Relation between "Playing the Piano" and "Reading the Notes"
How should I practice playing the Piano?
Generally, I start practicing a piece, by seeing each note one by one and play it.
Over time, by practice, the note reading part just disappears and the fingers just play without the need to look at the notes.
At this point of time, any mistake is identified by me only by the change in the pitch of the music that I hear.
Is this the correct way of playing the Piano?
Or, should I see each and every note while playing the keys and realize that I am playing G or C or Bb etc...?
Pls share your opinions.
Comments
Analogy to learing to read text: at first you reade letter by letter (note by note), and slowly form words (chords) of them, next level is to read whole words (chords) and advanced level is to read a whole sentenced (measure) at one glance
In reply to Analogy to learing to read by Jojo-Schmitz
That part is pretty clear. Thanks.
But, my question is that, whether the memorizing on practice, that makes me to play without seeing notes is ok, or should I see the notes and play?
In reply to That part is pretty clear. by karthiks25
I'm not playing piano, but guess it'd be better follow the notes, so that in case you forgot one you don't have to search all over
In reply to That part is pretty clear. by karthiks25
It depends on your goals. If you just want to "play through" stuff, it's probably okay to depend on notation. But if your goals are higher than that, I believe memorization is the key to playing at a high level.
But how you memorize is critical. "Rote memorization" will only take you so far, and that is what you are describing by letting your fingers do the learning. It is best to go much deeper.
To really memorize complex works, the best way is memorization through understanding, and that does mean completely understanding everything you are doing, hand position and shape, harmonic movement, "why am I using that finger there?", how the piece is developed, etc. etc.
The deeper the understanding, the easier it is to play well. If you understand the various aspects of the piece at a deep level you can then start to deal with the real musical issues, rubato, tone, shape, tempi etc.
I start memorizing from the start, after "playing through" a few times. I analyse all aspects of the work including harmonic movement (is this a I chord, a iv chord or a v chord? In what configuration? how do I get my hand there? why is that finger suggested, even if it seems to be awkward? etc.)
I have expensive experience and was trained to read from the beginning, to the point where my ear was barely a part of what I was using. It took many years of playing without the music to train myself away from what was a barrier to me.
Go deep!
Regards,
In reply to It depends on your goals. If by xavierjazz
This is great advice and explains why I can only seem to memorize pieces that I write. It's because the reason for the chord progression and the individual notes and where they live in the piece "make sense" to me from a theory standpoint. To really memorize another composers piece, I think you have to get in their head and think like they do so the notes are more than just little dots on a page but a logical roadmap of their application of music theory :-)
Memorization is not a 'bad' thing, but I would suggest that for now you keep your eyes on the score/notes so that you can learn to associte the keys with each note, and develop the skill of starting to read ahead
:-)