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Monday, June 10, 2019

How to REALLY learn a piece - Allemande or die!

I guess we've all heard the excellent advice from our guitar teachers: spend the time on the hard bits, take it slow enough to play it right, record yourself, listen back to that recording, no- listen back to that recording with the score; yes and remember to mark the score with the bits to practice.   I have to say I've done some of all of these in the past, but maybe not of all of them.  But the Bach finally forced the issue  - it was obvious I couldn't fumble my way through it  - there were just so many challenges: finger sequencing to stop various strings from ringing, bringing out different voices, fretting things that were difficult for my hands, maintaining legato, dynamics, not breaking up the musical line... keeping in time.... the list goes on!  Our group (named by one enterprising individual "the Allemanders") decided to forge ahead with more sections of the Bach after the official challenge finished, and meantime I have been working on the first half too, and trying to relearn another piece for a masterclass with a number of challenges I had never completely sorted out.  Time is limited.  My hands can't do the number of hours practice that might be require using my old techniques.  Time to get it together.  First I recorded the other piece (I'll call it piece "B) on my phone, warts and all.  Then I identified all the parts where I was stumbling on the score, took each of them very slowly and tried to figure out why I was failing and what needed to be done to correct the issue.  Then, and here's the crucial difference, I took it another step - I wrote down the problems as a list, noting the specific problem and what I had come up with to solve it.  It looks something like this:

MM 2 and subsequent: Barre damping off one note.  Solution - place barre finger further back
MM 16  late transition as key changes: memory issue - practice just the transition
MM 23 Em descending scale campanella: damping off 4th string while fretting  5th : solution - move hand further over to keep finger more upright.
MM30-33  Confusing section with changing rhythm, positions and RH finger sequence: practice each transition separately, practice RH alone, memorize the start notes for each position.
MM  35-36: damping off notes bc of big stretch: solution - fret notes off fret so fingers can reach.
MM 37 late to harmonic, it sometimes doesn't sound right:  practice just the transition.  Remember to touch i first before trying play harmonic with a.
MM 42  hesitation - practice transition
MM  44 memory slip in upper position - practice super slowly, memorize notes,  so not relying just on the sequence.

A lot of work?  Perhaps - actually it took much less time to write it in my notebook as I used many fewer words!   So now when I come to practice the piece, I go to my list, review what I'm supposed to be doing differently.  Then I practice those measures, finishing with linking them up to adjacent parts of the music.  I'm making progress - wish me luck I get it solid  enough for a masterclass in a couple of weeks!