
Advice on Getting Better from an Accomplished Piano Player (2011) - davesque
http://www.calnewport.com/blog/2011/12/23/flow-is-the-opiate-of-the-medicore-advice-on-getting-better-from-an-accomplished-piano-player/
======
kazinator
Some of this advice echoes that in _Fundamentals of Piano Practice_ by Chaun
C. Chang.

[https://fundamentals-of-piano-
practice.readthedocs.io/en/lat...](https://fundamentals-of-piano-
practice.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

Chang precisely recommends the same thing: don't just practice by going
through pieces from beginning to end repeatedly. Being a scientist, he
quantifies that with efficiency arguments, which are along these lines: if a
five minute piece contains two-bar difficult passage, then you can only
practice that passage twelve times in the span of one hour. If the passage is
only ten seconds long, you can practice it twelve times in just two minutes,
which is 30 times more efficient.

One tools is to use a metronome to find the stress passages in a piece.
Without a metronome, we hide the stressful passages by slowing down
subconsciously.

Set the metronome at a baseline rate at which you can play everything. Then
gradually crank up the speed. Then the stress points show up: passages where
you fumble.

Chang makes astonishingly clever observations about speed. Basically, speed
has two extremes that are easy: very slow, or super fast. It's just as hard to
slow down from high speed playing as it is to speed up slow playing. The
initial argument he makes is that there is no faster way to play three notes
than to just hit a three note chord with three fingers, which is easy, and
"infinitely fast". Moreover, it is basically easy to slow down from that
"infinite speed" a little bit; if we hit the chord so that the fingers are
staggered slightly, we will play a fast arpeggio. A really fast run of notes
is like that: hitting groups of notes in this manner, and changing the hand
position in between those groups.

~~~
stcredzero
_One tools is to use a metronome to find the stress passages in a piece.
Without a metronome, we hide the stressful passages by slowing down
subconsciously._

It's striking how one's self-perception can be faulty this way. I've had this
sort of thing pointed out to me by a bandmate, years ago, using a tape
recorder and a metronome. It's like I was in a Sci-fi time-distortion, not
because the tempo change was that large, but because it was _so invisible_ to
me without the recording and metronome!

~~~
agumonkey
Effects of metronome are quite insane. Even physically, as a faux drummer,
playing with a stable time reference allows for so much more regularity you
can be physically efficient, meaning more relaxed, less exhausting music
playing (basically energy optimization). Then there's the mind massaging from
perception of time .. Having a metronome is almost like a trance device.

~~~
cormacrelf
Tempo is also one of the best expressive devices for performance. The mind
massaging works in reverse! Lots of great choruses bump the bpm significantly,
and the prevalence of recording and performing to click tracks has made it
rare to have the kind of fluidity that you can get without them. You want to
be able to manipulate your internal metronome expressively. I'm not a drummer,
but definitely something to work on for every musician.

~~~
vonseel
_the prevalence of recording and performing to click tracks has made it rare
to have the kind of fluidity that you can get without them._

Performing to a click is not nearly as lifeless as a hard-quantized MIDI
production without live instruments. Sure, it may not have drastic tempo
changes like a drummer who isn’t listening to a click, but it still has human
variation. Making MIDI programming sound convincing and realistic is not an
easy task

~~~
roel_v
" Sure, it may not have drastic tempo changes like a drummer who isn’t
listening to a click, but it still has human variation. Making MIDI
programming sound convincing and realistic is not an easy task"

Not knowing anything about music at all I've wondered about this a few times.
Isn't it just a matter of adding some stochasticity from an appropriate
distribution? What is it that makes human imperfection different from machine
generated imperfection?

~~~
uryga
i recommend this article if you're interested:
[https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/james-holden-human-
timing/](https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/james-holden-human-timing/)

tldr: there's been some research into it – turns out that if you have a few
parts (instruments), the randomness you add to each of them needs to be
correlated:

> "The first [example] has had completely random timing errors inserted [...]
> with no link between the errors in different parts. The result sounds
> unmistakably unmusical and inhuman."

someone built a "humanizing" plugin for Ableton Live based on that research.

here's some quotes i liked:

> "[...] _the timing of each individual note is dependent on every single note
> that both players had already played_ – a minor timing hiccup near the start
> of a piece will continue to affect every single note after it, up to the
> last notes. And when you play a duet every note your partner plays affects
> your playing, and every note you play affects your partner [...]"

