Running and Piano Have a Lot in Common

I see many parallels in sports and exercise with learning an instrument. Lots of people can probably see them, but no matter, I’m writing about it right now from my perspective. It’s very easy to rationalize and talk one’s self out of doing something that is not immediately gratifying. On the flip side, it’s very difficult to talk one’s self out of doing something immediately gratifying, such as eating a big ice cream cone, or hitting the snooze button an extra five times.

When it comes to exercising, and in my case, I’ll discuss running, because I’m a pretty diligent runner, it’s very easy to convince myself to go out for a run later in the day than would make sense, or bargain and negotiate with myself about skipping it altogether. After all, there is always tomorrow to run. When it comes to practicing an instrument, the same scenario can apply. It’s easy to put it off, skip it altogether, and justify not practicing one day by saying “oh, I’ll make up for the missed time by practicing more tomorrow.” The fact of the matter is, regardless of whether there is always going to be a tomorrow, today is now, and today is what we should be concerning ourselves with. Tomorrow is when we reap the rewards of not giving into the temptation of skipping today. But there will be no tomorrow if we skip today.

When I get to this type of thinking, I remember that what is important is putting in consistent time on a regular basis into the things that aren’t immediately gratifying, but yield the greatest rewards. Because today’s chocolate cake will be quickly forgotten, and that extra 10 minutes of sleep will be water under the bridge, but today’s run and today’s time spent at the piano will be remembered and built upon today and every day after. With that thought in mind, I’m able to tie my running shoes or set the timer on the piano….and build on tomorrow’s satisfaction…..today.

With Young Boy Students, One Must Improvise and use Props!

I teach a few young boys piano.  I’ve found that some things definitely work with boys to keep their attention, and this is something that is really key with teaching them an instrument. (No pun intended there….)

I have some card games that I play with all of my students, so I have a small collection of “pieces” used in these games.  Not very fancy assortment, but here they are: A gold rock that I inherited from a student, a couple coins from foreign countries, a blue bead and two buttons, the latter I have no idea their origination.  One has a rollerskate and one has a bird.  What can I say, totally random.

When young boy students start to get antsy and not pay attention, just simply asking them to come back to earth and focus isn’t always effective.  So I bring out the “pieces” and use them to help me regain some of their focus, and consequently use them to teach certain concepts.  For example, I used the gold rock to help my student play the correct notes of a warm-up exercise he was having a hard time playing.  After showing him the exercise many times, and seeing how much he was struggling with a part that required him to play a note, skip the next, play a note and skip another one, I decided to place the rock on each note he was supposed to play, and then moving it to the next one until he could understand the concept of skipping a note and using the correct finger.  

This same student has a real penchant for legos so a couple weeks ago we used his little lego guys to play around and find specific notes.  Anything that boys can grasp onto and physically apply toward learning a tactile concept with the piano seems to really help them, not to mention the entertaining stories we can come up with together to keep it entertaining!

There is always a beginning

While this is my first Tumblr blog posting (is that the correct nomenclature?  I’m a newbie), it is not my first mental posting about all topics related to music, film and teaching piano. I often find many parallels to learning an instrument with other more lofty issues in life.  

One in particular is an issue many people struggle with, that of self-doubt when facing a new task.  Here’s my example:  

I’ve been playing piano since I was 5.  Er, I should re-phrase that.  I’ve been playing, writing music, teaching and studying music, since I was 5 years old.  I started playing piano when I was a little kid, and while my recollection of all things in my childhood is mediocre, I do remember that I was good at piano.  Like, child prodigy good. I can say that now and not sound like a snob because that’s just what I was told my whole life when it came to the piano.  Nowadays I write music professionally and teach some piano lessons.  And I don’t sit down at my piano and practice for an hour a day, because now as an adult, I am solely responsible for creating the incentive to do so, no longer practicing just out of fear that I will disappoint my parents or my teacher.  I have certainly lost a good amount of technique over the years from not keeping up that level of practicing, and not having a teacher leaves me somewhat on my own.  

Now, back up a couple months.  I heard a woman perform Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu at a recital I was lending a hand at.  And holy batman, she was a phenomenal player.  And that is a phenomenally difficult piece to play.  At least it seems like its difficult.  (Ok, I’m not going to lie, it really is that difficult).  So, I went home, printed out the music and decided that I too could play that piece, even though my days of daily practicing have become a distant memory from college.  

My approach:  I went through the right hand very slowly, paying attention to the fingering.  And I mean slow like a sloth.  I must have done this for days, and I would go a measure at a time, sometimes a half a measure.  After a while, I got the guts to bring it up to tempo.  And after forcing my fingers to do what my brain was telling them to do, magically they finally started playing it up to tempo.  Even if it was only for two measures, and even if there were a few mistakes, that was still a big accomplishment.  After some more days (ok, I’ll be honest, weeks) I decided to add the left hand and try to bring small sections up to tempo.  And when it started happening it was like magic.  (Did I already mention the magic part? Yes…..).  I really couldn’t believe I was playing the section of the piece the way I was.  And so it goes, little by little, I’m getting through small sections of the piece.  

What did I glean from this experience?  Well, having foolish faith in one’s abilities is actually a blessing and can amount to tackling tasks that would otherwise seem out of reach.  So, I’m using this as an example when I’m faced with another task that seems too difficult and unpleasant….I’m just going to start small and ignore the little voice in my head that says I can’t do it.