Episode 98 - One thing at a time

Welcome to show number ninety-eight. In this week's show, I'll review Matthew Cawood's latest video, talk about the myth of multi-tasking and let you know how last night's performance went. During my voice lessons on Monday, we found that I can now get to the D# above middle C reasonably consistently, and the E above that occasionally. This week's piano lesson was longer, and we spent a good bit of time on A Mingus Among Us. Thursday night was the choir rehearsal, but the highlight of the week was the performance on Saturday at the International Convention Centre.

Review - Matthew Cawood Matthew Cawood's latest video, How to open any piece of music and just play it, looks at sight-reading. Matthew starts by explaining the difference between sight-reading and learning a new piece. He moves on to the two levels of sight-reading: recognising individual notes and then recognising patterns. He provides a list of things you really should know before attempting to play a piece: the key signature, the time signature, the performance markings, dynamics, and articulations. He also suggests that you should be practising just on the edge of failure to get the maximum benefit. Matthew has a new project, The Practice Room, designed as a community for adult learners.

Essay - One thing at a time Multitasking is a myth. When most people attempt two complex tasks at the same time, the quality of both suffers. When I started singing with the choir, I found myself much better able to name the bass clef notes. Why? Because using my voice is automatic, so all my attention can go into note reading. If I'm at the piano, moving the right fingers on the right keys is already a complex task, leaving little room for analysing notes. The only way to deal with this is to practise so that you only need to do one complex thing at a time. For the piano, getting the correct fingers on the correct keys moves to automatic, and it's no longer part of the multitasking.

Sydney Children's Hospital Charity Ball Performance On Saturday, I was part of the choir performance for the Emerald Ball fundraiser for the Sydney Children's Hospital in the ballroom of the International Convention Centre. The choir's job was to accompany the end of a video presentation detailing the story of a young patient. We sang A Million Dreams over the montage section. After a 4:30 pm sound check and a lot of waiting around, the performance went without a hitch! I even discovered that the choir's event manager, Terry, and I had been in the same production of Oliver back in 1974.

Closing & Progress Next week, I won't be at the choir rehearsal on Thursday as I am taking a group of students to Macquarie University for a science lecture. I am continuing progress on A Mingus Among Us.  

The contents of the podcast were entirely generated by David Reidy, but these show notes were created by Gemini.

