(Five Core Principles, Part 1)
Today’s post is all about developing EASE at the piano. Developing more ease at the piano is one of the most important things you can do, because it impacts absolutely everything that happens at the instrument.
This is the first post in my series that serves as an introduction to my teaching. Over the coming posts, I will be going through five Core Principles that motivate me as a musician, pianist, and teacher. (Missed the kickoff post? Click here to read it!)
First, let’s start off with a definition of what I mean by Ease. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines “ease” as freedom from pain or discomfort, or freedom from labor or difficulty.
The opposite of “ease” is “struggle.“
The reason this is one of my Core Principles, and at the heart of my own playing and teaching, is because I have experienced both ease and struggle in my playing and I have also seen it in my students. I used to struggle quite a bit in the practice room and then wonder why my performances were always so stressful. And I can guarantee you, if you’re struggling in the practice room, performing will also be a struggle.
You can tell you’re struggling when you feel emotionally exhausted after a practice session, or when you have a lot of negativity going on in your brain while you are practicing, which can take the form of overly self-critical thoughts or feelings of frustration.
Self-Awareness
Ultimately, developing Ease is about cultivating self-awareness. At the instrument you are going to want to find ways to avoid struggle and seek out ease.
You can do this by checking in with yourself while you are practicing. Start to notice this contrast between struggle and ease. Get in the habit of asking yourself at the end of a practice session how much you struggled, and try to pinpoint moments of ease you experienced.
Consciously work on this: try to expand the experiences of ease, and learn to adjust your approach when you notice struggle.
Over time, you will notice dramatic shifts in your playing.
Here are some of my thoughts for you today on how to experience more ease while at the piano, in the areas of technique, practicing and performing.
Developing More Ease in Technique
In the area of technique, keep in mind that the goal is to play with natural, fluid motions.
Playing the piano should mirror the way that you physically approach other tasks in your life. When you walk around, your hands hang loosely at your sides – you do not make a claw or a fist with your fingers. When you grasp a pen or pencil, your fingers intuitively know to hold it with just the right amount of tension: not gripping it too hard and also not holding it so loosely it falls out of your hand.
So, when you practice, look for tension. How do your fingers, hands, wrists, and arms look and feel? How about your shoulders? Are they hunched or loose? How do you feel at the instrument?
Here’s a rule of thumb (no pun intended!): if it looks tight – it probably is. This might seem somewhat obvious, but in the practice room it’s absolutely possible to lose awareness of this. If playing the piano feels uncomfortable, it’s a sign you need to examine what you’re doing technically and make an adjustment, and cueing into your own body and noticing discomfort is an important first step of that process.
Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly what to adjust. Your body will give you feedback on whether something’s healthy or not, and as you increase your self awareness, you can experiment to feel what is right in your body.
If you feel pain…stop!
One important note about physical pain: take pain or strong physical discomfort as a sign to re-examine your approach. The term “No pain, no gain” does NOT apply to playing the piano. Pain is a sign that you need to find another way. Never push through pain, because it can and often does lead to injury.
Developing More Ease in Practicing
As I said before, Ease is largely linked to increased self-awareness. You can cultivate self-awareness when you practice by LISTENING AHEAD and THINKING AHEAD.
Listening Ahead
LISTENING AHEAD involves imagining the sound before you produce it. This is sort of like “pre-listening.” You want to start developing the ability to imagine the notes you are about to play, while simultaneously listening to the current notes you are playing.
I know this might sound complicated, but think about it: we do this all the time while speaking. When you talk, for example, you’re not only aware of the specific syllable literally coming out of your mouth at a given moment, but you’re also imagining a couple of words ahead of yourself, because your brain has to have a sense of how the sentence is going to end. If we didn’t have the ability to plan ahead while we talked, then it would be impossible to form a coherent thought.
You can do this same thing in music by listening ahead to the next part of the phrase while you are playing. Your inner ear should be at least a few notes ahead of where you are currently playing.
Thinking Ahead
THINKING AHEAD is the process of planning where your hands are going before you play. So, much like listening ahead, when you’re playing a given note you will tactically be anticipating where the next few notes are and getting your hands and fingers positioned so they will be over the right notes in time.
Try listening and thinking ahead every time you practice. Over time, this will transform your practicing and contribute to feelings of ease, because your mind will be trained to always be ahead of where you are in the music.
Developing Ease in Performance
The third area where you can work on developing ease is while PERFORMING.
A performance should be a celebration of all of your hard work and an opportunity to connect with the audience. A performance should NOT be a traumatic experience or a huge emotional struggle.
Of course, it’s totally normal to experience performance anxiety – nearly every performer (including me) does, and there are many tools you can learn to help address it. I’ll talk about performance anxiety in more detail in future blog posts.
But for now, I’ll tell you that you can cultivate more ease in your performing and set yourself up for success by practicing performing.
When I was a student, I had the opportunity to travel to Prussia Cove, to a beautiful, rambling estate in Cornwall England, for a series of residential masterclasses. While I was there I worked with a great teacher, György Sebők, who said something in a masterclass that I will never forget: “Practicing is practicing practicing. Performing is practicing performing.”
In other words: in order to find ease while performing, you need to practice performing just like you’d practice any other skill.
Run-throughs
A great way to do this is: get in the habit of doing run-throughs. A run-through is when you decide ahead of time that you’re going to play through your piece from the beginning to the end, as if it’s a performance, no matter what.
Even if you get lost.
Or if you forget how it goes.
Or if you sneeze, or make a huge mistake.
Keep going all the way to the end. And then afterwards you can evaluate it and use what you learn in your next practice sessions.
I have found it works best to schedule a run-through ahead of time, so you can anticipate it like a performance. I recommend doing run-throughs in increasing order of difficulty. You can start off by doing a run-through for yourself. Then, when you’re ready, do a run-through for your friends. You can do a run-through, or preparatory performance, online (either live or pre-recorded). If you have a teacher, you can treat the initial run-through you do of your music in the lesson as a performance.
By doing this, you will be practicing performing, so that by the time you actually DO have that big performance, you will experience much more ease around it.
In Conclusion…
So those are some of my thoughts on developing ease at the piano. Ease is one of my Core Principles because it’s a really important skill and is something you can continue to develop over time.
Remember: You shouldn’t be struggling all the time. If something feels too effortful, change something you’re doing.
Let me know some ways YOU experience ease at the piano in the comments below!
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