For Bernhard: filling some holes

[Daniel_piano]

No offence meant to anyone
I was just trying to order all the information I got from all Bernhard messages
With half method explanation on a message and the other hald method explanation on another message it was not easy to focus on the whole practice method
Yes, he explained several things about speed, piece analisys, tone, post practice improvement but there were not a precise order so that a student approaching a piece for the first time willing to give Bernhard method a try would have a lot of tools to use but little knowledge on how and when to use them

By compiling a "kind of" detailed summary on Bernhard principles I noticed that there were some important "holes" between one instruction and the other
Bernhard himself told me to practice the same piece with one method (my teacher) and with the one he teach to see what gives me better results
But how can I practice Bernhard method if I don't know what to do to practice Bernhard method?
I've no doubt that his method is superior to the standard one but some gaps in the instruction I've collected through several different post prevent me from totally understand what am I supposed to do in order to follow his method
I've noticed that few of the students on the forum really utilize or understand Bernhard method, this is a pity but probably it's due to the highly dispersed location of this information

Maybe this summary can be useful for other students or maybe not

1) analyse the piece: voices, motif, climax, patterns and so on
2) if polyphonic rewrite the piece separating the voices
3) listen a CD of the piece
4) mark the hardest bars both for LH and RH
5) if there are no hard LH parts, practice the LH of another piece
5) with the 7/20 rule decide the size of chunk of these hard bar to practice (the chunk of the size is the right one is you know can play it smoothly, at speed and by memory after 7 repeats)
6) if the chunk can be practice with chord attacks, play two or mote notes as chord several times

1 hole) if the chunk cannot be practice with chord attack... what do you do?

7) keep alternating hands
after several repeats "roll" (wiggle your wrist) the chord so that it become a series of fast separated notes and slow down from infinite speed to lower than infinite speed

2 hole) when (in what cases/situations) to use repeated note group instead of or with the chord attack practice?

9) for the full session duration (20 minutes or less) keep practicing the chunk you chosed until it is mastered (the session ends when you the chunk is completely mastered, it may takes you 10 minutes or all the 20 minutes; if it took you more than 20 minutes the chunk was too big; on the other hand if you practice using repeated note group it may take more than just 20 minutes to complete the groups and this is okay)

3 hole) in which case/situation one should use rythm variation?

10) after having mastered the chunk don't practice it again until the next day, after a post practice improvement occuring during sleep

4 hole) we've marked and practiced the hard bars
What about the other bars? What do you do with them?
Do you use the same practice (chord attack, repeated note groups, rhythm variations) with them too, or do you forget about them completely? And if "rolled chords" is the only way to get up to speed, how do you bring the other bars of the piece up to speed without using chord attacks

5 hole) if you have practiced the LH from another piece and you mastered the RH of the first piece, when you have to join hands do you practice the first piece HT even though the LH of this piece was not practiced? (do we imply that we can simple sighread it because it is easy?)

11) at the end of the day repeat all the piece slowly so that only right notes get impressed during the post practice improvement
12) the next day repeat the chunk you did the previous day 7 times, if it is perfectly mastered, move on
13) if the chunk is still not mastered repeated the same prectice of the previous day without slipping any passages, you will notice that it will take you half the time you spent the previopis day to master the chunk to re-master it

I think it would be helpful to anyone if Bernhard could fill these few holes
They're few indeed but they're really prevent me from seeing any progress, as they deal with two important points:
1) what to do with other bars not firtly marked as hard
2) when and in which case to use each different method
 

Thanks a lot
Daniel

[bernhard]

if the chunk cannot be practice with chord attack... what do you do?

You do something else!

The main problem with this kind of question is that the answer is always going to be “it depends”. It will depend on the passage/piece, and it will depend on you and what is it exactly that you are finding difficult.

In general the most powerful practice trick that will always bring results is repeated note-groups. In comparison, the chord attack is very limited. You can use repeated note groups for any sort of passage, and any size of passage. The chord attack is limited to five notes at the most (since you only have five fingers in each hand), and to sections where the notes are close enough to be negotiated without skips. The only serious limitation of repeated note-groups is that you must have a maximum of 7± 2 units if you intend to finish it in less than 24 hours . However you can circumvent this up to a point by working with units that encompass several notes, or even several bars. Rhythm, articulation and accent variations can also be used to great effect when the chord attack is not applicable.

2 hole) when (in what cases/situations) to use repeated note group instead of or with the chord attack practice?

They are completely independent approaches. You can use them separately or in conjunction. Repeated notes is far more powerful and far more useful (imo). See above. Personally I always use both in conjunction if applicable. A very good example are bars 57 – 61 of Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 142 no.2 (RH), where there is a long sequence of triplets. I will make the triplets into chords and practise this sequence of chords with repeated notes, and once the transition from chord to chord is completely automatic and memorised (it will be when you finish the procedure – I guarantee), then I will break down the chords and do repeated notes again, this time with each triplet as a unit.

