also a help to think in terms of the relevant scale for finding a
particular pitch of note - we can sing from C to F by thinking of D and E on
the way to the F instead of using the triad method I mentioned. As
familiarity with different intervals increases it becomes possible to sing the
two notes without thinking of any in between.
We must aim for the pitch side of the musical ear to develop enough to be
able to sing back any line of music in a piece we are playing at an octave
our voices can manage. If we can do this whenever we want, we can
become secure as to accuracy of pitch as long as we also use sensible
methods of practising (see Chapter 1) in conjunction with our sight-reading
ability (see Chapter 5), the developing of which helps our reading of music
in general.
In developing the pitch side of the musical ear, it is a great challenge to
sing back a major scale so that the pitch, after singing up and down the
scale, is the same. Remember, it helps to keep the piano in tune not just for
this kind of exercise but for good development of the musical ear in
general, as well as for the health of the piano. After an octave, if the note is
noticeably out of tune, start with singing a bit of the scale, perhaps the first
four notes. If this becomes possible, stretch it to the first five notes and so
on, again checking whether the note is in tune. After developing an ability
to sing a major scale up an octave in tune, the next challenge can be to sing
up an octave of the chromatic scale thereby continuing to develop the pitch
side of the musical ear. Obviously, an ability to sing up or down the
chromatic scale in tune helps enormously with difficult intervals - a major
seventh, for instance, could be approached by singing up an octave and then
down a semitone or by simply thinking up an octave and down a semitone.
Another useful and enjoyable exercise involves the pupil turning off a
recording of music after hearing an interesting melody and trying to find the
same notes on the piano – starting with a simple, brief melody. It is also
great fun to turn our back to the piano, play two notes at random, reaching
behind to play one with the left hand, the other with the right, and work out
the interval!
On the rhythmic side there are similarly many useful exercises we can
find to add to that which the teacher gives us in lessons. For instance, when
listening to a favourite piece of music, if you come to a particularly
interesting rhythm, you can turn off the music and try to write down just the
rhythm on a piece of manuscript paper. As this ability develops, and the
pitch side develops, it becomes possible to write down correctly pitches of
notes and rhythms together even for more complicated melodies.
The acuity of the musical ear is helped enormously if we become an
increasingly observant listener, not only as to our own playing, but also in
relation to other music we hear both live as well as in recordings. However,
it is important when listening in an analytical way to notice the broad sweep
of the piece - if we fail to “see the wood for the trees” we have defeated the
object of this aspect of aural training which is to help train the musical ear
in a way that makes us better musicians not worse ones! As we develop
sight-reading, we will also become more observant in every way.
 3. Technique

Technique should be thought of in the broadest sense in piano-playing,

and the acquiring of a good technique means the acquiring of the various
skills needed to play whatever we want to be able to play, in scales and so
on, and in pieces. It is a common misconception that technique only relates
to scales, arpeggios, broken chords, other exercises for the fingers, and
studies - in fact, pieces themselves are incredibly useful also for developing
our technique as we have to learn to play well anything that might occur in
a piece. It helps enormously to often form little exercises from bits of a
piece that might be difficult (see Chapter 1), for the sake of improving our
playing of the piece as we have already seen, but also for the sake of our
technique in general, as this helps other similar bits of pieces that we may
well encounter. Clearly, it must be outside the scope of this little book to
include all the possible areas of technique that can appear in piano pieces,
so vast is the repertoire, although it is possible to discuss fundamental
principles. “Moderation in all things” very much applies to the development
of a good technique. An obsession with scales to improve our technique, to
the exclusion of forming exercises from bits of pieces, would be unwise,
but so too would be to not practise scales, arpeggios and so on enough.
As we saw in Chapter 5, the beginnings of technique are the five-finger
exercise, very tangibly. However, in a sense, everything we learn, in order
to be able to play what we need to, including even learning what a crotchet
is, for instance, is part of technique, if it is to be thought of in the broadest
sense, as I mentioned. Therefore, all the theory of music we learn, so we
can play what we want to, is part of our technique, part of the armoury as it
were. As with learning the piano in general, technique is a great adventure.
Therefore, as we are constantly coming across new horizons to explore in
our pieces, we are constantly learning new skills. It is very exciting to first
learn to play a scale, and the scale of C is a delightful development of the
basic five-finger exercise as it uses all the same notes but adds more,
allowing us to do more playing. Similarly, when scales go from one octave
to two, or when they go from three octaves to four, it is very exciting, as we
again find we have the chance to do much more playing before the end of
the scale. The trouble with one octave scales at the very beginning of
building our piano technique is that they finish almost straight after they
have begun! However, because they are not easy by any means at first, the
challenge is such that we can enjoy mastering them. However, once the one
octave scales are easy for us, we realise how enjoyable it is going to be to
play over two octaves instead, and we feel our fingers benefitting from the
extra exercise once we extend the range of our scales.
We should, in fact, keep looking out for that feeling of our fingers being
“warmed up”, as the expression goes. However, personally, I prefer the
expression “limbering up” to “warming up”, in relation to scales and so on,
because it is certainly not only a matter of temperature, although it does
play its part. Muscles tend to not be at their best below a certain
temperature. It tends to be after playing a fair number of scales, arpeggios
and so on that the fingers are feeling particularly ready for what will follow
in the way of pieces and so on. The feeling of a certain warm glow in the
hands when this point has been reached must be comparable to the feeling
an athlete has after limbering up to prepare for a race. Indeed, the pianist is
an athlete of the fingers, just as the singer, for instance, is an athlete of the
vocal cords. If we notice that wonderful warm glow I have described in the
hands, when it happens, it means we can also deliberately aim for it, which
is bound to make the process of reaching that point become more efficient.
There are some days when it is easier and quicker than others to reach this
desirable point, but it of course helps the process for our instincts to become
honed to a fine edge. As we have already seen, there are so many areas of
piano-playing where the instincts have to become honed to a fine edge so
that more and more aspects of our playing can become automatic, or nearly
automatic. As well as the pianist being an athlete of the fingers, we will see
in Chapter 9 how the pianist is also, in fact, a musical actor, so you can see
that in piano-playing there is never a dull moment!
Normally it is important to start our practising with scales because they
tend to be the best thing of all for encouraging strength and flexibility of the
fingers. The flexibility you can see always has to go with the strength in
piano-playing because we are talking of very finely-tuned movements
indeed, so it is very different from the kind of strength that has to be
developed by a weight-lifter, for instance. Indeed, even to play loudly on
the piano needs only a slight increase in pressure compared with playing
quietly, so you can see the movements required are particularly precise. If
usually we start with scales, we can occasionally allow ourselves to start
with a piece we find easy, or even some sight-reading, as long as it is not
too demanding on the fingers when they are not yet limbered up. It can be
very refreshing to start with a piece for a change, and is another example of
avoiding a dry, boring routine, but, as I say, this should only be occasionally
because there is nothing better for getting our fingers ready for what
follows than scales.
The scales we should begin with in our practise sessions, once we are
ready to cope with these, are F sharp major scale, D flat major scale and B
major scale, being the major scales that use all five black notes. We know
from historical accounts that Chopin always asked his pupils to start with
these in their practising, but it must be remembered that they were always
already at an advanced stage. At an earlier stage, I find it works well if
pupils do as their initial warming-up scales E, A and B major scales.
Whichever of these two groups pupils are using, they nearly always tend to
want to start with B major scale: this one is the most comfortable scale
under the fingers once it has been mastered. At very early stages, however,
the pupil cannot yet use B, E or A major scales at all. Why does it work
well to start our practising with these major scales that use a lot of black
notes? The answer is that they encourage us to use the curved hand shape
(hands curved as if resting on a ball) and are the most comfortable under the
fingers. Why is it desirable to encourage the curved hand shape? This is
because with the fingers curved in this way (I discuss this shape of the hand
in Chapter 4) they can work the most efficiently, as the force of gravity
helps their downward movements towards the piano keys. Therefore, the
curved hand shape is the most natural, comfortable way to use the hand for
the piano, which is why most concert pianists in the world use the shape of
hand that Chopin advocated. There are sometimes, however, large intervals
and chords that require the hand to have to flatten, so that we cannot use the
curved hand shape.
After the initial limbering-up of the hands in this way, the pupil is ready
to practise other scales (unless at such an early stage that only one or two
scales are known). We can occasionally go straightaway to, say, arpeggios
after initial limbering-up scales, however, but the reason we would not
usually do this is again because of scales tending to be the very best thing
for encouraging the strength and flexibility of the fingers. Once enough
scales are known well it works very well to practise them in a systematic
way - for instance, at an advanced stage, it is very satisfying straight after
initial warming-up scales to practise all the other major scales. This is not
just enjoyable because they go together well but because major scales, in
general, tend to be rather comfortable under the fingers once we master
them. It also works well to approach them systematically because it
reinforces our understanding of which scale, and consequently which key,
has one flat, which has two flats (in major scales, for instance), or which
has one sharp, or two sharps, for instance also, in the same way, in the
major scales, for instance. In relation to the minor scales, it helps to practise
them systematically also, to reinforce in our minds which one is the relative
minor of the major scale with two sharps, which is the relative minor of the
major scale with three sharps, and so on.
I do not recommend working with pupils at melodic minor scales too
soon, as they are, in general, much harder than the harmonic minor scales
because they are different going up than going down (really two scales in
one, therefore). Where the teacher finds that a grade exam allows the pupil
to choose between harmonic and melodic minor scales, that pupil should be
encouraged to follow the harmonic minor path. Further down the line, of
course, the pupil will find that the grade exam requires him or her to know
both kinds, however, but there is no need to cross bridges until we come to
them as there is so much for the pupil to master anyway. That said, it is
good if the pupil has done just a little of melodic minor scales well before
grade exams start to require them so that the process is started, and so the
pupil understands melodic minor scales a little in general in a way that
helps when he or she finds a composer is using that version of the minor
scale in a piece, for instance, rather than the harmonic minor version.
Because, of the basic diatonic scales, there is one kind of major scale but
there are two kinds of minor ones, with the melodic minor version, as we
have seen, being a variety where each scale has two forms, this means, in
effect, a composer having access to three kinds of minor scale/key.
Although the melodic minor scale is different going downwards, the notes
of that part of it might be used in a piece in an ascending pattern, for
instance, but it would be still recognisably that part of the melodic minor
scale being used.
All scales rely on the memory, ideally, as it is much easier for them to
flow well from memory, particularly as it becomes eventually important to
be able to play them quickly. Grade exams require them to be played from
memory, for instance. That said, we, of course, should use the printed copy
to help us master a scale when we need to. Scales all rely also on thinking
ahead. Music is always a discipline that requires us to think ahead - we have
to constantly be one jump ahead because of the amount of detail to master,
and because we have to think of certain landmarks to be careful of in time if
we are to play accurately. Scales are also very useful for developing other
skills such as legato, and these skills are always developed within a very
manageable framework because even over four octaves, a single scale
allows for complete concentration during a limited time-span, and using a
limited amount of notes. Although the tiny child in the early stages would
not quite think in this way, even at that age and stage the child can be
helped to understand that scales develop many skills that are useful for our
pieces. If this is explained, even a young child does not have to end up
playing scales mechanically.
We should always pretend a scale, arpeggio or broken chord is a little
piece. It should have an ebb and a flow to it and we should even be
gradually slowing up as we approach the end. There should be no notes that
stand out a long way from other notes and we should be making a good
sound as in a piece. There should also be an even flow. If a scale, for
instance, is played staccato, there should be an evenness about the staccato
playing.
The reason for using a grouping with scales, arpeggios and broken chords
is that it helps with evenness. I favour a grouping in fours where possible.
This means making each scale, arpeggio or broken chord become, in effect,
a piece in four time, with every fourth note possessing an accent. It is not
surprising there are stages where the length of the scale or arpeggio might
require grouping in threes, but generally, grouping in fours works
particularly well. For the first of every four notes to possess an accent, we
must be careful that counting “1, 2, 3, 4” as we play does not interfere with
the fingering we are using. That is why quite a degree of familiarity with
the most basic of the scales is advisable before a teacher starts to tackle
grouping in fours. Everyone finds at first, nevertheless, that they sometimes
muddle the counting involved in grouping in fours with the fingering, but if
we are already very used to the most basic scale involved we can usefully
alternate playing it through without grouping in fours with trying to group it
in fours, another example of going from the easier to the harder. With any
new skill in piano-playing we are starting with mastering it in the simplest
way, and this is no exception - I always use C major scale for the
beginnings of this grouping in fours technique. One then expands it to
include other scales with the same fingering. The “1” must have a moderate
accent, and the “2, 3, 4” must be played much more lightly, being careful
that this quieter playing really does start with the “2”, rather than the “2 3
4” only gradually becoming quieter than the “1”. However, the “2 3 4” must
not be so quiet that it is as if the mice are there! Only once grouping in
fours is well underway in scales do we turn to using a grouping for
arpeggios, so this is not muddling. I only start to use with a pupil a grouping
pattern for broken chords once the arpeggios are well underway from that
point of view.
As to the pupil’s work at arpeggios, it helps to be aware that they are in
general much more challenging than scales because they require much
bigger movements and therefore even more looking ahead. As the
movements are sometimes not just large but enormous, you can see why,
again, we have to always be one jump ahead, and also why we must use the
sense of feeling a great deal in our playing. If we are not just used to which
note we press next in an arpeggio with which finger, but also the sound and
feeling it has, we are bound to be more confident and accurate than
otherwise. Practising things a bit at a time is as important in arpeggios (and
scales, for instance) as in pieces, and the same applies, of course, to slow
practising. Scales, arpeggios and broken chords tend to be harder going
down than going up because of the habit of reading from left to right (it
would be the opposite if someone was used to reading from right to left), so
overall we need to do even more practising in the downwards direction than
in the upwards, sometimes starting the practising from the top downwards
then trying the arpeggio, scale, or broken chord all the way through, not just
going from the top downwards when something goes wrong, the prevention
being better than the cure. We tend to come across bits of scales, arpeggios
and broken chords in runs in pieces far more commonly than complete
ones. In arpeggios, because the movements require the basic five-finger
hand position to stretch to quite different shapes of hand, this habit becomes
very useful for stretching awkward intervals in pieces - arpeggios are very
good for stretching the joints. We never should, or need to, do this
artificially, as it happens very naturally in practising the arpeggios. Because
of the large movements required, we have to be very careful in arpeggios
not to land with a horrible thump on the thumb, particularly where there is
no accent intended in the grouping pattern we are using. Remember that use
of the thumb always needs care in arpeggios because the muscles are so
strongly developed around it, as we use the thumb so much in life for
gripping things. We always, in fact, have to be careful in everything we do
in the piano, when using the thumb, that we do not thump!
As to broken chords, they tend to feel difficult at first, as do arpeggios,
but become progressively easier as we become more used to them. This is
so with piano technique in general. One might assume that at grade 8 stage,
or above, everything feels very difficult, but if the right stages have been
mastered along the way, the pupil at this level possesses a great deal of
knowledge and has formed a lot of the right habits, so the opposite tends the
be the truth, as long as real quality of practising is maintained, and enough
of it. The general principles of playing broken chords are the same as for
scales and arpeggios.
It is important to be aware that there are only three kinds of movement of
the wrist: lateral movement (sideways movement); what we can call “the
over movement” (like turning a doorknob without gripping), and “the up
and down movement”. In scales, arpeggios and broken chords we are using
lateral movement and “the over movement”, with virtually none of “the up
and down movement” of the wrist, which is far more unusual in piano-
playing in general (one of its uses is for repeated chords, for instance). It is
natural for there to be a slight ebb and flow in dynamics in all these kinds of
exercises for the fingers mentioned, but that should not go with a constant
up and down movement of the wrist, although occasionally the height of the
wrist may naturally vary very slightly. Throughout the whole of our piano-
playing we must aim to not use any unnecessary movements because this
would tend to harm our technique - we must learn to use the hands, fingers,
wrists, and indeed the whole playing apparatus, efficiently. If we become in
the habit of using unnecessary movements in our playing, this would slow
us up when we have to play fast passages, and it would also tend to make us
more inaccurate in general, as our concentration would not be so focussed if
the brain was having to cope with all sorts of unnecessary movements
besides everything else it has to cope with. As to lateral movement, that
side to side variety of movement we can see easily, if we extend our arm
outwards, palm downwards, and try to move our hand from side to side,
only using the wrist, not the whole arm. You will notice that the movement
is not like the way a crab moves but is a variety of sideways turning
movement. Similarly, we can see “the over movement”, which, as I say, is
like turning a doorknob without gripping, if we again extend our arm
outwards, palm downwards, and make a rotating movement of the wrist
without gripping. In scales as well as arpeggios we use the lateral
movement a great deal going upwards in the right hand, however going
upwards in the left hand we use “the over movement” a great deal. It is the
other way round when going downwards in the case of each hand.
However, broken chords are mainly concerned with “the over movement”.
Building up of speed, in our playing of scales, arpeggios and broken
chords, must be allowed to develop gradually and in a natural manner rather
than being forced unnaturally, if we are to maintain accuracy. This is
reflected in the way grade exams only gradually require an increase of
speed for these as they progress. The point is that the coordination required
develops. As so often in piano-playing, it is easy for the brain to understand
early on what is required but that does not mean the brain can straightaway
help us to be fast and accurate - the coordination we need literally evolves.
As to studies, we know that Chopin liked very much their use for
developing technique, just as he was very keen on its development by
means of scales. Chopin indeed composed some very fine Etudes. What
Chopin was not keen on, we know from historical accounts, was the very
dry kinds of finger-exercises which continue in endless sequences with no
real musicality in their formation. Because these kinds of exercises are not
created in a particularly artistic way, it is not surprising that people often
find they end up playing them mechanically - Chopin’s contemporaries
among the piano teachers used a great deal of very dry finger-exercises and
he was very concerned at the mechanical influence on people’s piano
playing that stemmed from this. The point is: how we play scales or finger-
exercises or studies is bound to influence how we play our pieces in
general, as so much of piano-playing, as I have already mentioned, is
governed by the subconscious. We have to try to feed this pool of habits, in
effect, with good fodder, one could say, so that we are only full of good
habits in our playing, only full of good, accurate memories as much as
possible, trying to nip mistakes in the bud as much as we can.
I like, as the first study I give to someone, to use “Doctor Gradus ad
Parnassum” by Debussy from “Children’s Corner”, as it is a brilliantly
constructed piece of music, quite besides being wonderful for the fingers
and for developing real control in dynamics, including in quiet passages.
This works well for youngsters and for adults once they are at a stage to
benefit from it, and it does not matter in the least that the title of the
collection refers to children. This is most definitely not a childish piece! If a
pupil does their best with this piece when approaching grade five stage, this
will stimulate the development of the technique because the pupil is so keen
to be able to play such a wonderful piece, but if the pupil, once feeling he or
she has got as far as possible with it, drops it and then comes back to it
when approaching grade 6 level, that pupil finds he or she can build up the
playing of the piece to a higher level and manage faster speeds accurately,
as long as the piano-playing has continued to develop well in the
meanwhile. If the pupil also comes back to the piece at grade 7 or 8 stage,
or even beyond that level, the same applies to an even greater extent: each
time the pupil returns to this piece I have found it will help develop the
technique even more. Obviously, ideally, the pupil should become able to
play this piece very quickly and accurately, maintaining consistent quiet
playing where needed, not an easy thing by any means even with the use of
the soft pedal. Once the pupil, even at grade 5 stage or approaching it, has
heard the piece played up to speed by the teacher, it will stick in the mind as
to how the piece goes at that speed because of the effect of the musical
memory, and ever afterwards the motivation will be very strong to manage
that accurate, fast speed. That is well and good as long as the pupil works
patiently in that direction rather than trying straightaway to manage this
when not ready for it!
I find Busoni wonderful also for developing technique and I use material
at an advanced stage that will act for the pupil as an extension of their work
on scales. Busoni understood technique very well and it is delightful for the
pupil to find different parts of different scales combined in interesting runs.
There are of course many interesting studies by different composers that
can be used to develop a wide range of aspects of technique, to add to what
we learn through scales and so on as well as through the skills required by
various pieces, and we find that the major composers, and the quite major
composers also, were usually deeply involved in the teaching process, so
that it is very common, not just in pieces labelled “study” or “etude”, for
their pieces to be clearly intended to develop certain aspects of technique,
not just being useful to play because of being wonderful pieces of music.
We should be observing which aspect of technique Beethoven, for instance,
is helping us to develop in a particular piece, and the realisation of this is, of
course, an exciting discovery as well as necessary, if we are to be able to
best use what it can do for our playing. We do our utmost to rise to the
occasion in the sense of trying to use our technique to play the piece as it
clearly needs to be played, and, if necessary, learning a new aspect of
technique to play the piece as it needs to be played because the great
composer expects us to. Indeed, this humble way of thinking of ourselves as
the servant of the composer is the only way for our playing to progress well
from a musical point of view, as well as from a technical point of view,
without falling into the ghastly trap of egotism and showmanship which
blights far too much of the field of piano-playing and has done for a very
long time. Thank goodness it does not affect everyone who loves to play the
piano! To give you a straightforward example, it is one thing to use a very
robust forte and then an immensely quiet pianissimo, for instance, because
the piece requires it, but it is a very different matter where someone does
this to show off that they can play like that in a place where it does not suit
the music. I personally cannot stand showmanship as it never produces real
music and always causes pieces to sound artificial.
Lastly, I wish to mention that developing of our sight-reading and of the
musical ear would always add to the process of developing our technique
considerably.
 4. The Beginnings of: Learning to Play the Piano,
Reading Music and Sight-reading