> "[...] if everything is recorded together in the same take then quite large
> variations in timing are no problem – they don't sound like errors, just the
> natural movement of the music. _But if the parts are multi-tracked, or
> sequenced parts are mixed with human parts, then the timing errors are
> glaringly obvious_ , they sound wrong because they are unnatural, and our
> capability to identify the uncanny marks them out as unpleasant and
> undesirable [...]"

~~~
agumonkey
About the correlation between musicians. I don't know if you ever played drums
in a band. But there's such a weird coupling between everybody when the rhythm
is solid. A few ms off from the drums and everybody in the room will have a
hiccup.

~~~
ignoranceprior
Not related to the content of your comment itself, but congratulations on
owning the unique Hacker News comment whose numerical ID corresponds to the
YYYYMMDD date of its posting:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20190615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20190615)

This is most likely the first and last time this particular fixed point will
occur.

~~~
agumonkey
I feel so blessed. And proud.. that says something about my ego.

~~~
kragen
Congratulations! I feel privileged to have witnessed this moment.

~~~
agumonkey
Still trying to recreate an os from scratch in a basement ?

~~~
kragen
For sure.
[https://gitlab.com/kragen/bubbleos](https://gitlab.com/kragen/bubbleos) is
the current set of OS fragments, but I haven't done anything on it in a while;
for the last few months I've been focused on importing my unpublished notes
into a book called "Dercuano." You can snarf a copy of the current release at
[http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190610.tar.gz](http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190610.tar.gz)
if you like.

------
jefftk
My experience is that the choice isn't "playing for fun" vs "deliberate
practice" it's "playing for fun" vs "not playing". If practice is fun, I'll do
a lot of it and get better. It's not especially efficient practice per hour,
but since I do a lot of it it helps a lot. If practice is not fun I just don't
play, and I don't get better.

The advice in the article is probably right for people who want to be the very
best, but probably wrong for most people who might read it.

~~~
tsumnia
> If practice is not fun I just don't play, and I don't get better.

But what if your goal is to be one of the greatest pianist alive? Then we have
to dissect what is "not fun". There are moments of neutral practice, or
"monotony", which is what I think the article touches on. The idea that
sometimes, practice can feel more like a chore than a pleasure. The article
speaks about in this context, you have to push through the negative (or
apathy) to continue practicing.

Last year, I had the privilege to attend a seminar in Aikido where two
individuals were awarded the rank of godan (5th degree black belt). In our
organization, the minimal amount of time required to be eligible for the rank
is just over 18 years (and the requirements are increasing next year). One of
the individuals spoke about how Aikido and training was much like a marriage -
sometimes you enjoy coming to class, sometimes you hate it, and sometimes it's
neither feeling; however, much like a marriage, good times or bad, you have to
continue working on it.

I've spoken on here before as well about the element of
discipline/perseverance/grit in terms of improving oneself. Angela Duckworth
has studied the effects of grit across multiple fields, one in particular was
grit in cadets at West Point. Higher levels of grit were more likely to
complete the program and good leaders were more likely to have higher grit
scores.

"Fun" is still a loose, ill-defined term. You can have fun being pursuing a
task for leisure or for mastery.

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
great musicians always enjoy practicing- it is like making something new when
done properly. If they arent enjoying it, they know they must get creative
about it— otherwise it’s mindless.

~~~
tsumnia
True, though I'd still say the individual day-to-day practices can sometimes
become dull. As you mention, this is where I think a lot of "fun" activities
form - experts looking to spice up a particular activity. I like to train some
kata by going as slow and precise as possible, then as fast and reckless as
possible, THEN settling for normal speed.

------
ken47
_“I, and the other strong students in my department, did practice less than
the weaker students,” he said._

This is quite misleading. -Locally-, it might be true that weaker students
practice more than strong students, to compensate for their weakness. But on
average, great piano players practice much more than mediocre piano players.

