How to Play Masterclass 1

Life under lockdown has made us reassess how to utilise time spent at the piano. Mark Tanner is positive: seize the moment and try some refreshing approaches

Mark Tanner explores refreshing approaches for keeping ourselves inspired at the piano

This is the perfect time of year for a spring clean! For many of us, piano playing has become quite a different experience from what we were accustomed to just a year ago. While for some the daunting reality of a virtual world merely confirms the indispensability of face-to-face interactions, for others it has been an eye-opener to more innovative ways of thinking and remaining creative online. The whole business of learning the piano, teaching it, communicating and exchanging views about it – on all levels from the novice to the more seasoned player – has undergone a shakeup that could well reverberate for a long time, post-pandemic. Piano clubs are no longer geographically bound, as we imagined they were when we had to drive to them. The availability of online concerts, streamed and downloadable lectures, not to mention subscribing to piano communities of any flavour one cares to mention, all signal a seachange in our approach to the wonderful world of playing and learning the piano. Some of us have taken up a new instrument, while others have indulged themselves in one-off consultation lessons with a famous pianist they’ve long admired. We’ve all responded in subtly different ways, though an important word to hold dear to here is optimism – we need to feel we are moving forwards in our piano playing, setting ourselves realistic challenges and bonding ever more closely with our beloved instrument.

Take stock

Taking stock of our playing is an invaluable, often rather revealing exercise. Few of us do this regularly enough; we’re often too busy pressing on with the here-andnow of learning. Pianists are of course used to spending time alone practising, but we don’t always pause to reflect, or question the precise process and timescale of ‘teaching’ ourselves – for that’s what practising at home really amounts to. Why not take a moment to look back at the pieces you’ve learned, or begun learning these past 12 months – not for an ego-trip, but simply to widen your perspective and self-knowledge. Curiously, when I ask a new pupil on a piano summer school how long they’ve been working at a particular piece, they’ll often look unsure, or else say that they’ve come full circle with it over many months/years. Most are unable to pinpoint the main challenges that remain. Keeping track of unevenness in our learning can act as a mirror to future improvement, hence enjoyment.

Here are some of the benefits of taking stock at regular intervals:

• We can measure improvement more accurately and change tack if need be.

• We can resolve to diversify – perhaps we once enjoyed improvising, or playing jazz, but have gradually drifted away from these activities.

• We can call a halt to going around in ever-decreasing circles – perhaps the time has finally come to shelve a piece that has become a negative experience in our life.

• We can honour promises we once made to ourselves – get around to learning a piece we’ve always loved, or finally open a volume of Mompou we purchased years ago.

• We’ll feel we have renewed purpose and enthusiasm.

Consolidation

Rather than feeling obligated to tackle ever-more challenging pieces

or studies, I’d encourage frequent pauses for consolidation. Revisit with new eyes and ears pieces and activities you enjoyed a long time ago. This achieves several things:

• You assemble repertoire that is genuinely useful to you, relatively quickly and effortlessly.

• You’re reminded of the value and pleasure in simply playing through – and possibly finding a performance opportunity for – a piece you hold dear.

• It reminds you that enjoying your piano playing should amount to more than overcoming technical difficulties or proving a particular point to yourself.

• You’ll listen more and stop second-guessing yourself or policing yourself for errors.

Challenge yourself!

The sheet music in this issue may well contain pieces you’d find well within you. Instead of flicking past these in search of pieces that are ‘at your level’, why not home in on a few that appear easy? Alternatively, if you’re feeling adventurous, challenge yourself to tackle a piece by a composer you don’t know: have you ever played anything by Streabbog, for example? And what about Reinecke, Gardel, Cramer or Levitzki? There are almost certainly gems among these that could open up sound-worlds as yet unimagined. Three of these pieces are given a slightly unorthodox approach here (see box) – try this for fun and variety!

Rethink the future

Although over-planning can lead to disappointment or sense of underachievement, under-planning can result in treading water, losing sight of what’s important, or neglecting aspects of your playing you know in your heart of hearts you could be tackling more systematically. Setting yourself an occasional goal can be exhilarating and inspiring. A few examples:

• Why not think about taking an exam? – exam boards have risen courageously to the challenge of online exams in recent times; perhaps there is something of value to be gained from considering this.

• Get a blank note pad: in the front half, list recent achievements – pieces learned and obstacles overcome – and in the back half, list challenges and aspects you wish to improve upon. Look at the pad from time to time, revise it, add to it and tick things off.

• Do something that’s outside your comfort zone. This could be trying a new style of music, recording yourself on a multitrack using an app such as ‘4xCamera Maker’ (then send what you’ve recorded to a friend who is good at improvising, or better still, attempt this yourself!).

• Try the app called ‘Decide Now’ – it encourages you to tackle your practising in a more egalitarian/ random way; customise the roulette-style wheel (e.g. ‘melodic minor scales’, ‘Beethoven’, ‘Shearing’, ‘improvisation’, etc.), then spin it as you sit down to practise. Just do what the wheel tells you to do next!

• Rev up your knowledge of theory and history. Threading in a steady stream of digestible information can only help your overall grasp of aspects such as style and structure.

• Put together a playlist of recordings to remind you how much you love the music you’re currently learning. Also, aim to inject an unknown piano piece into your ears, say, once a week; keep a list of those you feel you could enjoy learning.

• Try memorising something you’ve learned well in the past.

The important message here is that we should revisit our priorities and ambitions from time to time. We don’t always need to be challenging or stretching ourselves – consolidating and reflecting are good for the soul, too. Taking control of your learning can take many forms, but not all options will be an equally good fit for you. If in doubt, reconnect with

the music you once loved to play. Melanie Spanswick’s Play it Again books take the spirit of this message very much to heart, and while you’re spring cleaning, put together a few piles of useful material – off-the-beaten-track repertoire, studies, potential pieces to learn for a wedding and so on.

Keeping your piano playing special – a positive experience that is personal to you – is how to keep motivated and inspired. ■