From the very beginning of learning to play the piano the pupil should be
encouraged to desire to constantly learn new skills and new pieces, but
parallel to this should be the constant development of an attitude of patience
in the pupil. Although we must constantly learn new skills, we must also
make sure we are mastering each new scale or piece rather than trying to do
so many that we just scratch the surface. A pupil who tries to do more in a
short space of time than they can manage, or a teacher who tries to cram too
much material into a lesson, causes a position whereby the opposite of what
is aimed for will happen: instead of progressing quickly progress would be
impeded. At whatever stage someone is in the piano it is important to work
at a moderate or small amount well rather than doing things half-well. We
should aim to master each stage to be able to progress onto the next one.
Therefore, if a tiny child of only five and a half is ready to learn the piano
but can only master the five-finger exercise in the right hand during the first
lesson, as well as the very beginnings of working at a simple piece that
might only involve middle C notes, in different simple rhythms, for
instance, as well as doing a little singing and clapping, hopefully improving
these areas of the musical ear a little, then so be it, rather than trying to
cover so much that the poor pupil’s head is swimming and little is retained!
I know from experience that for a child to be ready to start learning the
piano the concentration must already be developed enough, as must the
hand-eye coordination and the motivation. One also notices how the
musical ear is, but the wonderful thing about the musical ear is that it can
develop and develop, however good or otherwise it might be to begin with
(see Chapter 2). Usually within the first lesson one can tell whether the
child is yet ready to learn to play the piano, and if the child is told by the
parents, “You’re going to try out a little piano”, it works very well, if the
child is not yet ready, for the child to be then told by the parents, “We will
try out piano again when you are a little older”. This process is greatly
helped if the teacher also says to the child at the beginning of the lesson,
“We are going to try out a little piano”. That way of doing things is
encouraging rather than discouraging: the whole process of learning the
piano should always be an encouraging one. One cannot be rigid about an
ideal age for starting the piano: some children have a surprisingly well-
developed hand-eye coordination, degree of concentration and motivation at
an extremely young age, whereas for others it would not work well to start
until they are a little older.
Obviously, for the adult beginner, the coordination is usually already very
developed because of transferable skills such as having learnt to drive a car
and having mastered keyboarding on a computer, for instance, clearly a
very different movement from piano-playing but nevertheless requiring a
complex hand-eye coordination. Motivation tends to be strong for an adult
if that person has made the decision to learn a difficult instrument like the
piano despite the demands of the person’s job, family life and so on. I feel it
is not encouraging, however, if an adult only wants to learn to play the
piano to be able to play one particular piece! There are people who so long
to be able to play the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata that they only
want to learn to do this. Fortunately, this is usually rare! In that situation, if
it is explained to the person that to be able to play the piece satisfactorily
one would have to master earlier stages, one can see whether the pupil has
sufficient interest in the piano to want to do this or at least thinks they
might. For an adult in this position and generally in the case of a little child,
we are not usually talking of someone who yet is sure about how strong
their commitment is to the piano. That is fine - I have always believed
someone should be allowed the chance to “have a go” at learning an
interesting instrument. A good teacher will be very used to motivating
people well in any case. The person might or might not find that instrument
is for them, however, but they would always wonder what would have
happened if they never had the opportunity to try that instrument.
In a way, the first lesson is the most crucial one as it leads to everything
else that can follow for the person, pianistically speaking. The importance
of sitting at the right height for one must be stressed. This is easy to arrange
if using an adjustable piano stool. However, if the teacher finds the pupil
does not have one it can be arranged that the pupil practises on a chair that
is hopefully a comfortable height for them - there should not be arms on the
chair that get in the way, however, and, if necessary, the parents can be
encouraged to purchase an adjustable piano stool when that is possible for
them as, anyway, the child will grow and the height at which they sit will
need therefore to vary. A cushion is not ideal for a child on a chair when
playing the piano as it is easy for the child to be sitting in an uneven sort of
way on the cushion, or even to slide off it while practising, but it might
sometimes be necessary as a temporary measure for the child’s practising
until it is possible to acquire a suitable piano stool. Sitting up straight is also
important to emphasise, not only for the lessons but also whenever the pupil
practises. This will help concentration as the circulation is better - if
someone hunches the lungs are at an awkward angle, so this is not
surprising. Sitting up straight is not usually an easy habit to get into,
however, as most people tend to do a lot of hunching when watching
television or when sitting at a desk and so on, but even if someone tends to
do this in other areas of their life, with enough reminding themselves and
enough reminding from the teacher the person will become used to good
posture when practising and playing the piano. Sitting up straight should
not mean sitting up as straight as possible, however, or that becomes a rigid,
inflexible posture with a stiff neck and shoulders, but we should make sure
we sit up straight in a way that feels natural and comfortable with relaxed
shoulders. This is totally different from the upper torso of a soldier doing
guard duty, for instance.
It is also important to sit opposite middle C. The pupil should learn from
the very beginning to always without fail practise while sitting opposite
middle C, otherwise the person is not becoming used to where everything is
on the piano. It is interesting that even for someone who has played the
piano for years, if by mistake the piano stool is not quite opposite middle C
the experience of playing the piano becomes an unnerving one as notes one
is used to do not feel in the right place! Everything in learning the piano
requires one to get into the right habits. In fact, early on in the process of
learning the piano one learns that we are all very much creatures of habit, if
one was not already aware of the fact, and it should be a comfort to know in
one’s practising that just as one can get into the wrong habits in a piece by
mistake, so too it is very possible to get into the right habits if one is careful
in one’s methods of practising (see chapter one).
Once the child or adult beginner is sitting at the right height and opposite
middle C it is important to point out that all the way up the piano keyboard
the black notes form groups of two and three notes, and also to point out
that these act as the landmarks that help us to find the notes we need to on
the piano. Therefore, straightaway, the keyboard of the piano seems friendly
rather than impossibly awkward. Having pointed out the location of middle
C I ask the person to find other C’s on the piano. I, at this stage, show the
person that whereas in life, in general, we think of “above” as being higher
up and “below” as being lower down, in the piano “above” is to the right (in
the direction of the highest notes of the piano) and “below” is to the left (in
the direction of the lowest notes of the piano). I also encouragingly remark
to the person that this might seem strange at first but that one becomes very
used to it.
I find adults can always cope with the coordination required for at least
making a start at playing the five-finger exercise in right and left hand
within the first lesson, but usually can also at least make a start at the scale
of C. Sometimes even a young child has so developed a hand-eye
coordination for their age that even within the first lesson that child can
manage right and left hand of the basic five-finger exercise. As always with
such things, it is very important not to have prior assumptions going by
anything that is mentioned on the phone by the parents but to try out
various things on the piano with the pupil and to see what happens.
A little child trying out the piano for the first time tends to be more
nervous than an adult, even though I always say to the parents that the first
lesson is not a sort of exam and that they should mention that to the child. I,
of course, am also careful to mention it to the child myself. Adults are
usually also at least slightly nervous during a first lesson even though again
I am careful to explain that it is not a sort of exam. The point is that the
person does not yet know the teacher well enough to know whether it is true
that it is not a sort of exam or other possibly unpleasant experience, so it is
vital to be particularly encouraging and positive even more than usual for
this first experience of learning the piano. If I am teaching an adult I like to
make a joke about the fact that it will be a relief, I am sure, to know that I
am not the sort of teacher that produces a ruler to apply to the knuckles!
Unfortunately, that kind of teaching used to be all too common and adults
coming back to the piano, having learnt it as a child, will often relate to one
such experiences they encountered. Thank goodness such teaching methods
would not be tolerated any more in any civilised society.
After working at the five-finger exercise, or this and the scale of C (if the
person can manage that already), I then teach the very beginnings of
playing a piece and of reading music, however not until the exercise(s) for
the fingers is/are thoroughly mastered or at least well underway.
It is important that the person makes a good start at learning to play
“legato” in attempting the basic five-finger exercise, and the same applies
to the scale of C. Although, as a teacher, I, of course, am quite clear about
“legato” consisting of leaving one note at the same time as arriving at
another, I do not emphasise that but concentrate on a direct, practical
approach - I show the pupil, as I play the five-finger exercise legato myself,
how I am playing each note until the moment I play the next one. I have
found from experience this to be the most effective way to think of legato,
the main point being that we must not hear, see or feel any “rest” or pause
happening in between any notes - the sound must be continuous. I like to
tell pupils that legato is important in the piano because the sound dies away
so quickly when we lift off a note, and I demonstrate this.
Also, in the five-finger exercise and in the scale of C it is very important
that the hand is curved as if resting on a ball - for a tiny child I use the
image of a little bouncy ball and for an adult a tennis ball that the person
can pretend their hand is resting on.
A beginner tends to find that the index, or “second” finger as we call it in
learning the piano, will curve in a concave rather than convex way at first. I
demonstrate the two ways the second finger can curve and show the person
the importance of using a convex way:-the muscles of that finger become
stronger and more flexible if we curve the finger in this way. For a child, I
do not use the word convex but show them a right way and a wrong way to
curve the second finger while playing. If the person is finding it very
difficult to do this it is often because the finger 2, having started by being
curved in a convex way, then when contacting the note curves the wrong
way because the finger does not remain firm. Therefore, I encourage the
pupil to be really determined to keep the finger firm and curved outwards
(another useful way of describing this), both before playing the note and
while playing it. With enough attempts and determination even a young
child can usually manage this within a first lesson, and even if it has to be
only with the hand he or she writes with. If the person is left-handed there is
nothing wrong with starting with the left instead of right hand for the five-
finger exercise, and even for the scale of C. Although ultimately piano-
playing trains us to be very ambidextrous, these simple beginnings of
learning so difficult although so wonderful an instrument need to be
particularly encouraging experiences as I have mentioned. Naturally, in
starting to develop technique (see chapter 3) on the piano by using the five-
finger exercise the pupil is told about how we call the thumb “finger 1” in
the piano, the other fingers being “finger 2,3,4 and 5” (little finger)-it is
very important for the pupil to understand straightaway that in the piano we
do not, in general, think of the thumb as being different from the other
fingers but as one of them, even though it is important to explain that the
muscles of the thumb are stronger than of the other fingers and therefore we
have to be careful that we do not when using the thumb produce sounds that
stand out a long way from the other sounds around them.
It is also important, in making a good start at playing the five- finger
exercise, and the scale of C, that the pupil straightaway learns to listen to
the sound (see Chapter 2). Often the person will be pressing too hard,
producing a “thumping” sound. The piano keyboard contains so many notes
that it is easy for it to seem to a beginner as if it must be extraordinarily
difficult to manage to play it at all, and to therefore press far too hard,
particularly in the case of boys or men, but sometimes in the case of girls or
women. It helps the beginner to be aware that males, if they are not careful,
tend to press too hard in the early stages, and that females tend to press too
lightly - it is useful if right from the beginning the person guards against
this. If, even in the first lesson, the pupil can learn to make a good sound, he
or she is off to a good start indeed! It is also important musically for the
person to learn to slow up gradually (rit.) at the end of the five-finger
exercise, and the same applies to the scale of C-I find it works well if the
notes elongate from a point that is 3 notes from the end at this stage. Right
at the beginning of learning the piano it is also important that the pupil
understands that scales and so on are very important for the strength and
flexibility of the fingers, and that if they are played musically they are
enjoyable and not dry, boring exercises.
There are far too many variables possible within a first lesson, as to what
the teacher and pupil might encounter in the earliest work at pieces, to be
able to give a comprehensive list within the scope of this little book, and so
I would like to next concentrate on fundamental principles of the reading of
music. However, I would just like to emphasise that one must be guided by
what the pupil can manage to master thoroughly at any stage of the process
of learning the piano, not just at the beginning, rather than going against
nature in this respect - there are steady “plodders” who may ultimately
reach a high level because of persistence just as there are “whizz-kids” that
have to learn carefully the value of patience to apply to their practising,
rather than falling into the trap of taking on too much and doing none of it
well enough.
It will be noticed that this book tends to concentrate on the most
important principles of each main area of learning to play the piano,
although I aim to intersperse this with the occasional suitable anecdote, for
instance, because people tend to learn better, I have noticed, if a cheerful,
