September 1, 2012
"There is no short cut. One cannot go around or under the mountain. One must climb straight over it. […] Everybody knows that technic is merely a means to an end; but without this means one does not reach the end. There may not be anything very beautiful about the great, grimy engine of an automobile; but if one would get to the journey’s end—to the dreamland of wonderful trees, gorgeous flowers and entrancing beauty—he must have the means. You must travel just so many scale miles and arpeggio miles and octave miles before you arrive at the musical dreamland of interesting execution and interpretation."

—

Josef Lhevinne, on his book “Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing”, pp. 43-44.


(If you still had any doubts… :-))

- The Piano Blog - Tundras

(via thepianoblog)

6:58pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zi1ncxSaxEzm
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: piano music technique study 
June 13, 2011
Progress

The ups-and-downs of practicing make for some pretty interesting self-study.

After 15 years away from making music, I inherited my grandma’s piano last fall, and I’ve spent the winter diligently plowing through Clementi sonatinas etc. to redevelop some kind of technique. With that behind me, now I’m finally working on some stuff that is approaching “real” music, but it’s been a struggle.

BUT, yesterday and today I walked away from the piano with this exhilarating feeling that I think I’d almost forgotten. It’s SO rewarding to have the spirit of a piece finally start coming together after putting in the work to get it there. All those triplet scale passages and accompaniment in the Beethoven sonata I’m working on were so boring and stupid while working them out, but now that the tempo’s up I keep having these little thrills as I play. Hopefully the gaps between thrills will get smaller!

I mostly writing this down so that when I hit the opposite end of the practice roller coaster I’ll have something to remind me to keep pressing on!

6:05pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zi1ncx63TNE_
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: piano practice technique