Primer Level - Technique and Artistry
Book: Piano Adventures
By: Nancy Faber and Randall Faber
As mentioned in my previous blogs, a "piece" is another word for the song or sheet of music you have, or are trying to learn. But what are you to do if the piece you are trying to play is way too hard? Well, I've learned that mature and successful musicians don't swallow up the whole thing at once. Oh no. That's suicide. What you have to do is take on one section at a time. Specifically the hard sections first. By doing this, the flow of your music is able to stay, without sacrificing time, grunts, and sweat. "Practicing short segments allows you to practice it dozens, even hundreds of times, in a matter of minutes." (19) Ever heard of the saying "practice makes perfect"? Well in this case, it's 100% correct. When I was learning Canon in C Major, my initial thought was "what the heck do I do here?!" But then the book explained how each hard section has an easy section within. All you have to do is put the little pieces of the puzzle together, and then add them to the song as a whole. (19)
Take a look at lines 36,39, and 42 (last 3 lines). I was really confused and intimidated by all of these singular notes coming at me in rapid succession. But I ended up taking each section one bar at a time. A bar in music signifies how many "counts" or "beats" there are per measure in music. For example: Canon was in 4/4 time. that means each "bar" receives 4 counts per measure. If it were 2/2 time, each measure would get 4 counts. Anyways, I would take on each bar individually. When I felt that I was able to play that bar well, I'd move on to the next one. Pretty soon I had mastered each measure successfully and played the entirety of the song without any hiccups.
What should a musician do if the piece they are playing is far to complicated to play in parts? What technique should be used to easily overcome this?
I was going to upload my finished song here, but blogger seems to hate me. Maybe I'll upload it soon if anyone wants to come back and check it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment