One-Minute Piano Lessons

Inflation-fighting practical tips for a lifetime of playing

A friend of mine used to joke that teaching piano is easy because it required only four words: Faster. Slower. Louder. Softer.

He exaggerated. Teachers devote years to impart artistry, theory, and history to their students. Yet much lesson time is spent on the humble practicalities like fingering, tone production, and overcoming technical difficulties.

In this book I present a collection of practical tricks, tips, and secrets from a lifetime of lessons, practice, and performance. Most take just a minute to read but will bear fruit as they are put into practice.

I wrote this book to honor my own teachers and to speed you along your piano path, wherever it leads.

PART 1. TECHNIQUE

Technique is the foundation for all the enjoyment you will find in playing the piano.

The goal of piano technique is to be relaxed, controlled, free of pain, and open to inspiration.

Hands

Let your arms dangle by your side.

Shake them for a few seconds.

Bring them up, still relaxed, and let your fingertips fall on the surface of the keys.

Your hand is now in a properly relaxed, natural position.

Protect your hands. Do not use them to open doors; use your shoulder or foot instead.

Avoid carrying grocery bags by the handles.

Forearms

Your forearms should feel light, never tense. To achieve this:

Sit up straight. Let your shoulders relax.

Shake your hands by your side and let them fall onto the surface.

Hold your elbows and forearms comfortably away from the body, as if you were starting to hug someone you love.

Imagine your elbows and forearms are floating on a cloud.

Forearm pain

Some pianists are in such a hurry to improve that they ignore tightness and pain in the forearm.

Practicing with a tight forearm can lead to serious injury. It’s the kind of chronic pain that keeps you awake at night, and it will certainly curtail your piano activities.

Piano playing should never be painful. If your forearm starts to feel tight, stop at once.

Thumb

Unlike the four longer fingers, the thumb is played on the side on the padded part next to the nail, at a slight angle to the key.

Your thumb must not curve away from the fingers. That creates tension.

The thumb should remain relaxed and gently curved toward the rest of the hand.

This habit takes time to develop.

Fingers

Use the padded part of your fingertip and the fleshy part of the first joint.

Think of a cat’s padded paw.

The convexity of your fingers’ curve will change according to the demands of the music.

Curved fingers can be used for staccato or very rapid passages. In legato melodies, the fingers may be almost flat.

The one curve that doesn’t work is often seen in young pianists. Fingers should never be concave – i.e., they should not buckle at the first joint. If your fingers are so weak that this happens, practice slow finger exercises and scales.

Fingernails

Keep them short.

You are a pianist, not a castanet player.

Wrist

Place your fingers on the surface of the keys.

Now tilt your wrists in and out.

Do you see how tilting the wrist inward helps you place your fingers more stably on the keys?

Move your wrists laterally. See how your pinky suddenly has more reach?

Elbows

Let you elbows lead your hand up and down the keyboard, so that the position of the hand and forearm remain perpendicular to the keys.

Posture

Do not lean over the keyboard. It will choke your sound.

Your posture should be relaxed.

Gravity

One of the best experiences of piano playing is when you are so in tune with gravity that your fingers sink naturally to the very bottom of the keys as if they were on their way to the floor.

Let gravity work for you.

The hand’s peculiarities

Remarkable as it is, the hand presents challenges for piano playing. The pianist must develop ways to make the hand work with him, not against him.

The basic problems are:

• lack of independent movement of the fingers

• differences in finger length

• weak ring and little fingers and their knuckles

• tendency of the index finger to play disproportionately loudly

            Surmounting these challenges takes practice.

Finger exercises

Countless exercises are available to help pianists strengthen weak fingers and achieve independence of movement.

Some of them work.

Merely playing exercises for hours will not help achieve your goals, however.

Worse, exercises incorrectly done will severely damage your arm.

Don’t overdo it. Stop at the first sign of pain.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Peculiarities of the hand, #1:

A troublesome tendon

It is difficult to move the middle and ring fingers independently. That is because they are attached to the same tendon.

As a result, these two fingers tend to move together instead of being independent.

Training can mitigate this flaw.

Tabletop exercise for the 4th and 5th fingers

You don’t need a piano to train your fingers. Some exercises can be done on any flat surface.

To strengthen your little finger and increase the independence of the ring finger, place your hand on any flat surface.

Raise and lower the fingers separately, directing the motion from the knuckle and preserving the curve of the finger.

