Showing posts with label play music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label play music. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Chords for the Piano in Eb Major
Here are the basic triads in Eb Major. Learning these along with the video will help you play songs in the key of Eb.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
How to Play Chords for Popular Songs in F Major on the Piano
Playing through chords in every key is really helpful when practicing. Here is the latest video on playing chords on the piano or keyboard. Practice along with this to get your bearings in the key of F Major.
You can apply the concepts to popular and rock songs immediately. It's also helpful to do this for beginning jazz students and classical players.
Michael Stegner
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Popular and Rock Piano Tips Part 2
This is the second video in this series of playing popular and rock piano styles. It will expand on the previous concepts in the last video and add some more intricate rhythms between the hands. You can try this with many popular songs that are played at this tempo.
Have fun.
Michael Stegner
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Popular and Rock Music Piano Tips - Part 1
Here is the latest video on playing pop piano. These are tricks that can be applied to many popular songs where there is a singer or a band. It primarily focuses on the role of the piano in modern popular and rock music. Have fun with this.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Practicing the Unknown
Once students establish an effective routine in practice, it is always fascinating to see what they do when they practicing. Often we practice something for a long time only to feel that our progress doesn't match our efforts. In my opinion, this is a choice to feel this way. It is a choice in how we practice. I only say that because I often fell into the pitfall of associating the amount of time to the success of my practice.
I used to be so impressed by the stories of people who practiced eight hours a day. I did this for many years thinking this was the trick to improving a lot. Then I realized that I wasn’t improving as much as I would like during the eight hours, so I became convinced by teachers and mentors that correct repetition during the practice sessions was the key. This did help me considerably. Lately through teaching and my own practice, I have found the element that was missing from the first two approaches was the “unknown.”
When I practiced something that I was already comfortable with for any amount of time, my focus dipped. I could go on autopilot and waste valuable time. Then my eight hours really turned into a diversion - not a practice.
As a young student, it was stressed to me that I repeat something three times, five times or seven times in a row before speeding up the tempo or moving on to something else. Neuroplasticians have proven that our brain does not benefit from this static repetition. Mastery grows and our brains benefit from incremental practice. Every time we do something, the stakes should get higher (or change). The tempo should get a little faster. We add another hand or part to the mix. We change the key. We force the issue into the unknown.
I can’t begin to count the times when I would dutifully put the metronome at the tempo recommended by my teacher and have it pound away all week as I repeated the assignment. Not only was it boring, it wasn’t helping me very much because I could zone out.
The flaw with this type of practice is that it doesn’t encourage our connection and engagement with what we create. This is very sad and frustrating. I would even go one step further and say that we can’t possibly create when this is the method.
If we as music teachers get frustrated about sports, video games, dance and all the other activities competing with our time; we really only need to look in the mirror. The thing that those activities have in common is that they emphasize incremental improvement. Whereas we were often taught that the way to play music is to do the same thing over and over again. When we play video games, we are excited for the next unknown challenge. When we play sports we want to rise to new challenges and improve. We get hooked on the unknown and the next adventure.
The culture of teaching music has become so repertoire driven, that teachers may confuse harder and/or “more fun” pieces as incremental progress. Sadly, this only encourages students to perform moderately more difficult pieces in the same way they have played their previous pieces... Good... Average... Poor... All detached from the creative process of performing. In sports they call it “going through the motions.” It's not fun to do no matter what activity we apply it.
Since I use the motto in my teaching studio of “four or more,” let’s start with that. We play each assignment four or more times each day. Here are ways you could use the metronome (or MIDI/play-along tracks) to practice the same piece for a week. Let’s say the piece has a suggested tempo or end-of-week goal of 105.
