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Hot Potato Practice and the Silent Pick-up Beat

Yes, this is possibly the cheesiest graphic I've ever used on this blog ... and that's saying something.

I wish I had a video to share, but I had to practice on the headphones last night. So you get the cheesy graphic instead.

Hitting the Speed Wall

At my piano lesson Monday afternoon, I lamented my inability to play "Bare Necessities" and "Jingle Bells" at a lightning-fast tempo. I've been particularly frustrated about "Bare Necessities." I mean, I can play it pretty well at 100, but if I get any faster than that, the whole thing (meaning the "B" section, which is the ragtime section, as well as the final section/outro) falls apart.

I had made some slight progress last week when I tried touching the keys more lightly; it is, of course, easier to play fast when you're not going all the way down on the keys. But I was still making sloppy errors -- missing notes, accidentally grabbing an inner note when playing an octave, etc.

I was discouraged. So I asked my piano teacher if he had any ideas for how I could play ragtime faster. I've tried the usual approaches (slow practice, chunking, rhythms, etc.), and I still seem to be hitting a wall.

He didn't have any ideas but suggested that I email Jonny himself to see what he would say. Of course, I am way too shy to email the Great Jonny May. And I also didn't want to have to wait three weeks to get a response through the PWJ Q&A feature.

Ragtime Crash Course & Hot Potato Practice

I decided to re-watch Jonny's Ragtime Crash Course 2 instead. In that video, he talks about how he has his students play "hot potato" with the left hand -- striking the keys at a short staccato so that you can get your hand quickly to where it needs to go next.

So. Hot Potato. It's the go-to metaphor when you're teaching beginners how to play staccato, but I hadn't thought about it in the context of playing ragtime. I've practiced the quick movements, but I haven't practiced playing everything in a "hot potato" staccato in order to facilitate the quick movements. So I tried that last night, first with Jingle Bells Rag, and then with Bare Necessities.

Breakdown of My Long, Slow, Focused Practice

I started with practicing hands separately, and playing very slowly -- at about 48 or 50. This was partly to ensure that I had the notes down cold. After getting each hand up to 70 with no errors (it took longer than I would have thought), I put the hands together and had to go all the way back to 48 or 50.

The good thing about the slow practice was that I could really focus on getting my hands to where they needed to be next, in plenty of time. I even felt myself imagining a kind of "pick-up" beat a fraction of a second before each note; that silent beat is the "sound" of my fingers reaching their destination, just before they strike the keys.

As I incrementally increased the speed, the silent pick-up beat followed suit. I found that I was "listening" to the pick-up beat more, and striking the actual keys was almost an afterthought.

I don't know if that makes sense. I do know that I got up to about 80 with both pieces, playing with no errors. I did the same slow, focused work on the Bare Necessities outro as well. It made for a long practice, but it was worth it.

I will continue the "hot potato" work as long as I need to. I think, as my speed increases even further, the "hot potato" feel is going to become more natural because the short staccato will be all that I have time for.

When I get these pieces up to 120 or so, I'll share videos here.

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