8/13/2019 Mastering Piano

1/3

Mastering Piano

While it is quite impossible to give a complete progression in every aspect of piano

playing, I can offer some guidelines for mastering piano in the areas you mentioned.

Technique

Piano techniqueis the ability to say what we want to say at the piano, to realize the

music as we wish. Technique is not an end in itself, but simply the means to an end:

music. ood piano technique is therefore not a result of mechanical practice, but of

musical practice.

That said, there is no end to the mechanical difficulties that composers for the piano

have invented over the centuries, and the professional pianist must be equipped to

meet the mechanical demands in the music he or she performs.

!ince technique is so intertwined with musical e"pression that the two are ultimately

inseparable, it is impossible to give any but a very rough guideline for progress in this

area. #ou may be able to play all yourpiano scalesin si"teenth notes at $%& to the

quarter, but are they truly even' (re you able to vary your touch, playing any degree

of legato or non)legato' *o you have the utmost control over dynamic shadings at any

tempo' +ltimately there is no purely obective measure of piano technique, only

limitless refinement.

!pea-ing very generally and personally/, I consider scales to be the foundation of

technical mastery of the piano. It is not imaginable for a virtuoso not to be able to playscales brilliantly.

The ne"t area of technical mastery0I prefer to spea- of foundational elements of

piano technique0is arpeggiosor bro-en chords. !tart with all triads in root position,

going around the 1ircle of 2ifths: 1 maor, maor, * maor, etc. Play them in

si"teenth notes, in four octaves rather than three in order to avoid accenting the thumb

on each beat.

Then learn all seventh arpeggios, particularly dominant sevenths, in root position.

2inally, learn all inversionsof the triads and seventh chords, with standardfingerings

for each. I3ll eventually prepare a chart of all standard fingerings for arpeggios./

I consider the final area of pure mechanical mastery of the piano to be double notes.

These are two voices with the same rhythmic values that are played simultaneously

with a single hand. 2amous e"amples0some of the most difficult piano pieces in the

entire literature0are 1hopin3s 4tude in Thirds, 5p. 67, 8o. & and !chumann3s

Toccata. In the former, the two voices run in parallel always at a distance of a third. In

the latter, the two voices ma-e up alternating larger and smaller intervals. The article

on chromatic minor thirdsshows an e"ample of double thirds.

Ear Training

http://www.key-notes.com/piano-technique.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/piano-scales.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/piano-scales.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/circle-of-fifths.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/piano-fingering.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/piano-fingering.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/piano-fingering.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/chromatic-minor-thirds.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/piano-technique.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/piano-scales.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/circle-of-fifths.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/piano-fingering.htmlhttp://www.key-notes.com/chromatic-minor-thirds.html

8/13/2019 Mastering Piano

2/3

8/13/2019 Mastering Piano

3/3

Rhythmshould be treated separately at first. This can be accomplished by tapping

rhythms while reading music. 2irst tap one hand at a time before attempting to tap the

hands together.

8e"t comes the ability to realize both pitch and rhythm with rhythm ta-ing priority/

at the piano. This is the essence of sight reading, when done with a piece never beforeseen or heard.

4"ceedingly few pianists attain the highest level of sight reading mastery. I am not

one of the distinguished few>/ This is score reading, the ability to read many staves at

once including C clefswhich are not used in piano music/. This includes full

orchestral scores with transposing instruments, meaning that you must read in one -ey

and play in another>