It's easy to find examples, but I'll name two that I found in my first two
Google searches:

Lang Lang (virtuoso classical pianist) - 6 hours a day Oscar Peterson
(virtuoso jazz pianists) - 6 hours a day

I'm --certain-- this is the norm, not the exception.

~~~
bsder
Agreed. I simply do not believe they practiced less.

I know a couple technical folks who are smoking good at their instruments, and
basically said:

"Look, I spent time in <strong musical program> as an undergraduate. One group
"has it"\--they're the elite. I'm in the second group. I'm practicing my ass
off, and I'm not deaf. I'm gaining some ground on the best in the second
group, but it's _REALLY_ slow as they're practicing their ass off, too. Maybe
I can reach the bottom of the elite group after 4 years. Maybe."

"Or I can get a CS degree. And still play my instrument. And get amazing gigs
simply because I am more than good enough and am _always_ available when a
cool gig comes up since I don't have to worry about money."

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
Maurizio Pollini still practices like crazy- lots of hours. More than I do!
(he is way better than I)

------
egypturnash
I don't know if I would say "avoid flow" but "working on what does _not_ come
easy" is definitely a thing I found important in my journey from "kid who
likes to draw" to "ex-animator". Whenever someone asks for advice on breaking
art block one of my suggestions is to go draw something they hate to draw.

This attitude became ingrained enough that when I was taking pole dance class
later in life, my instructor noticed that, unlike most beginners faced with a
new move they were having difficulty with, I'd make myself spend time
experimenting with it instead of falling back to refining earlier basics I was
more than good enough for at that stage of my practice. It's a good one to
have, IMHO.

And I sure as hell have found ways to complicate my work as time goes on.
Constantly doing stuff I can knock out in my sleep gets boring; challenge is
fun.

~~~
jacquesm
> "kid who likes to draw" to "ex-animator"

There is an interesting book in there somewhere.

~~~
egypturnash
It involves this man: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-
ren-sti...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-ren-stimpy-
underage-sexual-abuse?utm_term=.ffg000gw8#.liPDDDx1j)

~~~
jacquesm
That's one very unfortunate connection, I read that article before. Ugh.

------
bjt
Good advice for getting better at playing classical piano. The kind of
practice described in the post is really good for honing precise technique. I
question the extent to which it's applicable to creative work generally, as
the post claims.

The kind of piano playing described in the post doesn't actually leave much
room for creativity. You're playing someone else's music. You have a bit of
freedom to vary emphasis and tempo, but good luck winning competitions while
getting creative with your own melody, harmony, etc. If we treated painting
the way we treat classical music, we'd have competitions to see who's the best
at paint-by-numbers.

If you want to become a better writer, composer, painter, programmer, etc.,
technique is relevant but not the same thing as getting more creative.

~~~
maroonblazer
Doesn't every creative endeavor require some technical proficiency? This
advice is about how to most efficiently acquire that proficiency. Until you do
that your creativity will be constrained. As Clark Terry said: "Imitate,
assimilate, and innovate."

~~~
bjt
Yes, but the case is wildly overstated. You don't get to be Bukowski or
Palahniuk by reciting Shakespeare over and over.

EDIT: Or to put it in the article's own terms, is there any reason to believe
the top piano student at the university is doing better _creative_ work than
those other students who were playing their songs start to finish? For all we
know they were composition majors, and they'd already achieved the technical
proficiency they needed to express themselves creatively. The kind of practice
advocated in the post is very narrowly focused on very specific technical
excellence that's way past the minimum you need for creative expression.

~~~
moron4hire
Hunter S. Thompson wrote of "writing Faulkner" and other authors he admired.
He'd sit at his typewriter and copy entire passages from books. He felt it
helped him understand the writer's thinking, their rhythm and creation
process.

If you want to be a great improvisational musician, you still (especially)
need to be studied in music theory and common works, to know how good music is
constructed, and what people expect to hear.

If ever there is a great musician or other type of creator who says they are
not familiar with and have not studied the works of their contemporaries and
lineage, they are lying.

~~~
ryacko
Did he figure out the most difficult passages for them to write, and the
accompanying pause and stare into the uncompleted page?

------
jrochkind1
It's specifically about practicing/drilling. Which is definitely important to
musicianship. The article doesn't even suggest musicians ought not to enter a
"flow" state when _performing_.

I'm not sure how important it is to programming. While I know some younger
coders who "practice" and "drill" programming problems, this is pretty foreign
to how I've learned to program (over a couple plus decades). I've just...
programmed. No shade, whatever works. But as a kind of aside, I'm curious how
many programmer readers of HN do "practices" or "drills" of programming (and
what stage of your career you are at; even the most expert musicians have to
keep practicing and drilling. I think expert programmers just... produce
programs).

