Practicing is the most important part of learning and becoming a piano player. Remember these tips to take your practice time to its highest potential!
Ear training
Ear training or to listen to other professional pianists at work is among the best ways to improve your technique. Playing by ear also helps you improvise and hence is an excellent technique for budding musicians to learn from the masters being inspired by their style and hand movements
A flexible approach
Most amateur pianists apply too much pressure while practicing this produces a loud unpleasant sound and also can cause cramps. Don’t hit the keys, let your hands glide over them softly, smoothly. A relaxed hand is more flexible and easy to control, i.e. you can reach the far away keys faster.
Maintain a proper rhythm
Rhythm and tempo are among the basic elements of any music piece, you cannot screw it up. Practice the rhythm of the song even if you’re not sure of the chords and notes involved. Maintaining a steady rhythm can also cover up a few fumbles and errors.
Finger movement, hand position
It is always better to start playing with the right hand first and then moving on to the other. Separate hand movements are easier to grasp, you can gradually move on to using both the hands. Most teachers use the conventional technique of separate hand practice. Once you’ve perfected that try to use both hands, this improves coordination and enhances the playing efficiency.
Memorize your music
Memorizing the notes and chord structure is not an easy job, but it can sure simplify your playing. Divide the music piece into sections and try learning them, try playing the piece before you go to bed. This helps you retain the music better as it would be the last thing on your mind before you sleep.
Focus on accuracy and not speed
Speed playing is something that comes with a lot of practice, for now, concentrate on hitting the right keys rather than hitting them fast. As an amateur try focusing on efficiency and accuracy, speed will come with time.
Play sections separately
As a beginner, it is difficult to keep up with the variations in chord structure of a musical piece, try dividing the music into different sections. For instance, practice piano notes starting with quarter notes gradually moving on to eighths and then sixteenths. When you play a section try maintaining a sense of continuity by including the ending notes of the previous section in your present one.
Sight reading music technique
The sight reading technique is a smart way to understand your music better. Amateurs get to develop their proprioception skills, i.e. awareness of the body in space. Most musicians get so lost in the notes so much that they lose their grip on reality. Sight reading keeps you on track; you can anticipate the upcoming notes and plan beforehand.
Consistent practice
From keys to notes, chords, and playing technique everything requires practice. Start with some warm up, playing the keys and notes before starting on with the actual piece. Spend the first 15 minutes of your practice session on the fundamentals; this improves your retaining power.
Finding the correct music piece
Your music tutor can help you select a music piece to practice. You can even find appropriate pieces on the Internet. There are many websites that provide e-books and pdf documents. A fun book for beginners to practice from is the Fake Book. It contains the melodies of popular songs with some extra information on the chords structure helping emerging pianists reproduce the same on the keyboard.
Set a Clear Goal
If you sit down at the piano and say, “I’m going to play for a bit,” you aren’t going to to learn anything. Instead, set a goal: “I’m going to learn how to play the opening song in Frozen.” Since you set a goal, you are going to keep at it until you reach it.
You also have to make sure that your goal is achievable in your practice time frame. If you have only two hours, you probably shouldn’t try to learn the entire “Planets Suite” by Holst, maybe just the pretty part in “Jupiter.”
Warm Up
Boring! We get it. It’s a tedious way to start, but without it, you put yourself at risk of carpal tunnel and tendinitis. You’d rather spend 10 minutes warming up than be in pain for six months.
This is one of the most important piano practice tips, because a proper warm up also gives you the opportunity to achieve flow, a state of mind where you’re locked in on the task at hand, and get maximum improvement.
Set Aside Time for Fundamentals
Make sure at least 15 minutes of your practice time is set aside for things like scales, accuracy, and timing. You only gain technical skills by repetition. Just build in 15 minutes of fundamentals to every one of your practices and you will be able to play insanely technical pieces.
Slow Down
The trick to learning hard songs is learning them at half-speed and then slowly speeding up. Slow down to whatever speed you can play it perfectly. Then, when you can play it perfectly at that speed three times, speed it up a little bit. “What’s a little bit?” Glad you asked…
Use A Metronome and Slow Down Again
If you can’t play a song in time, then you can’t play the song. “Flight of the Bumblebee” is played, depending on how you count it, at about 500bpm.
But do not start trying to learn the song at 500bpm. Start at 50bpm. When you can play it at 50, speed it up to 60, and so forth until you can play at the correct speed.
In Case You Didn’t Hear it, Slow Down
We can’t stress this piano practice tip enough. Good musicians learn how to practice a fast song at a tenth of its speed, and then gradually speed it back up to normal pace.
Listen
Name your top 10 favorite pianists. If you don’t have the list, you haven’t listened to enough pianists. You have to know what “great” sounds like to sound great yourself. It’s easy to discover great pianists and great music – just try a simple search on YouTube!
Imitate, then Innovate
After you listen, try to copy the piano solos you love, and then try to make them better. This is where you find out who you are and what is special about your piano playing. This is the opportunity to go from being great to being unique.
Take A Break
You’ve warmed up, spent 15 minutes on fundamentals, learned how to play “Jupiter,” and now you are on to “Mars.” You spent 20 minutes listening and copying Fats Waller solos. What do you do next?
You stop.
… and breathe. Then get back into it.
Start and End With Fun
Make sure you play something you love when you start to practice and something you love when you are done, preferably something you are great at playing. This will keep your confidence up!
Looking for even more practice tips for adults and children? See the graphics below for some helpful ideas of how to practice piano anywhere, any time!
No comments:
Post a Comment