Fundamentals of Piano Practice
by Chuan C Chang · first published 2008
9mentions
5recommended by
7HN commenters
2014–2021first – last mentioned
71% recommend29% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical guide to efficient practice methods, not just more hours. Readers say ideas like splitting hands and parts apart and never settling into comfort carry beyond piano. Useful for musicians and skill learners.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…repertoire suggestions I recommend skipping it. This blog does a great service by distilling all his ideas into a short post. For a book-length treatment along the same lines, there's Chuan C. Chang's Fundamentals of Piano Practice: http://www.pianopractice.org/. His daughters won state piano competitions using these practice techniques. Beware, though, that there are a few crazy tidbits sprinkled in (for example, his claim that…
on “How I Practice Piano” ↗Some of this advice echoes that in Fundamentals of Piano Practice by Chaun C. Chang. https://fundamentals-of-piano-practice.readthedocs.io/en/lat... Chang precisely recommends the same thing: don't just practice by going through pieces from beginning to end repeatedly.…
on “Advice on Getting Better from an Accomplished Piano Player (2011)” ↗Chaun C. Chang's The Fundamentals of Piano Practice [0] does a fantastic job of describing the relationship between practice and improvement, and how to make the most of your time. You'll probably come across advice you've already figured out on your…
on “How to play the guitar by ear, for mathematicians and physicists (2000) [pdf]” ↗…criticism is unwarranted. > Limit yourself to three chords and write a song, you might learn something. Learn more than three chords and write a song, you just might learn more than the average guitarist. Fundamentals of Piano Practice emphasizes the importance of never getting comfortable, of always pushing yourself during practice. Why settle for mediocrity?
on “How to play the guitar by ear, for mathematicians and physicists (2000) [pdf]” ↗…the problem that not all 10,000 hour blocks of time are equal, because there are efficient ways to practice and there are inefficient ways. Everyone (non-piano-players too) should read C. Chang's book "Fundamentals of Piano Practice". http://www.pianofundamentals.com/book There is a free PDF here: http://www.pianopractice.org/ It is quite fascinating reading. One of the main points is that to practice effectively, do not waste…
on “The 10,000 Hour Rule for deliberate practice is wrong” ↗I found a lot of improvement in my guitar practicing by reading "Fundamentals of Piano Practice." The author made it available for free at http://pianopractice.org/ As I play fingerstyle I study hands separated by separating the bass and melody as thumb and fingers, then move to hands together.…
on “The Science and Art of Practicing” ↗…over, there are probably a few formatting errors/inconsistencies, and generally nuttiness. Please ignore or contribute patches on GitHub. > This is Sphinx adaptation of Chaun C. Chang’s excellent book, Fundamentals of Piano Practice.
on “Fundamentals of Piano Practice” ↗…increase speed, but only so much that you can still play expressively. This summary omits one of the major themes of the book. Granted, the discussion of speed is quite nuanced. See 1.II.13: https://fundamentals-of-piano-practice.readthedocs.io/chapte... One relevant excerpt, though large chunks of the book are dedicated to this topic: > To vary the speed, first get up to some manageable “maximum speed” at which you can play…
on “Fundamentals of Piano Practice” ↗I suppose this was submitted because of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29052747 (Fundamentals of Piano Practice) and specifically this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29053520
on “Pianoplayer: Automatic fingering generator for piano scores” ↗