How to practice piano? Make the most of your Time
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Although we focus more than anything on the piano, this way of making the most of the practice time that I share with you in this blog is applicable to other instruments, so do not hesitate to share this information with your musical circle.
There are different ways to approach a practice session but they are all subject to one factor: TIME. How long is your practice session, one hour? three hours? half an hour? How many practice sessions do you have a week? How much time do you have before your recital or concert? - The answers you give to these questions will determine the way you should practice.
Keep in mind that in addition to the piano practice time there is also the type of practice, a practice session for a classical/academic pianist is not the same as that of a jazz pianist, nor is preparing for a recital or concert to practice as part of a hobby, but if we can reduce our practice space to three basic elements: Technique - Sight Reading - Repertoire, based on these three elements and the time we have available we can start organizing our session individual practice.
Define goals and prepare your calendar.
If you're studying piano in college, high school, or a music school, you know ahead of time that exams or recitals are once or twice a semester. The piano contests or competitions are usually once a year and although sometimes more than one is attended during the year, participation does not usually exceed three annual contests, so look at the dates on which you can have these events and mark them on your calendar!
If, on the other hand, you are taking private piano lessons and you have a constant process, what I recommend is that you set goals and deadlines for the preparation of the repertoire, this varies depending on your level, the pieces for beginners are usually short and possible to play between one and two weeks, intermediate level pieces can take about a month, late-intermediate level pieces can take two months, and professional level repertoire can take up to 6 months to be well perform. So set goals and mark them on your calendar, do not let it take you more time than necessary to learn your repertoire.
2. Weekly Piano Sessions
Once the limits and your goals are defined, we can start structuring our practice sessions. The ideal is to be able to practice every day, even if it's only half an hour a day, but perseverance is the key to achieve our goals.
In this table I share with you some of the different ways my students organized their weekly practice schedule and have seen progress in their process with their Piano classes. However, it is important to understand that the weekly intensity is subject to the level you are currently at, the speed you want to progress with and your goals. This is why there is not a single way to learn piano, there are many and they are all subject to your wishes, needs and abilities.
Every practice session should have the three basic elements I mentioned earlier:
Technique: In this part of your practice session the idea is to wake up and activate your fingers and hands with the help of scales with their arpeggios and exercises like Hanon's or studies like Czerny's or Chopin's (depending on the level), always with the metronome accompanying you.
Sight Reading: There are different sight reading methods such as Christian Schafer's, but today you can find many others online, in the end the important thing is to read something new every day, it does not necessarily have to be a specific reading method, practicing with sonatinas or short pieces also works.
Repertoire: In most cases, pianists usually have three pieces in their repertoire, a polyphonic work, which is usually from the Well-Tempered Clavier by J.S. Bach, a work in sonata form that can vary from a sonatina to a piano concerto and a third type of piece such as a nocturne, waltz or fantasy.
Although half-hour sessions are not recommended, there are students who, due to their age, cannot concentrate for longer or students who, due to their work activity, cannot have more than half an hour and that is why in this blog I decided to include these situations that are more common than you might think.
Let's now see how to organize our three basic elements in the daily practice session.
3. The practice session
Just as we set general objectives based on specific dates, it is highly recommended to do so for each practice session as well, let us remember that learning a new repertoire is slower than perfecting the repertoire already learned and that is why, as you progress, your practice plan will have small modifications.
In a first stage, when your teacher gives you a new repertoire, the first thing you should do is divide the pieces into sections and decide how many measures you are going to learn in a practice session, once this is done, let's see how we can organize our time to study Technique, Sight Reading and Repertoire.
In this table we can see that the Repertoire section is divided into three parts, referring to three different musical pieces. You may be wondering how it is that in the 1 hour and 1 hour 30 minute sessions the third piece has 0 minutes assigned, and the reason is that this practice method is rotative.
Rotating Schedule: It is when the pieces and the time you dedicate to them change from day to day. In the example of the 1 hour session we dedicate 25 minutes to piece A, 10 minutes to piece B and 0 minutes to piece C, the next day we change the order and now we dedicate 25 minutes to piece B, 10 minutes to piece C and 0 minutes to piece A. In this way we make sure to practice the entire repertoire efficiently.
It is worth clarifying that this is not a unique and unbreakable rule, each student finds the way in which their learning is better, there are those who feel that the rotating schedule is not efficient and prefer to learn each piece separately, this means that they don’t learn the second piece until they have learned the first one. I invite you to look together with your teacher for the best type of practice schedule that suits your wishes and abilities.
4. 30 minute practice sessions.
The 30-minute practice sessions are organized in a different way but always on a rotating schedule and most importantly, with constancy. Depending on your level and experience, sight reading is studied differently.
If until now you are starting your Piano classes, it is most likely that your repertoire will consist of pieces and short exercises that will change every one or two weeks and this will be constant enough to practice your sight reading too, so, from your 30 minutes, you can dedicate 20 to the practice and learning of repertoire with the rotating schedule that we already reviewed before, the other 10 minutes will be to practice a single major scale in 2 octaves ascending and descending.
If you have been taking piano lessons for some time and it is easier for you to play fluently, what I recommend is that you divide your practice session as follows: 10 minutes of major scale in 4 octaves ascending and descending, reading at first sight one or two short pieces, nothing that takes you more than 5 minutes, the time you have left is to practice repertoire on a rotating schedule during the week.
If you are at an intermediate level, the rotating schedule is ideal and it would work in the following way: of the 6 days of practice that you have, 3 are exclusive for repertoire practice, 1 day will be exclusive for practicing a major or minor scale with its respective arpeggios and inversions and the remaining two days you divide between repertoire and scales. For sight reading, look for short pieces that take no more than 3-4 minutes of your practice time so you can do it daily.
5. Final Tips for Best Practice Session
Consistency is the most important thing, practicing every day is essential for you to see progress.
Choose repertoire that you like and that is always just a little beyond your current level, the challenges allow you to improve.
Don't be discouraged if you can't master a piece, that doesn't mean you don't have talent, it just means you have to practice more.
Ask your teacher how to organize your practice session during the week. As teachers we must find the best practice schedule for each of our students.
Listen to the music you want to perform, go to concerts and record each piece you learn.
I hope that with this blog you have been able to get a better idea of how to make the most of your practice time. Each student is unique, the processes and levels of each one are different, if you want to have a personalized and free consultation to help you organize your practice time, do not hesitate to contact me, I will gladly answer your questions.
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