In other passages (e.g. Beethoven 6 ecossaises), the chord trick is not possible, so I will just use repeated notes.

3 hole) in which case/situation one should use rythm variation?

Personally I find that rhythm variations are the most useful for long passages that must be played absolutely even (e.g. the RH runs on Mozart’s Turkish March, or the RH on Couperin’s “The Tic Toc Choc”, or the RH of Dacquin’s “Le Coucou”, or the RH in Chopin’s Op. 10 no. 2).

This is a general principle that has always produced very interesting fruit: Do the opposite of what you are supposed to do in order to master what you need to master. So, if you need total evenness, practise unevenly. If you are after speed, practise slow motion. If you are after slow, lyrical passages, practise it fast. You get the idea.

So by practising rhythm variations, you are playing unevenly, but in a very systematic way – it is not random unevenness. To get to this systematic unevenness you actually have to develop a certain sort of evenness if you know what I mean.

The most important thing to watch for when doing RV, is to make sure you practice the mirror variation. This means that you do not just do fast-slow, you must also do slow-fast. And if you use a more complex rhythm (which I encourage you to do). Like slow-slow-fast, then make sure you go through slow-fast-slow and fast-fast-slow as well.

I find rhythm variations absolutely fascinating. If you are doing slow-fast and fast-slow, one usually comes much easier than the other. One of them tends to confuse us completely. This is a huge hint on the structure of the piece. The thing is, rhythm is a form of accent, and the slow note is simply stressed in comparison with the fast one. So if the slow-fast pattern follows the melody of the music, you will have no difficulty with it, but the fast-slow will be hell since you are rhythmically accenting the non-melodic notes and you will not “recognise” what you are playing. So, this is another very powerful application for rhythmic variations: to discover the correct accent pattern of the piece. It gives you an opportunity to explore different levels in the piece. You can really learn about how to bring a piece alive musically if you pay attention to what goes on during rhythm variations.

Finally rhythmic variations are excellent for any lingering hesitation you cannot get rid of.

As a bonus, you get excellent memorisation, since you must truly know your piece to do the difficult version (if slow fast is easy for you, then fast slow is really going to tax your memory and knowledge of the piece).

Incidentally, all the above applies for accent and articulation variations. (The same idea as in rhythm variations but now with accents and varying degrees of staccato-legato).

4 hole) we've marked and practiced the hard bars
What about the other bars? What do you do with them?
Do you use the same practice (chord attack, repeated note groups, rhythm variations) with them too, or do you forget about them completely?

You always start with the difficult bars for two simple reasons:

1.   They contain all the technique you will need to master the piece. That is, once you master the difficult bars, you will have no technical problems on the easy ones (although you will still have to learn them and memorise them)

2.   They will take the longest to master, so you might as well start straightaway.

The way I work is to reserve 2 practice sessions a day for a specific piece. In one of the sessions I will practice only the difficult bars. On the other session I will practice the other bars. This means that I may be stuck on a couple of bars for several days, while in parallel I am learning the other easy sections. If we take a 30 bar piece as an example it would go something like this:

Day 1
Practice session 1: Bars 25 – 26 (most difficult)
Session 2: bars 1 – 5

Day 2
Practice session 1: Bars 25 – 26
Session 2: bars 5- 10 (bars 1 – 5 mastered yesterday)

Day 3
Practice session 1: Bars 25 – 26
Session 2: Bars 1 – 10

Day 4
Practice session 1: Bars 25 – 26
Session 2: bars 10 – 15

Day 5
Practice session 1: Bars 25 – 26
Session 2: Bars 1 – 15

Day 6
Practice session 1: Bars 25 – 26 (Finally mastered)
Session 2: Bars 15 – 20

Day 7:
Practice session 1: Bars 25 – 30 (bars 27-30 are easy ones)
Session 2: bars 1 – 20

Day 8:
Practice session 1: Bars 20 – 25
Session 2 – the whole piece (bars 1- 30).

This approach makes a lot of sense not in the least because in 99% of the repertory the difficult bars are towards the end. So if you wait until you get to them (assuming you are learning the piece from beginning to end) it will be huge waste of time.

The same attention I devote to the difficult bars I will devote to the easy ones. The difference is that the easy ones will take a fraction of the time to learn. And in many cases a lot of the tricks are simply not necessary. It will depend in great part on your level. For total beginners all bars are equally impossible. Advanced students have already ingrained so many patterns in their subconscious that only passages of pieces are impossible- the rest is plain sailing.

So what I should perhaps say is not that I devote the same attention/effort/tricks to both easyand difficult bars, but rather that I aim at the same level of perfection in every and each bar – be it easy or difficult. The time/effort/strategies needed to attain such perfection will be much more intense in the case of difficult bars than the easy ones.