positive atmosphere is encouraged. Indeed, if someone has just managed to
improve within the lesson something particularly stretching for them, I will
sometimes on purpose briefly change the subject and, for instance, ask an
adult how their day has been because this is refreshing for the concentration
and allows the next pianistic task in the lesson to benefit. I felt when
conceiving the idea of this book that the demands of modern life are
sufficiently great without the reader having to wade through an enormous
tome, and that in any case, it is more enjoyable for the reader to get their
teeth mainly into the fundamental aspects of the subject.
From the very first lesson, it is important to make a start at learning to
read music. As music is a language this is not surprising. Music is a
language connected to sounds rather than words, having its own grammar
and vocabulary quite besides the written and spoken forms, corresponding
in music to the theoretical and practical sides. All the basics of theory must
be covered in a very practical sense according to what needs teaching, in
order for the pupil to be able to play the particular piece or scale - the point
is that the theoretical side is always shown as related to the practical
aspects, never becoming a dry, boring thing that seems unconnected with
the enjoyable reality of the situation. Therefore, for instance, it is important
to know what bars and bar lines are, and, particularly if it is a child learning
about this for the first time, I explain that bars in a piece are usually the
same length, just as the bricks of a house are usually the same length, and
that, if we are in three time, for instance, each bar will have three beats in it.
I also explain that the bar is what is between the bar lines. How far in
learning to read music someone can progress in the first lesson varies
enormously, according to many factors such as concentration and degree of
development of coordination as I mentioned earlier in the chapter, but
maturity is also a major factor and memory also. A little child will not tend
to progress as quickly as an adult in a first lesson because the adult has
more developed skills of concentration as well as ones of coordination.
There are other transferable skills also that tend to help the adult beginner
such as being very used to following instructions given, for instance.
Therefore, the adult learning to read music must not feel the task is
hopeless because of not being, say, six years old. It is a widespread myth
that someone must be young when learning the piano if they are to progress
well. The little child is indeed like a piece of blotting paper, taking
everything in, but transferable skills are not present to anything like the
same degree as in an adult as we have seen, so it is “six of one and half a
dozen of the other” as to the matter of which age is a good one for learning
the piano.
If someone starts learning at a very young age when the brain is
particularly absorbent and they persist for a long time, they may reach a
very high level indeed if other factors such as discipline are sufficiently
present, particularly if the musical ear is very good. However, although the
major concert pianists have always tended to start at very young ages, most
people learning to play the piano are not aiming to be concert pianists.
Nevertheless, it is not as rare as someone might imagine for an adult
beginner in a difficult instrument to eventually progress a long way, if the
determination and interest in the instrument are strong enough. Also, if a
little child starts to learn to play the piano at an age where he or she does
not even start to wonder, “Will I play a wrong note in this next difficult
bit?”, they indeed can hopefully continue to approach the piano, as they
become older in that confident, positive way in which they started.
However, as well as adults who are already positive in outlook, there are
those who learn to become more positive as to the matter of not worrying
about whether wrong notes will happen. If we have done the necessary
preparation for the concert or grade exam, for instance, we can allow
ourselves to simply immerse ourselves in the music as we play, like a good
actor living the part he or she is playing (see chapter 9). Our concentration
has to be better while playing if we are not distracted from the task in hand
by any negative thoughts.
 As the adult or child learns to thoroughly master the initial stages of
learning the piano with the teacher there is always bound to be a lot of
reminding needed as to the basics because there is so much to learn at the
beginning in any language, just to get started. Therefore, do not become
discouraged if the teacher frequently needs to remind you even about
fundamental things. There is more to learn in progressing from starting
piano to taking grade one than at any other stage one could mention in
piano-playing, not surprising really as it is such a difficult instrument and
even grade one involves being required to play interesting pieces, often by
major composers. Also, for the beginner, there are many concepts and
movements to get used to for the first time, whereas the grade 7 pianist, for
instance, aiming for grade 8 piano, already has a lot of knowledge of the
piano, particularly if the various stages have been mastered thoroughly.
Therefore, we must approach the early stages of learning the piano in a
positive way but also in a patient way, trying to be sympathetic with
ourselves if we do not progress always as fast as we would wish.
It tends to be that the brain understands something, regarding piano-
playing, more easily than the coordination can manage the particular thing
until it is mastered, therefore it is good, right from the beginning, to
cultivate a patient understanding of oneself. It helps to remind oneself that
one is not a machine and therefore sometimes a difficult passage will be
harder to master than at other times. Learning to read a difficult passage in
French is not easy, and so one must not expect it to be easy to learn to read
the notes of a difficult passage of a piece that might need to be played at
high speed, for instance, if the piece is very stretching for one. However,
people tend to want to play something hands together and up to speed
immediately, so it helps to recognise this unfortunate aspect of human
nature so we can see it coming and be suitably wary of that tendency,
replacing it with a far more patient habit we cultivate.
If from the very beginning we assume it will be hard to learn to read
music well but possible if we apply patience, it can avoid false expectations
and therefore many frustrations. It is so often not that the pupil is being
stupid or lazy as he or she may feel at times, where it is that the passage is a
hard one from the point of view of reading the intricate details. Maybe there
are many flats and sharps, maybe there are simply a lot of notes to play in a
short space of time. As so often, slow practise will help enormously (see
Chapter 1). Although, as I mentioned, it tends to be the coordination
required that makes it difficult to play an intricate passage, even if the brain
finds it easy to know what the notes should be, until someone builds up the
habit of reading music well the really exciting, difficult passages would be
difficult to master from that point of view, in any case.
Whether lesson one for a six-year-old builds up to a piece that uses only
two notes, used in various different combinations or, in the case of a very
quick-witted adult, for instance, who is very determined, builds up to rather
more notes, it is still the same principle needed:-that of mastering the
reading of the music at whatever pace the pupil can manage while enjoying
the feeling of achievement, even if it is only a piece using two kinds of
notes. Compared with when the person, before that, could not play at all, or
not from the music, perhaps, even playing different combinations of C and
D would be indeed an achievement.
Usually to start the reading of music by mastering the playing of pieces
only in the right hand makes a lot of sense, as in piano we must always start
by mastering something in its simplest form before we expand outwards.
For a pupil who is left-handed, however, there would be nothing wrong
with starting with pieces that are only for the left hand. The books for
beginners tend to present pieces for just right hand first in view of most
people being right-handed, then going onto left-handed pieces, but, as I say,
there is nothing wrong with doing this the other way round as long as the
book contains easy enough left-handed pieces.
Once the pupil is familiar with pieces for the right hand as well as pieces
for the left hand it is useful to progress onto pieces that alternate right hand
and left hand.
As the reading of music for piano tends to involve the use of two
different systems-the bass-clef system of notation, and the treble-clef one, it
makes perfect sense for piano books to ease people thoroughly and
carefully into using both right hand and left hand in pieces rather than
throwing them into the deep end. If the pupil is an adult beginner it can help
to use a combination of books intended for young children and for adults,
because the books intended for adult beginners tend to whizz too quickly
over the early stages, not giving enough material to use, whereas the reverse
tends to be the case with books aimed at young children. An adult pupil
should not be put through too much of the “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
variety of piece but needs enough practise at that stage to progress onto the
next.
The playing of scales helps the pupil to know names of notes on the page
and on the piano keyboard, if the pupil is encouraged to think of the names
of the notes while playing the scale from memory, and also while following
it on the page (plenty of following it on the page in this way is, of course, a
big help right at the beginning of working at the particular scale, not least
from the point of view of fingering). However, it is also vital, right at the
beginning of learning to read music, to be using pieces that reiterate the
same basic notes, again and again, until the person is totally used to, for
instance, C, D and E, as in a particularly simple arrangement of “Mary Had
a Little Lamb” that leaves out using G’s. Then, when the person comes
across those notes in another piece, it is much easier to be able to read them.
You can see how, for any beginner, it feels quite an achievement to be able
to play even a piece like “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, compared with not
being able to, but you can also see that too much of this kind of piece for an
adult would be quite ghastly! I find folk music, in basic arrangements, a big
help with providing simple but interesting material for adults, but it also
motivates children well. Folk-music melodies have a wonderful knack of
being surprisingly simple yet effective.
The basics of theory of music are, of course, part of learning to read
music and, as I mentioned, should all be incorporated in the early piano
lessons as a living, practical part of piano-playing rather than as a dry
aspect. After all, it is an exciting part of learning to read music to first come
across a dotted rhythm, for instance, and it is exciting to learn that the dot is
always half the length of the note it is to the right of. Imagine how exciting
it is, further down the line usually, to first come across the “Scotch Snap”,
noticing the effect of a rhythm where the two notes are simply the other
way round as to the length of each, in relation to the dotted rhythm already
mentioned. Apart from the pupil learning the relationships, mathematically
speaking, between different notes (rhythm is mainly just like simple
mathematics, but can be like more complicated mathematics), it helps if the
pupil becomes used to the sounds of different rhythms, imitating the teacher
where necessary. If we think of theory as being the nuts and bolts of music
we see it as a vital, living force, in effect, and relations between different
keys, for instance, are seen to be very exciting, as the teacher points out the
effect, for instance, of the composer going into the dominant key.
The mathematical aspects of music that so fascinated the Ancient Greeks,
and those in medieval times, for instance, never lose their appeal, and we
could choose to even think of music as a practical branch of mathematics,
in a sense, although such a view would have been far more common in
those days. It might well interest the reader to know that chess can be
similarly described, and that musicians, whether amateur, or professional,
tend to be good at mathematics, and quite often like to play chess! By the
way, it is significant that music is one of the most important “mental
accelerators”, as is chess, in that both disciplines increase brain speed. One
can say, from an educational point of view, therefore, that both activities are
good for the brain and I wish they were both encouraged very much in all
schools.
The earliest stage of sight-reading relates to the first time the pupil tries
to play a new piece in the lesson (hands separately only and involving only
one hand). It can be seen, therefore, that at this stage of sight-reading,
reading of music and sight-reading are even more closely related than
further down the line, although they are always interconnected. The fact
that it is a lesson means the pupil is trying hard to notice details which is
always a necessary skill in reading music.
If, from the beginning, the importance of rhythm is stressed, the pupil
will naturally try really hard to play not only the correct notes but at the
right time - the huge effort to arrive at a note at the correct moment actually
stimulates development of technique enormously (provided that the speed
used is manageable). In fact, at any stage of learning the piano, playing
rhythmically stimulates the technique.
The most valuable way the teacher can help a beginner with early sight-
reading, apart from helping the person to understand the basics of theory
from a practical perspective, is to try to point out pitches of notes and
rhythms that the pupil needs to be careful of just before arriving at them,
thereby helping the pupil to become used to the kinds of things to notice in
that kind of sight-reading situation. Often the teacher can see from the
shape of the hand that a wrong note is about to be played and can point out
the correct one in time to prevent a mistake. Not surprisingly, details within
the piece to be careful of need to be mentioned well enough in advance for
the pupil to have time to react - once the finger is moving towards the key
of the piano it tends to be too late for the impulse to change! Naturally, it
helps the process described enormously if the pupil, while reading music, is
being both vigilant to the utmost extent in relation to the music and totally
attentive to anything the teacher might say.
One of the most amusing things that sometimes occurs in lessons is when
a pupil, particularly attentive to the teacher’s remarks, on hearing a sharp
intake of breath from the teacher, or on hearing the teacher clear his or her
throat, immediately stops playing when, in fact, the slight noise from the
teacher was quite unrelated, in any case! Perhaps the teacher was pleasantly
surprised at the maturity of interpretation, for instance, in the case of a
sharp intake of breath. Often, when the teacher says something, it does not
mean the pupil should stop playing unless that has been asked for but
should alter his or her playing according to the remark while keeping going.
It takes some getting used to, on the part of the pupil, to become able to
listen to the teacher while playing the piece or scale, immediately putting
into effect the change required, but it often saves a lot of time in lessons if
this process can happen where required compared with always stopping,
explaining and then restarting the section, which has to happen a lot
anyway.
It is at a further stage of the reading of music that the pupil can start to do
actual sight-reading exercises, which brings me to my next chapter.
 5. More Advanced Sight-reading

