Guest post by Dakota Gale, part of his Notes from the Keyboard series for adult amateur pianists
Back in 1970, when my mom was 18, she composed the first section of the only piece of piano music she’s ever written.
Perhaps inspired by copious amounts of listening to Debussy and Satie, the music just poured from her fingers one day when she sat down at her piano.
At the time, she was in college in Madison, WI and in love with Robert, her first serious boyfriend. The piece starts off sweetly, brightly, a happy time in her life. The happiness shines from the first notes.
She’d taken piano lessons when she was younger, but never studied composition. She never wrote down the music, but it lodged in her hands and head.
Like mother, like son. (A drawing of mine.)
My mom graduated from college a couple of years after she wrote the first section. She and Robert planned to head to Santa Fe together and get married, but first he needed to work in construction for a bit to earn money for the move.
My mom headed south ahead of him to get situated in Santa Fe and start job hunting. A month, two months passed, but Robert didn’t show up. She wrote him letters, no response. Had he changed his mind, broken up with her?
Finally, a letter arrived. But not from Robert—from his mother.
He’d died in a construction accident.
Devastated, her world spun around and plans shattered, soon afterwards my mom wrote the second part of her composition. It’s a faster, darker section, an outpouring of grief after a sudden key change.
Years passed. My mom got a teacher’s certification, moved to Idaho, lived in a tipi and taught art.
Then she went to a national ceramics convention and met a bearded artist from California. A romance followed and they got married and moved to a defunct commune outside Chico.
Little Dakota popped out into the world not long after.
42 years later during a snowy walk in Bend.
Around this time, she composed the third section of music for her piece. It’s sweet, my mom in love again. The innocence and freshness of it is apparent. Cheery, fast and impetuous, full of expectations.
Who knows, maybe it flowed from her fingers while she was pregnant with me? She can’t remember the exact timeline.
Regardless, I recall her playing it occasionally when I was younger. After years away from the piano, she could perform it beautifully at any moment.
When I started learning piano, I wanted to learn the piece, but there wasn’t sheet music… Until this past week, that is!
On a rainy afternoon during her recent visit, we worked through the chords together and I explained the harmonies and sudden key changes that she’d chosen. She’d never learned music theory and didn’t know which chords she’d picked or why—all the music came straight from The Muse.
Sorting out the piece. Check out the stained glass in the background that my mom made for us—lady of many talents!
The only things missing were a final chord or two, so we played around with options before landing on something she liked. After some work, I fully transcribed the piece to sheet music—a first for me.
And so I’d like to present In Search of Lost Time by my mom. If you’re a pianist, you can download a PDF of the sheet music via Dropbox and play it! (Please forgive any newbie sheet music notation mistakes.)
Here’s a recording of my mom playing her piece, 54 years after the initial idea bubbled up from her consciousness:
The end of a special project together.
Dakota Gale
When he isn’t playing piano, Dakota Gale enjoys learning languages (especially Italian) and drawing. He also writes about reclaiming creativity as an adult and ditching tired personal paradigms in his newsletter, Traipsing About.
He can often be spotted camping and exploring mountain bike trails around the Pacific Northwest.
Guest post by Dakota Gale, the latest article in his series aimed at adult amateur pianists
Soon after I started piano lessons in 2021, my teacher showed me a clip from a Beethoven Sonata to demonstrate a technique. “Is this piece hard?” I asked? “It’s a Beethoven sonata!” he replied.
The meaning was clear: they’re ALL hard.
Since then, I’ve listened to the entire series of 32 sonatas, which are a trip through Beethoven’s entire career. They’re simply fantastic.
In his autobiography, masterful pianist Andras Schiff says that he didn’t feel mature enough to learn them until he was well into his professional career. I’ve heard the sonatas called the Bible of music—The New Testament, as compared to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier as The Old Testament.
So it was with some trepidation, plenty of respect, and low expectations that I decided to step into the ring with Opus 14, No. 1 in E major, his 9th sonata. Sure, it’s a Grade 6 Henle, which I’ve played many times… but a) I haven’t played much classical era music b) it’s 13 pages of music c) it’s fast d) IT’S A BEETHOVEN SONATA.
In short, my expectation stepping into the ring: fast and furious blows to the body from this serious dude:
A quick doodle of Beethoven that I did.
