Piano Tutorial | Gymnopédies No. 1 | Eric Satie | Ideal for practising jumps

[@jacquelinelawrences9219]

This is great!I started to learn this today and I'm so glad I saw this video today. I was struggling with the 9ths but your tip on that is great. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@TommysPianoCorner]

I’m delighted you found it helpful. It took me years before I realized just how easy it is to redistribute them and turn something awkward into something easy! We’re always learning :-)

[@tonymoroc]

I could watch your videos for hours, such clarity and common sense in your approach.

[@TommysPianoCorner]

Thanks. That’s a really really nice thing to say :-)

[@Dima7979]

Thank you for this tip and your other videos. I just read Graham Fitch’s e-book based on your recommendation, and it’s full of great advice. I also really enjoyed “Play It Again,” which I hadn’t heard of until I started watching your channel. Keep up the good work!

[@TommysPianoCorner]

Thanks for letting me know. Graham’s work is fantastic and I regularly go back to it. Finding new ways to work on things that don’t seem to be improving has been a real game changer for me.

[@madmary]

Totally agree that playing music is better practice than boring exercises. As usual some great tips. Love your videos.

[@thewordbtrue2461]

hi, I used feel like you about scales. but!! recently. I found the purpose, making the fingers stronger, esp. weaker one(s). I shunned it for years!! . but I now get it. Evenly depressing keys has improved, esp. chords. Just a helpful note, to consider. 👍😉

[@madmary]

@@thewordbtrue2461 I’m never sure about making fingers stronger. There are no muscles in fingers. You can’t really strengthen them and I think dexterity is achieved better with a lighter touch. I haven’t found playing scales as a technical exercise particularly useful. Almost anything can be improved by making exercises out of pieces of actual music.

[@TommysPianoCorner]

I agree - there is so much music from which to choose that I’m sure we can learn everything we need!

[@TommysPianoCorner]

If you find scales helpful, what about Czerny, Mozart or Clementi? They wrote tons of music using scale passages and this is excellent for helping improve evenness. Have found Bach preludes amazing for focusing on my ‘finger independence’ (a phrase I don’t really like as our fingers were not designed to be independent and most naturally move as a unit). Many Bach preludes have relatively simple 5 finger patterns but a fascinating harmonic structure.

[@TommysPianoCorner]

Yes, there are no muscles in the fingers. Usually, I think of strong fingers in terms of their structure - they can hold our entire body weight quite easily when used correctly. The major thing is being able to control them finely and for this we hear things such as ‘finger I dependence’ or ‘strong fingers’ which I think are misleading expressions as neither is necessary for fine motor control. There are stacks of such expressions - muscle memory is another and we all know muscles don’t have memory :-)

[@MargeryConner]

This is an excellent tip to practice positioning the fingers before playing the notes. Could you go into more detail about when to use your eyes during jumps? For example, I assume we shouldn't look at our hands when practicing making the jump -- is this correct? And if so, when is it permissible to look? When I watch concert pianists, some seem to be intently looking at their hands, while others may be gazing soulfully into the distance. But this may not be the way that they practice. As you may be able to tell. I spend a lot of time looking at my hands and I wonder if this is a crutch that will hold me back.

[@TommysPianoCorner]

I think there are times when we need to be able to play without looking at our hands. A good example is when sight reading where it is too easy to lose our place if we keep looking up and down. In general though, I don’t try to play without looking and 9 times out of 10 I watch my hands whilst practicing. However, once we can make the jump reliable whilst watching, it can be good to practice without looking for additional security. However, I would certainly not say looking at our hands is a crutch. As you rightly say, many concert pianists intently watch their hands. Even those that like staring into space will start looking down as the music gets more involved! If both hands need to jump at the same time, I generally decide which to watch up front so the other gets used to working unaided so to speak. Even then, often a very brief glance at the target just before jumping is often sufficient even when the eyes are looking elsewhere whilst jumping. Hope all that makes some sense :-)

[@MargeryConner]

@@TommysPianoCorner "...I generally decide which to watch up front so the other gets used to working unaided" This reminds me of how I worked on learning the left hand jumps in Chopin's Waltz in Amin, which was to focus on the left hand and leave the right hand off to do its own thing -- another song I would not have attempted without your KZbin tutorial. Thank you so much!