Peculiarities of the hand, #2: 3D hand, 2D keyboard

The keyboard is not really two-dimensional. The keys tilt slightly toward you. Black keys are, of course, higher than white keys.

Yet students tend to think of the keyboard as flat. Moreover, they think of their fingers the same way.

Properly deployed, the hand and arm comprise a flexible three-dimensional instrument working perfectly with the keyboard.

 Adapt your hand

Change the position of your hand, wrists, and fingers to meet the demands of the music.

• tilt knuckles in or out

• let your arms and wrists make circular motions, like a Kung Fu master

• move your arms and wrists like an elephant’s trunk

• shift the wrist laterally to help your fingers access keys more easily

• push into and pull away from keys

• raise the wrist and push in as you play a note for a stronger sound

• lower the wrist and pull out to make a note softer

• Move the hand in among the black keys so that the fingers can easily access them

PART 2. YOUR INSTRUMENT

It may surprise you to learn that the piano is a percussion instrument.

Its mechanism uses hammers to produce tones by striking the strings. When the hammer returns to its place, the tone ends.

Unlike a violin, the piano cannot increase or decrease the volume of a note. Nor can it produce vibrato.

Nor can it sustain a fluid melody the way a singer can.

A powerfully expressive instrument

Although the piano is at heart a percussion instrument, pianos and pianists’ techniques have evolved over the centuries to allow an increasingly wide range of expression.

Today’s piano is far different from earlier keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord.

Modern pianos can produce exquisitely soft filigree and roaringly loud sonorities. Hence the original name: pianoforte.

In fact, piano means distant. Forte means strong.

Making the piano sing

Teachers often tell students to make the piano sing, but what exactly does that mean?

What they’re trying to communicate is that in a melodic phrase, notes should sound connected rather than discrete.

To achieve this, it’s helpful to get up from the piano and sing what you’re learning to play. That helps you develop a sense of the phrase – the high, the low, the loudest, the softest, the beats and off-beats.

Singing a phrase will guide your practice, impelling you to train your muscles to perform the phrase the way it sounds in your mind’s ear.

In the next section, I’ll share some practical tips for making your percussion instrument sound lyrical.

PART 3. PRACTICE

Practice is not playing.

It is preparation for performance.

Find a quiet place

It’s very important to have a place to practice without distractions.

You should not have to compete with the sound of a TV.

Nor would you usually want an audience as you practice, any more than you would while getting dressed.

Beginning a piece

Look through the music and ask yourself:

• Where do the large sections begin and end?

• Where do the phrases start and stop?

• Count the measures in each phrase.

• Are the phrases identical or similar?

• Do patterns repeat? How?

• Are there pick-ups (upbeats)?

• If tempo and dynamic markings are in a foreign language, do you know what they mean? If not, look them up.

• How does the composer use modulations, progressions, and contrasting harmonies?

• Label the chords.

• Where are the loudest and softest dynamic markings?

• Are there accent marks?

• Are there contrasting sections?

• Are there repeating sections?

• Are there places where you would take a breath before going on?

• Is there a closing section?

That thing, the swing

As you analyze the piece’s architecture – its beginning and end, large sections, phrases, progressions, and patterns -- consider how you will feel and communicate the meter.

The meter is the heartbeat of the piece. It propels a piece forward like someone rowing a boat. The meter produces “that swing” that gives meaning to your performance.

My teacher used to chant “and to the one…and to the one…” Or he’d use a student’s name as the pattern.

Count out loud. Depending on the building blocks of the phrase, maybe the meter will sound like “one-two-three-four- AND-one-two-three-four-AND-one…”

Feeling the meter and speaking the rhythm frees you from the two-dimensional keyboard into the four-dimensional architecture of music moving through time.

Mark your score

The reason to buy your own music is to mark it up.

Write down fingerings.

Mark beginnings and endings of phrases,

Make notes to yourself.

Analyze chord structure.

Note translations of foreign words.

Use a pencil. Fresh ideas will come as you go along.

Muscle memory

You’ve analyzed your piece’s structure and formed a preliminary idea of how it could sound in an ideal performance.

It’s time to patiently train your muscles to do their jobs.

Repetition is the part of practice that lets short-term memories take root.

Don’t do this

Some students start the piece over when they make a mistake.       That is absolutely the worst way to practice. The result is that they know the first measure extremely well and the last three-quarters of the piece not at all.

Instead, concentrate on finding what caused the mistake and work to fix it.

