Deep Practice and the Pianist

In a previous post to this blog, I discussed why attaining the highest levels of musical performance requires not just lots of practice, but also practice of a specialized form, variously called “deep practice” or “deliberate practice.”  Deep practice requires working at the very edge of your ability, breaking difficult tasks into pieces, analyzing obstacles and overcoming them, in an environment where you receive constant feedback on your performance.

So what does all this mean for pianists and other musicians who want to make significant progress?

Some of what makes up deep practice is already obvious to serious musicians.  First, you must eliminate distractions as much as possible, so you can focus clearly on your instrument.  Then, don’t just run through pieces from start to finish all the time, but focus on the difficult passages, sometimes even on segments as short as 2-3 notes.

Analyze a difficult passage, and experiment. Just what is the obstacle? Can it be remedied by a change of fingering, maybe redistributing some notes from one hand to another?  There is no rule that every note written in the treble clef has to be played by the right hand and every note written in the bass clef by the left!  Or can the problem be solved by using a different position of the hand, wrist, or elbow?  Or by making the fingers flatter or more curved?  Or by moving the hand further into the black keys or else away from them and toward the edge of the keyboard?  Or by focusing on relaxing the fingers that are not in use?  Or by eliminating other wasted motions or unneeded tensions?

Practicing hands separately can enable you to play accurately up to speed, laying down the brain circuits you will need later to play with both hands at tempo.  But you also have to play hands together to determine how the hands may affect each other.  If a figure in one hand is not clearly heard, is the other hand perhaps playing too loudly?  If you repeatedly land on the wrong note with one hand, could the imprecision be caused by a simultaneous motion in the other?  If so, can you modify the timing of the motion to eliminate the difficulty?  (If both hands need to move a significant distance, I find it often works a lot better if I can find a way to accomplish the motion in one hand before the other.)

Does the passage become easier or sound better if you mentally divide up its notes in a different way?  Or if you try to hear the accentuation a little differently?  Or if you focus on some particular mental image or shape?  Or if you simply put your hands in your lap, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and visualize how you want to play it?

A lot of hard passages are easy to play at a slow tempo, but slow practice is not a panacea.  After getting warmed up, try the difficult passage at a speed close to the edge of your current ability.  Analyze the problem at this tempo, and determine what modifications are needed.  Then use slow practice to reinforce what you just learned and make it automatic.

In order to maintain focus, divide your daily practice into multiple sessions.  More than most people, I can maintain focus for long periods of time, but if I find my mind beginning to wander, I know it is time for a break.  Also, some practicing can (and should) be done away from the keyboard, a topic I hope to cover in a future post.  In order to get clear feedback on my performance, I record my playing frequently, listen to the results, analyze what improvements I think can be made, and make notes to review in my next practice session.  If one does not have a teacher, it is also desirable to seek feedback from time to time from other strong pianists or musicians.  When possible, play for others in order to learn what weak spots may surface in the presence of performance anxiety.