(But I _did_ find this article enlightening and I predict useful to my amateur
musicianship! It's not a bad article at all. I'm just not sure how applicable
it is to computer programming -- which it does not claim to be, but I assume
is why it was posted on HN -- I think they are very different skills and
practices. The muscle memory/physicality aspect of musicianship just doesn't
apply to programming I think).

~~~
samkater
I think being a musician and programmer both require practice. As a musician,
I would practice a lot of mechanics - producing the desired sound in a
specific way every time. When practicing programming, I personally (and
suspect most) would practice certain elements of mental recall. In some cases
that would translate into a mechanical memory (vim and tmux key-strokes in
particular for me). But I sometimes also force myself to not use IDE shortcuts
(or copy-paste) when I am trying to learn a new library or other programming
paradigm. For example, I thought learning how to do "Pandas Python" after
being fairly proficient in normal Python (and general programming) was hard in
making that mental model shift. But I would learn ("practice") by forcing
myself to type things that I could have copy-pasted. I think the key is to be
aware of what you personally require to become proficient at something. My
programming practice methods might not work for everyone, and I know a lot of
people who seem to instinctively "get" a new programming process. As you say
"I think expert programmers just... produce programs" \- this is the best
place to be in! You are subconsciously "practicing" but it is wrapped up in
your daily life that whatever worked to become an expert has become a habit
and is no longer the burden of "practice."

~~~
hnick
I definitely agree with avoiding copy-paste. I always type tutorials - I guess
it's part muscle memory, and partly because you have more time to think, but
it definitely sticks better when doing that. And you usually get to see a few
new compiler errors on the way :)

In a previous job I was transcribing letters from a requirements document into
a program to generate nicely formatted PDFs. Officially, we were meant to copy
and paste them to avoid typos. Unofficially, I always typed them and picked up
a lot of errors that the clients were happy to fix. And they usually looked
fine when I was just reading them with shallow focus.

------
aji
the author invented a definition of "flow" which is different from another
common definition which roughly means "getting in the zone" and the result is
dangerously clickbaity imo

i do my best work when i'm in the zone and it has nothing to do with whether
the work itself is challenging or not. in fact, the more challenging something
is, the easier it is for me to stay focused if i feel like i'm making progress

~~~
Jeff_Brown
I can't speak to the relative merits of flow vs. (what's the opposite? self-
consciousness?), but I can testify that the vast majority of musicians
practice dumb. They just recite, or jam; they don't target the hard part, or
new ideas, although they might say they know they ought to -- and more
cerebral work like ear-training or learning the combinatorics of music theory
(mapping the possible chords and scales, and ways to combine them in serial or
parallel) aren't even on the radar.

~~~
baddox
I think there is considerable value in the "dumb" repetitive mode of
practicing a musical instrument. In my experience, it's pretty much the only
way to commit guitar scales and shapes to muscle memory. This is particularly
vital to playing fast or improvising. My guitar instructor (who was a
phenomenal player) talked about playing blues licks over and over again "to
get them into your fingers."

~~~
Jeff_Brown
While I agree that it has its place, I'm opposed to over-reliance on muscle
memory. I believe it restricts you to what you've drilled, even to the
exclusion of very close neighbors.

But I'm also not trying to play extremely fast. If my goal was recital rather
than composition, I would use it more. My recordings[1] are mostly total
improv, free jazz, with a vocals track (later deleted) that states what chord
changes are coming up, and then improvise over the first instrumental track
while listening to the chord announcements.

[https://soundcloud.com/jeffrey-benjamin-
brown](https://soundcloud.com/jeffrey-benjamin-brown)

------
keldaris
As a distinctly mediocre, lazy and easily bored amateur pianist, I've found
that selecting the right pieces for building up technique makes all the
difference. I only play for my own enjoyment, not to perform a specific
repertoire to a concert standard, so I cannot bring myself to practice scales,
arpeggios, Hanon/Czerny and the rest. The best suggestion I've ever found is
just playing the Chopin etudes (and the Godowsky transcriptions of them, if
you can). They are just the right balance of being of immense technical value
while still being musically interesting, lovely to listen to and cover almost
the entire range of piano technique that exists. Furthermore, each etude is
targeted at a particular aspect of technique, so it is easy to pick something
that suits your particular needs. For instance, I'm learning op. 10 no. 4
right now [1] in order to strengthen my left hand and improve wrist
flexibility at speed (the curse of small hands), and the improvement is
palpable, even with very limited practice time.

The other thing I would say is that it really helps to have a goal to drive
you. I quit playing piano for a decade and the only reason I came back to it,
built up what little technique I had and persevered was because I really,
really wanted to play a particular prelude by Rachmaninov, even though it was
way out of my reach at the time. Finally learning it after a year or two of
fairly hard work was very rewarding.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_eyiPKPO2U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_eyiPKPO2U)

------
almstimplmntd
As a (jazz) piano student myself, I am happy to see "To Master a Skill, Master
Something Harder."

Pianist and YouTuber Nahre Sol has a great set of exercises based on modifying
passages of Chopin etudes, which serve as excellent material to study both as
a template and in their own right. [1][2] She varies harmony and rhythm, and
takes the exercise through all 12-keys. Much harder than just learning the
passage in the original key, but that's the whole point.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xYfgJVm1Ns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xYfgJVm1Ns)
[2] [https://flatfiv.com/products/piano-technique-
intensive](https://flatfiv.com/products/piano-technique-intensive)

------
rshudson
Anyone apply deliberate practice to software development? I would be
interested to hear applications.

I can imagine data structures and algorithms and coding competitions, but I've
always struggled with the concept of drills for improving skills as a software
developer.

Would love to hear ideas from others.

