I've been practicing recently and most of the things that I play tend to sound like it's not flowing very well. I know that I'm suppose to play certain things staccato and stuff, but everything else sounds like i'm just playing to just hit the notes. Does anyone have any recommendations for how to improve? Thanks in advance.

Hi there,

you should make sure that the joints are supple in the hands and that you feel weight going down into the keys instead of hitting them. Feel that the weight "moves" from one key to another in a horizontal way, not vertical.

I'll get back on this with more later!

P.

Hi there,

you should make sure that the joints are supple in the hands and that you feel weight going down into the keys instead of hitting them. Feel that the weight "moves" from one key to another in a horizontal way, not vertical.

I'll get back on this with more later!

P.

Wow. That really does help. It's so simple, I don't know why i didn't think to do that before. lol. Anyway, thanks for your help and anymore help would be greatly appreciated.

This may be obvious too, but, try "getting into" a piece. Know what the composer is trying to tell the listener, and this knowledge will help you to play the piece to its potential.

use your sustain pedal

In reference to the sustain pedal, it may become a troublesome habit if you use it too often. My piano teacher once performed a Bach piece and used the pedal to make it sound smoother, but he was criticized by the judge because in Bach's time, there were no sustain pedals on pianos. Even some composers themselves, such as Grieg, demanded that the pedal only be used when indicated. I have a bad habit of using the una corda or "soft" pedal. This eventually left me with a slight inability to play softer without the pedal.

This is not to say that you can't use any of the pedals on a piano, just be aware of why, how, and when they should be used.

You're right, Grieg-Bizet. The reason that I asked this question is because I've been using the sustain pedal like all the time to make my pieces sound better and I was getting a little worried that it was not the right thing to do. Thanks for everyone's input!

This is a good question - I think I might be using the sustain pedal too much too, and am beginning to rely on it to make songs sound smoother. I noticed that when I play the keyboards at school (where there is no pedal) my songs sound awful because none of the notes sound smooth, but when my music teacher plays it, it sounds perfect. I'd never noticed before, so am now going to trying limiting my use of the pedal to improve my legato!!

A couple suggestions to make the pieces and playing sound smoother:
1. Legato - do not lift up the first note until second note is pressing down. I notice a lot of my beginner students take out their fingers too early.
2. Phrasing - piano playing is very much like speaking a language. You notice when we speak a language there is comma and period. Also, when we speak we don't say one word at a time - we speak in sentences.
Same thing applies to piano playing. Know where to put in phrases and where to put in period are important.

Yoke Wong
Discover The Amazing Secrets Of Piano Improv
http://www.playpianotips.com

Thanks for all your helps you guys!

Along the lines of what a previous poster wrote about "getting into" the piece, I would add that there are both physical and mental barriers to smooth play, and most of the comments seem to be focusing on the physical (which is, of course important).

A simple/radical suggestion (depending on your point of view) would be to memorize the passages/pieces you are trying to smooth out, assuming you haven't done so already, and play without the sheet music. If you are still developing basic finger technique, touch, rhythm, etc, removing the burden of reading music at the same time can help a lot. And lack of smoothness may be the result of simply not having fast enough recall of the next note.

Memorization sounds hard on a large scale, but just try it for a few notes, or a measure, and go from there.

Also keep in mind other mental blocks, such as stress, distraction, etc., and do whatever works for you to clear your mind and improve your concentration.

Yeah, you're right. i tend to be able to play more smoothly when i memorize the piece but I have another question geoffw. Whenever i memorize a piece, i end up having to learn the piece all over again if i haven't played it in a while. I guess when i don't look at the notes, i don't associate the music to what's on the paper and then i waste all that time relearning what i already learned. I've been using the notetrainer on this site which helps, but do you have any suggestions other than learning to read the notes better? Thanks!

I have that same problem, and it can be frustrating! And yes, being a better sight-reader helps, but I look for any excuse I can to avoid sightreading...(not really, but it's not my strongest suit, and my preference for memorizing only makes it worse). I'm guessing your question is how to avoid the frustration of relearning whole pieces? Wish I knew. ;-)

One thing I've done is to keep a detailed list of all the pieces I've learned and am learning, and making a point of maintaining those pieces I want to remember. The more I do that, the less I forget and the easier and longer I remember. And since the more pieces you learn, the more easily you forget the oldest pieces, keeping track like this can help you predict when you'll start to forget something.

Also, I've been told that forgetting and relearning is the natural cycle of long term memorization, and that you have to forget a piece several times before you really learn it. I'm not sure how true that is, but emotionally, it helps when I'm frustrated.

I hope that helps a little.

Sounds like we do the same thing. lol. You're right. when i forget and i learn it again, i remember better funny as that sounds. But i really wanna be able to just look at a piece and play it someday. But then again, when i took piano lessons they would always make me memorize a piece and play it infront of a few teachers as my final. I don't know. I guess there are good things about both.