Why You Need Urgency In Learning Your Technique

Alright, let's say that you agree that technique is important.

Why is it important? You probably have an idea, maybe two.

Well, I'm going to give you four.

The first reason is that technique transcends genres.

If you want to learn classical music on any level, well, technique is important.

If you want to learn jazz, technique is important.

If you want to play church music, if you want to play musical theater, if you want to play pop music and you want to do it well, technique is important.

The specific standards might vary according to your genre, but your best players of every style of music have good technique.

So that's the first reason why technique is so important.

It transcends genres.

And the second reason is this.

Technique represents what's actually possible for your music.

This is an example I've given to my own students several times, and I've probably shared it here more than once.

First, let's listen to this example of this famous Mozart sonata, his K545 in C major.

That passage in the right hand involves a series of scales played as 16th notes.

They ascend as a one octave scale, but they require an extra note to come back down so that you're starting one step lower than you were before.

So it's actually the two octave scale technique for pianists that they have to be very comfortable with.

So now let me demonstrate a two octave scale, just the right hand, and I'll do it in a couple of different keys. . .

And this is the typical speed that I might hear from a student who thinks they're doing pretty well.

I think you might agree that that scale is doing pretty well.

It's not advanced, but it's definitely coming along.

But if that's as fast as you can play that scale right now, that also represents how fast you can expect to play that passage from the Mozart.

So if you take the speed of the scale that I just played and you now apply that to that Mozart example, here's what that section sounds like.

So let's go back to the example of playing Mozart up to the desired tempo.

If you're a pianist and that's your goal, to play Mozart at that tempo, then this is the speed that you need to be able to comfortably play all of your two octave scales.