Tukasz Kuropaczewski-practice principles lesson
Just finished watching this and I must say it is the best instructional video I’ve ever seen and that is no exaggeration. I agreed with everything he said and his enthusiasm is impressive and also amusing as he had me laughing out loud almost as I watched…so good and everyone should watch it if only perhaps to generate a discussion of his method and to hear any criticism. Before watching this I’d never heard of him let alone having heard a single note he’s played or seen any of his performances…so I’ll do some catch up anon. Before posting this, I entered his name
in the search box (that was a challenge) and got 0 results .
Look forward to any comments/background info…anything about the guy either from
elsewhere on tone base or anywhere else..thanks!
jimd
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I think your difficulty in finding his recordings and Tonebase lessons is that his first name is Lukasz. I did a tonebase search with just his first name and got 3 listings (well, actually 2 - the 3rd listing was just listing him as a Tonebase artist). He has a few YT recordings though not as many as more well known guitarists.
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I agree, Lukasz is an absolute treasure. His students are incredibly fortunate. He does have a short, interesting bio on his site: http://www.lukaszguitar.com/#about
Besides being a great artist, It seems he is very involved in ensemble playing, new music, and that there are notable composers writing for him.
There may be other university pedagogues who are much more famous, but I’d wager that he is right up there as one of the best contemporary teachers.
I so look forward to more tonebase lessons.
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Hi, Jim! Hi, Peter and Jack!
Lukasz is a great virtuoso and this course is very useful indeed. Some considerations come to mind, not criticism (as it'd be very difficult to argue with such a display of virtuosity as we know him to be) but maybe alternatives or follow ups on things he mentions.
The first thing that comes to mind is that this steps are not sufficient. This method is at its most efficient point when you work slow but you know exactly how it must sound already. Working slow is a very practical way to memorize, but what are you going to memorized when you work slow? So, i'd say that before attempting this practice principles, we should have had already done an extensive analysis of the piece and have a very clear idea in our mind of how every note should sound. When he shows it, it is already embedded of a lot of searches and musical decisions that in this video are taken for granted and are clearly very imporant steps to take, maybe the most important.
Why is it so important to start practicing with a lot of already taken decisions? Many reasons:
You save time and energy, you educate further your fingers when you ask very detailed things of them and, most importantly, because to produce this sound or the other, this articulation or the other, this volume or color, or the other, you need different movements and sensations in your hands. So, when you play slow, if you have not decided which articulation or volume or phrasing you are gonna want, you'll very well may end by recording "wrong" movements into your muscles. Movements that won't help you make music with the piece. They may help you play the notes, but they might be the wrong movements to put them together in a musical way.
The second thing that comes to mind is regarding preparation. I know new european and US technique schools are nowadays very fond of planting on the right hand and it certainly gives the hand a great stability but i do not necesarily agree with Lukasz that a smaller movement is more relaxed. We can argue about this in another topic but i feel like planting (preparing the RH in each string) may be also a bit reductive in the musical sense. And while it's true that movements should be 100% efficient, that does not equate to small. Many times you need a very efficient big movement to do something special.
A third thing comes to mind regarding repetitions. Lukasz mentions 5 reps per bar or phrase or subject... I agree but like a couple more. When you repeat something the first 2 or 3 times are needed to adquire the mental tranquility that you can actually DO what you are trying to do. The next 3 or 4 are required to, stripped of any fear of failure or anxiousness, look deeper into what happends when you do what you do. The first 2 o 3 repeats don't teach you nothing. They are just a warrant that you can do it. Only after that fear is cleared you can have the liberty to explore deeper sensations and clearer musical thoughts. So, i'd say 6 to 8 per bar.
Also, a difference between doing something at a slow tempo and doing it in slow motion. It's not the same. Speed requires different movements that slow. Running is not walking very very fast. It's another movement all together. So, when you study slow you may find yourself recording the wrong movements if you don't think of the right movements and do them in slow motion.
I hope i make sense. I'm available to clarify anything if not understandable. I admire Lukasz a lot at it's great that we have this class to continue to try new things. And i hope this fulfills your desire to discuss this course further, Jim.
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Ariel Elijovich Thanks for sharing these interesting observations, Ariel. I especially like your point about running being something quite different than simply walking ever more quickly: the idea that we can achieve a certain fluidity in our playing by gradually increasing our tempo is probably mistaken. (At least, it never seems to work for me!) I also agree with you that we should be thinking 'musically' from the outset, and that this becomes difficult when the tempo is made artificially slow.
A further point I would make about Lukazs's approach to learning is that it strikes me as by and large unnecessary. No doubt there are certain passages in almost any piece that require slow and deliberate practice. But in most repertoire, such problematic areas represent perhaps no more than ten to fifteen percent of the entire piece. (I have in mind repertoire that is appropriate for our own particular ability; no doubt there are many pieces that an amateur like myself would find challenging from beginning to end - but I see no point in trying to learn such music in the first place.) In my own practice, I try to focus mostly on what does not come easily; the rest, I generally find, falls into place without much effort. Of course, my aims are different than those of a virtuoso performer like Lukasz. I am not seeking to produce a 'perfect' rendering of whatever it is I happen to be playing; I am quite content if I simply get through a piece from start to finish, without having to stop! (Perhaps my standards are a little too low ...)