Day 1 (Traditional):
First Repetition - Metronome at 60
Second Repetition - Metronome at 67
Third Repetition - Metronome at 74
Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 81
Day 2 (Traditional - Increase Tempo):
First Repetition - Metronome at 60
Second Repetition - Metronome at 70
Third Repetition - Metronome at 80
Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 90
Day 3 (Traditional - Build Tempo Threshold):
First Repetition - Metronome at 75
Second Repetition - Metronome at 85
Third Repetition - Metronome at 95
Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 105
Day 4 (Reverse Metronome):
First Repetition - Metronome at 60
Second Repetition - Metronome at 50
Third Repetition - Metronome at 40
Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 30
Day 5 (Slow, Slower, Fast, Faster):
First Repetition - Metronome at 50
Second Repetition - Metronome at 40
Third Repetition - Metronome at 90
Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 100
Day 6 (Extreme Tempos):
First Repetition - Metronome at 40
Second Repetition - Metronome at 30
Third Repetition - Metronome at 110
Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 120
Try this out and let me know how it goes. Be slightly uncomfortable and engaged the whole time. Embrace the unknown and see if it doesn’t help your connection to the music.
Michael Stegner
“Like” me on Facebook - Michael Stegner Music Page
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Slowing Down and Listening
Practicing scales is a great opportunity to consciously shape our personal sound. For many years I would use scales to build dexterity and theory knowledge. On many levels this experience was very helpful. However, the greatest benefit I experienced from practicing scales happened when I changed my habits, focus and priorities.
When I finally slowed down and took the time to listen closely to myself, my playing transformed thanks to scale practice. Practicing scales can be invaluable in developing a personal sound and consistency of tone. The irony is that they can also prevent this from happening - I spent many years in this camp!
When my playing hit a low point and I grew frustrated, I put the metronome at 40 and played each note of a four octave scale for two beats. This took a really long time but it also started to open my playing up.
For the first octave I was filled with anxiety because it was so hard to play and groove at that speed. But once I started to settle in, I could feel a shift. I was actually aware of my sound. I really started to listen to myself. I could hear the beginning, middle and end of each note. I could hear the difference in the sound as I let go of tension in my neck, back, arms, etc. The sound was determining my technique. When the sound was thin or bright it was because I wasn’t paying attention or because there was tension in my body.
This was humbling on one level because I realized how unaware I had been when practicing. It was also very exciting. I felt liberated because I was finally able to allow myself to be captivated by the sound I was creating. This is what I had heard my musical heroes do on a very high level. I just never had experienced it myself for this long - a very slow four octave scale.
After getting into this type of practice, the autopilot started to take a backseat to spontaneous and creative playing - even on something as mundane as a very slow scale.
There are stories of Art Tatum showing up for gigs and playing all the way up and down the piano. He would remember all the out-of-tune notes or sticking keys and never play them the whole performance.
One thing that can be taken away from these stories is that we need to be flexible. We have to be constantly making adjustments as we play. What we hear and feel (within our technique) should be determining these adjustments.
It is my opinion that we should strive to attain a fluid technique rather than a memorized or rigid technique.
I often become fascinated watching my younger students try to play various forms of loud and soft dynamics from memory. You can almost see their body say, “If I push the key down this hard then maybe ‘loud’ will happen.”
“When I played this at home this amount of pressure made a ‘soft’ sound. On this piano no sound came out at all!”
It is tempting to use muscle memory to determine how much ‘pressure’ we need to play a loud sound or soft sound, staccato or legato, etc. It is hard to find joy in this type of playing. When we perform away from home or get to our lessons or sit at a different piano everything changes - yet we can’t. Playing music this way is very stressful because it leaves at the mercy of so many external factors.
Musical playing really starts to happen when we ask ourselves, “What do I sound like?” We should probably ask ourselves this question with each note played. When the sound determines our technical adjustments we become more flexible and in the moment. This means that listening to ourselves becomes the biggest asset to our technique and musicality.
Our practice can help our technique serve our art. However, mindless practice of technique can make our art serve our technique. There is not much joy in playing that way. There is not much joy in listening to someone play that way.
Over the next week I’ll spell out some ways to practice scales in a way to help develop this intent and awareness as you practice.
