How to Practice Piano

How to Practice Piano

How to Practice Piano: A Guide for Motivated Adult Learners

Are you ready to transform your piano playing? Do you want to move from a clunky struggle to an effortless performance full of musical mastery? If so, this guide is for you! It is written for motivated, intelligent adult learners who want to understand how to practice piano in the most efficient manner possible. I will help you avoid the common pitfalls that motivated learners tend to fall into. If you’re not careful, some seemingly good ideas can waste hundreds of hours of your time, or worse ingrain bad habits that are difficult to undo.

Some Common Problems Adult Students Have:

  • “I don’t have a very good memory” 
  • “No matter how much I practice and how hard I try, I always seem to make mistakes when I play.”  
  • “I’m fine with each hand alone, but when I put them together, it all falls apart.” 

The truth is, if you practice correctly, you will develop a rock solid memory that can hold up for months, years, or decades! 

In this guide, I will break down exactly how to practice piano in the best way possible. You’ll find that the advice is straightforward and not particularly controversial. Just about any pianist or teacher would agree with the methods outlined below.

If you’re an absolute beginner, some of the music specific terminology might not make sense at this point, but try to skim to get the big idea. This guide is written in a progressive manner; the further you read, the more advanced and specific the advice will be. So, if you get to a point where you feel the guide doesn’t apply, feel free to stop reading and start applying the tips to your practice.

To get the most from the following, grab a highlighter and a pencil. Highlight any info that’s new and surprising, write any ideas or questions you have in the margins. It’s a good idea to come back to this guide periodically to check in and make sure you’re applying the principles consistently. Putting a reminder in your calendar to revisit these tips once a year or so could be helpful to make sure you keep up good practice habits.

What is the Goal of Practicing?

It seems like an obvious answer, but depending on your expectations, practicing can look very different. Is practicing, playing a whole piece of music until you can play it once correctly? Is it just sitting down and noodling around at the piano until you get bored? What is the end goal we’re hoping to achieve?

Practicing is transformation. We start out as one thing, practice, then come out changed. Practicing is the cocoon of metamorphosis that will transform us from grubby piano caterpillars into beautiful piano butterflies. 

Think back to when you learned how to tie your shoes. At first, it was a mystery and the most difficult task imaginable, but after enough practice, it became automatic and effortless. Or think about learning to drive. At first, it was scary and took all of your concentration, but after enough time and practice, you don’t have to try very hard to drive from point A to point B. 

The goal of practicing piano follows a similar learning journey. We start off clueless and struggling to get our fingers to cooperate, but the end goal is to get our fingers to play effortlessly! That is the nature of practice. We start with conscious, effortful, deliberate work to play the material. Then, after a sufficient amount of practice, we can play with ease and fluency. We don’t have to strain or try very hard to perform the previously difficult material. 

In other words, practicing takes you from conscious effort to conscious ease.

The Magic Practice Formula

Everything below can be summarized in the four words on the previous page. Print it out and stick it somewhere close to the piano. Repeat the mantra before you practice. Scream it into your pillow before you go to sleep at night. Write it on your forehead with a sharpie and never forget these magical four words: 

Practice = Sections Repeated Correctly

That’s it. If you follow the above 4 words, that is 90% of effective practicing. To learn a piece of music we must break it into several sections. Then we learn each of those sections one at a time. We learn them by playing them correctly over and over until we develop a muscle memory and can play each section easily without mistakes. Good muscle memory feels like your fingers are magically moving all by themselves! 

Practice = Sections Repeated Correctly

I’m going to detail below how you can break a piece of music into pieces and practice them effectively. Try to follow these guidelines as best as you can and if you have difficulty with any of it text or email me. 

Practice = Sections Repeated Correctly

Sections

Let’s start with the idea of sections. How big should each one be? 2 notes? 5 measures? There is no 100% right answer that fits all situations perfectly, but here are my guiding principles to help you break your music into manageable pieces so we can Practice them to build secure and reliable muscle memory. 

Large Sections: These are the largest sections of the music. They are usually a bit too large to practice, but are great for conceptualizing the music into meaningful and musical parts. For a famous piece like Für Elise it might be broken into 5 large sections. The first section is the famous one that everyone knows! 

Just about everyone agrees on how big each of these sections should be. They’re usually obvious texture or musical changes punctuated by big chords. We don’t really “practice” in large sections.We perform them once all the good practicing has already occurred in medium and small sections. 

Medium Sections: These are the trickiest to size, but they are also the most important sections to practice! The vast majority of good practicing happens in medium sized sections. These are the goldilocks sections for practicing. Not too big, not too small, just right! 

