How to practice and work on specific songs

[Duckling]

I am just a few weeks into my accordion journey, and I would like to ask for some advice about how I should focus my song practice, especially when the song is nearing completion. For what it's worth I am learning by myself without teachers or books.

I have selected a handful of songs that I want to add to my currently non existing repertoire. What I have been doing so far is this:
Figure out the treble side, and a fingering I like. Then play it through section by section, commiting the button patterns into my mind and fingers. For the parts that are difficult, I slow it all the way down and play the handful of notes repeatedly until it sits, and then gradually speed it up.

Then I basically repeat the same for the bass side, and then finally I combine the two. This seem to be working well so far, with steady progress being made.

My question is how I should continue once I get the song to about 80-90%? What I mean by this is that I have all the parts down, and I can play it to speed, but for some parts a mistake still happens or is likely to happen. Should I start a session by playing a song all the way through, and then go back and focus on the part(s) where mistakes were made? Should I stop immediately when I make a mistake, and spend time grinding through it as slow pacing to "reprogram" my fingers to keep it correct? Should I just start over and try again?

And what about if I make it through a song 9 out of 10 times, but then one time I make a mistake?

My end goal for any song is of course that I would want to have it down so well that it goes from "a mistake or three is likely to happen", to "a mistake is unlikely to happen, and if it does, it will not be very noticable".

A small digression, but I did read an advice somewhere that it could be a good idea to work on a song "backwards", menaning to learn the last part first, and then work backwards. I did try this for my latest song, and I think that approach may suit me well. It may just be that when you then practice a new section and can end it by going straight into a section you have down, it feels like so much more progress, but whatever the cause, I liked that way of doing it.

 

[Giovanni]

I am just a few weeks into my accordion journey, and I would like to ask for some advice about how I should focus my song practice, especially when the song is nearing completion. For what it's worth I am learning by myself without teachers or books.

I have selected a handful of songs that I want to add to my currently non existing repertoire. What I have been doing so far is this:
Figure out the treble side, and a fingering I like. Then play it through section by section, commiting the button patterns into my mind and fingers. For the parts that are difficult, I slow it all the way down and play the handful of notes repeatedly until it sits, and then gradually speed it up.

Then I basically repeat the same for the bass side, and then finally I combine the two. This seem to be working well so far, with steady progress being made.

My question is how I should continue once I get the song to about 80-90%? What I mean by this is that I have all the parts down, and I can play it to speed, but for some parts a mistake still happens or is likely to happen. Should I start a session by playing a song all the way through, and then go back and focus on the part(s) where mistakes were made? Should I stop immediately when I make a mistake, and spend time grinding through it as slow pacing to "reprogram" my fingers to keep it correct? Should I just start over and try again?

And what about if I make it through a song 9 out of 10 times, but then one time I make a mistake?

My end goal for any song is of course that I would want to have it down so well that it goes from "a mistake or three is likely to happen", to "a mistake is unlikely to happen, and if it does, it will not be very noticable".

A small digression, but I did read an advice somewhere that it could be a good idea to work on a song "backwards", menaning to learn the last part first, and then work backwards. I did try this for my latest song, and I think that approach may suit me well. It may just be that when you then practice a new section and can end it by going straight into a section you have down, it feels like so much more progress, but whatever the cause, I liked that way of doing it.

Practice Practice Practice ..........unfortunately I do not Practice what I Preach ...........I'm sorry to say !!!!

 

[Rosie C]

My question is how I should continue once I get the song to about 80-90%? What I mean by this is that I have all the parts down, and I can play it to speed, but for some parts a mistake still happens or is likely to happen. Should I start a session by playing a song all the way through, and then go back and focus on the part(s) where mistakes were made? Should I stop immediately when I make a mistake, and spend time grinding through it as slow pacing to "reprogram" my fingers to keep it correct? Should I just start over and try again?

My double bass teacher recommended what he calls the "M&M method" (he mostly teaches school kids).

Play bars 1-4, if you make errors, repeat until you can
Play bars 5-8 until you can play it well
Go back to the start, play bars 1-8
Play bars 9-12 until good
Play bars 13-16 until good
Play bars 9-16
Play bars 1-16

and continue...

There is an additional layer of moving M&Ms from one pile to another and eating them when you get to a section, but I'll leave that to your imagination! I find it works very well for me, as it means I skip through the easy bars then spend time going over and over the hard bits, while going back to play larger sections means I don't stumble at the end of each four bars.

My piano teacher was old school and hard core - if I made an error in a piece she would insist I play it *10 times* correctly, restarting if I made another error. But then she was professional pianist. She had some logic to that based on the brain and how it learns music, but it was brutal.