Here is a more detailed explanation of how to practice the scales slowly as mentioned earlier...
Slow Scales
Intent: Every note should have a consistent attack, decay and release.
Adjust your technique (posture, support, body) to manipulate the sound in the different registers of the instrument. It is important that the notes do not run into each other and overlap. Each note should start when the previous one ends. There should also be no gaps between the notes. There should be a very clear transition from one note to the next.
Play this with the metronome between 35 and 50. Each note of the scale gets two clicks on the metronome. Try to play at exactly the same time as the metronome. Listen. Listen. Listen. Become aware of any tension in your body and work to let it go - listen to the results of your adjustments in the sound of each note. Let the sound guide you.
When I finally slowed down and took the time to listen closely to myself, my playing transformed thanks to scale practice. Practicing scales can be invaluable in developing a personal sound and consistency of tone. The irony is that they can also prevent this from happening - I spent many years in this camp!
When my playing hit a low point and I grew frustrated, I put the metronome at 40 and played each note of a four octave scale for two beats. This took a really long time but it also started to open my playing up.
For the first octave I was filled with anxiety because it was so hard to play and groove at that speed. But once I started to settle in, I could feel a shift. I was actually aware of my sound. I really started to listen to myself. I could hear the beginning, middle and end of each note. I could hear the difference in the sound as I let go of tension in my neck, back, arms, etc. The sound was determining my technique. When the sound was thin or bright it was because I wasn’t paying attention or because there was tension in my body.
This was humbling on one level because I realized how unaware I had been when practicing. It was also very exciting. I felt liberated because I was finally able to allow myself to be captivated by the sound I was creating. This is what I had heard my musical heroes do on a very high level. I just never had experienced it myself for this long - a very slow four octave scale.
After getting into this type of practice, the autopilot started to take a backseat to spontaneous and creative playing - even on something as mundane as a very slow scale.
There are stories of Art Tatum showing up for gigs and playing all the way up and down the piano. He would remember all the out-of-tune notes or sticking keys and never play them the whole performance.
One thing that can be taken away from these stories is that we need to be flexible. We have to be constantly making adjustments as we play. What we hear and feel (within our technique) should be determining these adjustments.
It is my opinion that we should strive to attain a fluid technique rather than a memorized or rigid technique.
I often become fascinated watching my younger students try to play various forms of loud and soft dynamics from memory. You can almost see their body say, “If I push the key down this hard then maybe ‘loud’ will happen.”
“When I played this at home this amount of pressure made a ‘soft’ sound. On this piano no sound came out at all!”
It is tempting to use muscle memory to determine how much ‘pressure’ we need to play a loud sound or soft sound, staccato or legato, etc. It is hard to find joy in this type of playing. When we perform away from home or get to our lessons or sit at a different piano everything changes - yet we can’t. Playing music this way is very stressful because it leaves at the mercy of so many external factors.
Musical playing really starts to happen when we ask ourselves, “What do I sound like?” We should probably ask ourselves this question with each note played. When the sound determines our technical adjustments we become more flexible and in the moment. This means that listening to ourselves becomes the biggest asset to our technique and musicality.
Our practice can help our technique serve our art. However, mindless practice of technique can make our art serve our technique. There is not much joy in playing that way. There is not much joy in listening to someone play that way.
Over the next week I’ll spell out some ways to practice scales in a way to help develop this intent and awareness as you practice.
Here is a more detailed explanation of how to practice the scales slowly as mentioned earlier...
Slow Scales
Intent: Every note should have a consistent attack, decay and release.
Adjust your technique (posture, support, body) to manipulate the sound in the different registers of the instrument. It is important that the notes do not run into each other and overlap. Each note should start when the previous one ends. There should also be no gaps between the notes. There should be a very clear transition from one note to the next.
Play this with the metronome between 35 and 50. Each note of the scale gets two clicks on the metronome. Try to play at exactly the same time as the metronome. Listen. Listen. Listen. Become aware of any tension in your body and work to let it go - listen to the results of your adjustments in the sound of each note. Let the sound guide you.