And if "rolled chords" is the only way to get up to speed, how do you bring the other bars of the piece up to speed without using chord attacks

Rolled chords/chord attacks are by no means the only way to bring a passage to speed. What they do however is priceless: They afford you a glimpse of the correct movement you will be using at speed. In doing so, they give you the necessary resources to practise in slow motion.

But there are other ways of doing even that (for instance, watch a slow motion video of someone who can play the piece superlatively well at speed – even though you may not be able to use the same specific movements, such videos will dispel forever silly notions that speed is achieved by finger movement).

Once you know what movements you are aiming for, there are numerous way to tackle speed that do not involve the chord attack at all. Here are a few:

1.   Repetition. Do not worry about pressing for speed at all. Just practise your passage at a comfortable tempo (which can be surprisingly slow), making sure you are using the movements you will be using at speed. If you bother to time yourself on the first few repeats, you will be surprised at how much your speed has increased after a 15-minute period. In fact you will not even notice that you have increased speed (which is why I am suggesting you time yourself at the start and at the end of the section). It is not unusual to do this sort of practice and find out afterward that your speed doubled or even tripled by the end of the session without you even being aware of it.

2.   Speed is mostly an illusion. There is only so much that the human ear can take, so one incredible trick is simply to make sure that every single note is clearly heard. The ear is so busy dealing with all this information that it sounds fast. In fact a person who plays accurately and with great attention to sound detail but slowly, will actually sound faster than a person who plays much faster but inaccurately and blurring the sound.

3.   If you like using a metronome for speed work, rather than increasing it steadily like say, 60 – 72 – 80 – 92 – 100 – 112 – 120 etc., do it like this:
60 – 92 – 80 – 100 – 92 – 112 – 100 – 132 – 112 – 152 – 120, etc. I do not really recommend using a metronome too extensively for the following reason: For all the superstitious talk amongst pianists about “touch” and tone color, the bottom line is that there is very little a pianist can do to the keys that will influence the quality of tone. Ultimately the quality of tone is simply dynamics (how loud, how soft – which the pianist has a large control through the keys) and agogics (how long or how short each note is going to be). This means that metronomic playing should be avoided at all costs since it will result in a “dead” tone. Even the most even passages will only sound best when played unevenly. In fact they will sound more even to human ears if played unevenly.

4.   Rhythmic variations, repeated notes and small section practice all produce unbelievable results in regards to speed if done consistently over a period of time.

5.   Speed is a function of movement. Speed walls are always a result of using a movement that has limitations. Rather than trying to break through the speed wall by persistent (and misguided) overpractice of the same movement, go around the speed wall by using a completely different movement. This of course needs hands on teaching – you cannot get it from a forum.

6. Cluster. This is the equivlent of changing gears in a car. Just like you cannot drive fast in first gear, you cannot play fast if you are thinking note by note. You must start grouping notes in chunks, and these chunks become the new units. Your aim is to have thewhole piece as a single unity, a single chunk.

5 hole) if you have practiced the LH from another piece and you mastered the RH of the first piece, when you have to join hands do you practice the first piece HT even though the LH of this piece was not practiced? (do we imply that we can simple sighread it because it is easy?)

Who said you do not practise the easy hands? Here is one way to deal with it:

Piece 1: RH difficult, LH easy
Piece 2: RH easy, LH difficult.

Practice session 1: Piece 1 RH, piece 2 LH (both difficult)

Practice session 2: Piece 1 LH, Piece 2 RH (both easy)

After a couple of days, the pieces in practice session 2 will probably be mastered, but you will still have to keep going with practice session 1. So replace the pieces in practice session 2 with some new stuff.

After a week (or a couple of weeks) the material in practice session 1 is mastered. So now you can do:

Practice session 1: Piece 1 & 2 HS (mostly a reminder)
Practice session 2: Piece 1 & 2 HT.

The real difficulty of this approach ( which is incredibly efficient and saves a huge amount of time) is planning. You will need to spend some time figuring out what to practise, and coupled with what, and perhaps draw a detailed map of your practice sessions. It requires a lot of discipline and you must be very consistent. However, if you stick with this approach, the whole thing will soon become a habit, and you will start doing all this planning naturally, by just looking at the pieces (this is certainly how it evolved with me).

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Mycroft]

Bernhard, OUTSTANDING post!  Like others, I'd love to see a compilation of your posts.   Perhaps Paul will post his when he feels it's ready.   I tried doing a search for rhythm variations and several came up, but none of them described it in detail.

I'm working on the second section of Fur Elise with the RH rotating back and forth C-G-G-G-A-G-B-G-C etc. and then the scale down from the higher C.  I can play it fairly well at tempo, but I still make the occasional finger mistake.  Anyway, other than repetition, I'm thinking that what is called rhythm variations would be helpful.

How exactly do you do rhythm variation?  Do you play through the whole section slow and then the whole section fast etc. or is something else meant by fast-slow slow fast?

