Planting a seed

Learning a piece is like planting a seed. You need to water the seed by getting your hand on the keys, shower it with sunshine of passion, and give it time to grow.

Planting seed is thinking about the sounds in your head. How you would like it to sound. So, remember to plant the right seed. As you know you only reap what you sow :)

And don't forget to allow it to grow over TIME. You never pull a plant to hurry the growth as you will only kill it by doing that. So, you must ALLOW TIME. Timing is everything. So, be patient to yourself and let the music grows in you.

2-Sided Learnings

Have you ever realized the importance of two-sided learning? It is ths same philosophy with the balance of ying and the yang. Whenever you learn something from a practise session, it has to be something good as much as something bad. That means, you have to pay attention to something that needs improvement as much as something that is beatiful that you want to keep and make it better.

It is by this two-sided learning, that you can lay a firm basic ground work on your preparation for performance.

There are a lot of times where a pianist tries so hard to fix the problem that s/he forgets to preserve his/her passion in playing that piece. The passion is the beautiful perception of the piece. On the other hand, there are pianists who enjoy the beauty of a piece so much that s/he ignores the gaps or the missing parts that need improvements. So, 2-sided learning is very basic and important. Of course, both keeping the good and improving the shortcomings need effort. Thus putting equal effort will give you a better peace of mind in the process of crafting a performance.

Imagination

The power of imagination has been under-determined by many people. Imagination can inspire both a scientist and an artist. The imagination can shine a light on your success or scare you from pursuing your ideal. Imagination can make you stop trying after failure or make you keep trying after failure. The difference is small. It is just a split-second in your mind. But the consequences is widely different when the imagination becomes reality.

What can imagination do for a pianist? Pianist can apply visual imagination in preparation of a piece. Close your eyes, you can visually imagine how your fingers move to play a certain piece. That is like dancers "choreographing" their piece. While practising, pianist "choreograph" their hand movements to achieve certain sound. That is always called the technical part of practising a piece.

On a higher level, something more concerning to a pianist is the aural imagination. Ultimately a pianist wants to present a piece that is aurally ideal in his/her mind. So, that imagination comes before visual imagination. Aural imagination is the core for the visual imagination for a pianist. It is the artistic part of the practising process.

With those two imaginations, you will attract a good friend - physcal sensation of performing a piece. It is not a goal in practising. However you will attain it eventually without purpose. However, treating your "good friend" well will give you support when you need it in performance. Many times we have attention slip in performance, the physical sensational memory will catch you when you fall and keep you going. It is hidden in your subsconscious. It appears when you are in a memory slip to bridge your over the small gaps. Sensational memory is a good friend for you when you perform. But it is not your leader. It just comes to accompany you in performance as a result of your practise.

To enhance your aural imagination, you can listen to more music performed by other people. To enhance your visual memory, watch live performance and PRACTISE on your piano a lot. PRACTISING is the only way that will enhance your physical sensational imagination for your live performance. All these are powerful for any high performance task. Be it sports or career. Your imagination is like your will power over your own body. If you imagine you are calm, you 'will' your own body to be calm. If you imagine your fingers move certain way, you are actually "will"-ing your fingers to move that way.

Of course all the imaginations are good at enhancing your attention. It helps you to focus because you expect specific things before it happens. This is the benefit of focus. And right away, you can't believe how good your memory has become.