~~~
DenisM
Whenever I code something moderately challenging, I come back and do it again,
and maybe again until it’s good and proper. I love history rewrite in
mercurial.

The code gets better, but the business outcome remains unchanged so it may
look like waste. But it’s not waste - the micro skills acquired in the
exercise accumulate.

~~~
sitkack
I do this with cooking, kinda, let me know what you think.

1\. Make the thing from a book, verbatim, change nothing

2\. Synthesize a new recipe from 3-5 recipes, changing stuff at will, but
within the range for each ingredient

3\. if excellent: goto 2; else: goto 4

4\. Continue to make this dish, using this recipe, from feel until the output
consistency is always delish

Being good means being creative and then being able to consistently hit the
required output quality.

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man
who had practiced one kick 10,000 times.” -- Bruce Lee

~~~
DenisM
It makes sense to me - you get both deliberate practice and creative practice.
I don't know if it's the best, perhaps someone who is good at cooking can
provide a more informed opinion.

I was also told that cooking from good ingredients is easy, the hard part is
figuring out what to cook given the ingredients you have on a given day.

------
dang
A little discussion from 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14712361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14712361)

~~~
ramblerman
Interesting, that with the original title, "Flow Is the Opiate of the
Mediocre: Advice on Getting Better" the discussion centered more around people
getting defensive about Flow.

~~~
dang
Yes: titles are by far the most influential initial condition on a thread.
It's shocking how deep that rabbit hole goes.

------
HiroshiSan
For anyone who wants to get a more in depth look at how to improve at
something by one of the leading researchers in the field, check out the book
Peak. Anytime I read an article like this or anything on how to improve, the
concepts are explained in depth in the book.

------
henning
This shows that by using cherry-picked examples, you can prove anything.

Elite musicians are all super relaxed and chill? Some are, some aren't. For
every story of a relaxed musician, I can find you a super successful one that
would literally run from gig to gig on weekends. If you're willing to ignore
all evidence to the contrary and willing to use a single study to confirm what
you already believe, I guess life becomes a lot simpler. Probably helps sell
more of them books, too.

Working on your weaknesses can be good if that's something you've avoided
doing and doing so would help you advance your skills. What a weird,
confrontational way Cal Newport has of getting a reasonable idea across.

