Practice Tips

With the start of a new year, it is always good to have some reminders of good practicing routines. I know that life gets busy, and these suggestions are not always possible, but I encourage you to try these suggestions and adapt them to fit your child's needs. 

First, start with your warm-up. I try to assign warm ups that match what you will be working on in your other books

Next, practice your technique. Technique almost always prepares you for your other assigned pieces. 

Day 1:

Before you start to play a song, look over the entire piece and identify areas that might give you trouble. Become familiar with the set-up of the piece and take note of any special directions (D.C. al fine, Codas, etc.)

Play through everything slowly one time.

Day 2:

Review your pieces. Tackle "trouble spots" by breaking them up and practicing hands alone. Slow the difficult sections down and try hands together. If the rhythm is offering difficulties, try clapping and counting. 

Play through everything again one time if time remains (this makes through 3 times through everything)

Day 3:

Go through everything one time to remember what you have been working on. 

Review the sections that were difficult for you and make sure that they are clean.

Play through everything one more time.

Day 4:

Play through each piece one time.

Look through each piece and take note of the stylistic features (dynamics, tempo, performance suggestions, etc) and work on adding them in (Especially Dynamics! :)

Play through everything one more time

Day5:

Polish all pieces and if ready, perhaps try to memorize one of them

General Notes:

   Always start and end with something that you enjoy! If you don't have a "favorite" piece for the week, choose something fun that you worked on in the past. 

   If one piece is more difficult than the others, spend the bulk of your time on it. While the others come more easily, it is less beneficial to practice something you can already do than to work through something that is difficult. 

   Don't get discouraged! If you are working hard, it is absolutely fine to keep pieces for a number of weeks. As you know, I like to give at least one "challenge piece" for the week to expand your abilities and give you something to work towards. It's perfectly fine to keep pieces for more than one week.

   Ask questions! If someone in your house plays the piano, I'm sure they are more than willing to help you. If not, you can call me or make a note to ask in your next lesson.

   Quality over quantity! I would rather you have 5 good minutes of practicing where you are working through hard sections, adding stylistic features, etc than 50 minutes of not as good practicing.

   If you are playing the pieces I assign you easily, you can either try to memorize or add a song of your choice!

   Have fun! Learning to play the piano is a process. If you learn to have fun no matter what you are playing, you will go far!