Michael Stegner
Copyright © 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Practicing and Performing
Throughout my playing and practice career I have often consciously and unconsciously struggled with being 100% connected to what I was playing. Possessed by a faithful autopilot, my hands and body sometimes carry me through a performance or practice session. Without respecting this disconnect; we typically endlessly analyze our performances, learn new material, push ourselves in negative ways and use external motivation to improve.
I found that even though many of these methods are great in theory, they didn’t change my performing or playing experience. However, when I started involving the creative process in my practice my musical life began to evolve quickly.
One of the biggest revelations in my musical development came when I realized that I didn’t have to wait to sound good. I would often trudge through scales, arpeggios, technical exercises, theory books, repertoire and improv exercises so that “someday” I would sound good. I was so focused on sounding good “someday” that I got in the habit of mentally checking out when practicing. I was told by myself and others that I wasn’t ready to sound good.
By the time that “someday” came around, my bad practice habits came to the forefront as uninspired and stressful performances.
I couldn’t believe how I instantly sounded better when I decided to take what I had and make it sound good!
In sports we have coaches who drive us to practice harder, push our limits and increase our focus. We are typically supervised several times each week. Learning to play piano was one day with my teacher and six days unsupervised to “work it out.”
When practicing my instrument alone, I often would be unproductively hard on myself or just meander through things without being present. In my head I would bounce between vague memories of my teachers’ suggestions and what I was going to do when I finished practicing, repeat something until I could do it at a certain level of proficiency or master something so I could move on to the next thing. And so the disconnect was born and nourished.
Now when teaching, I’ll ask a student if they would pay $10 to attend a concert where someone played the way they just did. So far in 15 years no one has said “Yes.”
When I ask “Why?”
They typically respond in a robotic, monotonic voice that recites something like, “It didn’t have dynamics, my left hand was too loud, I had a lot of pauses and it sped up.”
And I say, “Wow! I’m surprised that you would go pay for a concert and be inspired by that list of things. That doesn’t sound like a fun way to experience music. Is that what you think when you go see your favorite rock band?”
Finally, the student comes to the simple conclusion that they would be bored by their performance. And if they are really aware and honest, they admit that they were bored when they were playing (and practicing at home). We’ve all been there and still go there.
It is fascinating how we can be bored when recreating music written by geniuses or creating our own improvisations or compositions. At times it can even seem like the norm.
With all the elements of a solid performance in place, a performance can still fall very short. We somehow assume that we can practice void of any energy and excitement and show up for the gig and rock the house.
When the stage lights come on we are thrown for a loop because our nerves and adrenaline tell us that this time is different. Our newly obtained superhero abilities of focus and concentration zoom in on every little detail around us. We don’t know what to do with the intensity and our performances rarely live up to our expectations or potential.
Then we say, “I could have done so much better.”
Or, “I sounded so much better at home!”
And we create a divide between the practice and performance... the lessons and home... rehearsal and the gig.
So... what do we do?
We practice more hours. We switch teachers. We choose pieces that are more fun. We no longer play in front of people - the performance anxiety is just too much!
After trying all of these things at various stages of my life, I think they just avoid the issue.
I believe we owe it to ourselves to learn to practice in a way that can continuously renew our musical experience. Each day we should be entertained and inspired by the music with which we practice. Ironically, I feel this has very little to do with the actual repertoire but how we approach our day-to-day practice.
At it’s base level, music is about expression and communication. To effectively communicate we do need to improve our abilities and do the hard work. But we don’t do this by putting our creative self on hold. Our creative self needs to be driving the motivation to practice and how we practice.
This process does not need to wait until you get to a certain level. It needs to happen before we practice void of energy, quit or let the autopilot permanently replace us.
We perform every single time we sit at our instrument. These are opportunities to express and entertain ourselves or our audience. In our mind and attitude, there can be no difference between practice and performing.
