How a music student practices is more important than how much time a student practices. If students practice incorrectly, it won’t matter how long they practice; there will be no improvement. But, when practicing correctly, a student can make a huge difference in the shortest amount of time, time being a precious commodity we don’t have enough of. Most students think practicing means playing a song from start to finish…WRONG! That’s what I call a performance! The goal of practicing is to make us better in the shortest amount of time, even if only by 1%.
So, what are the best ways to practice? First, don’t waste time on the parts of the song, exercise, or scale you already play well. Focusing on the difficult and challenging parts goes against our nature, but that is the only way to improve. Playing those sections is what I call “spot practice.” There are many ways to spot practice, so I’ll list each below. These methods can be applied to any instrument. However, the last method applies only to the piano.
Multiple-Measure Practice
Start a new piece by playing each measure multiple times before the next measure. Doing this is a great way to get familiar when the entire song is equally difficult. You may think doing this takes more time to learn a song, but you’ll learn it quicker in the long run.
Once you’ve finished the multiple-measure practice, it’s time to decide what challenging parts to spot practice.
Notes Without Rhythm
If the notes are difficult, play them slowly without adhering to the rhythm. For the piano, start with hands separately, then together when you’re ready. Once you’re familiar with them, play with a slow, steady beat, increasing your tempo until you reach the desired tempo.
Rhythm without Notes
Likewise, if the rhythm is challenging (which it so often is), play it on one note, counting aloud, first without a steady beat. Once you’ve learned the counting, play slowly with a steady beat, increasing your tempo until you’re at the desired tempo for the song or exercise.
Position Practice
Position practice helps when you pause between notes because you’re unsure where the following note(s) are. To fix this, hold the note(s) (both hands for piano, even if you don’t strike them at the same time), then slowly move to the following note(s) and notice the distance. Repeat until you can go to the note(s) without a delay in the rhythm.
Alignment Practice (Piano Only)
Alignment practice is a great way to practice when you can play each hand separately without mistakes but have difficulty when playing your hands together. Play notes that align in each hand together very (and I mean VERY) slowly without adherence to the rhythm or a steady beat. Doing this helps you to feel the movement of the notes you play simultaneously. Once you feel how the notes are played together, play with a slow, steady beat, increasing the tempo until you reach the desired tempo.
With all methods above, except the multiple-measure practice, it’s best to repeat small sections at a time. The smaller the section repeated immediately, the quicker and deeper the learning.
Once you’ve finished any of the methods above, practice a measure or two going into and out of the troubled spots to ensure you can easily navigate it within the song.
Now that you have learned all the challenging parts of the song, you can play it from start to end just like you’re performing it!
Three-Part Blog
This blog is a three-part series. Part one was about how much time a student should practice, and part three will teach the student how to prepare for a performance.
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Kathi Kerr attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and has taught since 1985. She founded Melody Music Studios in 1989, hiring music instructors for all instruments and voice in the student’s home, instructor’s private studio, and online.