I first published this post on top tips in October, 2015. I am republishing it now, with a couple of updates.
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The first of an occasional series of tips – these are quick and easy to read, and I hope they will be useful in your practice.
Top Tips #1: Start Anywhere!
When you have thoroughly learned a piece and you’re getting it ready for a performance or an exam, it’s a great idea to be easily able to start from anywhere in the piece.
Left to your own devices you would probably start in a comfortable place, such as the beginning of a phrase or section. That’s fine, but for a challenge use a random number generator to decide for you where to start.
1. Figure out the number of bars in your piece – let’s say it’s 87 bars long
2. In the Min field, enter 1. In the Max field, enter 87
3. Press the Generate button
4. Play from the bar that comes up – not the bar before or after for convenience but the bar specified, even if it is in the middle of a phrase
There are many ways to do this – make a decision beforehand how far you’re going to play on from the bar you started at. It could be 1 bar, or 4 bars – whatever!
Tracking
If you have divided your piece into sections, you can use the random number generator for that too.
For details of this approach, click here.
Tied Notes
If the bar you land on has tied notes, depress the key(s) silently before you begin. Here’s why…
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This is fab advice. I’m at that stage in a piece where I think I know it well and I’m tempted to keep playing it over. I spent an hour yesterday with the random bar generator just focussing on individul phrases and bars. It was brilliant for highlighting notes that I didn’t realise I was glossing over and stumbling across. By just looking at the one bar at a time I spotted places where I didn’t truly know the notes, or maybe had weak fingering in place. And if it was a bar/phrase that I did know well it was very beneficial to play it through with extra focus on all the details – slurs, rests, dynamics. A couple of times – spookily- it consecutively selected phrases that were very nearly the same and by looking at them side by side ensured I really did know what the differences were. It’s revitalised my practice of this piece. Thank you!
That’s wonderful, Krys – I’m delighted it worked for you!
YES! This saved my bacon in college. I didn’t realize I was memorizing patterns within the piece until I started switching things up and working on the piece from a variety of starting points. It helped me memorize the actual musical PHRASES – and not the develop a playing habit. Then… when I made a mistake – it was FAR easier to “get back on the horse.” Great point!