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David Krupka Thank you, David, for saying this so well. When I watched Lukazs's video, I could tell almost right away that his approach was not for me, but I was unable to articulate why. I am very happy that so many people in the community have loved his video and found it helpful, but when I tried it, I realized quickly that it is not for me. I actually found that it took all the joy out of learning a piece of music. While something like what he does is clearly necessary for me to overcome a problematic measure or section of music, it is far too tedious for me to do with every measure of every piece. Like you said, though, my aims are very different than those of a concert level virtuoso like Lukasz.
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Eric Phillips I solved a lot with that methode, with Cello also and with guitar. It gives me stability. But it is mere working for me. It is not playing. But I try to give it 1 hour and after that, I play pieces. Yes, this method is to make yyyyyou more secure. I need that because I am like a butterfly, flying from flower to flower. So I will try to keep it up as part of dayly practice. But You are totally right!
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David Krupka Eric Phillips Stefanie Mosburger-Dalz
Hi David, Eric and Stefanie,
What Lukasz shows is a great tool. But it's just a tool. It's to be used as needed. It's good to know it exists. But it's also not so easy to get the hung of it. It's like a professional music or photo editing application. It may be too much for your needs but it's certainly one of the best tools in the market to achieve a high-end result.
I have students of many different levels, at the Conservatory and at home. Not everybody will profit from doing just this, even if i do to many extents.
What i always recomend to my students is this:
Play thru the piece one time, without stoping but with great attention to what comes out. Then, based on what you heard, choose 4 or 5 passages and work on them for 5 minutes or so each (maybe using this method or something alike) and finally play again the whole piece.
As David said too well, the complexity of a piece is never homogeneuos, so balancing the energies that will be envolved requires you to play the whole piece thru. There is a "yes, but" to what David says:
You may have noticed that when you find a difficult passage and you work on it separatedly till it's resolved and then when you play it inside the piece it doesn't feel as resolved yet? That's because when you isolate a passage you start from a zero tension situation while when you arrive at the same passage you may have accumulated some (even if very little) tension or tiredness just because you have been playing a few (or many) bars already. When you study every bar like this, the zero tension becomes a rule for every point in the piece.
Also, bear in mind that the most significant (not the most, but the most significant) progress is done over passages that are already easy for you to play, because those are the ones in which you can fully concentrate on music and body sensations and movements. So I highly recommend working as deeply as possible the bars that you find easy to play.
One particularly good point of what Lukasz teaches is to mind the right hand before the left hand! The right hand is the one that produces the sound (90%) and will always be the most important one even if sometimes the left seems to be the more complex or shifty one.
The example in the course video is rather "non legato" as a rule... i wonder if there would be any difference in method if he had had to play a very legato piece.
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David Krupka yes! Fast and complex passages are a bit alike to a coreography with many jumps and turns and twists. You need the inercia to get them right and, while you can diminish them and work them on the ground and slow, you need to up the speed to get the real sense of them.
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Ariel Elijovich David Krupka Eric Phillips This is a really interesting topic with so many aspects to master without having a single procedure to follow to ensure an infallible result. For my part, my goal is to express myself by playing music, so everything I do on the instrument has an intention, a direction or an emotion linked to the sound and this for a simple note, an exercise, a passage, a work.
Overall, and this to serve my ideas, my emotions and my way of expressing them, I do not fix anything from the start and I quietly choose what is appropriate as everything takes shape in terms of musical ideas and the sound result that matches. I understand the concept of muscle memory linked to the movements made on the instrument but for me this memory is rather linked to the sound, the harmony, the counterpoint, the form, and of course my emotions rather than simply reduced to a mechanical gesture without context.
To develop the technique necessary to express ideas, I come from a school where it is quite simple (I am not talking about isolating complex passages here), play everything you do at at least three speeds and three volumes per speed, which gives a satisfactory base and allows you to push further if necessary. Then I would say that the state of mind that you adopt (and that you discipline yourself to have) when you are at the instrument makes all the difference in learning, discovery and performance.
To conclude, I would say that it is very important to enrich yourself with life experiences, read stories and listen to all kinds of music, because in the end you can create and express yourself mainly according to what you are able to imagine and feel.
My 2 cents
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Blaise Laflamme yes, of course, Blaise, you are right. These kind of procedures tend to reduce to very minimalistic elements something that is very complex and that needs much more input, as you put in your last paragraph, than securing the notes in their place.
Regarding fixing everything from the start, i just want to say that it doesn't mean that you'd have a complete or finished idea of the piece before starting to study. It's just a matter of starting with some clear directions that you can always change in the process, we are human after all.
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David Krupka your hint to care more for the easy played passages I will keep in my mind! So right!
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Jim Diamond
Hi, Jim! I was wondering,... could you use the edit mode to change the name of the post and correct Lukasz's name? I know it'll sound funny but every time i read it gives me an unpleasent sensation. Thanks!!!!
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
