The Question: How to achieve a writer's proficiency at piano?

Can't really comment on structure, but I can say this: you can study for a decade and still not get very far. And you can study 30min a day and get pretty far in a few years.

It's all about how you approach studying, how you know yourself as a student. I remember finding this site some time ago and I think that the advice in "Pre-Music Preparation" is rather sound. He explains in simple ways how memory works, how to make it easier to practice, what to focus on, how attitude impacts your learning etc. Unless you're already familiar with this, if you're currently doing one of these things he advises against (and you probably are, like everyone else self-taught), setting yourself on a right path now can save a lot of headaches and time down the road.

 

I call this "composer" piano skills, the ability to quickly play on the piano how it will space out/reinforce with an orchestra or a band. There's a book that I recommend people wanting to learn "composer piano"

It's a great book, you can take a chapter, and practice it for 20 min a day for a couple of weeks, and get it under your fingers. It teaches you the voicings and spreads that you would use, and also teaches you a bunch of genres, and rhythms, that will help make your sketching more musical. I think it's a good book to dive into.

If you want to go further after that, the Jazz Piano book by Mark Levine is a great follow up. More jazz, more advanced voicings, etc.

I hope this helps!

Mike

 

I can't see the links @Mike Worth
What's the name of the book?

 

that's weird, I posted Amazon links.

No worries! Both books are on Amazon. The first one is:

Pop Piano Book, written by Mark Harrison

Second is:

Jazz Piano Book, written by Mark Levine

Enjoy!

Mike

 

20-30 minutes a day so is a little. Little that you won't have time to teach yourself properly. You will be having small steps ahead without knowing where you're going. I would recommend a book or some kind of a system. Which will try to make sure you spend your time for a specific goal. The thing is books aren't my favorites. I don't know the style you're trying to compose in but I sure would go ahead and learn how to play all my favorite pieces in the genre. For me, it's just the best way to practice. And ideally two at the same time! I'm serious about this. With this little precious time, you can't hope to focus on the hard parts and try to gain expertise on them. Like hand independence... You will get that some time in the road but nowhere near close to the level you want. What you'll want to do is, you make sure you're training, not wasting your time with things you can already do and at the same time you're learning A LOT of things. Another thing I'd recommend is for you to train before sleep. That way your brain will remember the little you spent on piano and hopefully will learn better.

Edit: For Amazon links, you need to disable Adblock.

 

Something I struggle with is trying to learn everything -- I'm fortunate enough to be able to get by while working part time, and do have family commitments (wife and child), but I struggle to try and fit everything into a day. I started with guitar and have been playing 3 years or so (mostly electric and by ear), and I don't want to lose that skill, but I find it hard to practice both guitar and piano and learn theory and study orchestration/composition and actually work on writing and transcribe and learn production, etc.

I do believe 30-60min a day can get one far if one understands learning (my technical ability on guitar proves that it at least works for technique, not so much for writing or improvising), but how do experienced composers fit it all in? Did you guys spend a good chunk of time first getting proficient with your instrument?

 

FWIW, I am essentially self-taught on piano and learned enough to effectively compose.

When I was younger, I would spend about 30-minutes each day going trough a 'Fake Book' by sight-reading each piece. This was a great approach (for me) as it gave me a rudimentary understanding of a lot of useful skills. I quickly developed he ability to read music better, understand chord symbols, harmonic structure, etc. (Needless to say the first few songs were painfully slow to learn.)

After I began composing, I already had all of rudiments of how chords/melodies should be played and how they felt under my fingers. The more I would compose/improvise/fool around, the better I became.

By no means am I an expert (or even good) and my 'unique' technique would horrify a 'real' piano player However, it works for me and absolutely influences my compositional style.

 

No problem and glad I could offer some of my experiences! The key (pardon the pun) is to play everyday/often and play things you would enjoy!

As for the Fake Book, they are pretty ubiquitous nowawayds and you could probably pick them up at online or at music stores.

 

What is a Fake Book?

IMHO, what you need is learning how to play your favorite pieces and transcribe their orchestral version to paper.

Edit: I now know what a Fake Book is.

 

Also try this site playpianotoday.com, I took the course and it helped me, all the other suggestions above are very good as well!!!!

 

You said you do not have much time to practice - thus it is important to practice as efficiently as possible, in a way that after each session you get atleast a bit of something you can instantly use in your composition. And that is only achieved by identifying your personal road blocks.

When you compose, exercise your awareness of what is holding you back the most and note it down. Do you find yourself spending too much time figuring out what chords you could use with a certain note? Drill all the triads into your muscle memory. Having trouble identifying what is really going on in a piece you are transcribing? Learn to play it from sheet music by heart, you will have something to draw from the next time you are transcribing something similar.

The key is to find out what is really holding you back and work on that.

 

There are also some neurological strategies one can focus on that come from sports science. I.e. practicing shortly before going to sleep helps consolidate everything, thinking about practicing (in a very concentrated, deliberate way that's about as mentally taxing as actually practicing) actually makes you better according to research (so taking 15 minutes on a lunch break or something to do this can be quite helpful), etc.

 

Can confirm, I spend a lot of time thinking about practicing and it leaves me too exhausted to actually practice. But hey, you cant have your cake and eat it too.

 

Haha I should clarify -- not so much thinking about practicing, but realistically and slowly visualizing practice.