I have always believed sight-reading is one of the most important and

enjoyable parts of learning to play the piano. However, it is very common
for sight-reading to be not at all someone’s favourite aspect of learning to
play the piano and, in fact, for it to feel like one of the hardest parts:-this
only applies if sight-reading has not yet improved as much as it usually can.
It is very important, in developing playing at sight as it can also be known,
that we never lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel, which is the
thought of how enjoyable it will be to be able to dip into all sorts of
interesting pieces to sight-read. There is only time for anyone, at any stage
of learning the piano, to “polish up” a certain number of pieces in a week
but there is also time to sight-read various other ones. This experience of
playing at sight pieces by all sorts of composers is helpful, in any case, for
increasing our understanding of different styles (see Chapter 7).
Once someone is ready to start on easy “sight-reading exercises” they can
already also dip into easy pieces as good sight-reading practise as a contrast
to the exercises. The reading of music should be well underway before
someone starts to try grade 1 sight-reading exercises, even ones on the
easier end of grade 1. Sight-reading exercises are useful for providing
material that is at a suitable level. Therefore, someone can concentrate on
sight-reading exercises on the easier end of, for instance, grade 3 and when
their level has progressed can go on to exercises in their sight-reading book
that are a little harder (in the middle of the range of difficulty of the grade 3
exercises). You can imagine that even though sight-reading exercises should
be thought of in a very positive way (as good practise-material that
increases our sight-reading level), this alone would be very dry if we did
not also dip into various pieces as well for some of our sight-reading
material.
I wish to explain at this point that using sight-reading exercises is part of
learning to do “prepared sight-reading”: in other words, we are learning the
best ways to prepare an extract of music so we are absolutely ready when it
comes to playing it, hopefully. We can also apply prepared sight-reading to
an extract of a piece we are particularly keen to try, for instance.
Traditionally, thirty seconds is the amount of time allowed for preparing a
sight-reading exercise. The modern approach to sight-reading is, and has
been for some time, that it is fine to try out loud a bit, or a few bits, of a
sight-reading exercise on the piano providing the total preparation is still
intended to fit into only thirty seconds. I say “a few bits” because in only
thirty seconds there would not be more time than this because of the other
things we need to notice which I will come onto. When someone is not used
yet to fitting in the preparation into half a minute or is starting to come onto
a new, harder level of sight-reading, usually the person will at first need to
take longer than thirty seconds, gradually reducing the amount of time
taken. If someone is currently taking a minute and uses a watch or clock
with a second-hand to try hard to fit the preparation into fifty seconds, soon
they will usually find this is possible and so the process continues in stages
until thirty seconds of preparation becomes the norm. In general, in learning
the piano we can say that determination makes a huge difference and indeed
is necessary in learning so challenging though enjoyable an instrument.
Before I come onto the minutiae of preparing a sight-reading exercise, I
wish to say that “unprepared sight-reading” is also important and is even
more challenging. If we suppose someone is longing to play a piece they
have never worked at, the first time the person tries it will be “unprepared
sight-reading” in that he or she would not usually look through it all bar by
bar and so on, and in that one would, before starting, simply notice the key
signature, the time signature and any tempo or other indications at the top
of the piece, including the title. One can also skim through the first few bars
to give one an idea of the character of the piece, and one might choose to
spend a few moments looking through, for instance, the first couple of
pages or the whole piece, but “a few moments” is very different from
looking thoroughly, bar by bar, through a whole piece or extract of a piece,
as in prepared sight-reading which I am about to come back to. If it is one
of a person’s favourite pieces to listen to but which he or she has never tried
playing, the memory of what it sounds like will help the person when they
first try it, however true sight-reading, whether prepared or unprepared, is a
particular challenge partly because the person has never heard the piece
before: it is very good for one’s sight-reading to have to constantly look
ahead because one does not already know at all what is coming next. Both
prepared and unprepared kinds of sight-reading rely most of all on this
constant looking ahead. It is not only that we must never let go, while sight-
reading, of the looking ahead just as a giant clam, for example, does not let
go, but that we find we notice more and more detail as we look ahead as a
natural part of becoming increasingly used to sight-reading. The preparation
of a sight-reading exercise, that I am about to elaborate on, is of vital
importance but looking ahead is always priority number one in any kind of
sight-reading.
The first step in preparing a sight-reading exercise or section of a piece to
be read at sight is to notice what key we are in. The key-signature tells us a
possible major or minor key we could be in. To narrow down the
possibilities further we look at what is at the beginning and end of the
extract - usually at least one will be the tonic note or chord of the key we
are in. If we seem so far to be in a minor key, for instance d minor, we
would look for any instances of a sharpened leading note because usually
there is at least one of these in any piece, or substantial part of a piece, in a
minor key, although by no means always because of the fact that the
descending part of the melodic minor scale does not have a sharpened
leading note and the composer might prefer to use this version of the minor
scale, or alternatively, the composer might not happen to be using the
leading note in the piece. Not surprisingly, this can be affected by the level
of the sight-reading extract. At an advanced level, there might be temporary
modulations in what we are reading at sight, but we would still usually be
mainly in one key. One of the hardest times is when the material to be sight-
read does not start or end with the tonic note or chord and is not
recognisably either particularly major or minor. In this case, we would
particularly use our instincts that develop more and more from experience.
It is important to work out whether we are in the major or relative minor
key so that we can in our minds relate this to our experience of the relevant
scale, or scales plural (in the case of a minor key, as there are two kinds,
harmonic and melodic minor, if, that is, the pupil has yet covered both kinds
of scales in the lessons). However, it is important to be aware that the
process of accurately reading the music is similar, whether we are in the
major or relative minor key, because the main point is that, apart from the
minute details of music to follow on the page, we must keep the same key
signature in the front of the mind either way. Keeping a key signature in the
front of the mind, whatever else we are needing to notice in the piece, is one
of the most challenging tasks in piano-playing until we become used to it.
 Now the key has been ascertained it works well to look at the time
signature because we come to this next on the page. We are using it to plan
how we will count, and it is good also if, briefly, the various necessary
thoughts about the particular time signature come into our minds. For
instance, if we are preparing material in common time, we know that as
well as strong accents at the beginning of each bar there will be subsidiary
ones on the third beat of each bar (unless an individual bar demands
something unusual in this way, for instance).
Next, it is good to look at what is printed at the top of the extract - this is
usually a tempo marking but not always. Even a tempo marking tends to
have implications as to the mood of the piece. For instance, a piece marked
“Lento” would never usually be extremely cheerful - there might be a sad or
serious atmosphere, or it might simply be a dreamy mood, however. We
learn these various Italian terms as we go along and the teacher makes sure
we know them, or we look them up in a musical dictionary if necessary
when we are practising on our own. You will notice that key signature, time
signature and tempo (or other indication at the top) form a right-angle, a
useful way of remembering the order in which it helps to notice them. It
seems very natural to notice these fundamental aspects of the sight-reading
material in this order. In sight-reading it is important to think also about the
implications, musically, of the title, if indeed there is one.
Now we have looked at these vital aspects of the music we must
concentrate on looking through the material bar by bar in the order in which
we will play it. In aiming to fit the whole process into thirty seconds
(whether it is an exercise or part of a piece) we should aim to have most of
our half a minute left for this. We observe various details and learn
increasingly from experience what those would be. It is outside the scope of
this little book to try to list the very large variety of details it helps to notice
of this kind, however I would like to recommend the use of a good sight-
reading book of the kind where a large proportion of the exercises include
suggestions as to things to notice in the material concerned. This helps us to
rapidly gain important experience of this kind. As we become used to
looking through the relevant material that we will be sight-reading we
become quicker at noticing details, noticing more and more of them and
increasingly retaining the knowledge of what we have just noticed. Just
before we try to play the sight-reading extract the last thing to work out is
what speed we feel we can manage. Having looked through it bar by bar we
are in a particularly good position to be able to work this out. If the speed
that we feel instinctively we can manage is a slower one than indicated by
the tempo marking, then so be it, because we can give more of a
performance if we do not try to over-reach ourselves in this way. In the
grade exams, for instance, a speed slower than the tempo indicated, if the
attempt at the sight-reading exercise was very good in other ways, would
lose the person fewer marks than if the sight-reading exercise carried out at
its intended speed was full of inaccuracies. Obviously, however, the
examiner will have to take off more marks for a speed slower than indicated
at grade 8 stage than at grade 1 stage, for instance.
Experience of various styles (see chapter 7) helps us also in our sight-
reading although that help is often on a subconscious level. It helps to be
aware that simply doing lots of sight-reading, providing it is at manageable
speeds, would always be a help providing it is not too difficult for one. As
so often, the experience gained tends to help us on a subconscious rather
than conscious level, but it is a big comfort, I have always felt, when
enjoying doing lots of sight-reading to know that we are bound to benefit
when we come across similar patterns of notes and rhythms elsewhere.
Indeed, good sight-reading is always linked to pattern-recognition and in
fact, even the most brilliant of sight-readers, such as the top professional
accompanists, have generally become so able because of doing masses of
sight-reading rather than because of simply being very talented, although
that aspect can play its part as well! Just as the musical ear can develop
throughout our lives (see chapter 2), so too can the sight-reading ability.
As I have already mentioned, constantly looking ahead is the most
important aspect of sight-reading, and we keep noticing details on the page,
hopefully well in advance of playing them, then noticing them again just
before we arrive there, and also as we arrive there - three opportunities for
reinforcement of one’s accuracy! Naturally, the beginner, however, may
only be looking ahead one note so the process is simplified as it goes on
being for a while. However, the enormously experienced professional
accompanist will often be looking ahead a whole line, although, of course,
there is also another look in more detail at individual bits just before and on
reaching them, as for a lot of other pianists. It is useful to consciously try to
stretch the looking ahead that one does. At times I would recommend, as
one plays through a sight-reading exercise that one has prepared, noticing
every so often how many notes ahead one is usually looking. This would
not generally be a constant process as there tend to be easier and harder
parts of the material, causing one to be able to look further ahead in some
parts than others, but there is, if one aims to notice it, a feeling of the
average extent to which one is looking ahead. If we feel we are usually
managing to look ahead three notes, but sometimes only two, we need to try
to consistently look ahead three notes, aiming for this even in the hardest
parts of a sight-reading extract. Once we are used to looking ahead three
notes consistently, or at least far more consistently, we can begin trying to
look ahead four notes and so on. As our sight-reading develops, we will
naturally be looking ahead further and further, but this conscious stretching
of our looking ahead greatly accelerates the process. Once more we find we
can be truly the teacher’s assistant in our practising (see Chapter 1), a very
comforting, positive thought!
Most of the skills that flow from development of sight-reading ability
help our reading of music in general, but the major difference in a piece we
are polishing is that the memory is increasingly involved, even though we
might not be deliberately trying to memorise the piece (see Chapter 8). For
instance, we find we increasingly remember where our main “landmarks”
are to be careful of (see Chapter 1).
 6. Fingering a Piano Piece

