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Making Friends With the Notes
A Two-Stage Practice Process
William Westney presents a common-sense practising approach for achieving an underlying feeling of physical comfort and security at the piano. This powerful, proven strategy is easy to implement and frees us to play ANY piece of music freely, expressively and spontaneously. It can also lead to technical breakthroughs by thoroughly... Read >>
Looping
To make ourselves thoroughly comfortable with a tricky passage, it can be helpful to practise it “on a loop”, repeating several times. With each repetition we aim to finesse our sound, to feel loose and free in the body and to correct any unwanted accents, wobbles or dings. Chopin - Waltz in E minor, B.56 Beethoven - Sonata No. 30... Read >>
How and When to Use Slow Practice
I have noticed some folk think they are beyond slow practice – that’s something only beginners do. Far from it! One of the twentieth century’s great pianists, Sergei Rachmaninov practised so slowly that even his colleagues didn’t recognise the piece. This was not music he was learning from scratch, but something he had performed many times and was practising slowly in order to keep it in good shape. If you’re serious about playing the piano, there’s no getting away from slow practice. It is a cornerstone of our work from the beginner stages right through to the advanced level, and... Read >>
Mastering Polyrhythms
A polyrhythm (sometimes referred to as a cross rhythm) is the effect produced when two conflicting rhythms are played together and can prove very challenging indeed! This series of articles will help you tackle them in various ratios, starting with the simplest: two-against-three (2:3) or three-against-two (3:2).... Read >>
Deconstruction - Introduction
Bach - Fugue in B-flat Major, BWV 866 Resources & links Click here for an open domain edition of the work featured in this video. ... Read >>
The Practice Stepladder
Learning a complex piece each hand alone before putting the hands together is a strategy favoured by the majority of piano teachers. While it is of course possible to practise a fugue hands separately, this misses the point. Rather than working hands separately, I advocate strands separately (playing each line of counterpoint by itself) before combining the voices in pairs. Time consuming? Yes, but well worth it, as you will discover! The following is the process for a 3-voice fugue: First, practise each voice alone with the fingering and the articulation you will end up using to the end... Read >>
Skeleton Practice
This series of articles will describe how to deconstruct a score and use skeleton practice by way of a number of examples. New articles and examples will be added on an ongoing basis therefore please do watch this space!... Read >>
Deconstruction - Repertoire Examples (2)
Tchaikovsky - June from The Seasons, Op.37a Tchaikovsky - June from The Seasons, Op.37a Mozart - Piano Sonata No.11 in A major, K.331 (3rd mvt) Resources & links Open domain editions for the works featured in this video are available via the following links: Tchaikovsky The Seasons, Op.37a... Read >>