[rlefebvr]

Rhythm variation should really only be used when you know your piece section very well, in my opinion. This is the best time to figure out the nuances of the piece. Play it all fast, all slow. One section fast, one section slow. one loud one soft. If you have a digital piano, use different sounds to see the results. Often you will find you are playing very sluggish but did not hear it under the sound you are used to.
Soon, you will come to realize how the piece should be played and why. If the piece is very well written, you will probably come to the same conclusion as the markings on the sheet. That is really cool. Sometimes, you will actually play it completely different simply because you like it better that way. The good ones, will even start to improvise different sections. This will also ingrain the piece into your head like you can't imagine.

That is really when the piece becomes fun. 

[mosis]

Bernhard, you say that repeated note groups is the most powerful technique for acquiring speed. You still need to know the correct motions to get this speed, and you still need to use the chord attack, but on two notes instead of many.

Can rhythm, dynamic, and articulation variations be used before, during, or after repeated note groups, or will repeated note groups solve all problems?

What about in pieces such as Bach, where one hand is always in some constant figuration? For example, from the Cmin Book 2 Prelude, the left hand lags (unless it's being played very loud and unpleasantly) behind. I don't think I'm supposed to apply repeated note groups to EVERYTHING, or am I? :/

[mound]

Bernhard, OUTSTANDING post!  Like others, I'd love to see a compilation of your posts.   Perhaps Paul will post his when he feels it's ready. 

as always, excellent discussion! I, however, am not working on any kind of compilation, other than ongoing "updates" to that one "pauls plan to try it himself" thread.

in essence though, this is all just a big bag of tricks.. the most important thing I've discovered goes right to what Bernhard closed with, the most difficult thing is consistently planning your work and then working your plan.

the recent arrival of a rambunctions 8 week old puppy to my life has proven this

-Paul

[jazzyprof]

the recent arrival of a rambunctions 8 week old puppy to my life has proven this

-Paul

I think there's even a song about that..."And they called it puppy love..."

[Mycroft]

"the recent arrival of a rambunctions 8 week old puppy to my life has proven this"

Heh, yeah.  Just wait 'til you get married. 

[bernhard]

Bernhard, OUTSTANDING post!

Thank you!

How exactly do you do rhythm variation?  Do you play through the whole section slow and then the whole section fast etc. or is something else meant by fast-slow slow fast?

Rhythm variation.

Rhythm variations are done mostly on even passages (that is, passages where all the notes have the same time value).

The passage you are referring to (bars 53-54) is ideal for this approach. All the notes are demisemiquavers, and should last exactly the same time.

What you are going to do is: instead of playing this passage regularly, you are going to play it in a systematically irregular way.

First rhythmic variation: fast-slow.

If you consider just the first four demisemiquavers (CgGg) instead of playing them all at the same speed, you are going to play the first one (C) fast, the second one (g) slow, the third one (G) fast and the last one (g) slow. So that it sounds like two pairs of demisemiquaver-dotted quaver figures. Did you follow that?

This means that you play Cg as fast as you can and stop at the g. Now wait there for as long as you need to figure out the next two notes in your mind. Then play the next two notes and again pause at the second one. Instead of the passage sounding ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-etc. it will sound [ta-taaaaaaaaaaa] [ta-taaaaaaaaaa] [ta-taaaaaaaa] etc.

Yes? Hence the name fast-slow. You can wait as long as you want on the slow note, but you are not allowed to hesitate on the fast note ever. (Can you see how this will correct hesitations?).

Now – and this is the most important aspect of this trick – you must do its mirror image: slow-fast.

Now the C is slow while the g is fast. So you get [taaaaaaa –ta] [taaaaaa–ta] [taaaaaaa-ta] etc.

If you now do the passage evenly as originally written you will be amazed at the improvement in evenness, since basically you covered every possible combination of hesitation.

I tend to adopt the lazy approach: I will only do a trick if I think it is necessary, otherwise I will not waste time.

So if the above worked for you, then move on. However if this is particularly challenging section for you and you still feel insecure about it, you can try more complex rhythm variations, like slow-slow-fast. Just make sure you do the mirror images: slow-fast-slow and fast-fast-slow as well

What you are referring to – playing the whole passage evenly and fast, then evenly and slowly is not rhythm variations, but rather “tempo” variations, and of course you can use that too.

Here is something else you can do with bar 53. Have you noticed how this passage is simply a scale on the bottom with a G on the top in between each of the scale notes? So practise the Gs and the scale separately, but using the same fingering you will be using when playing the whole thing. In fact, you probably will not need to practise the repeated Gs. Just get very good at the scale, and simple add the Gs after you mastered the scale. If you practise it this way, you will be able to master this passage in a fraction of the time that it will take you to do it playing it as written. It also gives you a glimpse of the structure of the passage: the scale is the really important part, the Gs are just “fillers” (hence to not stress them! – in fact you will have to tone them down, since by just being on the upper register they will be naturally accented).

