Why You Must Think in Words When You Practice

Welcome to Living Pianos, I'm Robert Estrin and today's show is so important, why you must think in words in your practice.

Now this seems counterintuitive because when you're playing the piano, you don't want to be thinking in words.

You want to divorce yourself and just get totally into the flow.

Even when you're practicing, you shouldn't be thinking in words except, the one big exception and this is so important, between repetitions you absolutely must quantify clearly in words what you want different in the next repetition of what you're doing. Let's say you're playing something, I mean it doesn't matter what I, I thought when I started this video what am I going to use, I use Feralese, I don't know, why not.

And you start Feralese and maybe it doesn't go the way you want it to.

And you say, oh I don't like that, I'm going to do it again.

I can tell you how many times I see students do that sort of thing where they just repeat before they have had a chance to even think what they want to have different. Does that sound like something you do? Do you jump right back in and play it again before you really thought through specifically what you want different? Now how about this, you get done playing it and while you could remember what it is you just played, which is the hardest part by the way, because you're playing a whole phrase of music, you play the whole piece to try to remember which parts need work, good luck with that.

Play a phrase, stop then, for a minute go, you know what, I got the notes but it seemed kind of all the same volume, I'd like to try to make a decrescendo at the end of the phrase, then you try it again.

And then maybe you say, oh that was pretty good but it wasn't good enough, well what wasn't good enough about it? What specifically do you want different? Well you know what, it could start softer, make one big rise and a fall and let's see what that would be like.

Now you might go, oh I missed and I'm going to start again, oh wait a minute, wait, slow down, slow down and really think, is that the only thing that you want different? Was that really the shape of the phrase you wanted? What specifically do you want different in each repetition? That's the one, you can really zero in and get the results you're after. If you just keep playing it over and over without stopping to think what you want different, you know what you're doing? You're practicing what you don't want because you haven't had time to think specifically what you do want, more than that even if you get exactly what you want, how will you know? Will you be sure you got what you want? So between each repetition think in words, identify, say it out loud, I must not miss that E over there and I want to have a smoother phrase that culminates in a rise and a fall and then when you try it, you get done, you say did I achieve what I wanted to achieve? Ask yourself that question and if not, be specific, what do you want different the next time? That is the secret to real refinement in your playing.

Not just playing through a bunch of music and going oh I want to play it better and the temptation is you want to play right away. You want to play, you want to play, you want to play, you want to play so badly that you don't give yourself the time to think what you want different in your practice. Now that doesn't say that just playing the piano is a bad thing to do. I do it all the time. Play when you want to play but when you're practicing, you draw this line, you know you're practicing, stop yourself when something isn't what you want and be specific what you want different each and every repetition and you will see your productivity of your practice excel like you have never seen before.

Once again I'm Robert Eshman, this is LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource. Thanks for all the comments, I really appreciate it and we'll see you all next time.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/why-you-must-think-in-words-when-you-practice/

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