How to teach my fingers to play faster?

GoGo_Rilla · 02-12-2005, 05:15 PM

Hello

Do any of you have some good idé, how I, in some quicker way, can teach to play faster on the piano?

Thanks and God bless!

Sorry, if my english is not perfect

Decency · 02-12-2005, 10:08 PM

Dude, your english is fine.

Hmm, well, if you play chords, such as my self, (for left hand) go pinky, middle, thumb orver and over again on the right notes and keep practicing at it.

player123496 · 02-13-2005, 12:07 AM

The only way that I've found to be able to play quickly is practice. If you practice only one piece for a while, you will eventually get pretty quick at it. If you want to be quick in general, I'd recommend some Hanon-style books. They're really intensely boring, but they do help with dexterity and speed.

PianoMan · 02-13-2005, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by player123496

The only way that I've found to be able to play quickly is practice. If you practice only one piece for a while, you will eventually get pretty quick at it. If you want to be quick in general, I'd recommend some Hanon-style books. They're really intensely boring, but they do help with dexterity and speed.

That is actually a very good suggestion. That book is so crazily boring, it would astound you, but it would work extremely well too. I used them for that purpose and what I did was make them a warm up before moving on to the more interesting stuff.

s0233425 · 02-13-2005, 01:16 PM

Repetition, repetition and guess what, repetition! There's not some 'magical technique' which once known will make you play fast (although you do need good technique) it takes time and practice. You want to get to the stage when you don't have to really think about how to construct a certain chord, or how to do a certain arpeggio but just do it.

The way I learnt to play glissando arpeggios was to just repeat them over and over again. Once I knew the appropriate technique [pivot!] I just practised over and over. Now I don't have to actually think about what my hand's doing, it's pure muscle memory I just think 'I'll do an arpeggio here' and my hand does it. I don't even have to look.

So yeah, make sure your posture is correct, that you have good technique, and just repeat everything until you don't have to think about what you're doing!

singing lark · 11-23-2006, 07:28 PM

Practice playing scales alot and your fingers will get used to getting faster

(It worked for me)

Nate · 11-23-2006, 09:57 PM

My favorite trick for increasing speed goes like this: First, you take the part you're struggling with (in most cases, it'll probably be a bunch of eighth notes or sixteenth notes in a row), slow it down, and imagine that the rhythm is dotted-eighth+sixteenth (really, double- or triple-dotted on the eighth is ideal) instead of straight eighth notes (or sixteenth notes, depending on your piece).

Then, play the part with that weird stilted rhythm, exaggerating the dots (remember, triple-dotted is the ideal) as you go. You don't want to just make the thing sound like a drunken pianist is playing, though; you want to make it sound as though the latter note (in each pair of eighth notes) is almost a grace-note pick-up to the next note (the first of the next pair of eighth notes).

Play the first note, just sit there and hold it (you don't have to do all of this in strict tempo, by the way; it's probably better not to, actually), then play the second note of the first eighth-note pair and without stopping to even blink move right into the first note of the second eighth-note pair. Then, hold that note and repeat the whole process. The idea is that quick change in the middle.

What you're focusing on as you do this is the feeling of moving quickly between every other note (i.e. the last eighth in one pair and the first in the next pair), rather than simply between every note (i.e. if you just tried to play the whole piece faster). After awhile, reverse the pattern of long and short notes (make the first note a short pickup to the second note of each pair... this one's more awkward).

Go through your entire piece (or at least just the trouble sections) in this manner, at a variety of tempos (and exaggerating the dots as much as you can while you go... make the long notes llooooooooong and the short notes sh-), until you can't stand the wobbling drunken sailor effect anymore, then try playing the piece normally. Your fingers will hopefully have picked up the feeling of playing the whole thing faster.