Here you will find a few resources that are fun and beneficial for playing piano.
Document and Forms
External Links.
Practice Tips
- Daily practice is best. If you need to take off one day a week, that's OK, but don't skip the day just after your lesson. Right after your lesson is when your memory retention is at its peak - your best practice time!
- The quality of your practice is at least as important as the quantity. You will get more benefit from really concentrating for 15 minutes than from mechanically going through songs for 30 minutes.
- Look at the music and try to understand it before you play it. Where do the notes skip instead of step? What patterns do you see in the melody and rhythm? Are some of the phrases repeated? For piano students, what is the beginning hand position?
- Strive to play or sing each section of the song correctly from the start. It is much easier to do it right from the beginning than to fix problems later.
- If a piano piece requires the pedal, learn it without it first. Add the pedal after you are sure of the notes and rhythm.
- Piano students should focus first on playing the correct notes with the specified fingering. If the song requires both hands playing together, it may be easiest to start by learning each hand separately.
- Play or sing as slowly as necessary to get the proper rhythm. If the rhythm seems tricky, try counting it out loud first before you play or sing it. Don't rush the easy parts! Piano students should be careful to allow no gap in the flow of sound when the melody changes hands.
- If you make a mistake, stop. Don't start over at the beginning (unless your mistake is on the first line of music). Work only on a short section around the problem. Figure out what is wrong and make notes to yourself on the music (highlight skips, label notes, add finger numbers, etc.) When you can repeat the problem section three times in a row correctly, continue with the rest of the song. When you are done, go back and try to perform the song all the way through without mistakes.
- Really listen to the music you are making. Does it sound correct? If not, how can you fix it?
- Check your posture. Piano players, look at your arm and hand position. Does it look and feel good? Is your bench in the right place for you to reach the keys? Are you sitting up straight? Are your fingers curved? Are your wrists flat?
- Once you know the notes and the rhythm, add the dynamics and phrasing.
- If you get frustrated, take a short break and come back to it later in the day.
- After you practice your lesson assignments, try some other things:
- Play or sing some of your older songs
- Try playing or singing a new song further ahead in the book (sightreading)
- Do your theory worksheets
- Try making up a song of your own
- Figure out how to play another song you know (by ear)
"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which like every creation of art, is mightier than the artist." ~ Beethoven