Also, Opus 14 wasn’t my favorite sonata, but I liked it…and the others were technically out of reach at the moment. (Some, forever.) I prooobably should have started with Scarlatti or Haydyn, but just couldn’t motivate myself to learn a piece I wasn’t excited about.
Anyway, I just spent a month doing a first pass on all three movements and here’s my experience. May it help your attempts to learn this piece or others.
My approach to learning Beethoven’s Opus 14. No 1
Fear not, dear reader! I’m not so over-confident as to tackle a big task like a Beethoven sonata without a clear approach. I tried that with other pieces and wound up playing insecurely or poorly.
This time around, my approach was:
Starting with the first movement, I did a basic analysis of structure and harmony, finding the main and secondary themes, development, and recapitulation.
I identified the fast sections that I suspected would take the most time and discussed with my teacher to confirm. For me, those were bars 4-6 and 39-45, 50-56 and the fast arpeggios starting on bar 65 in the first movement. The second movement isn’t so bad, but the third movement is fast and the opening and fast runs halfway through the piece needed some solid hands separate practice.
Using the techniques on memorization from The Fundamentals of Piano Practice, I memorized the entire sonata. It was the first time I’d taken such a dedicated approach and it worked wonders. I won’t go too deep with detail here, but I can’t recommend it enough!
In short:
I’d play through one bar of music with one hand, keeping the sections short enough that I could bring it up to speed quickly. Then I’d close my eyes and play through it in my head without touching the keyboard.
Reinforce a time or two, perhaps singing the melody or harmony, then switch to the other hand. Repeat… move on to the next bar. Learn a few lines per day, reinforcing them the next day and moving on to other sections.
Using this technique, I could play through the seven-page first movement hands together in my head the first week and the remaining six pages the second week. It felt like magic! (That book is so good.)
At the same time, I practiced the fast sections I mentioned every day. Once I decided on fingerings, I kept the speed fast from the start. If I couldn’t play it at full speed with one hand, I decreased the length of the section. (ala Kenny Werner’s great book, Effortless Mastery.)
After three weeks, with hands separate I could play the entire sonata (movement 1-3) at tempo, so I started putting hands together. The usual brain breaking occurred and I had to slow down to 50-75% tempo, but I trusted the process.
Another two weeks and movements 1 & 2 were close to tempo, with some notable spots where building speed will take time (those fast LH arpeggios in bars 65-75 with octaves in the RH feel like careening madly along without brakes!). Movement 3 is fast and playing at tempo will take another round of revision.
My progress had slowed, not to mention my drive, another indication it was time to set the piece aside for a few weeks and let it rest. Onward! (For me, that meant polishing Chopin’s Opus 9. No 1 for a masterclass.)
At this point, I felt elated that I could do ANYthing with this sonata that had seemed like hopping in the ring against Mike Tyson. I’d survived! Was it to performance standards? Absolutely not! Did I expect that? Nooope.
Also, was I sick of the sonata? Ohhh yeah, it was time for a break and some lighter fare. I gobbled up a Yann Tiersen piece from his wonderful album EUSA and waded into Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude so I could entertain annoy my wife with the booming middle section.
Overall, I’m both pleased and surprised how well the piece went. Even better, I grew to enjoy the piece’s nuances and wound up liking it much more than when I started learning it. I also picked up new skills, including:
Better memorizing techniques.
Smoother fast LH arpeggios and Alberti bass technique.
Better staccato playing.
Better multiple voice playing via the fugue-y section.
Better grasp of how new themes vary, develop and morph.
I definitely expected a much longer process. Luckily, I’m an amateur pianist and don’t need to nail down a piece to perform at a set time. I play for myself and for friends/family.
As with any difficult piece, my primary goal for round 1 was simply to get the piece into my fingers and brain. The artistry and expression happen during later revision. In fact, as annoying as it is, I’ve found it’s often at least a year before I feel confident performing a piece live! Perhaps you’ve experienced this as well?
Regardless, I survived my first round with a full Beethoven sonata and hope to play many more of his pieces in the future. Opus 26 beckons with its siren song of variations!