Change the fingering if necessary.

Check the preceding and succeeding measures to see a lead-in caused the problem, or if you were nervously anticipating an impending difficulty.

When you’ve fixed what was causing you to make the mistake, go back to the start of the phrase – not the start of the piece – and practice it until you can play it correctly a few times.

Practice slowly

One of my teachers used to say she practiced slowly enough to drive anyone listening crazy.

That’s about right. Just try not to bore yourself silly.

One famous pianist used to read a book while practicing.

Practice fast

If you can do it, why wait?

Practice smart

Mere slow practice won’t take you all the way to a brilliant performance.

Many laminated layers of thought and physical work are needed to reveal the music’s special nature to an audience.

The more you learn the language and patterns of music, the quicker you will be able to easily do what you want on the keyboard.

Masters can sit in front of a new score and give a performance-level reading.

Practice softly

Sometimes.

 Practice the hard parts

But don’t forget the rest of the piece.

Practice with your eyes closed

Yes, really.

Practice with eyes open

But don’t look at the keyboard.

Instead, look out the window. Or at an object in the room – a painting, perhaps. Or envision something that goes with the music.

Make a video recording of yourself. Look into the camera instead of the keyboard. Let your face reflect the spirit of the music. Watch a video of Lang Lang to see how he rocks this, and experience how much fun he is to watch

Looking away from the keyboard invites the audience into your world.

Count out loud

It will help propel the piece forward and keep you honest. You’ll remember better when you count out loud.

Fingering, part 1

Try to keep the same fingering in passages of repetitive patterns.

Fingering, part 2

Practice scales, arpeggios, and chord progression in all 24 keys will help you physically good at speaking the language of music.

Fingering, part 3

If you keep missing a jump, use your thumb on the distant note.

Fingering, part 4

Don’t be afraid to use the thumb on black keys.

Fingering, part 5

Don’t insist on using your fourth finger

Superpower practice secret #1

If a passage is based on a repeated pattern, practice each iteration of the pattern as a separate pulse.

Pause at the same point of each pattern.

Practice that way until each iteration is fluent.

Then put it all together.

Superpower practice secret #2

To master a technically difficult passage such as a scale, turn, or an arpeggio, begin with the first note.

Then play the first and second note.

Then the first three.

Keep adding one more note until you are playing the whole thing perfectly.

Keep your fingers close to the keys

It prevents tension and allows greater speed and expression.

Playing legato

The ability to play a long, lyrical phrase that doesn’t sound like the rat-a-tat-tat of a typewriter is every pianist’s dream.

Because it is a percussion instrument, the piano is quite unable to easily produce singing lines the way violinists can by drawing the bow across the strings, or as singers do with their breath.

Yet there is a trick that will help the pianist produce the illusion of a sustained legato melody. Legato, by the way, means linked.

To make a phrase legato, press the first note down. Without picking up your finger, play the second note. Once both notes are pressed down, gently let the first finger rise.

Practice the entire phrase in this manner.

When this style of playing tales root in your muscle memory, you will be able to do this almost without thinking. The notes will sound connected rather than percussive.

You can practice legato on a tabletop or any other flat surface.

Rest gently curved fingertips on the table.

Mentally shift weight onto one finger without moving the hand.

Before releasing the weight from the first finger, mentally place weight on the next finger. Feel the weight on both fingers.

Then, shift the weight to the second finger alone.

This subtle exercise will help you achieve the legato needed for lyrical playing.

Shaping phrases

This crucial subject lies beyond the scope of this little handbook of practical tips.

The best advice is to attend live operas and concerts, to sing, and best of all to sing and play with others.

The sustain pedal

Horrible to relate, some players hold the sustain pedal (sometimes miscalled the “loud pedal”) to the floor throughout am entire performance.

That is a mark of a bad pianist.

The pedal must not be held to the floor come hell or chord change.

If you wish to hold down a pedal for extended periods of time, get in a car and drive somewhere far away.

Pedaling

When beginning a piece, put the pedal down before your play.

Do not let the pedal make a noise. You are a pianist, not a clog dancer.

Practice letting the pedal come just part of way up as you execute pedal changes. Each instrument has its own level.

Obey pedal markings

Chopin and Brahms made precise pedal markings. Follow them.

Beethoven, Ravel, and Debussy experimented with the pedal’s effects, and a pianist is duty-bound to follow their wishes.

