My piano students don’t understand why they have to perfect their Hanon technical exercises. What’s the point in playing perfectly in a lesson only for their teacher to say OK let’s move on to a new exercise? Surely they are not practicing that hard to please me.
“Imagine you are an apprentice working in a piano factory,” I said to twelve year old Kelly. “You are trained to do one thing, like wrapping the bass wires to make them thicker. You’re doing it and doing it because it’s what your boss asks you to do. Then after some time they train you on leveling the keys and you do that over and over until it becomes second nature. With each skill you know a little more but in the big picture you don’t know how the piano is put together. But as you accumulate these skills, you’ll begin to have some ideas, and I’m talking way down in the future. Some how, some day, these little insignificant details you have perfected will have an impact on your playing.”
She nodded at me politely. Did she understand my point? Will she practice more vigorously for her own sake? Each night I write a poem and each day a blog. It is how I polish my writing skills. As for my students, I only hope my teaching means more to them one day than their piano lessons.
An especially indispensable aspect in playing the piano is the capacity to practice on a continuous basis which allows you to keep the fingers supple.
Sometimes I wonder about practicing. When one is young or starting out I see it as very necessary to establish a foundation. But as one gets older/experienced and “has something to say”, perhaps it is not as important. Of course I don’t practice as much as I should haha.