I hope this is clearer now.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

Rhythm variation should really only be used when you know your piece section very well, in my opinion. This is the best time to figure out the nuances of the piece. Play it all fast, all slow. One section fast, one section slow. one loud one soft. If you have a digital piano, use different sounds to see the results. Often you will find you are playing very sluggish but did not hear it under the sound you are used to.
Soon, you will come to realize how the piece should be played and why. If the piece is very well written, you will probably come to the same conclusion as the markings on the sheet. That is really cool. Sometimes, you will actually play it completely different simply because you like it better that way. The good ones, will even start to improvise different sections. This will also ingrain the piece into your head like you can't imagine.

That is really when the piece becomes fun. 

Ron is absolutely right. Rhythm variations should really be done after you know the passage. It is not really a "learning the notes" tool - more of a "perfecting the passage" tool.

[bernhard]

Bernhard, you say that repeated note groups is the most powerful technique for acquiring speed. You still need to know the correct motions to get this speed, and you still need to use the chord attack, but on two notes instead of many.

Not only for speed: for everything – learning, memorising, creating hand memory, ingraining fingering and movement, the whole lot.

Although the chord attack is very useful for figuring out the correct movement, it is not the only way. You can simply approach this in a thoughtful way: that is “think” about it! reflect on different movements, experiment. In short do not just blindly throw your hands at the keys and hope for the best. Also use your experience. Look at movements that worked well in similar circumstances. Use general principles like always moving from the centre of the body and let the fingers be moved form the arms and not the other way around. Then again, do not limit yourself by such principles. There will be instances when you will need to move from the fingers.

There is no surefire way, single approach that will work in all circumstances. You must adapt. If what you are doing is not working do something else.

Also, in a passage of, say, ten notes, as you play the first two you may find a movement that is perfect for those first two notes, but that falls apart the moment you introduce the third note. In fact, the ideal movement is always relative to whole phrases, not to a few notes. So remember that practice always has two definite parts: exploration/investigation – which should be usually done hands separate in order not to ingrain false starts and mistakes on your hand memory, and actual practice where you repeat the correct movements (which you figure out in the first phase) in order to ingrain them into your subconscious. Investigation is by far the lengthier part. It is also the most neglected part.

Can rhythm, dynamic, and articulation variations be used before, during, or after repeated note groups, or will repeated note groups solve all problems?

Nothing will solve all problems. A varied approach always work best. That said, rhythm, dynamic and articulation variations are to be used in the second part of practice, when the notes and movemnts have been sorted out. They are not a good investigative/exploratory tools, but they are excellent to deal with specific problems once the investigation is finished. So repeated notes should always be done first, since it is both an investigative and an ingraining tool.

What about in pieces such as Bach, where one hand is always in some constant figuration? For example, from the Cmin Book 2 Prelude, the left hand lags (unless it's being played very loud and unpleasantly) behind. I don't think I'm supposed to apply repeated note groups to EVERYTHING, or am I? :/

I am note sure what you mean in your example of the prelude. This prelude will benefit from all of the variations so far described.

And no, you are not supposed to apply repeated notes for everything. In fact I myself use it rarely. It is such a time consuming trick that I reserve it only for truly impossible passages. However, a beginner who has no co-ordination, lacks techniques (= a vast repertory of movement patterns), and does not have a clue about memorisation of music, may have to use it for every single bar of his grade 1 piece.

When I first started playing Scarlatti sonatas I actually did that: repeated note groups for every group of seven notes – the style was that alien to me. However after 10 or 11 sonatas, I barely needed to use it.

If you have never played an Alberti pattern before, the co-ordination will seem completely impossible. However, after a couple of Mozart sonatas, you will not need to give it a second thought.

Any piece that comes easy to you, there is no need to do any of that. These are for the impossible pieces/passages. They are the last resort, the WML (weapons of massive learning) that will always deliver.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Mycroft]

Thank you Bernhard!  I thought that's what you meant, but I didn't know how it could help.  Now it's much clearer.

[mound]

This means that you play Cg as fast as you can and stop at the g. Now wait there for as long as you need to figure out the next two notes in your mind. Then play the next two notes and again pause at the second one. Instead of the passage sounding ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-etc. it will sound [ta-taaaaaaaaaaa] [ta-taaaaaaaaaa] [ta-taaaaaaaa] etc.

Interesting.. My teacher had me doing rhythmic variations almost from day one on my scales.. It took me a bit to figure out what he meant when it talked about doing every permutation of fast slow, and as you said earlier, some worked easilly, some seemed completely foreign.. They definitely help with evenness.

