Bear Claw

I've always remembered this episode of Friends where Phoebe teaches Joey how to play guitar. She tells Joey he can't touch a guitar until she says so and teaches him only hand positions with names she made up. I've included the Youtube clip which condenses the segments from the episode into one video.


 


Before, I'd watch it and think, "Yeah, Joey's right. He should go and learn the names of the chords. I have no idea what Phoebe is talking about in her methods." I would assume that most scholarly musicians would watch this and pretentiously turn the other way. However, aside from the comedy, I think Phoebe's musical technique has some validity in the correct context.

As I've been able to dedicate longer periods of time to practicing piano, (which I honestly should have as a child before when I actually had more time, relatively), I've discovered something I wish I knew before. There is a feeling of perfection that you can sense as you practice and learn pieces. Yes, the more familiar you are with a piece the smoother you can play it, but there's more. Once you are at the memorization stage, it's no longer about reading sheet music off the stand. It's about feeling the piece and the notes through your fingers, and simultaneously, your hand position.

I've been working on a piece I learned as a teenager of intermediate/advanced difficulty depending on who you ask. I know I learned it years ago at one point, but I honestly never remembered myself having the ability to play it or play it well. After learning it for a few months my teacher must've just passed me on it without my fully having mastered the piece. Having come back after so many years, I had to reteach myself most of the music from scratch. There were sections I remembered from earlier, but most of it I would say was like learning it again for the first time. After hours and months of practice, I began to feel a new sense of "knowing" that I'd never experienced before. The piece was so familiar to me after all the practice that I could feel the different positions my hands and fingers were in to reach all the notes and perform the musical passages.

I don't have names for all the different positions like Phoebe does, and it's not quite the same. With guitar chords, it's one position to play one chord. In piano, it's one hand position for a certain passage in a certain piece in order to keep the fluidity of the piece and musicality. In any given piece, there could be hundreds of different "hand positions."

I have yet to reach the point of being able to play a piece of significant difficulty flawlessly, but I also have to remember that professional concert pianists spend hours upon hours on one piece daily in their practice, for sometimes, years. In time, I can perhaps hope to reach that point.

Next time, I'll expound upon my thoughts on "Don't touch the guitar."