10x Your Practice with THIS 10x Challenge - How to Practice: Quick Tips Ep. 3

[@Fair-to-Middling]

I just tried this today. Wow! It's great. I did do one more step though. I added the first note from the third measure, and/or the last note of the measure before the group of two. I always have a problem pausing at the end (or beginning) of each measure. In addition to 10 perfect play-throughs, this extra step will hopefully improve the flow of the whole piece. Yay!

[@antoniomaccagnan7200]

Hi Charles, this is an excellent tip. I've actually been doing something similar (though a bit less strict) and it totally changed my progress. I use 10 beans (Hey, I live in Mexico), and pass one from the left to the right side of the piano every time I play the passage correctly or return one to the left if I make a mistake. It also greatly helped me to use a metronome, starting very very slow and increasing 10 bps every time I completed the 10 repetitions. I was amazed how having a beat helped my brain to focus and my fingers to play precisely.

[@aBachwardsfellow]

Excellent! It really does work -- helps our poor brains to focus and learn -- not always easy with all the distractions we constantly live with!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Love this, Antonio! Thanks for sharing! And yes, the metronome is a nice way to level this exercise up even further.

[@user-hz5yb4bh5v]

Practice beans. Yes. You make good use of the fact that beans are indeed the magical fruit.

[@toddandrews2222]

So practical and makes sense! I'm going to use it starting in my practice tomorrow. Love it! Thank you.

[@dwacheopus]

Me too. I am currently learning chopin's etude 10-1 and nocturne op 32-2. Tomorrow my practise starts

[@aBachwardsfellow]

An excellent approach! 10x or start over is "brutal" -- but professional and effective -- especially for a small passage. And graduating it down for larger passages also works great. Similar to this (and like Antonio's comment), for my students (mostly beginning and early intermediate) I use a "3-bean" approach (jelly beans, M & M's, beans, checkers, whatever) -- usually for an entire section or piece -- especially when preparing for a recital or performance. - place the beans on the left side - move one from the left side to the right side each time you play through with no mistakes - you must play the entire section or piece all the way through each time even if you make a mistake. I use two "levels": "recital" level - if you make a mistake you do not get to move a bean, but you leave the ones on the right as they are -- this makes it "do-able" for younger students "concert" level - if you make a mistake move all the ones on the right back to the left -- a fair challange for a late beginner/early intermediate -- especially for an entire piece. I think I may start using some variations of this approach for smaller sections as well to introduce it to my students sooner so they're familiar with it -- again, keeping it a bit lighter considering their age and playing level. Thanks Charles!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Brutal, yes. I've gotten so many looks of dread from students in lessons when they are on number 8 and they mess up! I like your idea of moving the beans back and forth for a more beginner approach to this. I've dropped my own beginners straight into this, but instead of asking for 10x, I usually ask for 3 or 5. As long as the mistakes carry meaning (moving a bean back) then it's great. The thing I'm *not a fan of is when a mistake doesn't count for anything... like it never happened. I've heard about teachers asking for 5 or 7x "perfect" ... but if it takes a student 20 times to get 7 in there somewhere, they accept that. To me, that sounds almost like luck rather than true focus.

[@aBachwardsfellow]

​@@PianistAcademy1 I get your point about the "pass" approach where a mistake does not count. The "pass" versions are sort of an introductory level to the process -- a little less "brutal". The main objective I have for that is that they do not stop when a mistake happens -- they must continue to play through the piece (as if it were a performance in which a mistake happens). Keeping in mind that these are younger students and the pieces are barely 1 - 2 pages in length. But yes, I agree with you that, when razor focus is the goal, "brutal" honesty is the most effective method.

[@PianistAcademy1]

@@aBachwardsfellow As with everything in piano, "different folks need different strokes!" One of the beautiful things about teaching music is that I can go all week and never give the same lesson twice.