You mentioned though, "Now wait there for as long as you need to figure out the next two notes in your mind. " -  that differes from what my teacher said.. It was always to be in time.. That is, rather than "fast - slow" with slow being as long a pause as I wanted, slow would be a multiple, maybe 2, at most 4 of the fast so that the whole thing maintained a rhythmic consistency.. 

Is there a divergence here or is it still essentially the same thing?

Thanks!

-Paul

[Daniel_piano]

Thanks Bernhard
I think now the whole approach is more clear and I can understand it better

And if "rolled chords" is the only way to get up to speed, how do you bring the other bars of the piece up to speed without using chord attacks

Rolled chords/chord attacks are by no means the only way to bring a passage to speed.

Now, that's what I don't still understand
You said that sightreading a piece for the first time at "confortable/sightreding" speed is something we shouldn't do
In other words: we should never practice slow, but only in slow motion but to practice in slow motion  one has to first know the fast
Chord attacks are the only way to practice firstly a chunk fast as you can't simply play it fast
Incidentally if you use chord attacks you don't even have to use slow fast motion as you can simply practice always fast

Now the question is: since we're supposed to never practice a chunk for the first time in slow speed but just in slow motion and slow motion (the movement working at fast speed) can only be aquired by chord attack, how do you never practice a chunk for the first time slowly instead of in slow motion without using chord attacks?

In other words (sorry, I'm just not always sure what I say is understandable)

Since we are should make sure that we are using the movements we will be using at speed, and such movement can be learned only by playing the notes as chord first (chord attack) how do you make sure to you're using the movement you will use at fast speed without doing a chord attack first?
Can you please make an example?

if the chunk cannot be practice with chord attack... what do you do?

You do something else!
he main problem with this kind of question is that the answer is always going to be “it depends”. It will depend on the passage/piece, and it will depend on you and what is it exactly that you are finding difficult.

You said that chord attack is usefull for running close notes, arpeggios or triples, quadruplets, quintuplets and so on
For chunk where chord attack is not possible you said you use repeated note groups (even though this has a time limitation)

I wonder if you have other different technique tricks/method for other different technique problems:

what tricks/method would you use for a bar with thirds?
Thirds
what tricks/method would you use for fast octaves?
Ocataves
what trick/method would you use when you have to play running notes while holding a note for the whole bar?
Holding
what trick/method would you use for jumps?
Jumps
what trick/method would you use for staccato notes?
Staccato
what trick/methdo would you use for alternating hands?
Alternating

I think I've covered the whole technique spectrum, isn't it?

Thanks a lot for the time you're devoting to us

Daniel

[xvimbi]

Now, that's what I don't still understand
You said that sightreading a piece for the first time at "confortable/sightreding" speed is something we shouldn't do
In other words: we should never practice slow, but only in slow motion but to practice in slow motion  one has to first know the fast
Chord attacks are the only way to practice firstly a chunk fast as you can't simply play it fast
Incidentally if you use chord attacks you don't even have to use slow fast motion as you can simply practice always fast

Now the question is: since we're supposed to never practice a chunk for the first time in slow speed but just in slow motion and slow motion (the movement working at fast speed) can only be aquired by chord attack, how do you never practice a chunk for the first time slowly instead of in slow motion without using chord attacks?

You are thinking WAY too hard about all this. Relax! Bernhard is telling you that there are no magic bullets and no strict rules to get things done. It doesn't matter if you play slowly first and make mistakes. This is part of the investigative process. You won't ruin your technique, nor will you acquire bad habits, unless you do the wrong thing over and over again.

Don't get caught up in the "chord attack approach" either. Every passage requires a combination of approaches. Play around (literally).

Furthermore, playing in slow motion does not require you to first master the fast motion. The chord attack is not equal to playing fast. It is dangerous to make this assumption. There are clearly different techniques required for playing a chord and playing the same notes in succession, in rhythm and well articulated, etc.

YOU NEED A TEACHER who can show you in person!

[Daniel_piano]

But that's not what Bernhard says (or what I've understood about what he has said)
I've collected his messages where he says that you should never approach a piece by playing slowly first (sightreading slowly) as all the mistakes you do will be memorized and never forget
In fact; I remember Bernhard saying "never do a mistake, practice only the right notes"

Daniel

[xvimbi]

But that's not what Bernhard says (or what I've understood about what he has said)
I've collected his messages where he says that you should never approach a piece by playing slowly first (sightreading slowly) as all the mistakes you do will be memorized and never forget
In fact; I remember Bernhard saying "never do a mistake, practice only the right notes"

You do realize that he is talking about an ideal, but hypothetical situation (he always puts a after such statements)?
 
Obviously, if you don't know the right way, how can you not make mistakes? If you don't have anyone who can show you the right way, and you are afraid of making mistakes, you must give up the piano!

Seriously, don't be afraid of making mistakes. As I said, they won't stick that easiliy. It is important, however, to recognize that you made a mistake, or if a particular approach doesn't work. In that case try something different, until you have it right.

