Re-Learning the Piano pt.II

One month ago I wrote about starting to play the piano again and I’d just like to sum up my progress.

It’s been very fruitful and fun for me. I practiced the exercises I’d attached to the other blog entry and started to be more precise and strict with myself. Now I’m using the metronome with basically every exercise to refine my timing and to make my scales more smooth. It’s important to me, that the finger change is not hearable while I play. Furthermore I discovered that I would always look at my left hand while I play scales. So I tried to look at my right hand instead and it appeared that I was making far more mistakes with my left hand. My eyes had become a security web. So I started to practice with looking at my right hand. But after a while my right hand would make mistakes if I had looked at my left hand again. So I decided to practice the scales with my eyes closed. So far I’m pretty “fluent” with C-Major and a-minor, G-Major and e-minor, F-Major and d-minor, and currently I’m trying to master D-Major and b-minor.

I also discovered that my ring finger and my middle finger are not bending back anymore. They stay in a nice round shape. Only my pinkies have problems with the round shape. It looks like they fall into some kind of cramp and need to be stiff with the tip bent in to press the key down. But I’m confident, that this will eventually vanish as well 🙂

There is an interval exercise that has been an extra good help for my muscles. I tried to keep my hands as still as possible so that the fingers are doing most of the work. In addition to practicing with the metronome, for this particular exercise I use a timer as well to make sure that each finger gets the same “work-out time”. I started with 30 seconds and now do 60 or even 90 seconds per finger. It seems like the “posture” of my fingers evolves on its own through that.

I remembered that I had some exercises from my piano teacher at the Conservatory and I was able to find them. This is like a next level. I’m attaching them for everyone who likes those kind of finger exercises. For me practicing is almost like meditating. I love it!

–  L