The exact size depends entirely on the combination of the student’s skill level and the difficulty of the piece. An advanced student might be able to do large sections in an easy piece, but a less experienced student would need smaller sections in the same piece to build muscle memory. In other words, the size of the section is inversely correlated with the difficulty of the piece relative to the student’s skill level. The harder the piece, the smaller the section. The less skilled the student is, the smaller the section. Don’t bite off more than you can chew! 

In general, start with a 2 or 4 measure section and titrate up and down depending on how successful you are at playing the section accurately. At this awkward “figuring out how big the sections should be” stage of learning a new piece, the biggest pitfall I see is being too tolerant of making mistakes and simply trying again. Determination and perseverance are the most important qualities to have as a pianist, but they sabotage us in this stage by making us try again and again. In this situation, our virtue becomes our vice! Do not persevere and keep playing a gigantic section over and over and over and over again stacking failure upon failure.

I will now fulfill my contractual duty as a piano teacher by making a terrible extended analogy: 

[terrible analogy begins]

Practicing an enormous section repeatedly and failing miserably is just like shoving an entire pizza into your mouth and wondering why you can’t breathe. Then, you try shoving an entire slice into your mouth instead. But rather than having to go to the emergency room for a tracheotomy every time you order Dominos Pizza, your poor housemates now only have to give you a heimlich maneuver to restore breathing. 

Alas, you say to yourself: 

“I love pizza! But I can’t breathe when I eat it. Whatever am I to do?”

The clouds part and a heavenly voice bellows from the sky 

“Take bites”    

Ah! You think to yourself. Bites. I should have known all along. You order a fresh un-choked pizza and attempt the new eating strategy. Bites. 

Lo and behold, you do not choke and the pizza is subsumed accordingly. 

[/end terrible analogy]

Small Sections are the absolute most powerful tool in your practice arsenal. However, they can be inefficient, difficult, unmusical, and tedious if used incorrectly. Despite these drawbacks, small sections have a singular powerful quality to them. They build, without a doubt, the strongest, most secure muscle memories known to mankind. The real question is then: 

“When do I use a small section?”

The answer (which is the right answer to just about any question worth asking): it depends… You don’t need to use itty-bitty small sections all the time. Generally it’s when a medium sized section isn’t working after trying it slow, hands separately, without the metronome etc. As a beginner, you might not have the awareness to know when this is happening, so I will generally tell you at the lesson. But, the sooner you figure out when and how to use small sections, the sooner you will play at Carnegie Hall.

How to Break your Piece into Large Sections and How to Break Those Sections into Medium Sections:

  • Take your piece and break it into large sections.
    Often these will be 8, 16, or 32 measures. Mark the big sections with a boxed letter [A] [B] [C] etc. The large section is usually (depending on difficulty of the piece) how much you can expect to work on in an entire 30-60 minute practice session, if it’s brand new material. Think of these big sections as the paragraphs in an essay. Usually these large sections will be visually obvious. If you’re not sure, I can tell you fairly quickly where the sections are.
  • Take your first large section [A] and break it into medium sized sections.
    These are usually the “phrases” or musical sentences. They are usually delineated by the phrase marks. Often they will be ½, 1, 2, 4, or 8 measures depending on the music.

How to start practicing your first medium sized section:

1. The Figuring It Out Phase:

For your first medium sized section, you might have to figure things out or try several times to get it right. This includes: reading the notes correctly, getting the right rhythms, key signature, etc. How long you are in the “figuring it out” phase is dependent on how difficult the material is relative to your skill level. If the piece is very difficult, it might take a long time to play it correctly even once. If you’re very skilled and the piece is easy, you might just read through it a single time perfectly before you’re ready to practice it. Worse case scenario, you work on something that’s way above your skill/motivation level and you can’t exit the “figuring it out” phase before becoming mentally exhausted.  

For any given section there are usually two phases, the “figuring it out” phase and the “actually practicing” phase. During the “figuring it out” phase you’re allowed to make mistakes and try things. Pick it apart and get creative to see exactly how the section is working. This is where you have to problem solve and dig deep. Once you’re confident the section is fully correct and you understand it, THEN you move into the “actually practicing” phase. 

Some tools used in the “figuring it out” phase: 

  • Hands Separate
  • Counting out loud
  • Ignoring steady beat to give time to read notes accurately. (Note: this must be done purposefully to get the notes. Don’t do this habitually) 
  • Leaving out certain notes during the putting it HT step (Scaffolding) 
  • Blocking
  • Analyzing music theory/looking for patterns.

Really take the time to get it perfect before moving onto the next step. Once you’ve “figured it out” and made everything correct. THEN you can actually start practicing it.

The “Actually Practicing Phase”:

In order to practice it, you need to play it correctly again and again until you have memorized it with no mistakes. If you play it wrong 10 times and then correct 1 time, that is not practicing whatsoever. You must play it correctly many times in a row to make sure you develop a good muscle memory of the section. 

