Practice Tips for Piano Lessons
Practicing is an essential part in learning music in order for students’ skills to progress as well as getting more understanding out of piano lessons. Practicing should be fun and engaging just like the weekly lessons.
Then there’s always the question of how much should I practice?
It all depends on the students schedule and availability. However, the more times you practice in a week, the easier it is to progress your skills and to play the music you are working on. If students don’t have a lot of time in their day to practice, I suggest practicing everyday in small intervals. It could be just two 10 minute sessions a day if it’s a younger students or 30 minutes a day for older students. In my experience, if you really concentrate all your practicing in a smaller amount of time and really focus without distractions, these 10 or 30 minute sessions can be more productive compared to an hour of less focused time.
Practicing doesn’t need to be solely focuses on repetition of materials being learned. It should also include exploration of the instrument and discovering new music to listen to. All of these combined can go a long way in improving skills on the piano and also developing yourself as a musician.
Here are some helpful tips to try out when practicing for piano lessons.
1. Try breaking up practice time into smaller intervals of 5-10mins. at a time. Even just playing a little bit everyday will go a long way.
2. Get inspired! Listen to some new music, try singing along and/or dancing to a song.
3. Try teaching a melody or song to a parent/sibling/friend. This is a great way to get others involved in your music making.
4. Being creative with the instrument is always great thing to do. Try playing the instrument in a new way like experimenting with the different sounds on your keyboard, playing the piano as a percussion instrument, experiment with using the pedals, etc.
5. Try improvising on your instrument, sit down and just move your fingers across the keyboard. What neat melodies can you come up with on the spot?
What are some different ways that you practice piano at home?