[@aBachwardsfellow]

@@PianistAcademy1 For sure ! I was thinking about what you said, and realized that I may likely penalize them a marker if they stop at a mistake -- since that's the behavior I'm wanting to extinguish. I'm wanting them to play through/recover from a mistake rather than stopping.

[@AdoptableDogVideos]

Please share more tips! This is excellent.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Merci for this tip. I'll put it into my routine immediately.

[@PianistAcademy1]

I hope it works well for you, Lawrence!

[@janeS9773]

This is a neat video! Thank you as always for helping me to move along and make my practices more productive!

[@PianistAcademy1]

It's my pleasure, Jane! I'm glad you found this helpful!

[@cutiejumps4088]

yes, I also use this method but only 5 x challenge, already find it works well. Will definitely try 10 X

[@annykwok6578]

Thanks. Very practical and useful tips that anyone can put it into action!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks, Anny! And thanks so much for the Super, I appreciate it!

[@susiemartin6497]

goodness, this is so very helpful. I am an older, intermediate pianist and learning "how" to practice is more important than people realize. THANK YOU. 😃

[@PianistAcademy1]

Absolutely my pleasure! Thanks for watching, Susie!

[@juliahallman8642]

Watching this made my day! What a fantastic tip! Thank you 🎉

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you, Julia! Let us know how it goes in your practice!

[@Cj.M9]

Rach’s elegie is one of my favorite pieces! Im glad to hear that more people love it too. Great videos, thank you for all of your great tips.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks for watching!

[@briandang5869]

Nice video, ill try to apply these into my practices

[@PianistAcademy1]

Good luck, Brian! If you want a bit easier challenge to start with, or if passages aren't quite ready for the 10x challenge, you can also do 3 first, or 5... and you can also change the difficulty by, instead of starting over for each mistake you go backwards by one attempt instead. Feel free to start with one of the easier ones and work your way into the 10x version to then super solidify the passages you are working on!

[@ioanstoica844]

Good practice tip!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks! I hope you find it helpful :-)

[@charlesloving4820]

I can guarantee you there is not a single piece I know, where I can play two bars 10 times in a row without a mistake. I will literally play a phrase 200 times and still make a mistake on it the next time through.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Sounds like we are always going too fast then. We need to find a tempo where we can play through a phrase or a measure or even shorter without a mistake. Graham Fitch calls it "the tempo of no mistakes" and yes, it can be brutally slow sometimes. If 2 measures is too long, make it one measure. If one measure is too long, then half a measure. But it's important that we find a way to eliminate mistakes. Once we find that approach, then we can apply it throughout a piece. I taught 2 private lessons yesterday working through an approach like this, but I didn't ask for 10x mistake free... it was more like 4 or 5x then make a slight change... then another 4 or 5x, sometimes as short as 3 eighth notes, sometimes as long as 2 measures. After working a handful of measures together like this, those measures were notably more confident, comfortable, AND... mistake free once and for all.

[@ericaatkinson1503]

Charles, this is great advice! I should have followed this advice a month ago for all the reasons you already know. LOL :) Ironically, I just ordered a copy of this Rach piece last week. I love it so much and thought I may like to slowly work through it as a longer term project.

[@PianistAcademy1]

This would be a GREAT piece for you, Erica! Not exactly easier than Clair de lune tho... 😉

[@danielj9042]

Great videos! I’ve always found voicing really difficult on piano; I need to practice that more often 😂. I should have kept learning piano after I switched to organ. Organ and piano technique are so different and it’s so difficult to switch back and forth.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks Daniel! I know a few people who feel the same as you mention here! When I took one semester of organ in undergrad, my teacher kept asking me not to play so hard because it didn't make a difference... and it doesn't of course... but I simply couldn't change technique!

[@Feldspar__]

I splat a lot. Seems like a good method to focus on fixing parts.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Absolutely! The splat will cease doing this at a nice slow tempo.

