Student 1 made notes in keyword form along the way. He then wrote them out as a résumé for the teacher. The student addressed and investigated technical challenges such as leggiero playing, for example, where he created exercises focusing on the transitions between different hand positions. He tried to “achieve a good and fast leggiero with compact fingers, close to the keys”. He considered his first attempt to be “not smooth enough” and therefore split the sequence into its constituent segments: three hand positions. He only played the transitions between these hand positions, because he felt that “the problem must lie in the transitions”. He felt that this yielded results, although he observed “unnaturally heavy pressure on the first note of each new position”. Next he attempted the segments by “playing the first note of each section as quietly as possible”, with the other notes “mezzo forte and staccato in clusters”. His conclusion: after practising both exercises a while “the result was as good as it could be in 20 minutes”.

Other exercises performed in the same way included finger work involving different sitting postures with focus on heaviness versus lightness of the arm; exercises to help discern all the notes in a chord; and trill exercises.

Student 2 made notes as she practised a piece by Grieg and a piece by Plagge. Her practice involved specific challenges of both a technical and musical nature. For example, she experimented with different colours of sound and phrasing to try to convey the image of a “bird”. She worked on one particular bar in order to “get the feeling of connecting properly with the keys”, and she learnt all the chords in a passage by “playing them slowly and saying all the notes out loud so that the brain also became involved in the practice process”. She made notes of things that worked well, and she gave an evaluation of each practice session focusing more on what could be improved, e.g. “could have been more conscious of which ‘version’ I actually preferred”, and “how do I create a sound that fits the lyrics and message?”. This student also noted that on one occasion when the lights in the practice room went out, she “started listening to her phrasing in a completely new way”.

Student 3 practised the first movement of Grieg’s piano concerto. She was due to perform it in concert after the end of the project. During the interview she said that “there were places where I would feel physical pain. I made several notes about this and tried to get to the bottom of it”. She describes this with keywords in her practice notes such as “tired, pain on top of the hand + under the wrist”, and “relax after the chord”, or “painful = top of the arm (piano feels heavier than usual), relax, don’t tense up, focus on the 1s”, or “tensing up quickly, remember you can let go of the octaves between each one”. The notes mostly address what she was practising and what she wanted to work on, what her goal was. For example: “Transition to arpeggios (practise only transition l.h.), aim for 1”; “perfect 1 bar at a time, concentrate on the bass line”; “use the fingers on the Waterfall, use the wrist on the ascent, go for it and don’t let l.h. jump around so much”; “run through it once slowly, focus on making the semiquavers even”; “imbalance between thumb-index fingers l.h., practise just these two in all transitions.” Towards the end of the period there was more of this: “play through once at speed to find out where it’s going wrong”, “play through at speed, look for errors, repeat until good”, and “play trough with eyes closed, memorise.”