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Break
daily practice time into smaller chunks: It is very easy to pass 5 or
even ten minutes at a time. Get
out a stopwatch and see how long it takes you to make a sandwich or have a
shower. Short periods of time
can go by without us even noticing. You
can use this approach to make practice time seem shorter and to give more
quality of attention. |
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Focused
practice: Sometimes we are faced with notes or patterns that just seem
hard to get. We are tempted to play a piece all the way through several
times, but each time we stumble over the same section. Stop! It is much
more effective to focus on those few notes. |
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Variety,
the spice of life: It can
become tedious playing the same piece repeatedly the same way.
Divide your practice time into different tasks.
Give time to scales, exercises and studies, sight-reading your pieces
played in different orders each time. Give
time to new pieces and to pieces you have already learnt.
You are sure to find you wish the clock hadn’t marked that time
yet, because you want time to finish what you are doing. |
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Measure
the goals, not the time: Instead of focusing on the clock, work out what
you want to achieve. What do
you think you need to do to improve a piece?
Use the Practice Hats. Talk
your goals through during lessons. Be
particular. Decide what the goal is and don’t finish your work until
you have achieved your goal, or a particular part of it. Sometimes, you will work longer than your set practice time
– sometimes it won’t take long at all.
At the end, though, you will know what you have accomplished for your
effort. |
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Snatch the most effective time: There are times when it is more effective to work on particular tasks. It is easy to leave your books open and play that problem section several times while you are waiting to leave for school. The best time to learn a new section is just before bed – add this to the list of procrastination tricks! If you practice a section very carefully and slowly, only once or twice, just before bedtime, your brain spends the night practicing while you sleep. Play again in the morning, and you’ll discover how much practice you have done without even knowing it. |
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Practice away from the piano: There are many aspects to learning a piece and the essential technical, aural and rhythmic skills. Some things count as valuable practice and they can be done away from the piano, even while watching TV, or driving in the car. With the music in front of you, read every mark you can find on the page. Did you see anything you hadn’t noticed before? What about the fingering you always forget? Practice it while you are sitting at the table… The rhythm patterns? Tap them on your knees while traveling or just sitting around relaxing. Spend time listening to recordings of pieces you are learning (you can bring a recorder to lessons and I will try to play the pieces you are learning, when a copy is not available some other way). All these activities can be counted in your practice time – just remember to keep a balance. Time at the piano is important. |
Percy
Grainger 
By Shannon Cullen
Percy George Grainger was born on the 8th of July 1882 in Brighton, Victoria. His father, John H. Grainger was a well-known architect whose designs included the Princes Bridge in Melbourne.
Percy’s public education lasted only three months due to students teasing him and his disgust at the cruelty shown by them to a helpless animal. He swore never to return and it was his mother, Rose, who assumed responsibility for his education. Along with English, History and Mathematics, her practiced on the piano for two hours every day. This regimen lasted from 5 years old until he was 10.
Grainger was separated from his father in 1891, when his father became ill and moved to London for better treatment. Grainger stayed in Australia with his mother, who stayed with him through his young adult life.
At the age of 10, Percy studied harmony and piano with a German pianist named Louis Pabst, a student of the famous composer Anton Rubinstein. In 1894, he made his piano debut at Melbourne’s Masonic Hall. The audience and the critics raved that the youngster’s technique was near perfect. A further five concerts convinced his mother they should move to Europe for further studies. On May 29, they set sail for Germany.
Grainger enrolled in the prestigious Dr. Hoch’s Conservatory in Frankfurt, then the major centre of European piano teaching. Unfortunately, his studies with his composition teacher ended abruptly when his teacher made a mockery of Percy’s use of whole note scales and irregular rhythms. These concepts were far ahead of their time. Stravinsky was to adopt such measures only in 1913.
Percy and his mother moved to London in 1901 where he triumphed immediately as a concert pianist. He was given the title “The running pianist” because he was always running through the streets to concerts, bounding up steps three at a time. It was also at this time that he became interested in collecting folksongs. In 1906, he pioneered the use of the Edison wax cylinder recorder in the field by hiking through the Lincolnshire countryside and recording anyone who could sing a traditional folksong. Bela Bartok was to adopt Grainger’s methods the following year. Grainger wrote “In folksong is to be found the whole history of the people, recorded by the race itself.... It is a history compiled with deeper feeling and more understanding than any book...”
Then, on March 15, 1907 the distinguished Norwegian composer Edward Grieg, was quoted in a Danish newspaper “What is nationality? I have written Norwegian Peasant Dances that none of my countrymen can play and there comes this Australian who plays the way they ought to be played. Grainger is a genius that we Scandinavians cannot do other than love.”
In the summer of that year, Grainger visited Grieg in his villa in Norway. The two men spent hours discussing and rehearsing music, particularly Grieg’s Piano concerto in A Minor, Opus 16. Grieg quickly became a strong father figure for Grainger. Grieg admired Percy and asked if he would perform the concerto on a European tour with Grieg conducting. However, a few weeks before the tour was to start, Grieg passed away.
On his return to England, he made the acquaintance of several major composers including Delius, Vaughan-Williams, Richard Strauss, Debussy and Edward Elgar.
With the outbreak of WWI, Grainger and his mother moved to the United States, where he became an overnight success. In 1917, Grainger enlisted in the army as a bandsman, 2nd class, where he played the saxophone. He began to play the piano at War Bond Rallies to help raise money for the war. As an encore, he would frequently improvise on a theme called Country Dances. It was quite well received and upon its publication, broke Schimer’s sales records for the past seventy-five years and continued to do so for the next twenty, selling at the rate of 40,000 copies annually in the US alone. Grainger and his Country Dances became synonymous to the point where he began to detest the work.
In 1926, Grainger met his future wife on a ship returning from Australia. Two years later, they married in the Hollywood Bowl during a Grainger concert before an audience of 20,000 people. Around this period, Grainger began to champion the new music of Jazz. In 1938, he was invited to perform at the White House before Franklin D. Roosevelt
Grainger was offered many teaching posts at various American Universities; he refused them all. This, coupled with the fact that he insisted on only playing his music, made interest in him decline.
Grainger returned to Australia, where he died in 1961.
Percy
Grainger was born on the 8th of July 1882 in Brighton, Victoria.
His father was a famous architect who designed some important structures
in Melbourne. Schooled at home, Grainger learnt piano from 5 years of age,
practicing 2 hours every day. He
began studying composition and harmony at 10 years of age.
He
gave his first public performance in Melbourne at 12 years of age.
Everyone said his technique was nearly perfect.
Soon afterwards, Grainger went to Germany to study at one of Europe’s
most important conservatoriums. He
had trouble with his teacher there because Grainger’s ideas of harmony were
ahead of his time.
Grainger moved to London in 1901 to work as a concert pianist.
He spent his spare time traveling the countryside recording the folk
songs, for which he had a special interest.
His compositions, performances and improvisations were modeled on these
folk tunes.
Grainger spent time working with Nationalistic composer, Edvard Grieg, from Norway. Later, he moved to America, where he became very popular for some time. He moved back to Australia at the end of his life, where he died in 1961.
Annah-Valerie
Hyrst (teacher)
Individual Dynamics
Rouse
Hill, NSW
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Last modified: April 04, 2008 |
