Music Video Lesson: Magical Practicing Tool: Extreme Repetition

Extreme repetition. Don't be afraid of taking a very small chunk of music. It could be two notes. And be able to play them with security and relaxation.

This is livingpianos.com. Your online piano resource. I'm Robert Estrin. Today we're going to discuss an incredible practice technique, extreme repetition. I'm going to demonstrate this first and explain what I'm doing. And spoiler alert, this is really annoying to listen to, but it's incredibly valuable. So I want you to stay tuned.

You can turn the volume down if it's driving you a little bit crazy. Anybody who's lived with me knows that I do a lot of this kind of practice. So I thought I'd share it with you because I find it to be one of the most helpful ways of practicing. I'm going to use for an example the Chopin B minor scherzo, which you may be familiar with.

That's just the beginning to give you a taste of it. So how I will practice this typically would be something like this, believe it or not.

Now what the heck am I doing? I am trying to play those notes with absolute security, but more importantly, with total relaxation. I want to be able to fall on the right keys with a minimum amount of effort. So I just play little tiny note groups. Instead of pushing to make it try to articulate each finger, I'm just doing it relaxed and go...

So extreme repetition. Don't be afraid of taking a very small chunk of music, it could be two notes, and being able to play them with security and relaxation. And don't be afraid of repeating something again and again and again until you can fall on the right keys with a minimum of effort. Working through very, very relaxed little groups of notes that you pay up to tempo. I've had other videos covering this topic, it's just so darn important. I spend an incredible amount of my practice time working this way. Working up to speed and small groups of notes, going for relaxation and not being afraid to repeat something until, like I say, you feel like you're just falling on the right notes. You're just letting the weight of the hands, the arms, and the fingers just know where to go. And you're not pushing your fingers into the right keys, it's letting the weight of the arm just fall into the right keys. Being relaxed, and my goodness, you can get so much accomplished if you're not afraid to spend an inordinate amount of time on very small chunks of music. Try it in your practice, let me know how it works for you. Again, I'm Robert Estrin, this is LivingPianos.com, thanks so much for joining me.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/magical-practicing-tool-extreme-repetition/

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