Piano Video Lesson: How to Start From Anywhere in Your Music

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, Robert Estrin here with an incredibly important tip of how to start anywhere in your music.

Think about this, to have an effective practice you must be able to start anywhere. After all let's say you're playing a piece of music and you mess up somewhere and you keep starting at the beginning. You know, maybe the next time you get it but you haven't really solved the underlying weakness that made that problem in the first place. So being able to start where the correction is made is vital but sometimes it's really hard even to find the place. I'm going to demonstrate this with a piece that's difficult to start in the middle because it's counterpoint. I'm going to use an example of the Bach first invention, the two -part invention of C major.

You're trying to start anywhere. You're trying to start anywhere.

So, this does divide itself in some macro sections that I can kind of articulate for you.

Right here.

This might be a place you might want to start.

And here's another place. But suppose in that section you have a difficulty.

So, for example, you go, you're in the middle of the section and there's a problem right there and you're going, oh I'll just start this whole section again.

Whether you get it again or not it doesn't really matter because you still have the same odds moving forward of getting it or not getting it.

So you might think, first of all just finding the place is going to be a challenge and you must read your score and find where it is. But then when you get there you know where to start but you can't start there. It seems totally foreign. The reason for that is you don't know what fingering to use when you're starting in the middle.

So here's the tip. You go back to a place you can start and when you get to where the issue is, so let's say you have to go back to… And you go, ah, it's the third finger in the right hand, four in the left.

So then you lock it in and then you can start there.

And you get that solidified. You do it a number of times. Then you go back to the beginning of that macro section and connect it until the next place that you have any issues.

So step one, find where the correction is. Step two, go back to a place you can start before that place. Step three, lock in what fingers start in that section, in that measure or phrase so you can effectively start there. Otherwise you get there and it's almost like you're reading the music for the first time and it seems totally unfamiliar. Have you ever had that experience where you almost feel like you don't even know the piece yet your fingers know where they go but you can't solve the underlying weakness because you can't start right in that place? Well now I've given you the tools where you can and you must. This is the way to have effective, productive practice is zeroing in on the places that need the work and starting there and solving those issues first then connecting it with the whole macro section. Try this in your practice. I guarantee you, you will have a boost in productivity like you've never seen before.

Again, Robert Estrin, this is LivingPianos .com, your online piano resource. Consider subscribing. You'll get videos, articles. If you love the piano as much as I do, you will appreciate subscribing to LivingPianos.com. We'll see you next time.

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