How to Set Up a Practice Plan | Intermediate / Advanced Piano Lesson | Pianist Academy

[@PianistAcademy1]

🆓 ➡ Want to learn how to accomplish more during your practice AND get some free sheet music?? ➡➡ bit.ly/FreePianistDownloads

[@frankiewinters1255]

Super interesting! I've always found the C major scale to be the most difficult and always had this belief that this must be the reason why both Liszt and Chopin almost never compose anything in that scale, it's almost always sharps and flats because in reality it's actually easier that way once you've studied the piano for a while. I love your insight into how your hands fit the keys more ergonomically when combining black and white notes, I never really thought about it that way but some pieces which sound really difficult can actually be quite easy to play and vice versa! It all depends on how the notes you're playing fit with your hands. People have very varied hand sizes (especially depending on gender) and also finger ratios which I think is a least one reason why some people find certain pieces easier to play than others. Of course, this is mostly mental, yet I think your physical hand shape definitely does play a part

[@PianistAcademy1]

I completely agree! Different hand shapes and finger lengths also mean that the fingering suggestions by one editor might or might not work for another hand. When I was taking lessons, my teachers also requested that I buy very specific editions, sometimes asking me to look for specific editors, partly for this reason.

[@WSJade]

OMG the intro had me dying of laughter. 🤣🤣🤣 Well done!! I also really appreciate your outro ("practice smarter, not harder") and audio mixing through these vids, e.g. the cadence at the end-so satisfying.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Yay! I was hoping it was elicit a few chuckles! And thanks for noticing that other stuff as well. I had to ‘pause’ about 10 seconds of the Rachmaninoff in the middle, and repeat another 5 seconds-ish of it to get the cadence right where I wanted at the end haha! Bonus points if you can find those 2 spots LOL

[@Novvadiaries]

you are an amzing teacher, thank you very much !

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks for watching!

[@aBachwardsfellow]

EXCELLENT! All of the best suggestions and tips -- simply and clearly presented!. Among other things I'm a big fan of breaking practice into smaller sessions with specific, targeted, limited goals-- some as short as 20 minutes, not many longer than 40 minutes (they don't all have to be the same) -- and try to have some non-musical space between sessions to let the brain assimilate the practiced material without competition. In some cases a 20-minute session on only 4 - 8 difficult measures may be the most effective practice for that, while a 40-minute session for playing/polishing a finished piece may be best.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks!

[@bilgeyts5673]

0:17 i was literally like this watching this video

[@HammyGirl999]

Thanks!!!

[@tjackson1953]

Hi: I was at your live today Wednesday Sept. 13th, 2023 and decided to look at other videos of yours. I became mesmerized by the song playing in the background. Would you please disclose the name? Thank you.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Hi Terry! Thanks for tuning in to the stream today and taking a further look around the channel! The piece in the background here is Rachmaninoff's transcription of Kreisler's "Liebesfreud." I love the piece... first heard it many years ago played live by Vladimir Feltsman as an encore after Rach 3!

[@user-yw6ry2re2f]

Great video especially for people like myself who are struggling to make progress on the piano , Sidenote : I personally think the background music in this video should be lower it was quite distracting at times😅

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks! Yes, I've made the background music either go away completely or much softer in my more recent videos. Thanks for watching!

[@ssl.5825]

I totally agree. the music is very loud and distracting; making it very difficult to focus on the great information you are sharing. ( to the point that I needed to mute the audio completely and just watch the "goals" in subscript. Thank you for the pointers on this subject in particular!!!

[@nicolasvanpoucke.pianist]

Excellent stuff.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you! And thanks for checking this video out :-)

[@erichollis1]

Thanks for the tips, Charles. Very helpful. I'll put this into practice today...(Yes, it was a pun...sorry.)

[@PianistAcademy1]

Haha, awesome! Glad you found the video helpful! I'm headed over to the other channel to reply to your comments there right now!

[@hamzadlm6625]

0:15 I jumped cause that is soooooo me hahahhahaha

[@PianistAcademy1]

🤣😂

[@AnastasiiaN]

thank you💗

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks for watching, Anastasya! After I published this video, I did another in a very similar vein, and also released a practice worksheet/template with the video. If you're interested in seeing that one, you can find it here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hH_MkHuCidVsa6s

[@OsakaJoe01]

The info sounds useful but the piano music in the background is rather distracting. I found myself having to rewind the video to listen.

[@PianistAcademy1]

I'm sorry about that!! Thanks for taking the time to listen. I don't put background music in as often or nearly as loudly anymore as I used to. :-)

[@PetulaGuimaraes]

I find it easier to practice longer, so I can match my brain vs physiological progress in the day. Plus, I literally take time to start "working", like a car that you need to crank 😂

[@ao4all]

Can I consult your for my own practice method for my kids? I made the schedule but never have a satiafactory answer, even from my kid’s piano teacher.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Absolutely, Aldo! Feel free to email me at [e-mail]

[@ao4all]

@@PianistAcademy1 Thank you so much to have your quick response. Permission to contact you by email. Thanks.

[@steveg.9556]

So how do you learn the material without practicing?

[@PianistAcademy1]

What do you mean? There is a whole school behind mental practice away from the piano, but I didn't go into that in this video. I'm happy to help answer your question, I'm just not sure what you mean.

[@steveg.9556]

@@PianistAcademy1 Oh, sorry for the confusion, I just meant I don't like practicing in general...so is there a way to learn the material without physically sitting down at the piano and playing? I would think that there are no shortcuts. I guess I am asking how does one go about making practicing fun?

