Practice Tip of the Month

It is April! This means recitals coming up and learning new pieces or perfecting harder ones before getting to the memorization stage of performance preparation. When you are working on learning that new piece, practice in sections! If there was one practice tip that I have given to every student I have worked with, it is this one. Students, listen carefully here... The best way to improve (and improve quickly) is to practice one small section at a time. You may want to ask your piano instructor to help you divide up the piece you're working on into manageable sections. Then, if you really want to improve quickly, don't move on from the first section until it is absolutely perfect. You don't even have to get through the entire piece in one day; it is completely acceptable to only get a few sections down each day of practice. If you don't get the whole piece down by the time of your lesson, I can guarantee you that your teacher would rather hear part of your piece as mistake-free as possible than the whole piece littered with mistakes.

Along these same lines, once you have your piece down, instead of playing through the entire song a few times a day, isolate your "problem sections." Play from the beginning of the piece until you hear a mistake, even if it is only a small pause. As soon as you hear that, stop and either circle the section to come back after you have run through your piece or drill the problem section right then. Try to play it until you can play that section five times in a row perfectly. After this is accomplished, play through the whole piece and listen to how you have improved!