Through teaching and practice I have come up with a few practice techniques that have helped my students and myself. I will share them here so that you can experiment and expand upon them in ways that work for your personal experience.
I will touch on techniques for the following:
I found that even though many of these methods are great in theory, they didn’t change my performing or playing experience. However, when I started involving the creative process in my practice my musical life began to evolve quickly.
One of the biggest revelations in my musical development came when I realized that I didn’t have to wait to sound good. I would often trudge through scales, arpeggios, technical exercises, theory books, repertoire and improv exercises so that “someday” I would sound good. I was so focused on sounding good “someday” that I got in the habit of mentally checking out when practicing. I was told by myself and others that I wasn’t ready to sound good.
By the time that “someday” came around, my bad practice habits came to the forefront as uninspired and stressful performances.
I couldn’t believe how I instantly sounded better when I decided to take what I had and make it sound good!
In sports we have coaches who drive us to practice harder, push our limits and increase our focus. We are typically supervised several times each week. Learning to play piano was one day with my teacher and six days unsupervised to “work it out.”
When practicing my instrument alone, I often would be unproductively hard on myself or just meander through things without being present. In my head I would bounce between vague memories of my teachers’ suggestions and what I was going to do when I finished practicing, repeat something until I could do it at a certain level of proficiency or master something so I could move on to the next thing. And so the disconnect was born and nourished.
Now when teaching, I’ll ask a student if they would pay $10 to attend a concert where someone played the way they just did. So far in 15 years no one has said “Yes.”
When I ask “Why?”
They typically respond in a robotic, monotonic voice that recites something like, “It didn’t have dynamics, my left hand was too loud, I had a lot of pauses and it sped up.”
And I say, “Wow! I’m surprised that you would go pay for a concert and be inspired by that list of things. That doesn’t sound like a fun way to experience music. Is that what you think when you go see your favorite rock band?”
Finally, the student comes to the simple conclusion that they would be bored by their performance. And if they are really aware and honest, they admit that they were bored when they were playing (and practicing at home). We’ve all been there and still go there.
It is fascinating how we can be bored when recreating music written by geniuses or creating our own improvisations or compositions. At times it can even seem like the norm.
With all the elements of a solid performance in place, a performance can still fall very short. We somehow assume that we can practice void of any energy and excitement and show up for the gig and rock the house.
When the stage lights come on we are thrown for a loop because our nerves and adrenaline tell us that this time is different. Our newly obtained superhero abilities of focus and concentration zoom in on every little detail around us. We don’t know what to do with the intensity and our performances rarely live up to our expectations or potential.
Then we say, “I could have done so much better.”
Or, “I sounded so much better at home!”
And we create a divide between the practice and performance... the lessons and home... rehearsal and the gig.
So... what do we do?
We practice more hours. We switch teachers. We choose pieces that are more fun. We no longer play in front of people - the performance anxiety is just too much!
After trying all of these things at various stages of my life, I think they just avoid the issue.
I believe we owe it to ourselves to learn to practice in a way that can continuously renew our musical experience. Each day we should be entertained and inspired by the music with which we practice. Ironically, I feel this has very little to do with the actual repertoire but how we approach our day-to-day practice.
At it’s base level, music is about expression and communication. To effectively communicate we do need to improve our abilities and do the hard work. But we don’t do this by putting our creative self on hold. Our creative self needs to be driving the motivation to practice and how we practice.
This process does not need to wait until you get to a certain level. It needs to happen before we practice void of energy, quit or let the autopilot permanently replace us.
We perform every single time we sit at our instrument. These are opportunities to express and entertain ourselves or our audience. In our mind and attitude, there can be no difference between practice and performing.
Through teaching and practice I have come up with a few practice techniques that have helped my students and myself. I will share them here so that you can experiment and expand upon them in ways that work for your personal experience.
I will touch on techniques for the following:
- Scales, arpeggios and technique
- Playing written music
- Improvised Music
- Performing
Michael Stegner
Copyright © 2012
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