Just like you have to do many push ups to get strong, you have to do many high quality repetitions to learn piano. The quality of the repetitions matter greatly. To continue on the push up analogy, you can’t just bend your arms 2 degrees and call it a push up. A shoddy pushup accomplishes nothing. Similarly, a poor repetition with mistakes, hesitations, inaccuracies, uneven playing, weak fingers accomplishes very little and is generally a waste of time. Do not spend the precious minutes of your life practicing incorrectly.

2. Make Sure to Repeat After it is Correct:
  •  this reinforces the section and builds your muscle memory. Remember  muscle memory is the entire point of practicing; it is the singular and transcendental goal of practicing. 

Now if you’ve practiced correctly, when you wake up tomorrow, you should be better at playing this section! You’ll have an automatic and magical muscle memory where it feels like your fingers are starting to play all by themselves. Only once you have developed this magic muscle memory, have you truly practiced correctly. Muscle memory is the entire point and goal of deliberate piano practice.

3. Once you are certain the notes and counting are correct. Put the metronome at a slow speed equal to the smallest subdivision:

(e.g., eighth notes or 16th notes usually). Practice this same medium sized section hands separately until you can count and play all the notes correctly with the metronome. Then try to play the section with eyes closed. Note: Eyes closed is a sufficient, but not necessary condition to having practiced something effectively. If you can’t play with your eyes closed, it’s okay. Just try again tomorrow! 

4. Turn off the metronome and try the section hands together while counting. smallest subdivision:
5. Once you can play all the notes correctly and count hands together, turn the metronome off and practice until you can play it with eyes closed. If you have any difficulties, try an even smaller section. If you’ve made the section as small as you can, go slower. After you can do the whole medium section correctly with eyes closed, metronome on, and counting out loud, you have mastered it and are ready to move onto the next medium sized section.
6. Depending on how long you’ve been practicing and mental fatigue, move onto the next medium sized section or take a break. It might even be time to stop practicing for the day and go do whatever it is people do when they’re not poking at a wooden box full of metal strings.
How to Specifically Practice a section:
  1. ALL LEVELS Magic Sections: 1 measure + First note in next measure. THEN, hold that last note for the remainder of the measure. Aim to practice these until they’re memorized. If you can’t easily memorize the section in a couple of minutes or less, choose a smaller section size. You can do different sized magic sections: Half measures, single beats, 2 measure, 4 measure. Generally you won’t do above 4 measures. 
  2. INTERMEDIATE: Glueing Formula: AA BB AB AB 
    1. This formula works very well when you’re moving from 1 measure sized sections to two measure sized sections. Try to do this formula twice with no mistakes to glue the measures together.
  3. ADVANCED ONLY: Magic Practice Formula: AB AB AA AB:
    Treat AB like a magic section where B is the note you hold on. So if your magic sections was:
     12345—
Then doing the AB AB AA AB pattern would go like so:
12345— 12345— 1234123412345—
 
HABIT: Pause to listen to the metronome for a measure while practicing a section. You should wait at least a measure worth of beats between repetitions. This ensures that you synchronize with the metronome. 
  1. Count a measure before (Green Post-It): Plan and get ready to play
  2. Count a measure after (Red Post-It): reflect and evaluate how the section went. 

General Practice Algorithm:

  1. Scan: Just start at the beginning and play. As soon as you run into any issue whatsoever, stop and move to step 2.
  2. Isolate: Take a section that contains the singular issue identified in step one. Usually just a measure or two.
  3. Fix: Figure out exactly what went wrong and remedy it. It could be as simple as a wrong note or finger number. Or it could be as subtle as needing to angle your wrist a little differently. Once the section is exactly as it should be, move on to step 4.
  4. Reinforce: Repeat the section many times correctly. The amount of time you spend on this step should be proportional to the time spent in step 3. For instance if it only took 30 seconds to fix the issue, it must not have been very difficult, so spend a minute or so reinforcing that particular section. However, if you have a particularly difficult spot that took 10 minutes to even play it one time correctly, it would be wise to spend at least 20 minutes making sure you permanently reinforce it correctly. It’s a huge waste of time to discover and fix the same mistake over and over again day after day for lack of having reinforced it correctly.

