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Welcome to my blog!

This is the second of hopefully many articles about piano playing, pianos and music in general.

This week, we introduce the concept of piano practice.

Piano Practice!

Piano Practice
What is practicing?
Great Question!
From a practical perspective, my immediate answer is..... repeat your latest piano lesson. This approach will suffice for new students. Play through the technical lessons and pieces that your teacher has provided. For how long? Presumably your lesson is 30 minutes, 45 minutes or 60 minutes. Carefully play through each exercise or piece dividing up your time to match these timeframes. For longer times, practice sessions may be divided across the day. A parent will need to manage the younger students. Please play every day of the week!


Recently, I was somehow (?) watching “Dance Moms”, I know right? Well, something resonated; the main character, Abby Lee Miller the owner and head teacher of the Abby Lee Dance Company INSISTED that parents attend all practice sessions. Abby’s view was that parents, students and the teacher work together as a team. 


As we mature, piano-wise, practice becomes incredibly intricate. More mature concepts should be applied. We will discuss some basics of these in this article. 
Practice times apply as already stated. They may of course be divided into separate sessions on a given day. They may be divided between scales or technical practice, new pieces and repertoire* pieces. [*An accomplished collection of pieces available for performance or for personal enjoyment]


Some tips!
•    Don’t avoid difficult or challenging etudes (studies)
•    If time is an issue, review / revise only the difficult portions of pieces
•    Even without access to a piano you can still practice in your mind or think about note names (where are they on the musical staff?)
•    Practice slowly (I will write separately on this in the future)
•    Make notes after your lesson, sit in the car and do this, parents can help younger students
•    Prepare your music (please see below)
Preparing music for practice!


Let’s take the example of AMEB Series 18, Through the Steppes, by Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877 - 1952) [to avoid copyright issues I have recreated just a couple of bars of this using MuseScore]

I will work to complete this piece in its entirety for future articles.
It is a canon, and yes, we will look at canons in a future article. This is because, Canon’s present fascinating learning opportunities. For the moment though, the following concepts apply to any music or study.
As mentioned already, don’t shy away from difficult passages. Play these slowly and carefully. Separate hands, as necessary. Please do not rush, there are no advantages to rushing through difficult passages of music.
Specifically, in music preparation mark up your pieces with fingering and accidentals. Yes, accidentals. Your teacher should have already guided you with dynamics and rests and much more!


Fingering: the music and teacher will have already guided you regarding the most efficient fingers to use. Normally however, the fingers are only printed once in any given piece. May I suggest that where passages repeat and if not actioned already, copy and mark in the fingers yourself. Hopefully your teacher has marked any other fingers as required. Be motivated to write in any fingers yourself thus allowing practice to commence from any bar in the music. This practice allows you to jump in anywhere on the piece quickly and efficiently to revise passages. Please see the example BAR 8 below where I have written in the appropriate finger.
 

Accidentals: Sometimes in a single bar, an accidental appears more than once. I like to mark this additional sharp or flat to save confusion when practicing. Writing in a sharp # or Flat b symbol saves making unnecessary mistakes and subsequently avoids unnecessary frustration. This provides one less thing to think about, especially if we have many pieces and are mainly reading with little memory of the piece. This action will make practicing more pleasurable. An example of this is below, ustilising the reference piece; Through the Steppes, by Sergei Bortkiewicz . BAR 8 [I will complete the piece in its entirety at some stage so we can discuss the concept of a Canon]

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Bösendorfer

Bösendorfer pianos were founded in Vienna, Austria in 1828. The most famous model produced is the Bösendorfer Concert Grand 290 Imperial.

 

In the studio I have a Yamaha Grand Piano, and a KAWAI upright, both of these pianos have 88 keys, in terms of octaves there are seven (7) full octaves. That is, from C to C, seven times from left to right. Before the first C on the very left, there are three keys, “A, A# (Bb) and B”.

 

The Bösendorfer has eight (8) octaves! To accomplish this Bösendorfer added: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#. These additional keys are ALL BLACK!

 

Personally I have never needed any more keys on the piano, those of you who have played the grade one (AMEB Series 18) piece “Rainy Saturday” (Emma Diemer B. 1927) would have noted the lowest note and actually the last note played is the lowest “B” on the piano.

 

What is behind these extra keys on the Bösendorfer?

Well, according to an article submitted by Bösendorfer to the Piano Buyers Guide 2024, page 11 “In 1900, while transcribing the famous organ works of J.S Bach for the piano, the Italian composer, conductor and pianist Ferruccio Busoni realised that he required additional bass notes to do justice to Bach’s masterpieces and the immersive sound of the 16 to 32 feet bass pipes found in an organ. Ludwig Bösendorfer took on the challenge, building a piano with a full 8 octaves in tonal range. Later, Bartok, Debussy and Ravel came to appreciate the exceptional qualities of what is known today as the Concert Grand 290 Imperial, composing further works to exploit the tremendous resonance of this impressive sounding, and imposing looking instrument.”

 

I am reminded of this piano being the feature of the movie Grand Piano (2013) starring Elijah Wood and John Cusack. A bit of a thriller, great for those who have an interest in fine instruments.

 

Turning the attention now upon my very old Thalburg piano in the studio, it does not have seven full octaves, it only features six and a half. The lowest note remains as an  A, so we can still play Rainy Saturday!

 

To see how many octaves your keyboard or piano has, start from the lowest C and count how many C to C’s you have!

 

From the first BLOG we have learnt a little about Bösendorfer pianos, their history as well as some important facts about octaves.

 

Bösendorfer Key Cover is available here:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/305495468257?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=705-154756-20017-0&ssspo=7bzhZ96CSqK&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=7bzhZ96CSqK&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

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