Practice Top Tips

Practice or play?

These are two very different things. Let's put it this way...practice should not sound good. A piece of music or a passage which sounds good, is already accomplished. Practiced. Rehearsed. To practice, is to take those problem sections or bars and work on them repeatedly. So do keep this in mind when you sit down at the piano. Are you playing a piece you are already familiar with, or are you practising?

Don't let practice become a chore.

As a youngster I detested practice. It was something that had to be done before I could play out, or watch TV. It became something I needed to do to get it out of the way. And I probably just ended up wasting so much of that time playing pieces over and over again until I got them mostly accurate. Since becoming a piano teacher I have realised that I could have halved that time by focusing on specific bars rather than starting at the beginning of a piece every time and playing through.

Here are some tips for effective practice.

SLOW PRACTICE

Set a metronome to less than half the speed the piece should be played. Playing slowly through it will identify any bars that are more challenging than others. Make a note of these bars and specifically practice them on their own. Don't increase the tempo until you are confident that you have ironed out those problem bars.

FAST PRACTICE

This will help with bars where your fingers need to move quickly on to the next notes or chords. Play the first part of the bar (the first two beats) very quickly, even if it is faster than the metronome mark. When accuracy has been achieved, play it again adding on the next beat and the next and so on. Do the same with the beginning of next bar overlapping each bar before you move on.

JUMP IN

Many students find it difficult to start from any bar in a piece. Their fingers only seem to be able to play that bar if they start from the beginning, I guess because it has followed a pattern and are relying on memory. It is good practice be able to start from any section when working on a piece, otherwise the latter part of the piece will never be as accomplished as the beginning. Close your eyes and point to a bar, a bit like pin the tail on the donkey, and that's your starting point. Or ask a family member to shout out a random number depending on how many bars are in the piece. Some students love to use the online number generator.

PLAY GAMES

Younger students (and some adults) benefit from playing games to help them practice. Here are a couple of examples. 1.Throw a dice and play a bar or a section that number of times. 2. Set up Buckaroo if you have one. Each time you get a passage correct add a piece to Buckaroo. When the mule bucks practice is over, or move on to another piece. 3. Egg timer. Set a timer and count how many times you can correctly play the bar or section in that time. 4. Ding a bell when you get it right so everyone in the house can hear you. Try and drive them crazy with the dinging.

Use your imagination to use games around the home to keep practice fun and engaging. Here is a link to some more fun ideas https://colourfulkeys.ie/piano-practice-games/

I hope this helps. Practice should never be a chore and remember...

DON'T WASTE TIME

Only work on sections or bars that you need to.