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Non-specialists and lay people have this idea that serious pianists spend hours and hours, every day, practising scales, arpeggios and other technical work and exercises to keep the fingers, and the mind, nimble. When I was in my early teens, working towards my Grade 8, I practised my technical work religiously, rattling up and down the keyboard until my fingers tingled and my head hurt. This was an essential part of my daily practising: as a result I can remember nearly all the scales I had to learn for Grade 8. As I said to some students who were waiting to take their Grade 6 piano exams at the exam centre yesterday, “Once learnt, you never forget your scales! It’s like riding a bike.”

I am quite fierce with my students about learning scales, partly because, as I tell them, scales are useful: they teach good keyboard geography, and are crucial in understanding key signatures. They also encourage quick thinking and nimble fingers, and assist in playing by ear and grasping the basics of chords and harmony. Some of my students love scales: Laurie (11, working towards Grade 2) always insists on commencing his lesson with a scale warm up. As a consequence, his technical work is very secure and he has quickly mastered playing scales hands together (a requirement for Grade 2). “Do you practice your scales, Fran?” my students ask me, and I smile and look apologetic and admit that I don’t.

And nor does my teacher, a professional concert pianist and Professor of piano at one of London’s foremost conservatoires. Nor does she recommend rigorous exercises such as Cramer or Hanon (which I know some people swear by). Instead, she prefers to create exercises from the piece itself, something she has encouraged me to do, and which I find incredibly useful. The great thing about doing this is that you have an instant finger exercise which is relevant to the music you are currently learning, but which can also be adapted and applied to other music. Take the drop slur: a simple, plaintive little piece by Bartok from his suite ‘For Children’ called Former Friends (Quasi Adagio) has proved invaluable in teaching drop slur technique. The opening bar is perfect as the right-hand notes (A-E E-D) sit easily under the fingers and the thumb can be dropped down on to the first A, while the fifth finger floats up and off the E. After teaching this piece to a number of students (it forms part of the current Grade 1 repertoire), I then applied the technique to the Chopin Etude I was learning (Opus 10, No 3). There are some tricky drop slur measures (mm. 32-33 and 36-37) which have benefitted from “the Bartok Effect”. And later, in the “dread sixths” measures (mm. 45-54, marked ‘Con bravura’, just to add to one’s woes!), applying this technique had a remarkable, transformative effect on my ability to cope with this passage.

One of the pieces by Debussy I am working on at the moment, the ‘Prelude’ from the suite Pour le Piano, requires playfulness and nimbleness in the fingers throughout. The interaction between the hands is quite difficult to achieve in the opening measures and the second theme: in many ways, one is trying to create the sense of “one hand playing” while retaining a playful, swirling movement. This piece is Debussy’s nod back to his Baroque antecedents, and, with that in mind, I turned to Bach for some finger exercises. I’d downloaded the infamous ‘Toccata and Fugue in D minor’ for one of my students, and playing it, in a very tongue-in-cheek way the other day, I discovered plenty of useful material to help practice the Debussy. Meanwhile, a little prelude by Delius (from the ‘Three Preludes’) has a nice figure of thirds in semiquavers which is great for training fleet fingers.

The Etude or ‘Study’ was intended for pianists to practice specific techniques, such as rapid passage work, octave playing, playing in thirds and so forth, and, before Chopin, the Etude was very much a student exercise (the most well-known composers of piano etudes are probably Clementi, Cramer, Moscheles and Czerny). Chopin, in his Opp. 10 and 25 Etudes, elevated the genre to something far, far greater than the dry student study, and his Etudes are considered some of the greatest, and most challenging music in the piano repertoire. To the pianist, they offered an entirely new set of technical challenges, while also becoming a regular part of the concert repertoire, combining technique and musical substance to create a complete artistic form, which was taken up by later composers, most significantly Franz Liszt. Thus, the first of the Opus 10, for example, is a crystalline, filligree of a piece, lasting just under two minutes, while the Opus 25 No. 7 (which I learnt last year), is a 5-minute melancholic meditation on perfect tone and phrasing, particularly in the left-hand. Some have become very famous – the ‘Revolutionary’, the ‘Winter Wind’, the ‘Tristesse’ and the ‘Aeolian Harp’.

Applying techniques I mastered from learning two of Chopin’s Etudes last year (the Opus 10, No. 3, and the Opus 25, No. 5) proves that despite their high artistic form and musical values, they are still studies, offering the pianist the opportunity to learn particular techniques which can be applied to other music. Both Etudes have informed my learning of Liszt’s sublime Sonetto 123 del Petrarca – and coming at this piece with a degree of “prior knowledge” has made the learning of it easier. And that drop slur exercise has proved invaluable in the recurring “rocking lullaby” motif in Messiaen’s Regard de la Vierge (no. 4 of the ‘Vingts Regards….’)