 

[Cecile Cooke]

The suggestions that I am about to make were learned from Dr Molly Gebrian.
Analyze why each one of those mistakes is happening, then identify what it is you have to do to correct it. It might be that you need to change your fingering, that you need to slow it down, that you need to be thinking of a particular thing when you get to that part, etc. Actually write down or say aloud what it is that you are going to do to prevent the error. Now put the plan in place only for the mistake part not the entire song. Work on each section for a limited time only then move onto the next spot that needs work. For more information google Dr Molly Gebrian. You are on an exciting journey! All the best!

 

[JerryPH]

My double bass teacher recommended what he calls the "M&M method" (he mostly teaches school kids).

Play bars 1-4, if you make errors, repeat until you can
Play bars 5-8 until you can play it well
Go back to the start, play bars 1-8
Play bars 9-12 until good
Play bars 13-16 until good
Play bars 9-16
Play bars 1-16

and continue...

My piano teacher was old school and hard core - if I made an error in a piece she would insist I play it *10 times* correctly, restarting if I made another error. But then she was professional pianist. She had some logic to that based on the brain and how it learns music, but it was brutal.

This is good, but I heard something that sounded a bit logical for me... basically do the same thing, but, start backwards. Start from the last 4 measures and work to the start. Any challenging sections, don't move on until you can play it through without error 10 times. This is a high number and can be brutal. In my life I did the "repeat 10 times until NO error, if one error shows, start over from 0". It can be a big time waster for people that are not ever wanting to become "performance level musicians", so perhaps 3-5 times may be good enough.

The logic for starting from the END of the piece is that that this would be the part of the song that is normally played the most, so it is easy, its the middle/end of the songs that most always do mistakes in. Reversing the process addresses this condition as it is the end that is then most played.

In the spirit of honesty, I've never tried it, but plan to the next time I get something new.

 

[oldbayan]

I guess we all learn our own way! Methods used by others may work, or may not... Some have a very good ear memory, others heavily rely on scores. Or a mix of both. When I work on a new tune I will play it section by section a few times, then leave it alone for a week or so. Somehow, magically, it settles in my brain and the next time I try to play it, I have it almost perfect. I can hear my wife saying: "when did you learn that new tune?"

 

[Rosie C]

This is good, but I heard something that sounded a bit logical for me... basically do the same thing, but, start backwards. Start from the last 4 measures and work to the start. Any challenging sections, don't move on until you can play it through without error 10 times. This is a high number and can be brutal. In my life I did the "repeat 10 times until NO error, if one error shows, start over from 0". It can be a big time waster for people that are not ever wanting to become "performance level musicians", so perhaps 3-5 times may be good enough.

The logic for starting from the END of the piece is that that this would be the part of the song that is normally played the most, so it is easy, its the middle/end of the songs that most always do mistakes in. Reversing the process addresses this condition as it is the end that is then most played.

In the spirit of honesty, I've never tried it, but plan to the next time I get something new.

Starting from the end does make sense. My piano teacher was "performance level" - sadly passed away now, but she had been top of her game travelling abroad to perform.

 

[Rosie C]

I guess we all learn our own way! Methods used by others may work, or may not... Some have a very good ear memory, others heavily rely on scores. Or a mix of both. When I work on a new tune I will play it section by section a few times, then leave it alone for a week or so. Somehow, magically, it settles in my brain and the next time I try to play it, I have it almost perfect. I can hear my wife saying: "when did you learn that new tune?"

Tell me about it! It takes me days and days to learn a new tune, and if I don't keep playing it regularly I'll forget it again. My friend Mike can hear a tune once, then can play it back from memory ages later. The first time I experienced this he played back a tune I'd written and played to him once while warming up before performance, six months previously.

 

[JeffJetton]

The logic for starting from the END of the piece is that that this would be the part of the song that is normally played the most, so it is easy, its the middle/end of the songs that most always do mistakes in.

I haven't done it for entire songs, but for passages/phrases it can work well. I got the idea from language-learning, where it's called back-chaining.

When you learn a section forward, you're always having to slog through the part you already know before getting to the new part. With you go backwards, the first thing you play is the new part, with the rest being a review/reinforcement. It can be a nice advantage.

Plus, (and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to convey this correctly) it can divorce you from the musical logic of what you're playing, forcing you to focus on the movements and details required to play the notes. Less of a tendency to mentally gloss over things.

In a related technique, I've heard of one school where they have you cut the notated music up into pieces of so many measures each and mix them up! Then learn each small chunk randomly, only putting them together when you have them all down.

But regardless of whether you go forwards/backwards/randomly, I do agree that it's important to not let the form of the song dictate how often you practice parts of it. If the song has an AABA form, and you always play it straight through, you've practiced the A parts three times as much as the B parts!

