How To Practice Piano Efficiently

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Do you feel like your pieces stay the same week after week? Do you struggle to play clean? Are you short on time or do you simply want to learn your pieces faster?

Today, I’m going to share my top practice tips with you so you can learn your pieces quickly AND play them well. I’ve been performing most of my life, and I’ve learned there IS an art to practicing. There have been MANY times when I’ve had to prepare in a pinch for a performance, like a funeral, so I’ve HAD to learn how to be ultra-productive with my time at the piano.

TIP 1: A/B PRACTICE SCHEDULE

If you’re like me and short on time, try breaking your pieces up and practice half on A-Day and the other half on B-Day. This allows you to spend more quality time on each piece and dive deep into the problems because you’re not trying to pack too much into one practice session. The key to making progress with this type of schedule is practicing 6 days a week so you get enough practice on all of your pieces.

TIP 2: WRITE IN FINGERING

This seems elementary, but if you take a little time to write some fingering in your music, you’ll learn your pieces much faster because you’ll be playing them the same way every day. Motor memory will kick in and your fingers will memorize the movement quickly. You don’t have to write in every finger number, just the areas where you need guidance. When I write in fingering, I’m able to focus on playing with expression because I’m not preoccupied with using good fingering on the fly. When I don’t write in fingering, I usually experience finger fumbling and I have to jump and break the smooth legato.

TIP 3: SAVE DESSERT FOR LAST

Why do we start at the beginning of a piece EVERY practice session? It’s not great time management if you think about it because the longer we sit at the piano, the less we feel like working through problems. When we practice like this, the beginning gets very polished and the trouble sections remain trouble sections. I encourage you to start on the difficult sections when you open your music. Spend most of your time cleaning these areas and then reward yourself with dessert by playing through the whole piece or the parts that make you feel like a piano superstar!

TIP 4: BE A DETECTIVE

I’ve noticed that when my students struggle with sections in their pieces, they don’t take time to study the music and figure out what they’re missing and WHY they’re missing it. Music is full of patterns and theory concepts. If you take a little time to look at the music visually, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and frustration. Also, take the time to write in your music! If you notice that you continue to make the same mistake, make a noticeable note in your music.

TIP 5: BE AFRAID TO MAKE MISTAKES!

This is what I continuously tell my students. Be VERY afraid to make mistakes because every time we play, we create habits, and fixing bad habits takes a lot of time and effort. Here’s another way to think about it: if I play through my piece fast and sloppy, have I done anything productive with my time at the piano? Do I have a good chance of playing it clean tomorrow? Probably not. But if I play through my problem areas slow & perfectly several times in a row, I have a fighting chance of playing those pesky areas clean tomorrow.

TIP 6: HANDS SEPARATE PRACTICE

This may seem obvious, but hear me out. We all anticipate playing our pieces hands together. But honestly, it’s a waste of time to practice hands together too early. If you can’t play hands separately easily, playing hands together will be very difficult AND we will probably create bad habits by doing this. When we’re first learning a piece, it’s hard to think about the notes, slurs, staccatos, fingering, AND rhythm. It’s best to practice hands separately for a while and let our fingers memorize the movement before starting hands together.

Also when you run into tough technical sections and your fingers aren’t doing what you want them to do, it’s important to practice hands separately. But get creative! Rhythms help tremendously in cleaning up difficult runs.

TIP 7: WARM UP ON EVERY PIECE

Even when I have a piece mastered, my first run-through of the practice session is slow and careful. It’s almost impossible to play clean at full speed on the first run. So why, sit down and play fast and sloppy? We confuse our brains and fingers with new movements and bad notes. Honestly, if I only have 20 minutes to practice, I know I can get a lot accomplished simply by playing through my pieces at a slow, perfect tempo.

STILL CURIOUS ABOUT HOW TO PRACTICE PIANO? CLICK HERE to watch me apply some of these tips on a few famous pieces.

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by Heather Thompson Smits, NCTM of Brillante Piano Duo