Don’t feel you should stick rigidly to traditional technical studies, like Cramer and Hanon (and, believe, me I’ve “been there and done that”, and I’m not convinced of the usefulness of such learning aids). Make up your own exercises from the pieces you are working on, and, if you can’t play a whole Chopin Etude, take an element of it and turn it into your own exercise.

Resources

Bartok – ‘Former Friends’ (Quasi Adagio), from For Children

Claude Debussy, from Pour le Piano: Prelude p1

Delius – Prelude II

Chopin, Etude Opus 10, No. 3

Brahms, 51 Exercises

Richter playing Chopin’s Etude Op 25 No. 7

Messiaen – Vingt regards de l’enfant Jesus. No. IV. Regard de la Vierge (Pierre-Laurent Aimard)

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Rather than write an exhaustive summary of my piano lesson today, I am simply going to note the things I discussed and worked on with my teacher. While the notes are specific to the music I am working on currently (the Toccata from Bach’s 6th Partita, BWV 830, and the ‘Prelude’ from Debussy’s Pour le Piano), they have a general relevance, and I hope readers will find them useful. This post is also an opportunity for me to review, while writing, my piano lesson and what I need to focus on in the coming weeks.

We began with the Bach (Partita No.6). This piece is intended for my Diploma recital, but learning it has also reminded me of how satisfying it is to play Bach. His music is intricate, textural and cerebral, and I have thoroughly enjoyed working on this piece, having not played any Bach seriously since I left school (I am ashamed to admit!).

Overall – well played, in some places “beautifully played”, a nice sense of grandeur in the arpeggiated figures in the opening and closing sections, some good three-part playing where I’ve clearly analysed the structure of the fugue. Piece needs to be neatened up, with more colour and shape. Listen to the Chromatic Fantasia for reference as this piece shares some similar motifs. Needs more “flourish” in places. Be sure to maintain the sense of a steady pulse throughout. Do not use the pedal as a cover for sections which are difficult or less secure.

mm. 1 & 2 (and all similar measures): achieve a greater sense of grandeur and flourish through the arpeggiated figures. Keep dotted figure legato and maintain sense of forward movement into crotchets. Avoid “chunky” hands and “notey” sound through these sections. Try to move smoothly between chords with a horizontal motion.

mm. 3-6 (and all similar measures): try for “swirling” motion between the hands, almost a sense of “one hand playing”. Keep these sections lighter (as a contrast to opening measures). Distinct “toccare” feel. Slight tenuto on first note of each figure, for example, in mm. 15-16 to emphasise the chromaticism.

Take difficult or insecure bars in the Fugue and practice them slowly, in the manner of a Chopin Nocturne. As I found in my lesson, this technique enables the hands to relax. The more difficult bars should sound unforced: resist pushing into the keys in these sections, especially in more tricky three-part sections.

Semi-quaver passage work: relax the hands, again to achieve unforced sound.

Debussy: ‘Prelude’ from Pour le Piano – This piece sits rather well with the Bach Toccata as it is Debussy’s nod back to his Baroque antecedents (specifically Couperin, rather than Bach), and has very distinct “toccata” elements in its constant forward motion and the “divine arabesque of Bach”. It also contains “antagonistic” elements and oppositions of extremes, such as dynamic or colour. Despite these apparently “serious”, Baroque features, there is a delightful playfulness in this piece.

mm. 1-42 – as in the Bach Toccata, think about shared movement and “swirling” between the hands, almost a sense of the hands “playing” with each other.

mm. 42-54 – keep wrists, forearms and elbows bouncy through these big chords. Practise mf, and gradually use back to increase sound. Glissandos – don’t hang around!

mm. 55-56 – Whole tone scale: try and achieve “harp” sound, hands drawn rapidly across strings, with sweeping movement. Practice the runs in groups of 8 notes (4 per hand).

mm. 57-64 – RH “shake”, likewise from m. 69 in LH. Keep fingers “playful” through this section.

Contrary motion scale preceding Cadenza – again, keep hands light, nimble and playful. Practise RH measures slowly

Cadenza – runs should be “kaleidoscopic”, like a “harp”, fingers swept across the keys.

Final 6 bars – keep in Tempo primo. Very grand. These big chords should set up the silence for the sublime opening of the ‘Sarabande’.

Overall, this piece needs to remain playful, both technically and musically.