Similar with repeats, D.S.es, etc. We naturally work on sections in isolation, then stumble when it comes time to put them all together. I like to start sections with a few measures of the previous section, and end a few measures into the next one, so the repeats don't come as a surprise.

 

[JeffJetton]

Analyze why each one of those mistakes is happening, then identify what it is you have to do to correct it.

This is crucial! I've had students, when they make a mistake, just try to take another run at it. Eventually they'll get it right due to dumb luck, but they won't have really fixed anything. Like someone practicing golf putts by failing away at a bunch of golf balls until one finally goes in.

It's almost always that you don't understand that part of the song, or your brain understands but your fingers don't. I ask myself, "what movement do I need to correct here".

 

[Tom]

Wow, a lot of good advice on this already! My 2 cents would be to pick your repertoire with care. Only put the time learning and practicing and not songs you love and want to share. Good luck to you!

 

[JeffJetton]

how I should continue once I get the song to about 80-90%? What I mean by this is that I have all the parts down, and I can play it to speed, but for some parts a mistake still happens or is likely to happen. Should I start a session by playing a song all the way through, and then go back and focus on the part(s) where mistakes were made? Should I stop immediately when I make a mistake, and spend time grinding through it as slow pacing to "reprogram" my fingers to keep it correct? Should I just start over and try again?

If you're making mistakes in a song in various places, then the whole piece is probably not really ready and should continue to be practiced more slowly, at "tempo di learn-o".

If you're making a mistake in the same particular part of a song every time, then yes, focus on that mistake and work on fixing it. By, as you said, playing sloooowly and getting the right movements down.

In "Playing the Piano for Pleasure", Charles Cooke calls these spots "fractures" and recommends that you actually mark them on your music with pencil. But, like a bone fracture that you're going to set with a metal bar, you "pin" it at each end to places where the bone is strong. That is, the beginning should start a few notes before the problem, and the end a few notes after. You start and end with things you can play well, as you work on mending the part in-between.

 

[Duckling]

It is interesting to see that several of you mention the "why" as a key point, and it has made me think.

What I aim for is to play a song without having to do the thinking part. Just like driving a car, I want my body to play it automatically, so that I can shift my focus from "hitting the right notes", to conveying them in the way I want to.

I believe that when I have gotten the parts down and play through a song once or twice without errors, I stop concentrating on playing correctly, and instead let myself be carried away by the tune. And then it turns out that my fingers still need my brain to watch over them so they don't make mistakes. Because nailing all the parts separately and playing through the whole thing 1-2 times without errors does not mean that the body now knows it. Basically, I am probably trying to run after just taking a slow step or two, even though I still need to learn how to walk.

Going forward, I will see if spending more time focusing on playing the correct notes over and over again will improve my success rate. I have certainly not been able to repeat a whole song 10 times without errors yet, not even close.

 

[Tom]

It is interesting to see that several of you mention the "why" as a key point, and it has made me think.

What I aim for is to play a song without having to do the thinking part. Just like driving a car, I want my body to play it automatically, so that I can shift my focus from "hitting the right notes", to conveying them in the way I want to.

I believe that when I have gotten the parts down and play through a song once or twice without errors, I stop concentrating on playing correctly, and instead let myself be carried away by the tune. And then it turns out that my fingers still need my brain to watch over them so they don't make mistakes. Because nailing all the parts separately and playing through the whole thing 1-2 times without errors does not mean that the body now knows it. Basically, I am probably trying to run after just taking a slow step or two, even though I still need to learn how to walk.

Going forward, I will see if spending more time focusing on playing the correct notes over and over again will improve my success rate. I have certainly not been able to repeat a whole song 10 times without errors yet, not even close.

I NEVER play a gig without PLENTY of mistakes. If I make no mistakes it’s because I don’t play any NEW songs, only old ones already in muscle memory. What fun is that?

Don’t worry, Duckling, imho there is only ONE way to bullet proof your song playing. And that is to play your song 10,000 times (I got that number from some meme or other). Preferably without the music.

If you never make mistakes you will be the first accordionist in history. Don’t worry, be happy, switch from worrying about the mistakes to how to put more expression and SOUL into your music.

NB. I am over dramatizing here to make a point. Please follow the excellent advice from forum members and you will reduce your learning time, no problem. Or tell us about your goals as a musician…..

 

[Duckling]

NB. I am over dramatizing here to make a point. Please follow the excellent advice from forum members and you will reduce your learning time, no problem. Or tell us about your goals as a musician…..

My goals are not very ambitious, so they should certainly be something I could achieve.