Although to cover this topic in exhaustive detail would require a book to

itself, I would like to help the reader with some fundamental principles,
some pointers in the right direction so as to use fingering to make life easier
rather than the reverse.
Indeed, this lies at the heart of good fingering - it should make everything
else in the piece easier. You can imagine how, if done badly, the reverse can
apply.
So, how can we make sure we find a good fingering for a piece of piano
music? Firstly, as we sight-read it we should see how naturally our fingers
fit round the notes in observing all the musical requirements. It is
remarkable how well the brain can generally help us find the most
comfortable fingering in relation to these requirements if we give it a
chance. This process depends on constantly looking at what is coming next
in the music - good fingering always has to rely on this so we have enough
fingers available for our needs, but also so that we spot what is needed in
the fingering to suit the musical requirements, for instance in relation to
legato. Sometimes we must deliberately not follow fingering printed in the
copy to find a natural, comfortable fingering. I have decided that there is
often so much eccentric fingering, even in all sorts of otherwise excellent
editions, because the task of fingering the piece has been rushed.
Fortunately, however, this is not always the case! If someone is not yet
confident about working out fingering for themselves it can be a big help to
use fingering printed in a copy as a basis of their fingering of that piece
provided they find that fingering helpful when they try it. For someone who
already understands fingering quite well or very well, however, it tends to
work well to rely totally on one’s own fingering for the piece, being careful
not to be influenced by what is printed in the copy. Sometimes, however,
the fingering in the copy would happen to coincide with what the person
has worked out which saves time, and also there are times when anyone can
find that they are briefly unsure about the fingering for a particular
awkward passage and in searching for various ideas it is natural to see what,
if anything, is suggested in the copy. Again, provided the person is at least
reasonably confident about fingering it makes sense to be relying totally on
one’s own judgement, however - the person is simply observing the
fingering that might be suggested for the awkward passage to see if that
fingering would work well.
To develop our sight-reading skills allows us to sight-read, even if
slowly, a new piece so that we can benefit from the clever patterns of
fingering the brain manages to find. Remember it is only sometimes that we
find that sight-reading does not immediately help us to find the best
fingering for a passage so that we need to try out various possibilities. It
helps to take a positive approach to fingering of confidence that our brain
can help us find the right fingering. That way the fingering happens far
more easily for someone than if they assume it will be terribly difficult to
work out. Experience of fingering other similar passages also helps
enormously so that the fingering of piano pieces becomes gradually easier
in general.
Patience, however, needs to be applied to fingering, which brings me to
the second approach we must use for finding a good fingering for a piece of
music. This is the painstaking task of trying out various possibilities in
fingering for individual bits of pieces where the brain does not manage
when we sight-read the passage to immediately find the best fingering.
Remember that fingering is often the most time-consuming part of
working at a piece if this is carried out thoroughly and carefully. If we are
trying out various possible fingerings for a passage because what we first
try is not totally natural and comfortable under the fingers, we will find one
more natural and comfortable even if it takes a while. You must keep these
two words (“natural” and “comfortable”) in the front of your mind when
fingering if you are not yet used to that concept. It is not surprising that
occasionally it is impossible to find a fingering that is completely natural
and comfortable for a passage because it requires such contorted
movements. In that case, we use the best compromise we can find.
The first and second stages of the fingering process are totally
interwoven. We might find the fingering happens totally spontaneously in
sight-reading one passage but requires painstaking work of trying out lots of
possibilities for the next.
A very important part of the second stage of the process which is easily
overlooked is to make sure, having worked at the fingering for one hand in
a passage, that the fingering we work out for the other combines well with
it. Sometimes, for instance, finger 3 in one hand does not work well at the
same time as finger 4 in the other - the same can apply also to fingers 4 and
5 or 1 and 2.
Thirdly, it is essential after the initial sight-reading of the piece and its
logical extension in fingering-terms: the formation of a natural,
comfortable, spontaneously-arising fingering, and after all the work at the
minutiae of fingering in relation to trying out various possibilities for
individual bits of pieces, that we play through the whole piece with the
fingering now in place to check that everything feels as natural and
comfortable under the fingers as possible. This part of the process is one
that by nature tends to include a small number of changes of mind - we
suddenly realise that another fingering for a particular passage would be
better still, sometimes discovering this because we realise that something
does not feel quite as comfortable under the hands as we had hoped.
Fourthly, we must not fail to be open to changing our mind regarding
fingering at any stage of working at a piece, although we need to hope that
early on in working at the piece we have found a complete fingering for it
we are happy with. Indeed, it is very important in general to keep to one
fingering, as the reinforcement of the correct habits in this way combines
naturally with the reinforcement of other correct habits in the piece - we
must just not be too rigid in this respect if we suddenly discover something
better in the fingering. One word of warning here: as so often with good
piano-playing we must follow our instincts totally. If someone has played a
piece for a very long time and has just discovered a better fingering in a
particular bar but feels instinctively that he or she is too used to the original
fingering for it to be a good idea to change it, then I would advise not
changing it as long as musically it is possible to play the piece in the way
the composer seems to intend us to. If a piece is usually played from
memory the habits of fingering may be so deep-rooted that it would cause
terrible difficulties to change the fingering in a certain place.
Another word of warning when trying to find the best fingering - accept
the fact that there are times when it is simply impossible to decide between
two possible fingerings. It is then best to pencil in both possible fingerings
in order to wait until we are sure which we are going to rub out at a future
date. Never rush a decision as to fingering if it risks compromising the
quality of the fingering or other aspects of the piece will suffer. Fingering
can be complex in a piano piece, not surprisingly as we have ten fingers to
manipulate and we are not machines after all.
Lastly, be aware there are many misconceptions about fingering that have
no doubt often been passed down the generations going back possibly even
hundreds of years. The most common misconception in this respect is that
fingering must always change for a repeated note or notes. The truth,
however, is that it is only occasionally that this is necessary (only where
fast repeated notes are required, generally). At a slower speed the fingers
and the action of most pianos can cope perfectly well if we use the same
finger for the repeated note or notes. There are however occasional other
times when we would choose to change finger for a repeated note, for
instance where it feels clumsy to use more than one thumb in a row
although even this is not a rigid rule. Remember that most so-called rules in
music need to be broken sometimes! This also applies to the so-called rule
about not using the thumb on a black note. There are definitely some
passages where we have to use the thumb on a black note in order to
maintain a good legato or to play all the notes of a very large chord, for
instance, and so this so-called rule can be an appallingly misleading one if
applied too rigidly. You will see why I am very wary of anything that is
called a rule when it comes to technique - we have to be as flexible as
water, in fact, in applying technique to the musical requirements of a piece
rather than being hide-bound to rules. However, if we are prepared to use
rules in a way that is not inflexible, they can sometimes of course become
useful. For instance, usually when a chord is arpeggiated we can finger the
notes in the same way as if it was not arpeggiated, a frequently useful “rule”
indeed but not for those occasions where this does not provide us with the
best fingering! Also, it is often useful in a musical sequence to keep using
the same fingering-pattern although obviously there are times when we may
have to use different fingering, for instance where black notes suddenly
appear, although this is also not a rigid “rule”-black notes may suddenly
appear but we find we can keep to the same fingering!
You will see why we must not treat the fingering printed in the copy as a
gospel truth that must be followed. Even the fingering the teacher might
write in or that the student him or herself might have written in should not
be treated too rigidly in this way if one finds a fingering more comfortable
for one. Quite aside from the fact that there are so many different shapes
and sizes of hands and fingers there is the aspect to consider of the fact that
fingering is often simply a matter of personal taste. If we follow the
principle of making sure the fingering feels natural we will find what works
well for our particular hands/fingers and for our particular preferences.
Remember also that for fingering in a piece to be natural and comfortable
under the fingers it depends, so often, on the fingers being over five notes,
the basic five-finger hand position being the most common one, therefore it
is very important for the pupil to develop the habit of their fingers being
over five notes wherever possible. It is not surprising that as pieces become
more challenging there will be more and more places where the fingers
need to stretch beyond the basic five-finger hand position, but this position
still is usually the most common one. The widths of piano keys and the
widths of most people’s fingers fit in perfectly with the basic five-finger
hand position. Finally, never forget that the principle of finding a fingering
that is natural and comfortable for a piece can only work well if we are
paying due attention to being the servants of the music - the fingering of a
passage could feel comfortable but be completely useless if it did not allow
us to maintain a good legato, for instance. Let me give you another example
as well: we could find that something was very comfortable under the
fingers but that we were using unnecessarily the weaker end of the hand for
a passage marked ff, where the hand could play with far more power if we
instead used the stronger end of the hand.
 7. Interpretation and
Stylistic Awareness

In general, composers do not want a correct understanding of a piece to

be almost impossible for us because they are generous souls who want to
give freely of themselves in the way the message of the piece is conveyed.
Therefore, we usually find we can very quickly in our work at a piece reach
a point of feeling we are near to a good understanding of the interpretation
of that piece. However, that is, of course, not the same as getting to the
heart of the interpretation of the piece as the composer would have regarded
it. For this, understanding of styles is a big help, but so too is usually a
considerable degree of experimenting with different aspects of the
interpretation of the piece. Maturity of interpretation is, of course, also a
help where this is possible.
One of the problems of interpretation is always going to be that, in
general, unless the pianist is the composer of the piece it would often be
impossible for him or her to be sure that the interpretation is the same as
what is envisaged by the composer. However, even though ten pianists
playing the same piece on the same piano, one after the other, would always
tend to produce ten different interpretations, this does not mean that nine of
them would have to be incorrect, or that only one might be correct! There
is, of course, no “correct” or “incorrect” relevant as to the total sum of the
various bits of interpretation involved. Even the composer of the piece
would generally tend to have played his or her piece in different ways on
different occasions, according to spontaneity. How this is possible is
because interpretation is a very complex, multi-faceted thing - one
performance, in a particular bar, will emphasize one aspect of that bar,
whereas, for instance, another performance of the same piece, played by the
same pianist, in that same bar might emphasize another aspect of the bar
because that seems appropriate at that moment in time. There are certain
aspects of the interpretation of a piece, however, where most pianists would
agree, but, as I say, there is usually considerable scope for subjectivity
because there are many different aspects to the interpretation of even a
single bit of a piece.
 A golden rule of interpretation is to always be open to new insights rather
than aiming to keep to the same interpretation. Even if a pianist has been
playing a piece for the last forty years a new insight may occur as long as
the habit of mind is flexible and not fossilized. If the pianist is sufficiently
in the habit of being spontaneous in interpretation, even in a performance,
new insights may well happen for pianist and audience alike. The
combination of humble respect for the composer’s indications in the copy
of music (I would recommend using Urtext editions where possible) and
also the constant reaching for the fleeting shadows of spontaneous
interpretations is, of course, quite the opposite of showmanship, which
would always be an artificial rather than a natural activity.
As has been mentioned earlier in my little book practise away from the
piano is a welcome contrast to all the practising that must happen at the
piano and so is good for the concentration. It is also, however, very good for
development of the interpretation of the piece as one can concentrate on
that totally.
I have also mentioned the importance of not using a dry routine in one’s
practising but of being flexible (in chapter one). This, as we have seen, is
totally the same approach as what we must use in relation to interpretation.
“Activate brain before operating fingers” would be a useful rule of thumb
here! If we rely too much on simply following the composer’s markings the
brain will not have scope for any spontaneity, but if we do not pay great
attention to these markings but only to a sense of spontaneity our
interpretation would become pure self-indulgence, so we must apply the
principle of “moderation in all things”, a sense of balance as in so many
areas of our piano practise.
Interpretation must be regarded as the most important aspect of our
playing of a piece. Consider this: would you rather hear a pianist play a
piece with a wonderfully sensitive interpretation but a few wrong notes, or
would you rather hear a performance with no wrong notes but an artificial,
stilted interpretation? The answer is obvious! Of course, better still is the
performance that is incredibly accurate and with extraordinary sensitivity of
musical interpretation also.
We could say that musical interpretation is very largely the art of
“reading between the lines” in a piece of music. Generally, a composer
cannot, and would not want to, give indications in the music that relate to
all possible variables of interpretation, partly because this would prevent
any spontaneity, but also partly because the musical terms in general use
cannot always completely accurately convey a composer’s wishes. The
composer, having only the conventional tools available (except for some
modern composers that use their own systems of notation), can only do the
best he or she can to show us what is required in the piece by using these
tools, even though sometimes there is simply no conventional musical
symbol or term to express what the piece clearly needs. For instance, an
“acciaccatura”, as it is called in classical music, is conventionally played as
quickly as possible, which is a so-called “crushed note”, as it is called in
jazz. However, there are very calm, lyrical pieces which contain an
acciaccatura that does not sound right at all played in this way and so we
must in that instance moderate the speed used for the ornament. Ornaments
in Chopin, for instance, require a lot of care in this kind of way.
What comes to the rescue, if we are unsure about a compromise like this,
is our understanding of the style of the piece from having come across other
pieces by the same composer usually, or of the same kind. That is why in
sight-reading we must dip into pieces rather than just working at sight-
reading exercises, quite apart from the fact that it is good for the
concentration as it makes a necessary change from working at sight-reading
exercises that can be rather dry on their own. Maturity of stylistic awareness
can continue to grow throughout our lives as we experience more and more
music, but the person’s maturity, in general, has a profound influence on
their playing also. For instance, if a piece is about the heartache of a lost
love, or about the experience of first love, perhaps, but the piece is played
by a tiny child, even if the child is a veritable prodigy there cannot be the
maturity of interpretation that life’s experiences can bring. This is yet
another reason for the adult considering learning the piano to not give up
hope because of not starting at an incredibly young age. As we have just
seen, in fact, maturity can have great advantages as can the transferable
skills an adult possesses that I discuss in chapter one.
 8. Memorising

