(9) Parallel Sets (PSs), Conjunctions, Cycling

Parallel Set (PS) practice, also called chord attack, provides the fastest way to increase finger speed. PSs are groups of notes that can be played simultaneously with one hand, such as 12345 or 1324 and every note appears only once. They are played in order from left to right.

Let's play a two-note PS, 23. Play middle C and D with RH fingers 2 and 3, one after the other. You can speed up this PS by playing them like grace notes. It can be played even faster by dropping the hand onto the keys, but letting 2 land slightly ahead of 3. You can increase the speed even more by letting 3 land closer and closer to 2. At the limit when they land together, you are playing at a mathematically infinite* speed!

*In mathematics, infinity is defined as inf. = 1/n, n ￫ 0; "infinity is one divided by n, as n approaches zero". With PSs, you are conducting this mathematical operation on the piano using a two-note PS. Speed = 1/delta where delta is the time difference between the two fingers. As speed increases delta decreases, until it becomes zero when the two notes are played as an interval.

In practice, nobody can play infinitely fast because no one has such accuracy — the accuracy in playing intervals determines the fastest speed that the pianist can play, so it is necessary to practice playing accurate intervals in order to achieve hyper-speeds using PSs.

Let's apply PSs to speeding up the Alberti construct CGEG. The objective is to to play any number of CGEG in succession, at any desired speed, such as in the 3rd. movement of Beethoven's Moonlight. LH: start with 5 on C3 and play 5131. Play it as fast as you can. Remember this speed and we will compare it to the final speed after applying the PS method. Since we need something for the RH so that we can switch hands, let's do the same with the RH: with 1 on C4, play CGEG,1535, as fast as you can play accurately, and again, remember this speed (measure it with a metronome).

LH: start with the simplest PS, two notes, 51. Practice in units of four PS repeats called a quad : 51,51,51,51. When this is satisfactory, practice four quads in succession: quad,quad,quad,quad, until the hand tires or stress starts to build up (perhaps 10 seconds), then switch hands and repeat a similar procedure for the RH. "Satisfactory" means final speed of about a quad per second (slower for beginners), relaxed and easy.

For increasing speed quickly, practice "chords" instead of PSs. Play both 51 notes simultaneously as an interval or chord, and practice rapid chord quads. Play each quad in one down movement of the hand, keeping all fingers close to the keys. Then raise the hand to play the next quad.

As you increase speed (chord quads), stress should start to build up. Then stop speeding up (or even slow down slightly) and relax the whole body (and hand) as you play, breathing comfortably. As you add relaxation, you should feel the stress draining out of the hand as you keep on playing. This is how relaxation is practiced! Switch hands as soon as it starts to feel tired and begins to slow down. The rested hand should be eager to play and it can now play faster than before.

To transition from quad chords to fast PSs, substitute the last chord of a chord quad with a fast PS:

(chord,chord,chord,chord) ￫ (chord,chord,chord,PS),

keeping the repeat rate the same within each quad. Once this is satisfactory, substitute two PSs, etc., until the entire quad is PSs. This method enables you to transition immediately to fast PSs, because the chord and fast PS are similar.

Next let's try three-note PSs. LH: 513, RH: 153, and repeat the above procedure. Play all three notes in one down movement of the hand and practice the PSs in quads. Start with 513 chord quads if you have difficulties with the PSs. Complete this practice for both hands.

Conjunction: the final note in the CGEG is a repeat note and cannot be practiced as a PS (see definition of PSs at the beginning of this section). This G connects the PS, CGE, to the notes that follow, so it is called a conjunction. Conjunctions are what slow you down — you cannot play conjunctions infinitely fast. In order to practice fast conjunctions, we introduce the concept of:

Cycling, also called looping, is a procedure in which the same short segment is cycled over and over continuously: CGEG,CGEG,CGEG, . . . . . .. In this case, we can cycle without adding new notes. We say that CGEG is self-cycling because it has a built-in conjunction G.