It's one of the infinite number of things that are neither necessary nor
sufficient to create "success" or be "elite", because those are largely in
your own mind and based on how you feel about what's happened rather than what
has happened.

~~~
Hoasi
> This shows that with using unrepresentative, hand-picked examples, you can
> prove anything.

True, but the pianist in the article still makes good points.

> "The mistake most weak pianists make is playing, not practicing." as I
> understand it, means that the pianist found repeated confrontation with
> difficult parts was beneficial versus sessions repeating the music in full
> from beginning to end.

What he says is about seeking mastery first. To be a great musician, first you
need to have taste, that cannot be downplayed. If you have the right taste and
an idea of what the music should sound like, then there are mostly technical
traps you need to tackle to achieve a great performance. The pianist doesn't
mean to say that once you have done the hard parts you shouldn't enjoy playing
the music in full—that's would be stupid. No great performer ever stops in the
mid of a piece and get along with it being great. But it is much easier to
find "flow" or whatever you call it, once you have mastery. And one is not
exclusive of the other, that's maybe Cal Newport's interpretation or
simplification to match the goal of his article.

> "Weak pianists make music a reactive task, not a creative task."

and

> "In performance, weak pianists try to reactively move away from mistakes,
> while strong pianists move towards a perfect mental image."

ring particularly true and are useful tips.

------
tylercubell
The first strategy I completely agree with. Growth happens outside of your
comfort zone.

The second and third strategies I don't completely relate to. If it works for
you, great.

The fourth I would somewhat disagree with. You need to know where you're going
before you start playing but "moving towards a perfect mental image" is just
silly. Is this piano player trying to be a robot? There are countless ways to
play certain pieces and a lot of the time it depends how you're feeling that
day. Play like a human being. This quote by Beethoven is apt, "To play a wrong
note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable." I would say
the most important thing is to play with passion and to try to stay true to
the spirit of the piece you're playing.

Source: my personal opinions after playing classical piano for 14 years.

------
gtani
I've known /met a lot of serious students, some from living next door to
Manhattan School of Music, and they all had different advice on practicing.
Some had very structured allocations of time, recording all practices and
journaling their progress, some said they put their entire being into
practicing one tune at a time.

I recommend reading Kenny Werner's Effortless Mastery, which is probably in
your public library if you're in a big city, and also the interviews in
Wernick/Trischka's Masters of 5 String Banjo, currently going fore absurd
asking prices on Amazon and hard to find unless you know a banjo player.

------
dizzyfingers
I like this article for what to do in the moments of practice, but for a more
complete plan this post that was nested in the OP is pretty important in
describing how often and in what manner you should do this.

[http://www.calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-
your...](http://www.calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-doing-
something-wrong-the-surprisingly-relaxed-lives-of-elite-achievers/)

------
0815test
Interesting perspective. The author's basic point is that you should, to quote
the article, "Avoid Flow. Do What Does _Not_ Come Easy". This is in the
context of playing piano, so it might be a pitfall there. In my experience
though, "doing what _does_ come easy" is a reasonably foolproof and enjoyable
way to _enter_ flow; but you can still maintain that state subsequently while
meaningfully challenging yourself. Your mileage may vary!

~~~
tdhoot
I think Malcolm Gladwell or maybe someone similar called this "deliberate
practice". The idea is that you can't become an expert by just doing 10,000
hours of practice. The practice has to be pushing you forward for it to count.

~~~
thanatropism
Goes back to Heidegger at least if you trust Hubert Dreyfus. Maybe more.

Heidegger at its core is an "antiplatonism of lived experience". I really
can't recommend enough reading two very different interpretations of him,
namely "Tool-being" by Graham Harman and "Being-in-the-world" by Hubert
Dreyfus.

Books are cheap. Get these. Most Netflix shows are bad. Read these books
instead for two or three weeks.

------
jdreyfuss
I assumed this was going to be about avoiding flow while doing actual work,
but this is only in the context of practice and training.

I can see the argument for avoiding flow and focusing on your weaknesses when
your goal is self-improvement (and to take the jump from there that it's
important to set aside some time to focus on self-improvement), but that
doesn't apply when your goal is actual output, which is the majority of the
time when it comes to most of our jobs

~~~
ska
This is a good point where professional musicians and other performers are in
a bit of an unusual position, their ratio of practice to "productive" is
pretty unusual in other fields. I suppose (professional) athletes would be
another example.

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epiphanitus
This was a really interesting read, though I would interpret its message more
as 'avoid flow during practice and work on the hard things, so during your
performance you can focus on your vision instead of constantly thinking about
avoiding mistakes.'

It's an interesting counterargument to the 'train how you perform' philosophy.

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bitL
My piano teacher from Yale recommended me to practice piece backwards and go
measure by measure until it's all perfect.

~~~
hahamrfunnyguy
What was the reasoning behind that? Does it help you to play the original
piece?