Memorising I have always believed to be a totally natural activity

because when playing by ear we rely on our memory, and if we work at
playing something by ear until it is completely easy for us and accurate we
have, in effect, memorized it as if it is a complete piece because it is one
single entity we are concentrating on of a definite length even if, in fact, it
is only a single melody. When a tiny tot imitates mummy by singing, “Baa,
baa black sheep”, for instance, the facility for memorizing a piece is already
being developed. You can see that memorizing of a piece of music is always
linked to the musical memory and that it helps enormously if it happens
from an early age - in this way it becomes totally natural an activity without
any fear being involved. However, the adult can develop the habit of being
positive in relation to his or her memorizing even if it seems daunting at
first and can learn to increasingly trust his or her ability in this direction.
Above all, we should enjoy our memorizing! It is a wonderful feeling for a
piece to become a part of us, in effect, and also to be able to play a piece
without the barrier of the music, as the expression goes (in other words,
without having to follow the details on the page). The main reason this is so
enjoyable is because nothing can get in the way of the musical experience -
we become a musical actor living the part (see chapter nine) if the music
really has become internalized, and I will be discussing shortly how to carry
out this process of internalising.
Memory is just like a muscle and, as with any muscle that is to become
particularly useful, it needs to develop through careful training rather than
being expected to do everything needed at once. Remember: there is always
the danger that we expect too much of ourselves too soon because we are
treating ourselves like a machine, whereas we are, in fact, creatures of habit
whose habits must develop in manageable ways. How quickly and
thoroughly we can memorise a piece when we first try will be totally
different from the experience once we are very practised in it.
The memory, and the musical memory specifically, have the potential,
generally, to develop more than we can even imagine if we learn to rely on
them increasingly. It is interesting to notice that the bards of old could recite
poems that ran into thousands of lines because they had not become
dependent on writing things down so as to remember them - the memory
rises to the occasion only if it is exercised enough, and this is how it could
be that a bard could recite even the Odyssey or the Iliad, for instance. I
regard this as being remarkably like the achievement of memorizing, for
instance, the Goldberg Variations by Bach, although I would like to add a
word of warning here. I personally would applaud someone who undertook
this task as long as they remained faithfully the servant of the music rather
than descending into egocentricity and showmanship when attempting
something so difficult, but I would also applaud the pianist who decided to
tackle a work of this complexity always using the music rather than playing
from memory - this work is so complex that this is completely reasonable.
As the Goldberg Variations forms a whole recital it could well be, in any
case, unwise for a particular pianist to neglect other pianistic studies when
tackling it, whether from memory or from the music, as that could be rather
limiting although, for another pianist, that totally single-minded approach
could be a good idea. Please note that there is no need for a pianist to feel it
is essential to play every piece in the repertoire from memory - it is far
better to play some pieces from the music and others from memory. Richter
showed that this is perfectly possible. This way it is possible to cover more
repertoire.
From the time of the great pianist Clara Schumann it became the norm at
concert-level for pianists to play from memory but before this time things
were quite different. For instance, it was perfectly acceptable for even a
major composer to perform his concerto from the music. As I mentioned,
removing the barrier of the music can be terribly important but I feel a
flexibility of approach is also vital - once again, I am advocating
moderation in all things. We must be absolutely at home with performing
well (within the limits of our capabilities, of course) from the music, just as
we must be able to, from memory. Nowadays, there is more flexibility in
this way than there was at one time, even at top concert-level, but I wish
that there were far more performances by pianists using the music, as
Richter did in later life, because it is still possible to live the part, like a
good actor, even acting with the expressions as we play despite the so-
called barrier of the music. Also, in the time someone takes to memorize a
really complex work, even when well-practised in memorizing, they could
generally be working really thoroughly from the music at even five or ten
times the number of pieces, which would be more broadening from the
musical point of view. However, this is certainly never a rigid standpoint to
take, because of the very real benefits I have mentioned of playing from
memory, hence the importance of keeping a balance between playing from
memory and playing from the music.
To move onto the practicalities of memorizing, I would not recommend,
for most people, memorizing a piece until it is familiar from the music
because this helps the task enormously. This is not surprising where piano
pieces are so complex. If we try to memorise thoroughly a piece we have
only just started to play from the music the task would often be even ten
times harder or more, but not everyone’s memory is the same and there are
people so able in this department that for them memorizing is a totally
different experience than for the rest of us. The most extraordinary example
of this is where the person has a photographic memory, but generally, a
patient process is needed if we are to memorise successfully.
After building familiarity, using the music, most of us have to memorize
a piece a bit at a time, constantly building on what we have just achieved.
Again, this is because we are creatures of habit and not machines and, in
fact, the principle of building on what we can already manage runs through
the whole spectrum of good methods of practising. Once again, we see how
technique is like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle in which everything is
interconnected. When we memorise a bit at a time, it might be, at first, the
first two bars of a piece, then the next two and then the next two after that,
but if we only concentrate on these pairs of bars we are not practising the
join from bar two to three, for instance, or from bar four to five. It generally
helps to not start memorising the second line of a piece until we can play
the first from memory. Also, on some days we must accept we memorise
with more difficulty than other days. Also, the memorising of a piece
constantly needs further work to keep it fresh in the mind even when it
seems already secure. I find that the first time someone can play a piece
through from memory is by no means a stage near to complete security -
there is still a long way to go. Once, however, we can play a piece
confidently and accurately from memory even after not practising it for a
few days the piece is securely memorized, although, as I say, the memory
constantly needs refreshing.
What is called “the internal framework”, an expression which I will
explain, is often taught to very advanced pianists, but there is no reason
why it should not be taught even at a much earlier stage (although it needs
explaining to young children in a much simpler form). This is the process of
internalising a piece we are memorizing. You have so far seen the
importance of memorizing something in manageable chunks, but we also
need to make sure we are memorizing the piece, approaching it from
various angles. We start, as we have seen, with a process of building up our
familiarity with the playing of the piece so that, in effect, memorizing of the
piece develops to an extent through the physical habit of accuracy. If we
know the piece well from the music it is generally but a small step to be
able to play it from memory, but mainly in relation to this physical habit of
accuracy (besides the remembering of the sound). There are many other
kinds of memorising to do if our memory is going to become as reliable as
it could. The big advantage of this approach is that if one kind of
memorising fails us, we have other kinds to help us so that hopefully we
can keep going in the performance.
One of the first steps to take in applying “the internal framework” is to
make a list of all the aspects of memorizing a piece that would be useful.
The student finds this list to be longer than they would have at first guessed
and it is not uncommon for a pianist to memorise a piece in even ten
different ways that all help each other, when using this method. Obviously,
the underlying basis must always be the physical habit of playing something
accurately, but the point is that we can add to this greatly. For instance, we
can make sure that we can remember what the whole piece sounds like and
it often helps to try this silently with the eyes closed. Any part that we find
we forget causes us to open our eyes and check in the music once again, and
so on, until this part of the memorizing is reliable. Also, we can memorise
what the piece looks like on the page - again, this is a constant process of
double-checking in the music and reinforcing the memorising we have
already carried out. Also, for instance, we can memorise the piece in
relation to the key changes as well as the phrase structures. Another
different angle to take would be to memorise the piece from the point of
view of the rests, for instance.
As to the acid test of how well we know the piece from memory, I have
already mentioned seeing if can play the piece well from memory after not
having played it for a few days, but there is also another very important acid
test to apply. If we know a piece really securely from memory we should be
able to sit quietly on a chair, our eyes either closed or open, our arms by our
sides, relaxed, and to be able to so clearly imagine we are playing the piece
from memory that we have sensations in all the relevant fingers at the right
moments, at the same time as remembering the sound of the piece in every
detail, also remembering what it looks like on the page without even so
much as moving a single finger. Of course, it does not feel totally the same
as playing the piece but is extremely close to that sensation if the piece
really has been “internalised”.
Once the piece has been successfully worked at like this, we will feel
confident in our performance of it. Particularly when performing from
memory we must always know we have done the preparation necessary if
we are to believe in ourselves at the time of the performance.
To add to the due preparation we must also, when performing from
memory, live the part like a good actor (see chapter nine) if we are to come
across as sincere to the audience, and this will also have another benefit:-
there is then no time to be nervous. Indeed, it is vital when performing from
memory, particularly as the pianist is so exposed, often alone on the stage,
that we are not tense, and finding a balance between relaxation and tension
that I referred to earlier in my book is therefore also of the utmost
importance.
 9. The Pianist as a Musical Actor - the Art of
Communication
in Performance

In a sense a piece does not exist unless someone plays it. This is a terrific
responsibility, therefore, for anyone playing or practising a great piece of
music. Perhaps the pianist is using an interpretation he or she will never use
again or that no one has ever used before, and this spontaneity is part of the
fascination of performing. However, there remains the responsibility of the
pianist being the servant of the composer. When practising one half of one
bar we should not forget that we are performing if we are to feel the mood
deeply. Even if we are going over and over that same bit of music to perfect
our playing of it, and if we have integrity and wish to bring the music to
life, we are in fact performing and in so doing we help the subsequent
performance of the whole piece. Performing involves an ability to feel
moods deeply as well as to communicate, even if this simply means being
receptive to the composer communicating to us as we practise.
Music is particularly good for expressing feelings and conjuring up
atmospheres with a certain immediacy. We have already seen that one
wrong note can alter a piece irrevocably which spurs us on to aim for
greater accuracy in both our practising and playing. We need not, however,
become over-anxious about our accuracy and even when we make a
mistake we should accept it in a positive spirit as an indication of something
that needs to improve, happily anticipating the change for the better.
It is easy to assume that we only convey an atmosphere via the music
played and many pianists do not act with facial expression at all, either
maintaining total solemnity or pulling painful faces due to deep
concentration. However, as we have seen, we are creatures of habit and it is
possible from an early stage in our studies to learn to act with facial
expressions as we play - if we really feel the atmosphere of a piece, this is a
natural thing to cultivate. Indeed, I consider all pianists should do this to
encourage them to play with due respect for the feelings we must express.
This applies to those playing purely for their own enjoyment as well as
performers who play to large audiences because it is easier to play
effectively in this way and thus more natural – just as someone in
conversation would change expression according to what they say. You will
notice I emphasize the word “natural” because what we must not do is to
force an artificial expression as can easily be the case - it is, in fact, about
allowing the face to reflect the mood of the piece.
Clearly, it is easier to do this when playing from memory than reading
the music but if we keep our head at the optimum angle in order to flick the
eyes up to the music and back down to the keyboard we can still act with
our facial expressions while we play (otherwise too much movement of the
head can be distracting). When someone is playing on an upright as
opposed to a grand piano there is less distance between the keyboard and
the sheet music. In a typical concert, many members of the audience may
not be able to see the pianist’s face, or only partially, unlike a televised
performance where hopefully everyone will be able to see the performer’s
face much of the time.
Some pianists have reflective temperaments not suited to performing in
general - they might dislike performing to audiences due to nerves although
still enjoy the experience of, and benefit from, grade exams, for instance.
This kind of pianist could find their enthusiasm diminishes dramatically if
they are forced to play in front of great numbers of people whereas they can
frequently achieve high levels of expertise with their own personal
performance. I think one should be clear from the outset what is important
to a pupil in this regard. However, it is also common for natural, ebullient
performers to sometimes need encouragement in order to face large
audiences. Even a little push onto the stage has been known in history! As I
have mentioned earlier, solo piano-playing is particularly nerve-wracking as
the pianist is usually alone on the stage and, even in a concerto, the
experience is a far more exposed one than for members of the orchestra
who generally have others around them playing the same notes.
Early on in learning the piano, the pianist should be encouraged to play
to friends and family even if he or she is at the stage of playing “Old
Macdonald Had A Farm”. The point is that playing to a small audience can
develop the necessary skills for the beginner and he or she learns to convey
the appropriate mood so we can feel as if we are in a noisy farmyard. A
lesson is a performing experience and we can in turn extend this
opportunity to include immediate relatives and friends. Having become
used to playing to friends and family the student will find a grade-exam,
school concert or music festival less nerve-wracking. For the exceptional
pianists who always want to communicate to others and to show what they
can do they should increasingly take every opportunity to perform, even if
sometimes a degree of encouragement is required to actually go out on that
stage.
There is something more than is immediately obvious that is
communicated to an audience by a true performer. We are not just
considering the notes or the rhythms or the facial expressions of the pianist
but an atmosphere that is more than the total of these tangible parts. This
reaches the heart or essence of the piece that is being felt by the performer
and is conveyed to the audience. To do this successfully is rare and is why
so few pianists in the world manage to become the darlings of the audience.
As the audience is feeling what the performer feels this can be likened to
what some people might call telepathy.
When a pianist specializes in the works of a particular composer he or
she may find it helpful to imagine being Mozart’s assistant, for instance,
and I have found this approach works well for anyone who is trying to truly
master the playing of a piece. If we can be a musical actor living the part to
the extent of feeling as if we are Mozart or Chopin when playing their
works, that is even better but I realise that can sometimes be rather too
much of a stretch of the imagination! I should explain that to play a Mozart
sonata and feel it so deeply that we become Mozart, not unlike a
Shakespearian actor becoming the character, does not imply any degree of
arrogance. It is a sign of the utmost integrity to work at the interpretation of
the sonata until we feel we understand it well enough to be the composer
when we play it. I personally find it helpful to think of the performer as the
conduit through whom the music can flow but to do this successfully takes
dedication. As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, a piece of music
does not exist unless someone plays it so even the greatest of composers
rely upon us to bring their pieces to life. This concept is interesting since
human beings tend to respond extremely well to being given great
responsibility.
The process of communication must happen naturally at whatever level
someone is working, whether we are talking of Old Macdonald or a
concerto in the Festival Hall, so you can see why it should be cultivated
from early on in learning the piano. As I have mentioned already, it is an
enormous help if the child is still at an age where he or she does not
consider being nervous and starts to become used to playing to others: there
is the hope this will lead to performance without undue tension later on. It is
vital in a performance to think ahead rather than allow ourselves to be
distracted by thinking about something that has happened earlier in the
piece, even a wrong note, for instance, because that would usually cause
additional mistakes to happen. The conscious mind cannot concentrate on
doing two things at once! This applies just as much to practising as to a
performance, including sight-reading situations.
A balanced outlook on life is crucial particularly at concert level when
the pianist must often practise alone for long hours, and a good contrasting
hobby, for example, can be of great benefit. I believe this will boost
someone’s performances because a certain depth to one’s personality is
necessary for maturity of interpretation. We cannot afford to be narrow in
our outlook. If we care about the quality of our performances, and this
applies to the amateur as well as the professional, fresh air and exercise are
important to contrast the long hours of indoor musical studies. A balanced
diet is also helpful because the fingers, as we know, are the servants of the
brain. Good health, as much as is practically possible, should always be our
goal as so many parts of our bodies are used to play this demanding
instrument - even the lungs play their part while they constantly energise us.
Not surprisingly, it is important not to absorb too much caffeine or
alcohol if we are to play to the best of our abilities. Since the pianist relies
upon peripheral parts of the body, avoidance of things that can affect the
nerves is important. Too much black coffee can make anyone jittery and the
pianist depends upon finely tuned movements rather like a surgeon. This
should also include being wary of certain sports inclined to cause injuries to
the arms, hands or fingers. I would suggest this applies even to a keen
pianist in the early stages of learning.
Calming influences are invaluable for reducing the stress of a pianist’s
life if the pianist is to perform at his or her best and communicate the
composer’s music as faithfully as health and skill will allow. As a footnote,
you will notice that I treat the art of communication in a broad manner
because we must act responsibly in preparing ourselves for the task of
becoming the conduits for the great music that we wish to flow from within
us.
 10. Aiming for Goals