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Transcript

Episode098: 0:00

G'day everyone, I'm David Reidy. Welcome to Piano Finally, a podcast by an old bloke who's getting around to learning the piano, Finally. Welcome to show number 98. In this week's show, I'll review Matthew Cawood's latest video, talk about the myth of multitasking, and let you know how last night's performance went. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll find all of that interesting. And if you're a regular, I hope you're enjoying the content too. If there's something you'd like me to have a look at or talk about, drop me an email at david at pianofinally.show. During my voice lessons on Monday, we found that I can now get to the D sharp above middle C reasonably consistently, and the E above that occasionally, which now means that I can cover all the pieces the choir is practising, at least in the bass two section. This week's piano lesson was a bit longer, and we spent a good bit of time on A Mingus Among Us, a piece that doesn't have any complicated notes, but which has a fairly involved rhythmic pattern. When I get it right, it sounds good, but there's still a way to go. Thursday night was a choir rehearsal, but the highlight of the week was the performance on Saturday at the International Convention Centre. Matthew Cawood's latest video looks at sight reading, a pretty important skill for some pianists. Undoubtedly, being able to sit down at the piano with a new piece of music and to be able to play it competently is a really useful skill and one that you can use to impress friends and acquaintances. It is perhaps a little less important for us casual players as we tend to practice a piece until we get it right and we are less concerned with getting it perfect on the first go. Matthew starts by explaining the difference between sight reading and learning a new piece and how the skills needed for both differ. He also makes the point that you can't go back if you make a mistake sight reading. Well, you can go back, but it's no longer sight reading because now you've played it before. Matthew moves on to the two levels of sight reading, recognising individual notes and then recognising patterns. He speaks about how learning the patterns will lead to greater fluency in playing. Matthew provides a list of things you really should know before attempting to play a new piece. The key signature, the time signature, the performance markings, dynamics and articulations. Matthew also explains why these pieces of information are helpful. Finally, he talks about the structure of the piece overall, identifying parts that are repeated and so where you can relax a bit. While you're playing the piece and after you finish are just as important, and Matthew covers how you should approach both parts of the task. He also suggests that you should be practising just on the edge of failure to get the maximum benefit. Overall, the video is well worth a watch. I have some material for practising sight reading, and I suppose I should get back to trying it. Watch the video and see if it motivates you to give it a space in your practice schedule. Matthew also has a new project, The Practice Room, which is designed as a community for adult learners. I've signed up for it, but have been too busy to do very much more than just look around. If any of you are also members, drop me a message. It'd be nice to have a chat. One thing at a time. Multitasking is a myth. Studies have shown many times that the ability to properly multitask is quite rare. If you want to read some properly peer-reviewed papers on the subject, head to the American Psychological Association Studies. This inability is backed up by legislation in many places. In all Australian states, it is illegal to use a mobile phone while controlling a motor vehicle. And that is because those studies have shown that when most people attempt two complex tasks at the same time, the quality of both of them suffers. This has become really obvious to me over the past few months when I started singing. I understand music theory, and accordingly I should be able to put it into practice when I'm sitting at the keyboard. And I can a little, but not as much as I'd like. But it's different when I'm singing. Learning classical guitar when I was younger means that I have been pretty familiar with the treble clef for a long time. With a grand staff of piano music though, I was only quick at recognising notes for half the music, and I found that it was taking longer than I thought it should to become better at recognising bass clef notes. When I started singing with the choir, this changed. The bass part music is written on a bass clef, And within a week or two, I found myself much better able to name the notes, which of course got me wondering why. So this is where the multitasking comes in. That might be unexpected. After all, I was only doing one thing at the piano. I was just trying to learn the piece. I wasn't also working on writing the next year nine science test or any other complex task. Just learning the notes. But of course it's not that simple. Learning a piece is a lot of complex tasks at the same time. And if you can only handle one complex task at a time, it's not surprising that none of them works well. A simple example of this is going from hands separately to hands together for a piece. One hand is a complex task. The other hand is also a complex task. So there's number two, one over the limit. So it's hopeless, isn't it? Of course not. The myth of multitasking talks about two complex tasks. All of us can do multiple things, provided that most of them are either not complex or so ingrained that they are automatic. Most people can walk and talk on a mobile phone at the same time. Walking is automatic for most adults and so is having a complex conversation. But add paying attention to traffic at the same time and we've all seen the results. When I'm singing, the complex task is reading the notes. And that's it. Using my voice, provided the words are in a language I can speak, is automatic. So all my attention can go into the note reading. If I'm at the piano, I have to move the right fingers on the right keys at the right time, and just the right amount. It's not surprising that there is not a lot of room left for learning and analysing the notes. So how to deal with this? I suppose the only way is to try to practice so that you only need to do one complex thing at a time. I'm going to suggest an approach. It's based on the way I teach how to solve physics problems. With physics, I do solutions which have multiple complex parts, but