Bear in mind that pianos were undergoing rapid technological change throughout the 19th century. If playing one of Beethoven’s experimental passages, you may need to flutter the pedal to produce the proper effect.

Chords with pedal

Say you wish to play a series of sustained chords that require the hands to come off the keys.

First, put your foot on the pedal.

Then play the chord.

Now play the next chord.

Before allowing the keys to come back up, change the pedal.

Octaves

Practice octave passages with just the little finger.

Use the fourth finger on the black notes if you like.

Then do the same with the thumb.

Then play the octaves.

Warming Up

A pianist does not need much warming up.

Going overboard with warm-up exercises can easily eat up half your practice time. You’ll be bored and exhausted before ever getting around to your piece.

If your fingers are freezing, clap your hands to get the blood flowing.

You can also place one finger at a time on the baseboard beneath the keys to give the finger a nice stretch to get the blood circulating.

A stretching exercise

Using your right thumb and index finger, start with C. Then play C#.

Using the same fingers, play C and D.

Then C and D#.

Go up the scale until you reach your limit, then rock between the notes a few times.

Repeat with 1-3, 1-4, and 1-5.

Do the same with your left hand, working your way down.

Metronomes

Metronomes have a bad name among some teachers, but they are useful.

The metronome keeps you honest. It helps you overcome the terrible tendency to slow down for hard parts.

Practicing slowly with a metronome will help you achieve clarity and evenness.

Using a metronome to achieve gradually higher speeds is a tried-and-true method – although far from the only one – for mastering difficult passages.

PART 4. PERFORMANCE

You’ve worked hard. You’ve mastered the difficult bits, and your fingering is secure. You’ve recorded yourself countless times and listened carefully to see how the performance could be improved.

Now get on the stage and have fun!

Do you feel the adrenaline? That’s good. It will bring excitement and power to your playing.

Are you weak in the knees? You haven’t prepared enough.

Beginning the performance

Walk on stage. Bow. Your arms should hang loose.

Take your seat. Take as much time as you need to adjust the seat up, down, forward, or back.

Silently think of the first bars of the piece.

Place your hands in position on the keyboard.

Take a breath.

If you make a mistake

Forge ahead. The show must go on.

PART 5. CURRICULUM

If you are a beginner, find a good sheet music store, leaf through the books, and choose one that appeals to you.

Piano primers come in many flavors, aiming to help everyone from toddlers to adults.

Some primers are better than others. See the Appendix for recommendations.

Find music written specifically for piano. Avoid transcriptions of Broadway rap-style vocals. You’ll get bored playing just two or three notes, and the rhythms will be meaningless without the words.

Plenty of popular tunes have strong melodies that work on the piano.

Learn accompaniment styles. Then you can accompany yourself when you sing without mimicking every syllable of the vocal part.

PART 5. PIANO TEACHERS

The tips in this handbook will give you an edge over the average student. You will be able to make much progress on your own by putting them into practice.

A great teacher, however, can breathe fire and light into your soul, transforming your approach to music and even life.

If you find a great teacher, remember that he is a treasure, not a parking meter.

Nor is the great teacher a magician. If you don’t practice, no power on earth will be able to turn into a good pianist.

A teacher who believes in you may go beyond the dollar and the clock. But don’t expect him to be nice if you don’t do honest work.

AFTERWORD

Why study piano?

Not long ago, music was an event, a celebration, an essential part of holidays, dance, pageantry, an occasion to join with others. Every hotel had a piano. Music was performed by friends in living rooms. It enlivened coffee houses, bars, and restaurants.

Now, music is often nothing more than a form of electronic wallpaper. For many people “playing music” means pushing a button, putting the volume on high, and then talking over the sound.

Meanwhile, the modern world constantly bombards us with noise. We learn to shut our ears to the roar of traffic, the blare of blowers and electric lawnmowers, the beeps of trucks going into reverse, the monotonous, the never-ceasing inoffensive songs drugstores, groceries, hotel lobbies, and restaurants.

By the understandable desire to tune out the noise, we become deafer as a community. The collective loss of listening is a tragedy that resonates with the disappearance of birds, insects, and plants from our poisoned, soulless landscapes, and to the light pollution that blocks out the stars.

In losing the knowledge of performing music, we have cut ourselves off from something fundamentally human. My hope is that this little book of practical secrets, by making the path to mastery a little easier, will help you along the path to delight.

Laurel Kenner

Greenwich, Connecticut

Feb. 28, 2022