Of course, some grounding in hearing harmonic progressions comes from this (limited) piano skill, but I have had dozens of students learn to hear chord progressions, using recordings and one finger piano technique on chord roots.
I do agree that quite a high level of piano skill can help a musician efficiently experiment and test chord progressions, (in style, even), and this a great advantage to these people.
But is a few years of basic piano of any use whatsoever to an aspiring violinist?
How has it helped you?
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One of the great things about the piano is that all the notes are there for us to see and it makes visualizing the relationships between the notes of a chord and other intervals so clear.
So I have to agree it can be a good idea.
But, when advanced string players are happily bowing away, how on Earth do they link this to basic piano skill? Sure, I hear the harmony the music at hand through the orchestra or piano, as I am playing, but I wonder if my skills on piano have any impact whatsoever on my playing.
Other than that, my 12 years of piano lessons before starting on strings mostly helped with the basics: knowing what scales and intervals sound like, and finger and hand independence. Eventually, understanding harmonies and chord progressions gives insights into phrasing and expression.
How has it helped you?"
It's more helpful because you'll have a piano, and if someone else can play it to accompany or even help teach the pitch/etc., it can be a big help.
Learning piano is valuable in itself, and is a significantly different skill in large part, because it's mostly about playing two (or more) different parts at the same time.
I learned piano to start, and then violin together with piano. I don't think learning piano helped me with violin, and I gave it up altogether because violin was much more difficult for me and I needed more time on it for that to progress.
But as someone else mentioned, learning piano is sometimes required in addition to learning violin, simply because of its own utility.
Theory is something else, and is also often required in addition. Having a piano around is helpful for that, but being able to play piano isn't really.
Having said all that, I'm also willing to contradict myself a bit by saying that the critical skill in piano - multiple simultaneous parts - is also an important mental skill for violin once we reach the ability to actually play anything like that, which is long ways off if ever for most.
I used to draw a small diagram of the piano keyboard to help in my study of theory, but I don't play piano. I still keep a small xylophone handy when ever I want to quickly hear what a particular scale sounds like.
Same here. Before my daughter started piano lessons. I could not find A on the piano. Would I become a better violinist if I had piano lessons? I don’t think so.
Our daughter's piano teacher doesn't just teach how to play piano. She talks about music history, theory, musicianship,etc. She also has my daughter play a lot of duets. All of these skills and knowledge help our little one become a better violinist.
Perhaps not. But if you had had four or five years' worth of lessons as a child I bet it would have accelerated your development on the violin, especially at the intermediate level.
Kiki wrote, "Our daughter's piano teacher doesn't just teach how to play piano. She talks about music history, theory, musicianship,etc."
Right on!! My piano teachers in high school especially were very keen on theory. I had to analyze sonatas for form, Bach inventions for counterpoint, Scriabin and Debussy pieces for harmony, etc. In addition, piano teachers emphasized sight-reading (although my violin teacher always had me play something new at my lesson too), and my piano teachers are the ones who taught me practice techniques like "dotted rhythms" and inserting "gaps" in difficult passages, which my violin teacher *never* did.
So, I conclude that one more reason to have piano lessons in addition to violin lessons is because you then have two music teachers who can teach you complementary methods and skills without the inevitable conflicts that would arise if one had two violin teachers.
As string players, we have a lot more opportunities in ensemble playing where one learns to play with many others (not just with one’s teacher).
In the end, no amount of history or theory can substitute for the hours one must spend in the practice room with the violin. There are, unfortunately, 24 hours in a day.
How do you mean this? Do you suggest postponing a child's exposure to violin for four or five years before starting violin to play piano? I suggest that would do more harm than good in the end for violin playing.
I suppose however that if it had already happened, then it's reasonable to some extent - the learning of reading or practice techniques and habits are transferable to some degree. But there's also a chance of being thrown off completely by the difficulty of playing violin, and in tune, not working out as intended, and the choice about learning a new instrument from scratch and giving up or reducing progress one has already made also arises.
Depends on what you mean by "better violinist". If you mean someone who has more musical experience and potential reach, then yes, you'd be a better violinist for putting in the effort on piano. If you mean would you be able to play faster or have an easier time with fingerings or bowing, then probably not.
As a pianist, you're essentially doing "ensemble playing" 24/7 in the sense that your music has multiple parts that need to weave together in a timely way. I would argue that studying piano will also help a violinist be a better ensemble player. What piano doesn't teach is the listening part, which is a huge part of ensemble playing. With piano you don't have listen (in the same way, externally) because all of the parts and their mutual relationships are already in your own head and your own hands.
There is something about learning piano that makes you a more complete musician. Our daughter loves to compose and she does that almost exclusively these days on piano. Having that creative outlet to experiment and explore is important to her.
A piano accompanist once told us after their first rehearsal that "It is such a pleasure to play with someone with an intuitive understanding of harmony." Of course, we politely thanked her for her kind words but I was thinking to myself that it isn't exactly intuitive...it cost us 5 years of piano lessons! I am not sure if she really would have that intuitively anyway but playing Bach inventions year after year must help with understanding counterpoints.
She does practice violin hours a day so it's not about supplanting violin practice but expanding her internal musical landscape.
The only problem for us is affording both piano and violin lessons. I think it is a completely valid point that 2 hours of weekly violin lessons is better than splitting that between violin and piano if someone's goal is to become a professional violinist which is not exactly the case for our daughter at this time, anyway.
Completely agreed.
The question is really NOT whether learning to play the piano instead of doing nothing is helpful ( of course it is). In fact, one could argue reading through, say, “ A hundred years of solitude” instead of doing nothing could potentially be helpful in interpreting Bach ( you know, being well around and all that....) .
The question should be whether practicing the piano instead of practicing the violin would make one a better violinist. Personally, I don’t think so.
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