[@haydarkhattar2773]

Thank you so much Charles! So far I've only been able to play the first 2 measures of un suspiro😂

[@PianistAcademy1]

2 measures at a time, right? I hope you enjoyed these 2 measures of Rachmaninoff ha!

[@haydarkhattar2773]

@@PianistAcademy1 You can never have enough of Rachmaninoff, it's just genius

[@jasonmanley7815]

Yet another excellent video. Keep pumping out the high-quality content Charles. It is greatly appreciated! Perhaps you could do a master class for this Rachmaninoff Elegie? It's a wonderful piece. You recently did the master class for Clair de lune. How does this piece compare in terms of difficulty? I would imagine it's moderately more difficult.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks, Jason! I'd love to do a full class on this piece... it's on my short list, just a matter of time before I get to it! Both Clair de lune and this Elegie Op. 3 No. 1 are both RCM level 10 (out of approx 11-12 levels), so I'd call them early to mid advanced level. They are also both level 5 in the Henle system (out of 9 levels). The Henle scale gives more separation of difficulty levels for advanced repertoire with level 9 being reserved for the most difficult music ever written like La Campanella, while the RCM scale gives more "resolution" to the intermediate repertoire, which for them really ranges from about level 4ish up to level 8 or 9, despite their system calling levels 8-10 "advanced." The difficulties between the two pieces are different with the Rachmaninoff needing much more developed octave technique and the Debussy needing more developed arpeggio and "hand-trading" technique. Playing either at a concert or professional quality is far more difficult than their respective "levels" state.

[@jasonmanley7815]

@@PianistAcademy1 Thank you for the thoughtful reply Charles. It sounds like someone at the intermediate/advanced intermediate level might be able to try and tackle these pieces. Maybe these pieces aren't the most technically challenging pieces in the repertoire but the real difficulty lies in rendering a convincing artistic interpretation? Anyway, I hope you have an awesome week Charles! Your videos are truly inspiring. I am looking forward to the next one and I am guessing that it should be about time for another live Q&A.. The last one was a lot of fun ☺️

[@PianistAcademy1]

@@jasonmanley7815 Yes I think you are pretty much correct there and also simply overall. Yes, the next Q&A is this Wednesday!

[@serwoolsley]

mmm procede with caution, i feel these tips are a good road to ragequit 🙃

[@aBachwardsfellow]

LOL! "rage/quit! -- try working into it gradually rather than "cold turkey" -- and be ruthlessly "scientific" and intentional about setting yourself up for success -- suitable tempo, small enough passage, etc. -- and take space beween attempts (re - Charle's previous post on taking time to reset between attempts). I have a feeling you're going to like the challenge! 🙂

[@PianistAcademy1]

Made me laugh lol. This will really tell you just how well you know your music. The first time I tell students about this, we usually work through it together, and I help them judge what can qualify for a "perfect" attempt and what doesn't. You can also start with 3x or 5x to make it a bit easier to accomplish at the beginning... BUT... those lower number of attempts don't give the anxiety about the end of the exercise like 10x does. Usually we talk about anxiety being a bad thing... but being able to simulate something with higher stakes than just 'practice' can be really useful, especially if you're preparing for a recital, concert, audition, recording session, etc. But yes, don't use it everywhere all at once or you won't be happy! I usually start this type of process about a month into learning something, and kick it up a few notches the month and the weeks prior to a performance. Yes... I also have a video idea ready to film with 3 ways you can "supercharge" this exercise to make it even more difficult 😂

[@aBachwardsfellow]

@@PianistAcademy1 " ... I also have a video idea ready to film with 3 ways you can "supercharge" this exercise to make it even more difficult" ! ! ! ? ? ? I beginning to have both the greatest respect and sympathy for your students .. ;-)

[@PianistAcademy1]

@aBachwardsfellow 😂

[@epargnepension2262]

You really look like the big brother of Bjergsen (Søren Bjerg) ahah type it on google you'll find directly =D

[@PianistAcademy1]

Haha, I'll take that as a compliment!