Arpeggios look deceptively simple, but in reality are not that easy to execute accurately due to the intervals involved (unlike scales which are made up of steps). From experience I have found out that the following hand-eye coordination usually helps students execute better arpeggios:

• Always keep your eyes one-step ahead of your fingers

Example:

C major arpeggio ~ when your finger is pressing the C key, your eyes are already on the next key E. In this way, your brain will prepare your fingers in advance where to move. This is akin to walking ~ we always look ahead to where we will be going instead of at our legs.

• When doing hands together,

Ascending ~ focus on your Left Hand, and glance at your Right Hand only when you need to turn (example, in the case of C major, when your thumb needs to stretch to the C in the 2nd octave).

Descending ~ focus only on your Left Hand.

Rationale ~ the Left Hand is generally weaker than the Right Hand, and therefore needs all the attention it can get. The Right Hand has a stronger motor ability and hence should be able to move by itself just by following what the Left Hand is doing,

I have always emphasized to students the importance of building good muscle memory in piano playing.  Below is an excerpt of an article that I find summarizes well the rationale and techniques of building good muscle memory:

Source: Perter Thompson on “Our Worship Sound”

In order to express your yourself on keyboard, you have to put some of your technique on automatic. That’s why muscle memory is so important.

Muscle memory allows you to shift your focus away from every individual note and finger motion and toward other things like adjusting your sounds, your vocal, leading others, or (especially) worshiping!

Here are some strategies for maximizing your muscle memory on piano.

The power of repetition (the power of repetition, the power of…)

Your brain can know exactly what you need to do, but until you have completed enough repetitions, your fingers won’t. Take short sections of your music and repeat them until automatic. Don’t be afraid to play something 50-100 times.

Slow down and focus on technique

The quantity of repetitions only counts if you also play with quality technique.  Everything you play teaches your muscles something, good or bad.  Practice with only good technique, and slow down to make sure this happens.

Include all aspects of needed technique

Don’t just practice the easy stuff.  Be thorough in building muscle memory for every technique you will need.  For example, take the time to learn every inversion of every chord.  Practice chord exercises until your fingers can quickly and accurately find the chord you need every time.

Connect your ears to your muscle memory

You want your brain and fingers connection to also be wired to your ears.  To accomplish this, take the simple step of considering the key of the song or exercise and how the notes and chords align with the key’s scale.  As you build your muscle memory, you will also develop your ears to hear how the different chords and scale notes function – necessary skills for playing by ear and improvising melodies.

Sleep

That’s right!  Your muscle memory isn’t complete until you’ve slept on it.  Sleep time is when the brain consolidates motor learning and what you’ve practiced becomes hardwired as a long-term skill.

I once heard a student ask his piano teacher what is his secret to playing the piano well.  The teacher responded that his secret can be summarised in 3 words: Practice, practice, and more practice.

Yes, that is very true.  There is absolutely no short-cut to mastering the instrument.   You just have to keep hitting those notes until you get the pieces right.  But there is more.  Besides practising, you have to make the quality of your practice count as well.   The following are some tips to making your half-hour or so drills count:

1. Developing a habit of counting

Students usually gripe when I ask  them to count aloud and play at the same time.  Most of them tell me that it distracts them in their playing.  When I ask students to count, it is not meant to make their lives difficult.  There are a few reasons why I emphasize counting so much:

• without proper counting, the pieces will not be balanced.  Students tend to play the easy portions faster, and the difficult portions slower
• counting helps the student increase their focus and concentration on the notes and hence reduce the chance of them hitting the wrong notes
• the students can take the opportunity to count and sing out the tune of the song at the same time.  Singing in turn helps to shape out the melodic expression of the pieces.

Once students are able to play the pieces smoothly and evenly, I will let them stop the counting aloud.

2. Use the metronome

Metronome will similarly encourage even playing.  Whilst it can be irritating to hear the constant ticks from the pendulum, trying to follow the metronome can increase the student’s focus and concentration while playing the pieces.   Again, once students are able to play the pieces evenly, I will let them stop the metronome.

3. Learn the pieces by reading the score, and not by memorising the movement along the keyboard

Some students find it much easier to imitate and memorise my movement along the keys rather than read the score and figure out the notes by themselves.  But the problem with this approach is that the students will not be able to pick up from where they may stop at a piece of music (due to an error made, for instance).  Instead, they frequently have to re-start the entire piece in order to regain the familiar motion.  The problem with this approach is that in an examinations setting, having to re-start a piece will cost the student much more considerable marks than if the student were able to resume playing from where he may have stopped.   If the student is used to reading the score and playing, he should have no problem picking up from wherever he stops.

Another reason against playing by rote is that the method works only for lower-grade pieces.  As the student progresses, he will find it considerably more difficult to memorise the increasingly complex pieces.  By then, the habit would have been so ingrained that the student may find it impossible to carry on.

4. Practise over several days rather than cramp all your practices into one day

It is much more beneficial to practise for a shorter time but over several days than to practise for a prolonged period in a single day.  This is because our mind needs time to absorb and consolidate what we have learnt and practised.

Conclusion

As the adage goes, give a man a fish and he will feed for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.  My hope is that I can train my students well enough not just to pass exams, but that they would be able to learn new pieces independently.  In that way, they are more likely to continue playing and enjoying the piano even after they stop formal piano lessons.   Playing the piano is afterall supposed to be a life-time skill rather than being restricted to those 8 – 10 years of formal training.

Stage 1 ~ Get the basics right

Basics include the following:

• accuracy of notes (practicing both hands separately and together helps)
• timing and counting (a metronome can be employed for this purpose)
• articulation (slurs, staccato, legato, accent)

Stage 2 ~ Get the dynamics. tempo variations and other performance directions right

At this stage, students need to build in dynamics (i.e loud, soft, crescendo, decrescendo), tempo variations (i.e. ritardanto. accelarando) and other performance directions (eg sustain pedal) in their playing.

Stage 3 ~ Bring the whole piece up to exam speed

Once the student is able to balance the whole exam piece, the last stage will be to bring the whole piece up to exam speed.

Mastering the above 3 stages usually involve months of patient and regular practice.  However, once the student is able to master the exam piece, he or she would have developed a whole new level of skills and techniques.  From my experience a student who can execute all 3 stages well can expect to receive at least a 25 out of 30 for that piece.