When you start a piece of music, before playing a single note, you should mark your medium sized sections. Medium sections are usually visually obvious. They often involve texture changes in the notes, are at the end/beginning of a phrase, and have a dynamic mark such as forte or piano. Repeat, light double bar lines, DC al codas etc. can also hint at these medium sized sections. They’re usually 8-16 measures. Think of them like a musical paragraph.
I mark each of these medium sections with a boxed letter [A] [B] [C] [D] [E]. It’s not really critical that these sections start and stop at specific places or even have a particular size. It’s more to help us keep track of our practicing. There are many ways you can section your music and still achieve the same end result. Don’t sweat over exactly where you mark your sections.
Then, once we have medium sections, break them down into even smaller sections by adding a number after the letter [A1] [A2] [A3] [A4] [A5], these are where you spend most of your repetitive practicing. You repeat these small sections many times with the metronome to build up a good muscle memory. Try to always have a specific metronome mark you’re trying to hit with precision and high quality playing. Usually, these sections will be a single phrase at a time. For a really long difficult phrase 4+ measures, we can split them in 2 to learn them much more quickly and securely. Don’t be afraid to split sections if you’re struggling! Splitting a section helps you solve problems and learn more quickly. Once mastered, you can join it to the surrounding sections.
When working in small sections, especially at the slow and medium speeds, make sure you play with strong confident fingers. Weak fingers don’t lead to a good muscle memory and encourage poor technique. On the flip side, don’t absolutely bang the keys as loud as possible. It should be medium loud. Firm, confident notes. When we speed up, we can add the dynamics and lighten up our touch.