Practice makes perfect. Or more precisely, perfect practice makes perfect work.
Doesn’t everyone know this? Probably. But not everyone knows how to practice. And that is the most important thing! It’s not about how much you practice the piano. It’s about how well you practice. You could spend endless amounts of time at the piano without actually being productive. A half hour of focused practice is far more beneficial than just ‘logging in’ an hour or two. Try setting up a practice schedule, so you know that at the same time every day you will be practicing. Routine is key for a lot of people- children and adults alike. As a kid, I always practiced for a half hour before school. This way, if I had some free time after school I could do a little extra if I wanted. But I knew that my obligation was filled already. Anything else was icing on the cake!
You should be smart with your practice time.
Here’s tip number one for practicing the piano: Instead of just playing through a whole piece, take a small section and really learn it. It’s like learning the alphabet- we didn’t learn the whole thing in one day! The smaller the sections you do, the faster you’ll learn it. Spend a bit of time working on one hand at a time, but put them together as soon as possible! Definitely work to perfect each hand separately, but do this alongside hands together practice. If you wait to long to try them together, you will have to work that much harder to get comfortable with the interdependence of the hands.
And how small a section should you practice? That’s up to you. For something very difficult, maybe it’s just one bar, or maybe even just two beats. In other places, maybe it’s a whole phrase or even a few lines.
Don’t let the frustration of imperfection get to you. Remember – the very reason you’re practicing is to get better. It’s a process.
No matter how good a piano player you are, we all need to practice, practice, practice!
Here’s a video of a piece I am practicing right now. It’s called ‘Cuena’ or ‘Balcony Scene’. Prokofiev reduced the music from his ballet ‘Romeo & Juliet’ to 10 piano pieces. This is the second of the set.