~~~
cousin_it
I think grandparent's idea was to first play only measure N, then measures N-1
to N, then measures N-2 to N and so on. Not literally play the sheet music
backwards.

~~~
spurgu
Yeah exactly. If you learn a song "traditionally" you have to play gradually
longer passages until you hit the part you haven't learned yet. This will make
you very proficient in playing the beginning of the song but you will usually
always stumble towards the end. If you learn "backwards" then for each new
measure you learn, the rest of the song will be easy, since you've already
learned it.

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beering
I was both happy and sad to see a comment by Terry A. Davis in the linked
post. For those who don't know or remember, he was the guy who created single-
handedly created TempleOS which, like he says in his comment, was inspired by
God.

Interesting character, and a shame that he couldn't get the help he needed.

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exabrial
The has sort of mirrored my experience as a guitar player. It took a large
initial investment to comprehend the vocabulary and develop the finger
dexterity, but now I can learn a complicated guitar solo by focusing on the
hard parts with scheduled, deliberate, and focused practice.

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Mizza
Semi-related: Does anybody know any good online tools/apps for learning piano
scales and chords?

~~~
gralx
Although it doesn't have a web browser interface, GNU Solfege is lightweight,
comprehensive ear training software. It has scales I'd never heard of, like
the Hungarian scale.

Actually using scales or chords is something else again, and the best approach
is probably just repertoire - Bach's Goldberg Variations, Bartok's For
Children cycle, transcribing Bill Evans, Liszt's concert studies, etc.

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zZorgz
I treat playing piano as a creative outlet these days as a small hobby, not
profession. Not much different than say, playing video games. I actually have
very little interest in becoming better these days, mostly due to forgoing
lessons / daily practice long ago.

That said, I’ve created compositions that are really cool on occasional
boredom, which is probably something many “accomplished pianists” don’t even
do. And that is a lot cooler than performing challenging pieces, if you ask
me.

I also don’t think that more challenging pieces actually necessarily sound
better / distinct. There are beginner level songs that are surprisingly good.

My music teacher also told me that there’s good and bad practice. If you
continuously do bad practice / habits, you get worse, not better.

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catacombs
> To Master a Skill, Master Something Harder.

I like this. It can definitely be applied to programming. For me, my goal at
getting much better in JavaScript and Go has taken me to mastering C.

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segmondy
meh, this is called "deliberate practice" which is discussed extensively in
the book "Talent is overrated"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Del...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_\(learning_method\)#Deliberate_practice)

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RickJWagner
Nice. I'm going to look for some ways to apply this tomorrow.

I hope we see more articles like this.

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peterlk
I have struggled to learn piano for a very long time, and I think that
learning to play pieces written by other people is overemphasized in piano
(and music in general, with the exception of drums, guitar, and bass)
education. Music is like a language, and we owe it to ourselves and our
students to learn more about the language of music rather than just reading
and regurgitating notes on a page. A better approach is learning words
(chords), and grammar (chord scales, chord progressions) or music.

As a shameless plug, I am developing a site to help me learn piano[0]. It's
still pretty early; the paywall is there so I can control initial users a bit
better (feel free to pay though :P). If you're interested in such things,
shoot me an email (check my profile). I'd love to learn more about how I can
help the world be full of better music (i.e. helping you be a more awesome
musician)

