How to Detect and Avoid Mistakes in the New Year

CAN SOMEONE LISTENING TO A NEW PIECE OF MUSIC KNOW IF THE PERFORMER IS PLAYING IT CORRECTLY?

CAN PIANO STUDENTS PREVENT MAKING MISTAKES?

We will explore how we detect mistakes and how we can avoid making them in this brief article.

A "wrong note" will glare out at an audience that is familiar with the theme or melody of the piece. If someone does not know the piece they may still feel that something wasn't correct if the acoustic dissonance was different from the syntax of the rest of the piece.

Mistakes can more easily be detected by non musicians in Baroque, Classical or Romantic music than in serial, atonal, twelve-tone or other contemporary music. Musicians would need the music in front of them to detect a mistake otherwise.

The absolutely worst mistake that could happen is to stop in the middle of the piece. Even the youngest musician can tell. .Never stop. Everyone notices then. The interruption of rhythm is a critical mistake. We can feel the music dance and then if the waltz tempo goes out of beat, it feels like the dancer has fallen down on the dance floor.

Students can avoid making mistakes if they play the piano very slowly at first. Many students often start on the wrong note and could avoid doing that by carefully looking at the music and the placement of their hands on the first note.

A professional music critic will be familiar with the musical syntax of the concert he will be listening to. He will go almost looking for mistakes, slight hesitations, nuances of dynamics.

Here are ten areas to work on to avoid all possible mistakes.

1. NOTES - Carefully play the notes correctly slowly one hand at a time. Then try the piece together when you can play each hand alone correctly.

2. FINGERING - Determine the best fingering for your hand and mark it down. Use the correct scale fingerings as your guide.

3. RHYTHM - When the notes are correct, play and count out loud in correct rhythm It is best to play slowly. Once the notes are correct the piece can get to the rhythm intended. The rhythm is playing the notes in the correct time determined by the time signature. Don't count to your playing, play to the count.

4. PHRASING - Phrasing is the art of dividing a melody into groups of connected tones. The smallest phrase would contain two notes. Phrasing is considered the musical punctuation of a piece. To simply play a song without being aware of the grouping of notes would be like talking without stopping at the end of a sentence. Usually the last note in a phrase is played soft with the hand lifting upward from the keys.

5. TOUCH - Touch involves playing the keyboard soft and loud by pressing lightly or harder with the finger tip. Also, touch involves the length you hold the note such as a quick touch that will sound detached called staccato (like touching a hot pan). A Legato touch would be playing smoothly to the next note…connecting a phrase of notes. Accenting would involve a strong touch on a note.

6. DYNAMICS - Playing loud and soft is considered the dynamics of the piece of music.. Playing the piano gradually louder or softer is called crescendo or decrescendo in musical terms. The dynamics explore the contrasts of loud and soft by the variations in the intensity of the sound.

7. PEDALS - The pedals are the mechanisms worked by the feet. Holding down the damper pedal can blur the notes and make a terrible mistake. The pedal on the right is the damper pedal which sustains notes. It is often incorrectly called "the loud pedal" The middle pedal or sustenuto pedal holds one bass tone as long as you hold the pedal down. The pedal on the left is the soft pedal which mutes the piano causing it to sound softer, (pp) Pedaling is very important, it is like breathing on the piano.. .if you stop it is very noticeable!

8. TEMPO - The correct tempo of the song must be determined by the tempo markings or metronome indication at the beginning of the piece. Whether a piece is a waltz, march, minuet or any other form of music it needs to be in the correct tempo stated by the composer.

9. .CHARACTER - the feel of the piece and overall interpretation of the piece is the character. The style of the composer is reflected on each piece.. Some music just needs to slow down in certain spots and be played rubato. We must understand the character of the music whether it is jazz; blues; :rock & roll; classical; a hymn; or whatever. There is such a variety of musical styles. Every piece has its' own personality. It is the performers responsibility to know,

10. MEMORIZE - When we really know a song best, we have it memorized. We come full circle having every element in control. The correct notes are played with correct fingering, playing every phrase with our fingers using the right touch keeping the tempo and character of the piece using dynamics and pedaling effortlessly. When we know our music by heart, it is with us in our heart. We still need to practice the piece frequently to review it so we won't forget it.

I hope your New Years resolution includes memorizing many new piano pieces.

HAPPY NEW YEAR