[@PianistAcademy1]

@@steveg.9556 Well, there IS a way to learn away from the piano and while it can lead to much faster progression, it both requires a very advanced level of playing and also significantly more focus than your typical practice session at the piano. It has to do with visualizing all of the actions involved to play a piece of music only by looking at the score and never moving any muscles. So you can see that, in order for this to work, you need to know what it will feel like to play without ever playing it first. I didn't learn this technique until very late in my undergraduate degree. Making practicing fun has a lot of aspects. Unless you have very specific goals of being a professional musician (and further, classical vs jazz vs pop etc), it's important that the music you are working on is stuff you also enjoy listening to. Can you put on recordings of your pieces and enjoy them away from the piano? What kinds of music do you find yourself listening to most? Maybe feeling like you are attaining some small goals on a daily basis would help it feel fun and positive? They could be super small, like learning 2 or 3 measures really well, and then not letting frustrations get in the way of feeling that accomplishment. I always feel more joy from music when I work with others. Are there any other people around you can play music with? I'm not sure the type of music you play, but one example would be learning a pop tune on the piano and have a friend come around and sing it with you while you play. Just to have a good time. If you are lucky enough to know someone else playing the piano, you could pick out some music to learn that's for 4 hands at one piano and then get together once in a while to "work on it" but have fun doing so. Collaborative efforts like that always leave me smiling. Solo practice can be difficult to get to feel the same way.

[@steveg.9556]

@@PianistAcademy1 This is all great advice. Thank you. Patience is the overall key it seems. By the way, my absolute favorite piano piece is the Rach 2. What do you personally think of the Rach 2 and is it difficult to play?

[@PianistAcademy1]

@@steveg.9556 Rach 2 is probably also my absolute favorite piece! It's incredibly difficult. I was lucky to learn it when I was around 16, but to this day, it would be months and months of many hours a day to get it 'practiced up' again. If you are familiar with typical music grading systems like ABRSM which go levels 1-8 or sometimes other systems 1-10 or 1-12... it's FAR beyond the highest level in terms of difficulty.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

This is out of my pay grade since I am a beginner pianist. But I hope the You Tube Police don't come after me since I listened to this video and tried to get something out of it. I come to the piano with two main problems, holes. Not wholes, as in whole notes. I have a hole in my shoulder, which I can do nothing about. For now. Despite that hole in my shoulder, I have very strong hands and fingers. I developed that by treating other people's shoulders over the years. That helps with the piano. And I have a hole in my head. I don't have music in my head that I'm trying to get out. I think that might be beacuse I wasn't wired that way, or it was a reprogram due to some traumatic events with my music education. Actually, because of my singing voice (no pun intended) I put up barriers to learning anything about music since the choir directors told me to move my lips and never make a sound. I've realized that when I start doing two handed coordination patterns at the piano and it starts to work, I'm listening to the music as if it's not in my body. I haven't found out how to adopt that feeling of listening to music and realizing that it's me doing the effort to make it happen. Hmm, I have to incorporate the music into my body, which is exactly the origins of this word. Any suggestions?

[@PianistAcademy1]

It's never too early to learn how to use practice time more efficiently! Yes, the examples in this video are quite advanced, but I'd still teach these same principles to beginners. The perspective you share is interesting. First off, I'm sorry to hear about the choir directors and their comments. I've heard far too many stories like this and I realize the sad truth and how greatly it affects a person's entire life afterward. Good for you for working against those comments at this point in your life! Secondly, I actually wouldn't feel that "listening to the music as if it's not in my body" is a bad thing. That exact thing is something we teachers try to instill into our intermediate and advanced students. Arthur Rubinstein said something along the lines of: we need to be 3 different people in our practice time... the person who hears the music we want to create ahead of time, the person who executes the music, and the person who listens to the music played and asks if it was truly what the 2nd person intended. Getting out of our own body is exactly the struggle he was talking about. Too often, pianists get stuck inside of what it "feels" like to play something and they have little to no objectivity about what they just played. If you can bypass this tendency, you have a huge leg-up on so many other students!

[@nachhilfehvm]

BRO STOP WASTING TIME GET TO THE POINT

[@PianistAcademy1]

Bro, it's not a short. Have some patience... there's a massive amount packed into just 8 minutes here... stuff that cost me thousands of dollars and hours upon hours of private lessons to learn myself... and I've put it all out in this video FOR FREE AND IN 8 MINUTES.

[@nachhilfehvm]

@@PianistAcademy1 listen man, you spent the first minute with garbage. You could have easily deleted the first minute. Im sure there was valuable content afterward, but just think man: we are here with our time and you are wasting it

[@PianistAcademy1]

@@nachhilfehvm A whole lot of others who've seen this have said the first minute was their favorite bit ;-) and it convinced them to actually watch the rest.

[@nachhilfehvm]

@@PianistAcademy1 yeah it was great seeing you acting how you sleep on the piano, it truly gave me a lot of value

[@PianistAcademy1]

@@nachhilfehvm For some people, it reminded them of their friends from college. For others, it reminded them of their own bad practice habits. For those who didn't study in a degree program, they got a chuckle out of it... especially hearing that kind of stuff *actually* happens in music conservatory (if someone hasn't been, it's usually a huge eye opener that kids spending multiple 6 figures on an education would do that kind of stuff during "practice.") My point is that... yes... people have found value in different ways through those opening montages from feeling nostalgia to feeling heard and understood to just a little bit of fun and even education. If you don't care for that, that's totally fine. I'm sorry that my way of storytelling doesn't appeal to you, and that's all good. You were still free to scroll the timeline to the next bit and skip it if you wanted. But man, if you comment "yelling" at me in all caps that my content is garbage and wasting people's time, well... I'm not exactly going to just be like... OK! lol