[mound]

But that's not what Bernhard says (or what I've understood about what he has said)
I've collected his messages where he says that you should never approach a piece by playing slowly first (sightreading slowly) as all the mistakes you do will be memorized and never forget
In fact; I remember Bernhard saying "never do a mistake, practice only the right notes"

Daniel, when you first sit in front of a piece, brand new, you begin by slowly and perhaps painfully (er, paintstakingly that is) sight reading through it as far as you can. This is not practice. This won't permenantly ingrain mistakes in your mind. this is investigation - the first steps in determining:

1. what kinds of practice tools you think you will need
2. how much HS vs. straight away HT work you will need to do
3. What the most difficult passages are (ie. where to begin)
4. Where your technique is lacking
5. What passage sizes you think will be appropriate.
6. etc.

So yes, you start by sight reading, hands together slowly. BUT, and this is the important distinction that I think is still confusing you,  this is how you "start" but it is not how you "start practicing", rather, how you "start investigating" - you're simply feeling the piece out, not practicing, not ingraining wrong motions, just getting an idea of where you are because you have to begin somewhere right?

As far as chord attack not being the only way to bring something up to speed, again, think of what problem the chord attack is intended to solve, rather than trying to create a problem to apply it to. If you have a series of up to 5 notes that are closely alligned that need to be played quickly, it's important that you don't practice the wrong hand motions. The chord attack allows you to play it infinitely fast FIRST so that you can see as you slow it down what motion you will then practice "in slow motion"..  Clearly, there are other ways to determine which motions are necessary to play at speed, as Bernhard said, just be very aware of your hands, of arm weight, tone etc.. watch a video in slow motion etc.. The chord attack is just another tool, not a "do this or you'll never get the motion right."  It's just a tool.

Seriously my friend, I'm getting the feeling that you are really trying to over-intellectualize this, spending more time trying to rationalize it and make every bit of every piece of repertoir you are working neatly fit into a pre-defined package of approaches, rather than actually trying to work out your confusions at the piano.. (don't feel bad, I was just as guilty of this  )

Take a look at Bernhards responses in this thread:

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4858.0.html

Look at Reply #7 and  Reply #8 in particular.

Also, as I said earlier, and others have said as well, these are all tools for solving practice problems. They don't all apply to every situation. To which situations does a given tool apply? That is something that you will have to determine through personal investigation, as it's probably a bit different for everybody.

For me?

what tricks/method would you use for a bar with thirds?
Thirds

For that particular passage, oh, I dunno, personally I think I could sight read that straight up, especially since it's only one held chord in the RH, I'd do HT straight away. Since that isn't a single note thing, chord attacks and repeated note groups are out of the question. If you have trouble with hitting them all smoothly, perhaps a repeated chord group set. You could also try rythmic variations to develop fluidity if that's your problem area.

what tricks/method would you use for fast octaves?
Ocataves

You might try using your thumbs only at first and playing the outline to get the notes down. Then add your pinkie to hit the octaves when that motion is smooth. Again, a chord attack is not possible as you wouldn't be "rolling" your wrist into playing that slower.  Since it's octaves, I'd also think about not only using my pinkie on the top/bottom notes of the RH/LH, rather, with chromatic octave passages like that, it's generally easier if you alternate fingers 4 and 5 on each top note (of the RH) and each bottom note of the LH.  (ie. play a Cmajor scale in octaves. But don't do 1-5 all the way up, try something like 1-4 / 1-5 / 1-4 etc.  Something like this, if you want a good legato tone, you'll want to be considerate of your arm weight and if it's to be played very fast, be sure that you are economical with your motions. These are the kinds of "investigations" that will help you determine which motions are necessary.

etc.. 

But again, I think you should ask yourself not "what practice tool should I use to play this" -rather, you should ask yourself "what is the problem I'm having playing this? And what is the appropriate practice tool to fix it?"

These techniques are tools to solve problems, w/o knowing what problem you are having, it's hard to say which tool is most appropriate to fix it. That being the case, it's really up to you to determine for yourself what troubles you are having with a particular passage and then start trying the various tools you are aware of, see what works and what doesn't. When you find something works, jot it down in your practice log and keep it in mind for the next time.. It's all part of the learning process, there are no magic pills, just an ever expanding bag of tricks to pull from.