General Principles:

You can only do exactly 1 thing at a time:

a) For example you can fix one wrong note. You can focus on counting the rhythm. You can try to make sure you play exactly with the metronome. If there are multiple problems, you must break the section into manageable pieces where you can solve one problem at a time. Trying to fix multiple problems at the same time is like trying to sing while drinking water and doing jumping jacks. Alone, each task is easy and manageable, but if you try to do them at the same time it’s ridiculous and a waste of time

  • Mistakes mean to slow down. If you make a mistake, slow down and try again. Playing the same thing quickly over and over wrong “feels” like you’re working because you’re trying very hard. Yes, you are exerting yourself and putting forth effort, but it accomplishes little to nothing. At worst, you can make a permanent wrong muscle memory. That is, you will play it wrong for the rest of your life because you were careless and didn’t bother to fix the mistake. Practice makes it permanent. Every note you play is drawn in permanent marker into your brain’s memory, so don’t waste a single second practicing carelessly. 
  • You can only change things at a slow speed. If you need to change something about a particular section, you must slow down to do so. This doesn’t just apply to mistakes necessarily. If you want to change the dynamics, articulation, a subtle detail, or make a different artistic choice, it is much better to slow it down to try and incorporate that change. Here is a non-exhaustive list of situations that require slowing down to change them: fingering, pedaling, technique, how you conceptualize the music/patterns, dynamics. 
  • Ignore your monkey brain:

We all get terrible ideas and impulses. Almost constantly. Our brain tells us to do things that aren’t good for us:

  • Eat that cookie. 
  • Sit down and scroll on instagram. 
  • Play the piano faster. 
  • Procrastinate on that chore. 
  • Repeat the whole piece from the beginning. 
  • Do the thing that’s fun rather than the thing that will bring you closer to your ultimate goal. 

Part of being human is making poor decisions and all we can do is recognize them and fix our future behavior. Playing piano is all about making the right decision. This is where my idea of “monkey brain” comes into play. The monkey brain is the little impulse that tells you to do something because it is immediately gratifying. Like a monkey. They don’t plan or have long term goals. They just live in the present blissfully eating bananas and hanging out in trees. I’m jealous to be honest. 

Often listening to our monkey brain feels like we’re doing something good and productive. Following the monkey brain can feel like we’re exerting ourselves and putting forth lots of effort, but really we’re just spinning our plates and getting nothing done.

This isn’t to say that you should completely ignore your intuition or never examine a curious idea. Far from it, be creative and explore your ideas, but be willing to take a step back and say “is this really doing me any good?” If it’s not, stop immediately and correct yourself. Here is a non exhaustive list of monkey brain ideas that I’ve seen in myself and my students:

  • “Play it faster”
  • “Play that part that you’re already really good at”
  • “You don’t need the metronome”
  • “Counting out loud makes it too difficult”
  • “I’m going to ignore my teacher’s advice and just do what I want”
  • “I’m not going to write down the finger numbers I’ll remember them”
  • “I just need to try the section 20 more times and I’ll get it right”
  • “I’ll just ignore that spot even though I pause there every time” 
  • “I’m really good at the first part so I’ll get faster and faster at that
  • part and never improve the second section” 
  • “I’ll try to play it without ever bothering to look at the notes at all” 
  • “I want to play the whole piece hands together from the beginning to the end!”
  • “I don’t need to look at my assignment I’ll remember all the details my teacher told me

Be Patient: Learning even a small song takes days. You can not master anything in a single day. Make sure to get good quality sleep between practice sessions. It’s EXACTLY like working out to get stronger/fitter. You must do it consistently over weeks, months, years to make progress.

VIRTUOUS HABITS (I recommend checking these off as you are certain they’re automatic):

  1. Sit and think for a bit before you start practicing. What are you trying to accomplish today? 
  2. Count in and Count out for at least one measure before and after a section.
  3. You have good posture and are seated correctly.
  4. Play with curved strong fingers 
    1. Not 100% true in all situations, but a good majority of the time. For instance, black keys, more gentle sentimental passages call for flatter fingers that play more on the pads rather than the tips of the fingers. I’m not going to write a full explanation on technique here, that’s what lessons are for! 
  5. Use the metronome often and sensibly
  6. Practice with loud strong fingers 
  7. Pause and reflect between repetitions to keep the goal clear in mind. 
  8. Don’t look at your hands. (Unless you have a good reason), habitual looking is bad.
  9. Count out loud often
  10. Write in little hints in your music if you make a mistake more than one time. Circle notes, add sharps and flats if you ever forget them. Finger numbers. Chord names.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Piano:

  1. Not using the metronome
  2. Practicing too fast
  3. Playing with weak fingers
  4. Starting from the beginning every single time and playing the whole thing. 
  5. Stopping after playing it correctly only once
  6. Just playing the parts you’re already good at
  7. Mindless Practicing:
    1. Barreling Repetitions: playing a section over and over often making the same mistake without pausing to reflect and fix the error. 
    2. Letting your mind wander and thinking about other random things: Dinner, favorite TV show, etc. 
    3. Playing over and over with no goal in mind.