The main goal for most people, in learning the piano, tends to be the
enjoyment that would come from learning to play well, therefore what
music can do for someone is always important and interesting. Music is
naturally therapeutic, refreshing, comforting in a troubled world and, as I
say, quite simply enjoyable, so it is not surprising that people often feel
drawn to learn so wonderful an instrument as the piano.
If enjoyment of music and of piano-playing, specifically, is our main goal
in learning so interesting an instrument, we should consider why it is that
humans tend to enjoy music so much. The fact that music can create a
certain atmosphere or can cause us to think of a particular image, for
instance, is an absolute miracle in that a machine would only notice
different pitches, rhythms and so on, so what happens when we enjoy music
is peculiar to humans or at least to certain species including humans. We are
talking of the effect on the brain of music. Strictly speaking, it is illogical
that a certain pattern of notes would suggest to someone the sea in a certain
piece, for instance, if there is nothing that directly sounds like the sea and
yet this sort of thing often happens when listening to music. If the fact that
we enjoy music is a miracle that defies logic and is beyond reasoning,
knowing this makes, I find, the whole experience of music even more
special. Music is sometimes described as “food for the soul” which I find a
very appropriate description, particularly when you consider how common
it is for someone after a hard day at work to want to listen to a favourite
piece of music that will transport them to a different realm, in effect.
If, ultimately, our main concern is to enjoy music, and I am referring to
an enjoyment of something which has a lot to offer people rather than any
facile kind of enjoyment, why should we practise and become goal-oriented
in so doing? The main reason we practise is because to progress we need to
become in the habit of being accurate, and so to try to master each stage
becomes important to reach increasingly interesting levels. If we did not
learn how to practise in the right ways we might never get beyond the stage
of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”!
There are very major goals in the form of grade exams, competitions
including classes in festivals and concerts, for instance (see Chapter 11),
and much carefully focussed practising is needed to prepare for these.
People tend to respond well to goals and the more major the goal the more
single-minded the person often has to be, and the greater the feeling of
achievement, generally.
There are also numerous smaller goals to aim for in our piano-playing,
even the improving of an individual bar, for instance, where a wrong note
may need circling with the pencil and the bar to be practised again. Part and
parcel of aiming for goals in so challenging an instrument is a degree of
perfectionism - as we saw earlier in my little book we have to aim to play
something totally accurately if we are to reach a point anywhere near this.
As we saw, if, however, we assume we will make two or three mistakes we
will probably end up making four or five, for instance. Becoming more and
more used to aiming for goals in our practising goes with becoming more
and more determined to play well, which can only be good for our playing!
I talk of a degree of perfectionism rather than total perfectionism in relation
to piano practise because we do not want dedication to become fanaticism.
As we have seen, for maturity of interpretation a balanced outlook is
desirable.
If to be goal-oriented, as the modern expression goes, is so good for our
piano-playing, how do we go about acquiring this outlook? As with very
many areas of our piano-practise, this depends on becoming so used to it
that it develops into an instinctive habit, so it needs to be built up gradually
and carefully with much reminding oneself needed along the way, usually.
Once we have learnt how useful it is to be goal-driven in our practising we
find we enjoy this so much, because of its very tangible benefits, that we
would not dream of using any other approach, and indeed it becomes
important in nearly every aspect of our piano-practise. This approach leads
to making the best use of our time available because we become so
determined to succeed in each objective that we give ourselves, and that our
teacher gives us. We must always remember, however, that we are not
machines and so we have to sometimes accept that the piece, or the part of a
piece, will not become accurate that day but that we must wait to try again
the next day, because otherwise, we could end up doing bad practising
rather than really high-quality practising. This is often the case if the person
forces themselves on in practising when too tired, instead of doing just a
little good practising that there is the energy to do and trying to fit in extra
practising the next time, for example.
 11. Grade Exams, Festivals
and Concerts

Already we have seen how some people are natural performers, whereas
for others it would definitely be mistaken to push them on to the concert
platform, so to speak, because they are completely temperamentally
unsuited to anything like this, having a terrific fear of performing to others,
although they might have a deep love of music-making in the form of
playing for their own enjoyment. Most people, however, are in between
these two extremes and so, once they have become used to playing to their
teacher, close relatives, friends and partners, as we have seen, they can be
encouraged to progress onto playing to more distant friends and relatives,
and then to doing grade exams and so on, even if sometimes there needs to
be a little extra persuasion or encouragement to do so. That is different from
any idea of the teacher ruling by fear and ordering someone to take part in a
music festival competition where they hate the idea, for instance.
Sometimes the person, in taking part in these interesting musical activities,
discovers so great a love of sharing wonderful music with others (quite the
opposite of any selfish attitude of showmanship) that doing grade exams
and little competitions in festivals leads to enjoying taking part in major
competitions, concerts and so on, even though, at first, the person could not
even imagine doing such things. Therefore, for anyone learning the piano,
we can say that it is a case of seeing what develops that is important. I
believe that usually, if the person has musical aptitude, they should be
encouraged to develop the habit of communicating to others, however, but
grade exams and playing to friends for some pianists should be the limit of
this kind of activity, and there are people whose love of piano-playing is
very deeply-rooted but who are completely terrified of exams and know
they tend to do badly in exam-situations. Again, I would not force the issue
even as to grade exams as we are supposed to enjoy music, not for it to be
any sort of punishment, or why should we do it at all? Also, some adults
feel they have done so many exams in their lives they do not want to do
more - again, one should be very understanding about this. However, such a
person sometimes finds that learning the piano is so enjoyable that further
down the line they decide they would like to show what they can do in a
grade exam, even if this is not until grade five stage, for instance.
The important thing to remember about grade exams is that they are in no
sense the be-all and end-all of piano-playing. They are simply useful
stepping-stones along the way in learning to play the piano well. Music
grade exams for external students have only been in existence since 1877 so
you can see that people managed without them for a long time.
Nevertheless, I believe they are useful for most people learning the piano as
most people need these major goals to aim for so that they rise to the
occasion and find their level of playing improves accordingly as they
master each stage required. The piano grade exam does not just set goals, it
sets clear and tangible goals and aims for the development of a broad range
of pianistic skills including sight-reading and scales and arpeggios, for
instance. Even at grade one stage the grade exam is a very good performing
opportunity and the set pieces should be thought of as a little concert, in
effect.
Because the piano repertoire that people love playing and listening to the
most is so often the solo repertoire, the activity of piano-playing and
practising is often an isolated one - from this point of view it is very
important to play to friends and to take part in activities like grade exams
and playing in little festival competitions, for instance. Although, as we
have seen, there is very important communication that happens in the form
of the composer’s piece communicating to us as we practise on our own,
most of us need to also become used to the habit of communicating to
others rather than finding it is all completely natural straightaway.
As to little competitions in music festivals, this requires some
considerable courage at first, as applies to the first experiences of playing in
school concerts. It feels rather exposed to play on one’s own in front of an
audience mainly of strangers while often being judged by another stranger
one is not used to, but one should try not to allow oneself to think of it like
this. In fact, one should think of the adjudicator as another variety of kindly
teacher in the way one’s own teacher has one’s best interests at heart, and I
like it if the pupil also thinks of the audience as a group of friends who
would like to share the wonderful music we are going to show them. Once
someone is used to thinking of performing situations in this way this
becomes an increasingly easy frame of mind to get into, and there is no
doubt that human beings need this kind of positive attitude to perform at
their best. We can even go so far as to think of each concert or competition
as an opportunity to take part in an actual celebration of music - that way
we have found an attitude of mind that is the complete antidote to any
negative emotions. How could there be any room for fear if we are as
positive as this? This assumes, of course, that we have done our necessary
preparation so that we have good reason to be confident in our own ability.
If the pupil progresses onto major competitions and concerts, it is useful
to minimize the scale of the musical undertaking in our mind. It tends to
help to think of even a very important concert as being just a little concert,
in the sense that we are feeling we are totally used to performing, not in the
sense that we do not value the experience. Even a live broadcast, after all,
means basically doing the same musical activity as we do when playing to
one friend, for instance. Also, this is the same activity, in a sense, as when
we play a piece or a group of pieces through on our own. I like to think of
the fact that Artur Rubinstein had such a love of playing to people that he
would sometimes ask the elevator-man where he lived to come in to hear
him - this is how performing should be. We so long to share this beautiful
music with others that we simply must do so.
 12. Choice of Pieces

Music is an art form that by nature is full of freedom as well,

paradoxically, as being full of a most exacting degree of precision if we are
to faithfully be the servants of the composer when we practise or perform.
The notes of every performance flow freely and disappear into the ether,
never to return in the same way usually as every performance tends to be
different. We have already seen this in chapter nine.
There is a feeling of freedom in many other aspects of music including
the matter of choice of pieces, whether simply for our practising, for a grade
exam or for a recital, for instance. The public, after all, do not have to go to
a recital if they do not want to and the pupil, if he or she detests a particular
piece in relation to a grade exam, similarly has the freedom to choose
another in the way the grade exams are structured, and, naturally, it is
important that the teacher respects this. However, if the piece the pupil likes
most as their “B” (second) piece, of the three chosen for the grade exam, for
instance, is a piece which is not enough of a contrast to their “A” (first)
piece chosen, the teacher may have to guide the pupil that they need to
choose another. There is still room for plenty of choice, however, despite
having to exclude one possible piece as so much choice is given.
The grade exam, as to the set pieces, as I have already mentioned earlier
in my book, is a little recital in effect, so choice of pieces is very important
and if it is a well-selected programme this will contribute to the overall
impression the pupil makes. Contrasts of key are important - it often works
well after a piece in a major key to play one in a minor key, for example, as
long as one is not too rigid about this because, for example, the piece in the
minor key might be one of those rare minor-key pieces that has a cheerful
instead of a serious or sad mood, and might be too similar to the mood of
the piece in the major key. Contrasts of overall mood and of tempo are
important, but also contrasts of style including in relation to the period in
the history of music. We must not, for instance, choose a fast Baroque piece
and then a fast Romantic period piece of a similar mood, but if the fast
Baroque piece was followed by a dreamy piece by Chopin, for instance, at a
moderate speed, of a completely contrasting mood, therefore, that would
probably work well. It is often a matter partly of using one’s gut feeling in
relation to finding a good contrasting programme. It can help to pretend one
is the examiner of the grade exam and to think, “Would I like after this
piece to hear that one?”, for instance.
In a recital programme, similarly, it is vital that the performer feels
comfortable with the pieces that will be played if the performance is to be
without undue stress. There are some styles of piano music which some
pianists simply do not like, and it is common for them to find they do not
play as well in those styles as in ones that they have an affinity for.
Fortunately, for a recital the pianist conventionally has enormous freedom
of choice, but this does not mean that there is necessarily a complete
freedom. There may be a restriction as to length of recital, for instance, or it
may be that the pianist has to perform the recital to an audience he or she
knows would be unlikely to appreciate the music of a certain composer, for
instance. However, whether the pianist is a professional or a serious
amateur he or she should relish and use well these opportunities to decide
what is played, because concerts certainly cannot always contain this kind
of freedom for the performer. The pianist may be booked, for instance, to
accompany a violinist and it would be up to the violinist as to what pieces
are chosen. Also, in a piano trio, even if comprising musicians very used to
working together there are limitations as to freedom to choose the music
because, again, it has to depend on what the requirements of the concert
might be, or if the trio of musicians only plays for their own enjoyment the
pieces must meet with the approval of all three players rather than one, so
you can see that sometimes the pianist does not have as much freedom to
choose what he or she plays as someone might assume.
Artur Rubinstein loved to play, among other things, contemporary Latin
American piano music, but because his audiences so often demanded he
play Chopin he complained that he had to play so much Chopin he felt like
a sort of ghoul! I am quite certain, however, that he adored playing Chopin
in general, but this remark of his is rather telling in relation to the degree
the pianist is dependent on his or her audience, not surprisingly.
The same general principles for putting together a good contrasting
programme often apply in a recital as in a grade exam but obviously, there
are other principles we can also use. For instance, it is interesting
sometimes to arrange to do a recital entirely consisting of pieces by one
composer as long as the particular audience is likely to appreciate this.
However, the pieces chosen by that composer should contrast each other
well. Another popular model to use is to form little groups of pieces in the
recital programme, each group by a different composer, for instance, four
pieces by Bach and maybe also a little group of Chopin pieces, for instance.
If, as a contrast to these little groups of pieces, the pianist plays one long
piece by a different composer that can be interesting too. There are, of
course, literally endless ways of planning a recital including the use of a
specific theme, for instance, explored in all its main variants. The saying
“variety is the spice of life” certainly applies to programme-planning!
An interesting way of introducing the public to a little-known piece or a
little-known composer, perhaps, is to programme this amongst more well-
known pieces. This is often done in the case of contemporary works and it
is a method that can also work well for little-known works from any period
in the history of music. The point is that if the public has been allowed to
enjoy, for instance, the Schumann “Kinderszenen”, a particularly well-
known and much-loved work, they will be more likely to indulge the
performer in his or her choice afterwards of a composer or piece they have
never heard of. This is a good example, therefore, of understanding the
public rather than taking them for granted.
I would like to hear more in the way of Renaissance harpsichord music
played on the piano, for instance, as there is some fascinating music here
that is only occasionally played on the piano, for instance by Frescobaldi.
The wonderful music of Domenico Scarlatti has only been played in major
recitals on the piano since Vladimir Horowitz started to do this in a truly
pioneering spirit in the twentieth century and indeed it is not uncommon
now for people to include some Scarlatti in their piano recitals whereas
before it tended to be only played on the harpsichord, so I do not see why
this should not also happen in the case of some of this interesting
Renaissance solo harpsichord music. You will see from the example of this
pioneering work of Vladimir Horowitz that the performer can sometimes
influence the taste of the public rather than having to always simply follow
current trends, so innovative ideas of programming should be encouraged.
In fact, the public’s taste in music is now more diverse and open-minded
than it has ever been which has to be good news for the musicians in
general.
 13. Pedalling