When he isn’t playing piano, Dakota Gale enjoys learning languages (especially Italian) and drawing. He also writes about reclaiming creativity as an adult and ditching tired personal paradigms in his newsletter, Traipsing About. He can often be spotted camping and exploring mountain bike trails around the Pacific Northwest.
The second in Dakota Gales series of guest articles, Notes from the Keyboard, aimed at adult amateur pianists
When my wife gifted me a smooth and shiny Yamaha keyboard for my birthday in 2020, I couldn’t play Chopsticks or even find middle C on it. As an adult learner, I also had limited time, so focused practice was of the essence.
After flailing about, I developed the most effective practice mindset and routine that I could. I’ll share it below.
Over the next four years, I dug into playing piano, but also into how to learn to play piano. Four years later, I’m playing pieces I thought were a decade out. Chopin. Beethoven. Debussy. I sometimes can’t believe my fingers can fly the way they do.
A portrait of Debussy I did while learning to draw people.
None of this magically arrived in a brain chip from Amazon. I didn’t buy Pianist Hands on Ebay and splice them onto my arms.
Nope. This progress was achieved through good old-fashioned dedication. *yawn* I know, I know…show me the TikTok video that has you playing 650 pieces in a week using JUST FOUR CHORDS!
Riiight. The faster success is gained, the shakier it is. Get Rich Quick with this money-making scheme! Learn a language in a week! Get a six pack sitting on the couch! Earn a college degree between episodes of your favorite Netflix series!
Hogwash. Easy come, easy go. There’s so much satisfaction to be found in the effort, the daily scales, the consistency. I’d wager that every pianist who continues to play must embrace the daily grind.
After years of doing this, I’ve realized something important: the toughest part of learning piano is… BEING PATIENT.
It takes as long as it takes. Want to learn a Beethoven sonata or Chopin etude in your first year? That’s nice. It’ll be built on a shaky foundation. Even pros like Andras Schiff didn’t even feel capable of tackling Beethoven’s sonatas until he was in his 40s!
However, if you create a smart practice routine and stick to it, you will improve. Not a matter of maybe: you will.
Ten minutes of practice per day is 60 hours per year. Thirty minutes is 180 hours! I’d wager that you can find 10-30 minutes each day to learn a new skill. Trade some social media or Netflix time for piano. Your future self will thank you.
That said, I’ve wasted plenty of time in the four years since a piano dropped in my lap. Since we’re adults and lack the time to futz about, we’ve gotta maximize our time at the piano!
Here are four key things that benefited me the most:
When I started playing piano, I’d do some scales, arpeggios, whatever to warm up. Then straight into repertoire, which consisted of just trying to play something, over and over. I had no plan, just “start at the beginning and wear this down via submission.”
Picture me with a catapult outside a Piano Piece Castle. If I lobbed enough rocks at the walls, eventually I could break it down! The problem: I wasn’t being thoughtful about where or when to throw the rocks. Sometimes I attacked Castles that were WAY too big for my artillery.
Since then, I’ve learned to use deliberate practice to simplify things and hammer concepts into my brain in smaller chunks.
I break pieces down into their smaller parts (e.g. only working on 2 bars at a time, or breaking an arpeggio into block chords, or an octave into only the root note). I slow pieces to 50% and only increase the tempo once I can lights-out play it. I might play the same bar 25 times in a row, firehosing it into my brain, coating that brain circuit in myelin so that it’s a superhighway, not a goat trail.
It feels slow in the moment, but I learn pieces not just better, but faster, one bar at a time. Deliberate practice builds a stronger structure, brick by brick, versus throwing up a stick built house that blows over in the wind of live performance.
Book recommendations: The Musician’s Wayby Gerald Klickstein,Effortless Masteryby Kenny Werner, andThe Art of Practicing by Deline Bruser. These have helped me dial in my practice routine and develop a different mindset around performing (and mistakes—they’re just feedback!).
Scoring a couple hours of piano in a friend’s studio on a sweet grand piano.
Learning music theory
BLERGH. Music theory, the Brussels sprouts of learning piano. Give me the repertoire, the chocolate cake!
Well, I quickly realized that trying to learn pieces without knowing the basics of theory meant it took forever to figure out a piece. If we compare it to reading, I was basically sounding out letters vs. reading sentences. Th…e. THE. C…aaaa CAT.
