The Three Little Pigs (taken from Practising the Piano Blog)
We all know the story of The Three Little Pigs, in which each pig builds a home. One takes hardly any time building his out of straw, so he can spend more time playing and relaxing. The second pig builds his home out of sticks, which takes slightly longer, but he too values his down time. The third pig chooses to build his home out of bricks, which requires a great deal more time and effort, but he values taking the time to build a home properly. When the Big Bad Wolf pays a visit, needless to say only the third pig’s house of bricks stands up to the wolf’s huffing and puffing.
The House of Bricks
The piano player who builds his “house” out of bricks takes pleasure, satisfaction and pride in the process of learning and enjoys doing this thoroughly and deeply. For him, the journey is just as important as the destination. Here are some of the principles he works by:
- Have the patience to work out a good fingering from the outset, and write it in your score
- Learn to differentiate between the process of practising and the act of performing
- As you learn notes, aim to make no errors at all. If you do make errors, fix them immediately!
- Equip yourself with a good set of practice tools so you know how to solve problems
- Learn to completely relish ultra-slow practice
- If you’re going to play from memory, start the memorisation process at the note learning stage
