Piano Basics: How to improve accuracy

As the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung Heidelberger described, “Shijun Wang is a fascinating, serious and sensitive musician” As a solo pianist and orchestral soloist, Shijun Wang has performed in California, New York, Oklahoma, Florida, Georgia, Utah, Connecticut, New Jersey, Indiana, Idaho, as well as Germany, Spain, France, Norway, China, Mexico, and Japan. Under one of the most prestigious artists management, 100 arte, he plays concerts in most of the major cities in China each summer, and he also gave masterclasses, lectures, and recitals in more than half of the major Chinese conservatories include Shenyang Conservatory, Xi’an Conservatory, Harbin Conservatory, Sichuan Conservatory and Jilin College of Arts. He was appointed as the youngest ever visiting professor of Xi’an Conservatory where he would give concerts and masterclasses for two months each summer. He serves as piano faculty in the East/West International Piano Festival in South Korea and piano faculty at The Puigcerda Music Festival in Spain each summer.
Dr. Wang currently teaches as an Assistant Professor of Piano at Weber State University. He received the Bachelor of Music and Masters of Music degrees at The Juilliard School studied with Oxana Yablonskaya and Joseph Kalichstein and a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree at Eastman school of music studied with Nelita True. His mentors have included Thomas Schumacher, Dan-Wen Wei, Alfred Brendel, Emanuel Ax, and Richard Goode.

[@j.thomas1420]

Thank you ! I totally agree with your anecdote involving that famous blind pianist. Being able to play without looking is more a consequence of the "mapping" skill than the result of an intention to achieve that skill. We don't play blindfolded because it's useless toward the music, and one can get labeled as as "show off man" negatively if he does. However it's a useful skill when sighreading. Sometimes, my pupils ask me with envy : "you are even not looking at your hands when you read" and then I answer "It's not to show off, it's just that I don't need to. One day you will be able too". It's a skill you develop without realising it. Professional chess players can also play a whole game without having a board. I guess that's the same "mapping" area of the brain that it is involved.

[@ellayu99]

“Mapping skill you develop without realizing it”, I like it 👍

[@souverain1er]

I came here for basic lessons, and point #1 is already super advanced 😀

[@cherigrubbs9628]

I am an old lady who has played piano as an amateur all my life. Now that I am retired, I have the time to devote to piano that I need! Your teachings are so helpful to me! I am currently working on Variation 13 of Book 2, Brahms' Variations on a Theme by Paganinni. I would love to see a tutorial on this difficult and rewarding piece!

[@ShijunWangPianoChannel]

Hi Cheri, nice to meet you here! I believe I have made tutorials on all the two books of Brahms Paganini variations! If you search that title on my channel, you will find them! Good luck!

[@jjuuaannii1]

Great!!! Thanks

[@_Francis]

That's incredibly useful thank you

[@johnniepaul685]

Thank you

[@sadamrabadan4765]

Hello again Shijun Wang, great material as always. I'm glad that you keep doing these kind of videos and thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge!

[@ShijunWangPianoChannel]

Thank you!

[@yanipiano3503]

Thank you for your sharing :)

[@RolandHuettmann]

Great lesson again...))) Thank you. What comes to my mind regarding focus, concentration: We much more easily focus when the subject of focus is enjoyable. A practice session of one hour can feel like 5 minutes. Naturally, focus goes where there is joy. I am not a professional player, but I could imagine that the ability to just sink into the music would keep focus. The mind would just not be distracted so easily. Of course, all technical difficulties must have been mastered before. How to create joy inside might be an interesting question as it is the leading force.

[@darthsmack7090]

I remember doing a jazz band concert playing piano for the first time and I had an utter mental breakdown crying and everything lol.

[@thepianoplayer416]

Strings players like violin & cello are taught to feel the positions on the 4 strings. Piano players would look up to read the sheet and occasionally look down quickly to make sure the fingers are on the right keys. A blind pianist would feel the position of the keys to play correctly. First he need to land on the first ones for the LH & RH and the rest are relative to the starting positions. A sighted person can learn to feel the keys like a blind person. You often see someone on a TV talent show playing piano with a blindfold. Looks difficult because people who can see would be looking at his hands as he play more than feeling his way around the keyboard.

[@erikvaros]

"if you miss something, people will die" Me: *misses a note My audience: *dead Very good video! Great content! Keep it up!

[@kiralighto2573]

Could you please do a video on reading music? How could I become good at it

[@jwilliams8210]

Good points and very helpful! I assume you were speaking about Nobuyuki Tsujii ...

[@ShijunWangPianoChannel]

Yes! And also a few jazz pianists

[@kenra2964]

Thank you very much for this video. Since you mentioned anxiety - I struggle with this too and it affects my focus quite a lot. Did you overcome your anxiety somehow or develop a strategy to better deal with it? Could you perhaps make a video on that? Thanks a lot and best

[@ShijunWangPianoChannel]

Hi, I actually have a video talking about dealing with anxiety. You should check it out! To summarize, the best way is to prepare a lot and perform a lot!

[@kenra2964]

@@ShijunWangPianoChannel Thank you! I'll check it out :)

[@bandar7891]

I thought he was Jackie chan from the thumbnail picture

[@ThePROFESS10NAL]

I’ve been practicing for nearly a year and I have a big problem with my fingers not going for the right keys. It’s incredibly frustrating, I can play it a thousand times and still make a stupid mistake hitting the wrong key.

[@matt566]

(1) practice the notes slowly and making sure your finger aims in the center of each key not the edges. (2) practice difficult sections (ones u make mistakes on) to the point you can play them without looking at them. practice playing them without looking at them. (3) rinse and repeat

[@ThePROFESS10NAL]

@@matt566it’s gotten a bit better but my problem was more playing entirely the wrong finger and note. Even if I played it hundreds of times I would randomly activate the incorrect finger.

[@matt566]

@@ThePROFESS10NAL you have to not hit the wrong note in practice. If you do, you train your brain to hit the wrong notes. So if you can't not hit wrong notes then you're playing it too quickly. Take a look at Jazer Lee's video on memorizing pieces for the deep section's method to help you develop security with your notes at first. It's imperative to not hit wrong notes in practice and playing slowly enough to enable that.

[@ThePROFESS10NAL]

@@matt566 yes my teacher is always telling me to slow down but I want to crawl out of my skin when I play as slow as he tells me to lol. It’s torture. And I’m not sure for how long I’m supposed to play through that slowly? 1 or 2 times? 1 or 2 days? Weeks? Lol

[@ShijunWangPianoChannel]

One of my teachers have told me that slow practice is like depositing money into your bank account and fast practice is to withdraw money!