Like any aspect of technique, use of the pedal must become completely
natural to us. We start by entirely using the conscious mind and finally
mainly the subconscious to do what we need to in this direction, using
experience to help us.
As with any aspect of technique, we must start in a simple way before we
expand outwards. The first piece someone plays that uses the pedal may
only require it in two places, for instance, and for each place the pedalling
would be clearly indicated, either by the teacher, or this might be already
printed in the music. It is the sustaining pedal that we start using first and,
indeed, this is the pedal which is most often used (to such an extent that it is
often simply referred to as “the pedal”).
The most common use of the sustaining pedal is in connection with what
is called legato pedalling, where we play a chord or note, press down the
right-hand pedal halfway through that chord or note and then “change
pedal” at the moment we play the next chord or note as well as each time
we play subsequent chords or notes. “Changing pedal” means the pedal
coming up as we play the chord or note and then going down again
immediately, still while playing that same note or chord, so this is a very
quick, continuous movement with the heel on the floor and the foot moving
up enough to be sure the pedal lifts off, without excessive movement, and
then moving down again with enough movement to make sure that the note
or chord is “caught” in the pedal, as the expression goes. The reason this
kind of pedalling is called “legato pedalling” is because it is often used
where it is the only way to create legato because the notes or chords are so
far apart, but so-called legato pedalling is also very commonly used even
where we can play the notes or chords in a legato manner under the fingers
without pedal, if we wanted to. In that case, the reason why we would use
this kind of pedalling is because the warmth of sound that use of the
sustaining pedal allows suits the music.
A young child or a small female adult pianist, for instance, particularly if
the piano is a large grand piano on casters, may need to press the sustaining
pedal without being able to have the heel on the floor. This is quite common
for some oriental adult female pupils, for instance, and, as long as the
movement is precise, and the pedal is used at the right times, this way of
using it can work also but, obviously, it is a more strong, secure posture for
someone when the heel can be on the floor. Children at a young age
generally prefer to have their feet dangling when sitting on a piano stool,
although sometimes they prefer to have the feet on a little footstool at this
stage, but as they become bigger it is quite a relief for them when the heel
can be on the floor.
You can see already that we have to rely on the musical ear to help us
with our pedalling so, for example, we notice if the music is sounding a
little dry without the pedal and quickly do something about that. However,
the piano can sound like a different instrument when the pedal is used
compared with when it is not, therefore we need to be careful to find
suitable times to use it. The typical use of the sustaining pedal in legato
pedalling, as we have seen, is a regular movement and this consistency of
changing pedal for each note or chord gives a consistency of sound, so that
we can avoid problems of the piano suddenly sounding like a different
instrument - in any case, we are only, as we have seen, using this kind of
pedalling where appropriate. Far too many pianists hide behind the pedal, as
it were, using it excessively to cover up a multitude of sins, tending to reach
for the pedal particularly in difficult places! However, the audience, when
listening carefully, are not necessarily fooled, and people notice if clarity is
lost because of too much pedal. The reason why there tend to be so many
pedalling indications in Chopin editions is because the Pleyel pianos that
Chopin used a very long time ago did not produce the same powerful effect
as modern pianos in their sustaining pedals - it was a much weaker effect
and consequently the pedal had to be used a lot more. If we are too literal in
applying these numerous pedalling indications in Chopin it simply does not
work on modern pianos, so, again, we must judge by using our musical
ears.
The musical ear is not just helping us as to when we need to use the pedal
to make the music sound less dry, or when we need to refrain from using
the pedal, as in playing Bach or Scarlatti, for instance, for the sake of
clarity, as Vladimir Horowitz used to do in his playing of Scarlatti. The
musical ear also helps us in linking the pedalling to the nature of the
harmonies the composer is using. The pedalling must suit what is at the
heart of the piece - we have seen earlier in my book how important it is to
try to understand the very essence of a piece rather than just scratching the
surface. If, for instance, we can see that the composer is using a quick
succession of distantly related chords, we may have to be very careful not
to allow the pedal to create a wash of sound, unless that is what would suit
the musical style.
If someone’s technique is good enough to manage a consistently good
legato under the fingers, that Clara Haskil possessed, for instance,
sometimes it is surprising how little pedalling is needed. She liked to use
just occasional dabs of pedal in Mozart, for instance, and I love the clarity
this allows, but there is no artificial dryness of sound in so doing because of
the wonderful legato she could manage in the ways she used her fingers.
What is called a wonderful legato under the fingers, as well as being reliant
on a constant listening to the sound, and control of the sound, tends to
depend also on very clever fingerings used in pieces. Some passages may
require a lot of changing fingers on notes, for instance, if legato is to be
good enough under the fingers, the point being that we certainly cannot
always rely totally on the pedal for legato, because without a good legato
under the fingers there is not as smooth a transition from one chord or note
to the next, even when using the pedal, whereas if the legato is good under
the fingers we can also use the sustaining pedal where appropriate. “Dabs of
pedal” is another technique of pedalling in which we use direct pedalling
very sparingly - this means the pedal being pressed with the foot at the
moment we play a particular note or chord and only remaining there very
briefly, rather than indirect pedalling, which is another term for the legato
pedalling we have just observed, which is the opposite use of the pedal
(with the foot moving upwards as the chord or note is pressed, and then
going straight down again, as we have seen). Dabs of pedal are used
generally for creating a little extra warmth of sound in certain places. The
equivalent of dabs of pedal in indirect pedalling (legato pedalling) is where
we use indirect pedalling just a tiny bit, for instance to facilitate legato
between two notes or chords that are a long way apart where we could not
achieve legato in any other way.
I wish next to consider use of the soft pedal (left-hand pedal). Because
use of this creates a softer sound compared to not using it, as long as
excessive pressure is not used by the fingers, it allows the pianist more
control in quiet passages, as he or she can use slightly more pressure of
touch than when not using it but still creating a piano or pianissimo effect.
If an extended passage is, for example, meant to all be played pianissimo,
the problem, if we do not use the soft pedal, is that all the way through the
passage we are playing possibly at the limits of quietness that we can
manage, while trying constantly to nevertheless make sure the notes will
sound. This can be very risky because a tiny error of judgement can easily
cause a note to not sound. With extended use of so light a pressure, and as
we are not machines, this would hardly be surprising, and for even the
finest pianists there can occasionally in a performance be a note that does
not sound or does not sound as intended, but we want to minimize the
possibilities of this sort of thing happening. As some soft pedals have a
much stronger effect than others, as always, we must be listening to the
sound very carefully to judge the pressure we use with the fingers, while we
use the soft pedal with the foot.
I have concentrated above, as in other chapters, on the most important
aspects of the particular subject under discussion, the idea being to whet the
appetite of the reader in his or her endeavours in piano-playing or/and
piano-teaching. It is outside the scope of my little book to discuss all the
finer points of unusual uses of the pedal, like flutter-pedalling, or the use of
the middle pedal in a grand piano, except to say that this is a most
interesting, if somewhat unusual effect, as it allows us to sustain a note or
chord in the middle pedal while everything else we play, straight after it is
“caught” in the pedal, does not itself become “caught” in the pedal
similarly, while the middle pedal is kept pressed down, as would happen if
we used the sustaining pedal.
 14. Tone-production

Because in music we are dealing with sound, we might as well learn to

produce a good sound I have always believed. There are, in fact, many
excellent musicians who are particularly interested in quality of sound,
whether in relation to a singer, a pianist or a violinist, for instance.
Personally, I think of good tone-production as being amongst the most
important aspects of piano-playing, but I also think of it as being a part of
being a musical conduit for the composer’s work - if I am to truly be the
servant of the composer I must produce the sound that I feel the music
needs. If I am playing Shostakovich, I will often use a percussive quality
but without overdoing this as the lyrical aspect of Shostakovich’s music is
especially important too. If I am playing Mozart I will aim for great clarity,
together with often a certain sweetness of tone, but if it is a particularly
dramatic bit of late Mozart, I will use a fiery, very powerful way of playing
(as for Beethoven), which is not just connected with loudness but also can
contain even the element of powerful percussiveness, too, just once more
not overdoing the percussive aspect, as the piano tends to sound terrible if
there is any sort of “thumping” tone. Similarly, I would always encourage a
pupil to use the sound that suits a particular piece rather than aiming for one
particular favoured personal sound. However, the extraordinary thing is that
even the greatest pianists have always each produced a distinctive sound on
the piano that is recognizable to the extent that you can tell who the pianist
is, if you switch on the radio, before they announce the pianist’s name,
often, but, as we have seen, interpretation is a very subjective matter, so it is
not surprising if someone’s individual sound they often like to use is as
well. I think we need to be careful, however, to be aware that these
distinctive sounds we recognise so well in relation to various pianists, were
not the only sounds they could produce. Artur Rubinstein, for instance,
could play with the most melting of sounds for Chopin, but where
percussiveness was required in contemporary Latin American music he
could use a very different kind of tone- production, but it is noticeable that
he used the percussiveness in moderation.
When someone is first trying to make a good sound on the piano,
something that helps them is that it is not difficult to make a reasonable
sound on the piano, unlike a lot of instruments. However, what is difficult is
to make an extremely good sound on the piano, and consistently, whether
we are playing quietly or loudly, however long the piece may be. The
consistency of high-quality tone production increases as we become more
used to producing the sounds we are aiming for. This always depends on
having an idea of the sound we want in advance and then, when we play the
section of the piece, checking it is happening as we intended. This process,
as for every aspect of our technique, can become more and more automatic
if we aim to develop this in a determined manner.
We soon discover that it is easier to make a good sound on the piano
when playing quietly than when playing loudly, however there are ways to
produce the sound that will help. In general, we should be pressing into the
notes with our fingers, not ever thinking of hitting the notes as if the fingers
were hammers. That does not mean, however, that it is the same kind of
movement as for stroking a cat, for instance. The louder the dynamics
required, the more deeply we must press into the keys of the piano. Another
way of thinking of this is that we are “leaning” into the notes with our
fingers, not literally leaning with our body or anything like that, but
referring to the kind of movement of the fingers, quite the opposite of
thumping the keys, and involving the principle of pressure rather than force,
to refer to a principle most people probably remember from their school-
days in physics classes. These guidelines will help if the person is prepared
to do a lot of listening to the sound they make, and a lot of experimenting,
too.
It is also important to be aware that we must use the part of the finger
that is just above the middle of the pad of the finger to contact the note,
except in the case of the thumb where we have to use the side part near the
top of the thumb. It is therefore important to have short fingernails,
otherwise it can be that it is the nail that contacts the note instead with
uncertain consequences for the nail and for the tone-production!
Fortunately, long nails do not seem to be as common a fashion for women
as they were at one time, so this should not usually be a problem for
someone, particularly as the reason behind keeping them short is so logical.
Generally, if the tone-quality is not what it could be it tends to be that the
pianist is not listening to the sound consistently enough, so it becomes
important to change this habit. If the pianist is to listen an increasingly high
proportion of the time, he or she may have to practise more slowly, in
general, so there is more time to make sure they are doing this as well as
everything else they need to notice. We cannot, however, check we are
doing this during every single note we play, but the habit will build if we
frequently remind ourselves about this. Also, the amount of experimenting
needed to produce the sound the piano pupil aims for may be very great at
first, but it is important when the passage is played with the sound
envisaged to capture the moment and straightaway to try to play it as well
again, remembering how it sounded and how it felt under the fingers. In this
way, we can develop what is called “muscle memory”, besides what we can
call “aural memory”, so that it becomes increasingly easy to produce the
sound we want, rather like turning on a tap, in fact! A useful goal for any
pianist to aim for is that it becomes easy to produce a good sound whenever
required, and a sound that suits the music. Facility in this direction can
increase throughout the time someone plays the piano as the musical ear
develops, but, as so often, the process depends on being conscious of it,
particularly at first as we start to develop these skills, but still, later on,
keeping an eye on this every so often also, as with all the main constituent
parts that make up the vast jigsaw of our piano technique.
 15. Some Piano-teaching Anecdotes

Although the learning of and the teaching of the piano is a serious

business, in dealing with an instrument of such profound significance there
are many amusing, not to mention fascinating, experiences that happen
along the way, and I would like to relate some anecdotes that come from
many years of teaching the piano, the most amusing of which tend to
happen in relation to one’s youngest pupils! Obviously, I have changed the
names of the pupils concerned.
____________

I asked Sarah, aged five and a half, “Do you like G major scale?”
She replied, “Yes. But I like my mummy better!”
____________

Little Jane, aged six, carried into the room a tea tray with a cup of tea and
three biscuits for the piano teacher. As she arrived in the room with the
precious cargo, she ate one of the biscuits!
____________

John, aged five and a half, had just had his first piano lesson which he
seemed to enjoy very much, with wide-eyed wonder. After his brother and
sisters had their lessons he came back into the piano-room and said, “Please
can I have another lesson?”
____________

I was teaching Kate when her black cat suddenly walked into the room
and jumped onto the end of the piano stool. I said to the cat, “Hello. Are
you going to have a piano lesson?” The cat made a nodding movement with
his head, jumped up onto the piano keys and wandered around a little,
producing an interesting combination of notes, before jumping down off the
piano and going out of the room once more! A Buddhist friend of mine
thinks the cat must have been a pianist in a previous life.
____________
 A little pupil called Mary, aged six, was sucking the thumb of her left
hand while playing the scale of C with her right hand. I said to her, “You
don’t want to become used to sucking your thumb while you play with the
other hand because you might need to use that hand in a piano piece!”
____________

Having taught Susan, aged six, D major scale on the piano over one
octave, in the right hand as well as left hand (her third scale learnt after C
and G major scales), and just after reminding her the two black notes are F
sharp and C sharp (pointing to them on the piano), she said, “and next, the
scale will be this one, the one that has these black notes (pointing to F
sharp, G sharp and C sharp), and then the scale will be this one, the one that
has these black notes (pointing to F sharp, G sharp, C sharp and D sharp),
and then it will be this one, the one that has these black notes” (pointing to
F sharp, G sharp, A sharp, C sharp and D sharp). In fact, it is very common
indeed to master the most basic major scales before the pupil covers scales
like A, E and B major scales, but it was nevertheless extraordinary that the
sequence of scales mentioned by Susan followed exactly “the circle of
fifths”, as it is called, where each new major scale with sharps uses one
more black note, that is always a fifth higher than the one added by the
previous one in the sequence. Susan’s mother confirmed that no one in her
family had shown her these things. Susan’s mother did not know much
music and her brother was even younger than she was. If her father had
known much music, I am sure I would have been told about this at some
stage during the time I was teaching Susan, or on telling her mother about
this extraordinary happening.
I pointed out that Susan’s remarks must have come from genetic
memory: “Ah yes, there was a grandmother who was musical,” Susan’s
mother told me!
____________
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