To enable rapid cycling, you may need to practice the PS EG and then GEG. Now cycle the CGEG twice: CGEG,CGEG with no pause in between. This step is facilitated by using the continuity rule [ (7) Difficult Sections First, Segmental Practice, Continuity Rule ]: when practicing CGEG, include the first note of the next cycle and practice CGEGC. So practice CGEGC quads. Then practice cycling CGEG twice CGEG,CGEGC, then three times, etc. Play one CGEGC with one down motion of the hand. Finally practice cycling quads - now you are playing a quad of quads. Why always quads? In general, if you can do a quad comfortably, relaxed, you can play an indefinite number.

You are done! Now compare your new speed with what you did before applying the PS methods. A person who is experienced with these methods would start with CGE chord quads, then CGE PS quads, then CGEGC quads, then CGEG cycling, and finish the process in minutes. This is repeated several days in a row, until the final speed is faster than needed.

Cycling is pure repetition, but it is a device to minimize repetitive practicing. Use cycling to acquire technique so rapidly that it eliminates unnecessary repetitions. In order to avoid picking up bad habits, change speed and experiment with different (36) Hand Motions for optimum play and always practice relaxation. Do not cycle the exact same thing too many times because that's how you pick up bad habits. Over 90% of cycling time should be at speeds that you can handle comfortably and accurately, for reasons to be explained in Post Practice Improvement, Sleep, Fast/Slow Muscles. You are done when you can play at any speed for any length of time, completely relaxed, and with full control. Then cycle down to slow speeds because you might find that certain intermediate speeds give trouble. Practice those speeds because they may be needed when you start HT.

If a technique requires 10,000 repetitions (typical for really difficult material), cycling allows you to get them done in the shortest possible time. Representative cycle times are about 1 sec., so 10,000 cycles is less than 4 hours. If you cycle this segment for 10 min. per day, 5 days a week, 10,000 cycles will take almost a month. Clearly, very difficult material will take many weeks to learn even when using the best methods. This explains why students without proper guidance can practice for years without significant improvement.

Cycling is potentially the most injurious piano practice procedure. Don't over-do it the first day, and see what happens the next day. If nothing is sore, or you don't detect bad habits or non-musical tendencies the next day, you can increase the cycling practice time.

The general rule for applying PSs is to break up each difficult passage into as large PSs as possible, e.g., 513 for practicing 5131. If this is too difficult, then break it up into smaller PSs, e.g., 51, 13, and 31.

PSs accomplish two objectives: (1) train the brain to handle high speeds (untrained brains are totally lost at new high speeds), and (2) increase speed as quickly as possible. For those brains that had never experienced such high speeds, you should briefly experience a strange sensation as the brain digests the implications of the higher speeds and adapts to the new capabilities, just like the feeling you get when you first learn to ride a bicycle, ski parallel, or swim on your own. Playing fast PSs necessarily positions the hands and fingers for high speed. The "Parallel" in PSs means that all the playing fingers move simultaneously (in parallel). The higher brain speed means that, when performing, you must be aware that the brain speed of the average audience is slower, and adjust your speed accordingly.

PSs are generally not how you play classical piano (they have been used in jazz, blues, etc.). They only bring you closer to the final technique quickly. The rest of this book provides the remaining steps for converting PSs to actual technique.

PS exercises are not mindless repetitions; they are still part of music and must be practiced musically, which means that anyone hearing you practicing PSs will admire that gorgeous piano sound. It means practicing softly, with attention to musicality. This is possible because you never spend too much time on any one PS exercise; it solves your problems quickly, so that you can move on.

For the Für Elise, you might cycle bars 1-6, then cycle 6-10 (9 short version). Then 17-20 (10-13) including the first note of 21 (14), then 21-22 (14-15), etc.; try to figure out the rest by yourself.

For bar 53 (32), practice the RH PSs 25 and 15, then 52 and 51, then 251, 152, and 151. Bar 54 (33) RH contains three PSs; don't forget the continuity rule. Similarly, bar 100 (79) has three PSs, 123, 135, and 432. To practice the chromatic scale of bar 103 (82), practice PSs 31, 13, 131, 313. The rest should be obvious, and you now have all the preliminary technique to play the whole piece.