just one complicated part at a time. All these next steps are based on things that I've learned from my piano and voice lessons, so credit goes to Devi and Sussanne. For the piano, get the scale working. The key to getting a scale playing nicely is having the right fingers on the right keys. Unless the scale is C major or A minor, there's going to be some black keys. So the first task is to remember to play them. Then play them in different configurations, and eventually getting the correct fingers on the correct keys moves to automatic, and it's no longer part of the multitasking. With the piece I'm currently working on, which is in C major, I started on the left hand beginning. There are three notes, one legato and two staccato, with different durations. I kept at them until playing became automatic. I then did the same thing with the right hand notes. And when it came time to put them together, it worked. That it worked so easily possibly has something to do with the fact that at no stage are there notes from both hands sounding at the same time. I know that I am simply reinventing the teaching techniques used for the past few hundred years, but I can now see the reason behind them, and that is making all the difference. Being told to do something without being given a reason has never sat well with me, and now, as my experience with music is widening, it's all starting to make sense. I hope that continues. On Saturday afternoon and evening, I was part of the choir performance as part of the Emerald Ball fundraiser for the Sydney Children's Hospital. The performance was in the ballroom of the International Convention Centre at Darling Harbour in Sydney, and the choir's job was to accompany the end of a video presentation detailing the story of a young patient at the hospital, as told by his mother. The story has a happy ending. We sang A Million Dreams over the montage section. For a three-and-a-bit minute performance, there was a lot of preparation. We had four half-hour rehearsals before the regular Thursday night practices. That was just to start with. Lots of practice at home. But Saturday started with a 4pm arrival for a 4.30 soundcheck. The event is huge, and there was an event manager signed just to look after us and the other performers, and with everything scheduled down to the minute. At 4.30, we walked into the ballroom and onto the stage for the run-through. We sang the song a few times, while the sound crew got the levels right for the hall, and the monitor speakers on the stage correctly set. Initially, there was a problem with the backing track not being loud enough to hear, so we could sing along to it, but that got fixed. And by the time our 45 minutes were up, everything was working properly, and we were sounding pretty good. Then came the waiting. We were all back in the green room by 5pm, but weren't scheduled on stage until 9.30pm. Luckily, Darling Harbour is set up for tourists, so there are plenty of options. A group of us went for a bit of a walk and a chat before we headed back to the ICC, as we had been told that sandwiches would be provided. They were, and they were very nice. At 9.20 we headed up to the ballroom in the backstage lift, and then had to wait around for a bit as the act before us was running overtime. I was first on stage, as the basses performed to the right-hand side of the choir, and a chair had been placed there for me, as I have difficulty standing for extended periods. The video started, we started at the right spot, and the performance went without a hitch. There was applause, we walked off, and that was it. For a first performance, it was a pretty good start. But technically, it wasn't my first performance. I was in a production of Oliver in my first year of high school. While we were waiting around, I was talking to Terry, the choir's event manager. and we discovered that we had gone to the same school, and had both been in that production of Oliver back in 1974. Small world, isn't it? There'll be a little bit less music coming up this week. I still have the voice and piano lessons on Monday, but I won't be at the choir rehearsal on Thursday, as I'm taking a group of students to Macquarie University for a science lecture. This one will be looking at research into helping endangered frog species survive. There is a choir rehearsal next weekend though, which may muck up the release schedule for the podcast, especially as I'm going to have five classes worth of exams to mark. If you'd like to contact me, email is the best way. You'll find me at david at pianofinally.show and the website at www.pianofinally.show. In both cases, pianofinally is all one word. The show is also available on Spotify and is an audio-only stream on YouTube. You can subscribe via any popular iOS or Android podcast application or from directories such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. I also post an excerpt and link for each episode as an Instagram Reel. If you're learning an instrument or learning to sing, let me know where you are in your journey. What's going well and what are the challenges? How are you managing your time? What pieces are you enjoying the most? This podcast is produced on the lands of the Darug and Gundungurra peoples, land that always was, and always will be, traditional Aboriginal land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may be listening to the podcast. And so, until next week, I hope your piano stays in tune, and you enjoy your time at the Keys. The piece I have made the most progress on this week is A Mingus Among Us by Eric Baumgartner As I said last week, the notes are pretty simple and much of the piece is one hand at a time So what's the catch? Well, there really isn't one if you concentrate really hard on the rhythm and watch the articulation marks carefully That said, I don't think I would have got it just by reading the score but Devi showed me how it should be played and the practice is paying off I've been spending the week working on just the first few bars getting the timing and articulation correct There's a fair bit of the piece to go but the techniques don't vary very much I'm also including the G Major scale played with contrary motion I found the C Major contrary motion scale to be really quite simple and was expecting the same for the G Major, but that wasn't the case. The F-sharps don't match up, of course, and you can hear how it's coming along. The music was recorded using the Kawai NV10 with the Kontact Claire piano, emulating a Fazioli grand piano in concert mode. The software is Cubase 15, running on an M4 Pro Mac Mini. piano plays softly I love you.