Performance wise, I want to be able to play songs in a relaxed social setting (family/relatives, no stag setting) well enough that it becomes enjoyable to listen to. Meaning that I should be able to play songs "well enough". Mistakes are okay of course, unless they become numerous so that it becomes annoying for the audience. And ideally, mistakes should be the exception.

Musically, I want to be able to know the instrument and placements of the notes by intuition, so that if I want to try playing a song I am familiar with for the first time, I will be able to play it without doing much thinking. I know this one will take time, but that is fine.

 

[Tom]

My goals are not very ambitious, so they should certainly be something I could achieve.

Performance wise, I want to be able to play songs in a relaxed social setting (family/relatives, no stag setting) well enough that it becomes enjoyable to listen to. Meaning that I should be able to play songs "well enough". Mistakes are okay of course, unless they become numerous so that it becomes annoying for the audience. And ideally, mistakes should be the exception.

Musically, I want to be able to know the instrument and placements of the notes by intuition, so that if I want to try playing a song I am familiar with for the first time, I will be able to play it without doing much thinking. I know this one will take time, but that is fine.

Really good goals, I like it. As many others have said, it’s not the mistakes, it’s how you handle them that counts. You can do it!

Your second goal is where the magic happens. I have not achieved this, nor have I even tried it much. I have heard it called “playing by ear.” I don’t know the secret to this one, but I can hear Jerry saying “If you try this repeatedly for 10,000 hours, it will come naturally!” I’ll see you in 9999.9 hours. Good luck!!!!

 

[nikola]

I'm curious since it hasn't come up yet -- at what point in learning a song are folks thinking about dynamics, articulation, and bellows direction?

For me, I always try to plan for bellows as part of learning the fingering and phrasing since running out of air or changing direction mid phrase sounds awful! Ill indicate bellows changes alongside finger marks unless the song has no tricky measures or long phrases.
I find articulation and dynamics (especially dynamics that change mid phrase) most challenging and can't give them any thought until I'm able to reasonably play both hands close to a tempo with minimal stumbles...

 

[Duckling]

Playing by ear is something I already do. I am useless at sheet music, as I have never taken the time to learn them (I know the notation, but it takes me way too long to relate a single note on a sheet to a button on an accordion, or key on a piano). It is easier to listen to the song, and then replicate the tune for me. The exception being that I sometimes struggle with the exact chords, but then I will do a quick search for the chords online to figure out what I am missing. And to be honest, sometimes I disagree with others about which chords sounds best, and that's a part of where personal arrangement comes into play.

What I want to be able to do is to know intuitively where to put my finger to hit the next notes in a song based on what it sounds like in my head. I can do this okay enough on the piano, and I want to reach the same level for the accordion. So basically, if asked to play a song that I know, but have never practiced, I should be able to play a basic version of it within a few minutes. But like I said, I don't expect to reach that stage for a good while.

 

[Tom]

I'm curious since it hasn't come up yet -- at what point in learning a song are folks thinking about dynamics, articulation, and bellows direction?

For me, I always try to plan for bellows as part of learning the fingering and phrasing since running out of air or changing direction mid phrase sounds awful! Ill indicate bellows changes alongside finger marks unless the song has no tricky measures or long phrases.
I find articulation and dynamics (especially dynamics that change mid phrase) most challenging and can't give them any thought until I'm able to reasonably play both hands close to a tempo with minimal stumbles...

I hesitate to admit it but I really don’t think about bellows direction. As for dynamics, I base it on the crowd reaction. Like yesterday at the ADRC, I would go really quiet with a high register to gain people’s attention, and vary low to high for the same purpose. I guess think about this once you get the tune firmly underhand.

 

[Ventura]

about dynamics, articulation, and bellows direction?

hmmmm..

maybe not where you were going with this, but perhaps
for future thought consider the pro-level full size accordion and
the time invested in it's "set-up" .. bellows direction becomes
a non-issue, and articulation becomes instinctive with little
need to "overcome" physical limitations of the instrument

pro models tend to have bellows with deeper folds, more folds,
and reeds that need less air and/or pressure to start and sound fully..
Pro models in particular have had more time spent on their
set-up including tuning perfection and voicing, and the result is
you really should not be able to notice the difference in tone,
pitch, sound between the same reed pairs pull or push,
(exception: Mr. Debra)
and by extension changing direction mid-phrase if necessary
is considerably less of an issue

i feel one should not need to consider air capacity any more or less
than if singing the same phrase

smaller accordions CAN be set-up really well, and sport
top shelf reeds, but there are more physical limitations
to overcome in a smaller box and the labor to do this
adds a lot of expense.

so to some extent, the original question is affected by
the specific instrument you play on

this is not to put down your current box, but to give you more
to look forward to