Painful. By learning key signatures and basics like major and minor triads (and then their inversions), I made much faster progress. I also developed the ability to memorize pieces quite well because I was thinking in chords and chord progressions instead of individual notes. Now I play all my pieces from memory.
In my experience, spending some time on music theory will drastically speed up your learning progress. I’ve grown to enjoy the analysis that I do with pieces before even putting my hands on the keys. Brussels sprouts as the appetizer, thank you very much.
Resource: This Skillshare course by professor Jason Allen is fantastic.
Hiring a teacher
There are SO many resources for online self-paced piano lessons. They’re affordable and easy to use. They help. I still occasionally do.
Let me encourage you to also hire a teacher, local or online. I cast about for nine months before starting lessons and am so so so glad I didn’t wait longer.
Mine, a Brazilian named Antonio, offers me feedback and insight on my playing a video course could never provide. “Hey, what if you shifted your wrist 10 degrees? In most renditions, pros play that piece like ____. Perhaps this fingering for that passage works better for your hand?”
I’ll write more about my experience with online lessons, but real quick… Not only are online lessons more affordable, they offer the benefit of being portable. When I travel, I can bring my keyboard and still take lessons.
My progress accelerated dramatically when I hired Antonio for a weekly lesson. He corrected things I’d never even considered (like pivoting on my 3rd finger for big left hand arpeggios, not the 2nd finger). If almost every pro had a teacher when they were learning, it’s probably worth it for us amateurs!
Resource: Just search “online piano teacher.” Many popular YouTube pianists also teach lessons.
Piano with a view in my camper van.
Don’t get too big for your britches
Many intro piano pieces felt too simple or boring for me. Right out of the gate, I wanted to play the beautiful pieces.
When the Saint’s Come Marching In? HAH. March on OUTTA here: give me Chopin’s Nocturne in Eb, baby!
The problem: I had zero piano skills. I couldn’t even read music or play a scale!
I was learning how to bungee jump by wingsuit jumping. Less risky on a piano (no bridges to smash into), but certainly a waste of time.
I spent HOURS learning the melody line to the Chopin nocturne…with zeroooo chance I’d be able to actually play it with the left hand added in. I didn’t even know what the key of Eb meant.
My teacher helped me understand which pieces would push me vs. shut me down. Instead of expending hours on a piece I had no chance of playing, I started grabbing achievable pieces. They still took work (I’m looking at you, Consolation No. 3 and your mind-bending triplets), but I could do it!
But I still dream, keeping a list of “goal” pieces. These are pieces that I really want to be able to play that are too difficult for me to learn efficiently at this time. This gives me a long-term set of goal trajectories, which helps me focus on what to work on now. (I’ll also work hard sections of pieces slowly, over months, such as the fast cadenzas in Liszt’s Liebestraum #3 or Chopin’s Db nocturne.)
To keep track of pieces, I created a spreadsheet that I update regularly. I also have an ongoing Spotify playlist to which I add pieces that catch my fancy. (After four years, it’s a tour of my listening.) I listen broadly to different eras of piano music as well as different continents. Albeniz from Spain, Villa Lobos from Argentina, Copland from America, and of course the core canon from Western Europe.
Keep dreaming, but stay reasonable! No wingsuiting just yet…
Your future self will thank you
In college, on a whim I test drove a Lexus I had zero chance of affording. The sound system was top-notch, crystal silky magic.
Later, I chatted with a friend about how I couldn’t wait to own a car like that and listen to classical music while I drove.
“Don’t turn into an old man TOO fast,” she cautioned.
Now I’m an almost-old man at the ripe age of 42. I get to listen to classical music while I drive…but I can also PLAY a bunch of it!
Sure, it took focused work and required shifting time from other activities.
It was worth it. I’ve launched a ship I can sail on for the rest of my life, a journey into a whole new language—nah, world— I hadn’t visited before.
A gift my younger self forwarded to future me that I gratefully accept.
When he isn’t playing piano, Dakota Gale enjoys learning languages (especially Italian) and drawing. He also writes about reclaiming creativity as an adult and ditching tired personal paradigms in his newsletter, Traipsing About. He can often be spotted camping and exploring mountain bike trails around the Pacific Northwest.
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