[0] [https://musicianship.studio](https://musicianship.studio)

~~~
nippoo
Yes; improvisation should be taught more, _but_ learning and deconstructing
pieces by other people is an excellent way of doing it, in the same way that
learning a language is often best done by listening and deconstructing what
native speakers have said and written. The key difference is that we should be
encouraging people to learn and /understand/ pieces written by others, rather
than just blindly learn the notes.

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Mugwort
I've played piano over 40 years. By the time I was 25 I played most of the
piano repertoire, all 32 Beethoven sonatas etc. That said, let me offer my
since advice on how to climb to the top of piano performance. Anyone can do it
and this method works but you won't hear about it much and I'm unaware of
anybody promoting this method. OK.. Here goes.... I love playing easy pieces.
There is so much excellent low laying fruit which everyone should pick. Here
are some examples... 1. Bartok - Mikrokosmos (all 153 pieces - play them all,
you can do it!) 2. Prokofiev pieces for children. 3. Schumann 43 pieces for
children. 4. Bartok 20 pieces for children. 5. Bach 15 inventions and 15
sinfonias. 6. Bach little fugues. 7. The easiest Mozart sonatas e.g. K282 etc.
8. The first 10 Haydn sonatas (partitas). 9. Well tempered clavier - Bach.
etc. 10. Select pieces from the French and English suites. ... well you get
it.

The whole point is to start small, learn pieces quickly, but most importantly
musically. Make music with them. Learn to read from the score comfortably.
After a while reading things at sight isn't such a big deal.

The important thing is to learn music is a way that solid skills are acquired.
You certainly can focus work on a Beethoven sonata for several months like at
a conservatory but I believe this method of learning vast amounts of music
quickly is absolutely indispensable. There are a TON of excellent first rate
compositions by the best composers, you have no excuse for not mastering them.

The gap between being able to play Haydn sonatas and the Well Tempered Clavier
fluently and say being able to work on the "big pieces" is much smaller than
you think.

Don't skip anything. Nobody needs to charge in and start playing Beethoven's
sonata op. 57 The Appassionata before they've played at least 20 of the easier
sonatas.

The other bit of advice I have is to constantly work your memory. Again with
simple pieces learned quickly. Most pieces don't need to be memorized and
memorizing everything will hamper your development. You do however need to
memorize easily and efficiently. It really helps in developing speed and
accuracy. Chopin studies mostly need to be memorized in order to practice
effectively. That said, I firmly believe you can learn MORE technique playing
finales to Haydn sonatas but with a whole lot of energy and spark than slaving
away on virtuoso etudes.

One last thing, practicing without pedal (often but definitely not always) is
very helpful. It has been for me.

Oops. One more last thing. Play by ear and improvise in any style you like.
You'd be surprised how many super advanced classical musicians there are who
can't play Happy Birthday at a moments notice without knowing the song at all
just to make a group of children happy. This is a symptom of the lop sided
skills not to be able to play songs people like whether it's Carol King or
Arcade Fire. You should be able to fake something.

TLDR; Picking all the low laying fruit you can find is the one way to success.
You get to focus on enjoying the process of actually making music than to
struggle with passage work that always comes on its own anyway.

Good luck.

~~~
Mugwort
If you can learn one easy piece every day for the next three years, that's
over 1000 pieces. If you start small with Bach and play his easiest
compositions and play even 1 page per day, in not time flat you'll be playing
the entire WTC or art of the Fugue. Obviously, this advice does not suit raw
beginners but the "advanced" players I hear struggling with Beethoven and
sounding bad, this is exactly the advice I'd give. I'd tell them to play all
the easiest Beethoven pieces, pick lots of Haydn. Maybe bring a handfull of
these pieces to performance quality but to absolutely be able to play them ALL
at least acceptably. Struggling is a bad policy. It leads to stiff unnatural
technique. Also, things like trills don't need to be fast. Play trills
musically. leave ornaments out the first day when playing a new piece. Add a
few in at a time. Make everything sing and dance at the piano. You should NOT
be struggling too hard on anything. Also, I can play all 32 Beethoven sonatas
but I haven't played op 106 or op 111 in front of an audience. It isn't
necessary to do so. I play all the Chopin etudes... at home for myself, to
build my chops. It isn't spectacular, but I play them pretty good. Save your
best for audiences and only things that are very comfortable. Scarlatti
composed 555 sonatas. There is more than enough there to keep me busy and you
should you take up my "method".

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JDevlieghere
I wish more developers wrote code with a mute keyboard.

------
cortesoft
The title is catchy, but I don't think it exactly fits the article.

~~~
dang
Ok, let's try the subtitle.

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paul7986
Answer is simple practice for hours, days, months, years. Have the passion in
you.

Personally the desire to express myself through music playing or writing songs
drove me to finally get serious about learning/semi-mastering the piano/learn
how to play by ear.

The guitar is a much easier instrument to pick up then piano.

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ranprieur
Missing from this post is anything about whether the piano player is enjoying
the process. The subtext seems to be that we should force ourselves to do hard
stuff, whether or not we like it, so that other people will admire our skill.

When I'm doing something I really enjoy, I don't have to make myself do it in
a way that's harder -- I already feel driven to add complexity and constraint.
If I don't want a task to be harder, that probably means I don't enjoy it, and
the best move is to try to get out of doing it.