-Paul

[Daniel_piano]

 Thanks everyone for your replies
Now, it's true that I'm thinking way too much but I can assure that I've also tried at the piano my doubts but they didn't disappeared magically

It wasn't that true actually that all the answers to my questions where already in past posts as with the question I'm asking I'm learning something new each time

My confusion generate from the fact that in an old message in which I asked how to practice for speed, I was answered that I need to play fastest first and the slow down and that fastest was together
Since I was asking about "bringing the whole piece up to speed" I understood that I needed to use chord attack with every bar of the piece since everyeone kept saying me "start at infinite fast and slow down"
Now I'm being said that this in only for certain technique problems, and again this is still a different answer 

Now, I'm decribing you what I'm doing (at the piano) and at which point I don't know where to go next

1) sightreaded the piece slowly
2) I marked the hard bars
3) I marked the easy bars
4) as Bernhard says I made (session 1: hard bars; session 2: easy bars)
5) the first session works okay with chord attack so I brought I up to quite fast speed, not faster as I was said (I still don't understand how this is possible with piece that are already so fast that faster would not even sound as music; I tried this with Finale)
6) the second session doesn't work well with chord attack so I decided to use outlining
- Now that I'm using a different method that doesn't imply playing fast first, I do I bring such a chunk at speed?
Is it okay if I start slow and bring it up to speed repetition after repetition
But wasn't that a no-no because you're supposed to practice the wrong movs?
-
7) The easy session is easy enough not to require trick/methods and it doesn't work well with chord attack, but I can't play it straight at speed
- How do I bring this chunk up to speed?
Do I start slowly? And if not what other option where I don't start slowly do I have?


It's not my fault if now I believe that starting slowly is not okay
If you read Chang and Bernhard messages they made clear that you should never start slowly
Now, you're even saying me that you can start slowly and increase speed afterwards?
But wasn't that something completely forbidden?
In fact, wasn't the danger of starting slowly and increasing speed little by little the core of Bernhard and Chang teaching?

Now, you can't accuse me of just think about this as I've illustrated my trying this method at the piano 

Anyway I'm understanding it better now
I think it would be completely clear to all of us if Bernhard would someday post a message with a complete description of a practice for a complete piece, I think he would save in this way a lot of time answering to all the future questions to come from other forum members

Daniel

[mound]

Hmm. I read your last post a couple times Daniel, I'm not exactly sure if there were new questions in there or not. Bernhard has posted complete outlines for certain pieces..   But you have to remember, that's assuming he's sitting next to you guiding you.

How about you take a piece that is way below your current skill level, and learn that using these practice techniques and organization methods? I think if you're trying to learn new practice methods in the context of a piece in which you are faced as well with the struggle of learning new pianistic techniques, you are perhaps over-extending yourself..

Finally,  I'm not sure based on your above post if you finally understood the concept of "play fast first" or not..  This isn't some hard and fast rule "you must play faster than target speed first or you will fail" - on the contrary. The only purpose for this is so that you can ensure that while you are practicing slowly, you are not practicing the wrong motions; motions, that is, that will not work at speed. If because of your current skill and technique level you know what motions will work, you can certainly play slowly to start. And as we've said a few times now, the very first step (that is "starting") - would be to sight read slowly, hands together, through as much as you can.. This is the very first step. That is starting slow.. But again, that's the start of investigation, not practice.  If you determine from this investigative work that there is a passage that requires great speed, but you have no idea how you are going to accomplish that, chord attacks might be a suitable practice tool so that you can determine the proper motions by "first playing infinitely fast" - that way you can practice the right motions, slowly.

It's not my fault if now I believe that starting slowly is not okay

Nobody is accusing you of anything my friend! Don't worry about "faults"

If you read Chang and Bernhard messages they made clear that you should never start slowly

Well, again, be sure you are understanding what "start" is referring to, it is referring to "start of practice", not "start of investigation" - you will start by investigating, which means you will start slowly.. When you are done investigating, you begin practicing, and you've determined through your investigation the appropriately sized passage, so you start practice at "infinite speed" (if possible) by using a chord attack, so that you can practice slowly, while being sure you are practicing motions that will work at speed, having determined those motions through the use of the chord-attack tool.  Does this make sense? Be sure to differentiate what phase "start fast" is referring to - it's the practice stage, which is actually second, the investigative stage being first.



Now, you're even saying me that you can start slowly and increase speed afterwards?
But wasn't that something completely forbidden?

Yes, in fact, you can start practice slowly and increase speed if and only if you already know what hand motions are appropriate for ultimately playing at speed. If you watched slow motion video of a pro, or you did investigative work on your own thinking about your hands and movements, or you already have the technique necessary, from a past learned piece, then yes, you can start slowly, because you already know what motions to practice in slow motion. If you have no idea what kind of motions will be required of you, then yes, it's "forbidden" to start slowly, because you could be setting yourself up for failure. 

Starting fast is only a way to show you what will ultimately be required in terms of hand motions. If you already know, then you can feel free to start slow. But be honest with yourself, make sure you are correct in your thinking.

In fact, wasn't the danger of starting slowly and increasing speed little by little the core of Bernhard and Chang teaching?

In fact it is a big part of their teaching. But again, only because if you don't know what motions will be required to play at speed, and you simply start slow and increase speed little by little, chances are you will hit a "speed wall" because the motions you've been using, speeding up little by little quite simply won't work at the desired speed. At this point you will have ingrained in your muscle memory all the wro