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Creating Efficient Piano Practice Pros

Practising the piano is not the same as playing the piano. There is a difference between practice and playing, and understanding that difference is essential to making great progress in less time.

What many students think of as piano practice is actually just playing. They play each piece from start to finish, maybe a couple of times, then they call it a day.

For late beginners and up, that’s not really “practice”. It’s basically a humongous waste of their time.

Note: The content in this post was originally posted in October 2014 and August 2018. It was edited and substantially updated in October 2024.

It’s Like Pianos and… Basketballs?

To tease out the difference between practicing and playing (and perhaps help your students see it better), let’s imagine you’re part of a basketball team.🏀 (You’re probably suspicious that this could have parallels with music practice, but stay with me here…)

Practising

Your team meets once a week for two hours of “practice”. You might begin each session with a warm-up lap, followed by stretching. Then you begin the various drills to cover different elements of the game: lay-ups, footwork, dribbling, passing…that’s pretty much the extent of my basketball knowledge, but you get the idea. 😉

At the end of the training session, you would probably play a short game within your team, and try to put all the new skills you have learnt into context.

This kind of practice is – believe it or not – similar to what your home piano practice should look like.

BasketballPiano Practice
WarmupJog 2 lapsTechnical exercises (scales, chords, etc.), sight reading
StretchingDifferent large muscle groupsOne-Minute Warmups, Yoga for Piano, etc.
Specific skillsFree throws, passing, footwork, dribblingWork on small sections to fix errors, reach ideal tempo, achieve proper phrasing, etc.
Putting skills into contextPlay a short game within your teamRun through your piece (or a larger section of your piece)

Playing

When you have a basketball league match however, that’s a different story. You try your best to implement the various tactics and techniques you’ve practised, but you need to be in the moment.

You can’t go back and fix that lay-up you started on the wrong foot. You need to have your head in the game and power through.

That is like playing the piano, whether for enjoyment or a performance. It’s a completely different frame of mind, and students need to recognise that.

Effective & Efficient Piano Practice

Even if your student is going through all those steps of a practice session (warming up, stretching, etc.), what are they really doing during each step? Just going through the motions is a waste of time.

If your student is really practising, and practising efficiently, they’ll have these 5 things top of mind.

Thinking

When students practise, they should try not to think of anything else. Not tomorrow’s maths test, not what will happen in the next episode of their favourite show – just thinking about what they’re doing right at that moment.

The key to this is for them to mix up what they practise and how they practise. If your student has a set routine that they stick to, or if they simply repeat the bit they’re working lots of times, their minds are very likely to drift.

So help them be inventive! Start in the middle, work backwards, play as fast as you can, play as slowly as you can…do anything that makes you consciously think about the task at hand.

Members of VMT: ‘Dragon Distractions’ is a great game in the Printable Library for working on this exact problem.

Problem Solving

Efficient piano practice is about deciding on a real, defined problem that they want to fix. This absolutely is not “I want to get better” or even “I want to be able to play the fourth bar (measure) up to tempo”. They need to get to the root of the problem. What is really happening in bar (measure) 4? Is the problem the fingering they’re using? A note they’re unsure of? A leap that they haven’t mastered yet?

Help your students figure out what the actual issue is, and then come up with a way to solve it. 

It can be useful to write down the problem once they know what it is, so they can hold themselves accountable and not allow themselves to simply play through it. Elissa Milne’s article ‘Thirteen Mistakes Pianists Make’ may help you and your student diagnose (together) the exact mistake they’re making.

Aiming for Accuracy

Obviously, nobody can get everything right the first time. But the focus should be on accuracy from the start. This includes all aspects of playing, not just the right notes.

Students should be practising in small enough sections, and at a slow enough tempo, that they can mostly play with the correct notes, rhythm, fingering, dynamics and anything else notated.

If they concentrate solely on notes in the beginning, they’re practicing and reinforcing incorrect rhythms that they’ll have to fix later. If they use a different fingering every time they play a passage, they’re wasting precious practice time.

Listening

Active listening is so important. Encourage students to listen to recordings of their pieces by great performers, and note what made it beautiful. Have them listen to amateurs and note what pitfalls they fell into.

You want students to have that music in their minds before they attempt to play it. Then, while they play, listen for where the differences lie between their intended sound and the sound they’re creating.

Exploring

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, practising should be an inquisitive pursuit.

Students should try out different techniques they could apply, and test new styles they could use. Find their own personality in the music. Use the music to delve into new stories and convey emotions. Think about the tale behind the piece and how they can get that across in their playing.

If you want more advice and resources about practice routines, motivation, specific strategies and more, visit the Colourful Keys ‘Teaching Piano Practice’ hub page.

Creating Practice Pros

The online course ‘Practice Pro’ – exclusively available for members of Vibrant Music Teaching – will help you do just that.

Not a member of Vibrant Music Teaching? It’s not just games. Members also have access to courses for music studio teachers covering almost any topic you could need, with more added all the time. Take a tour today at vibrantmusicteaching.com.

In the tutorial videos and ready-made lesson plans from the ‘Practice Pro’ course, you’ll learn how to take your students through 3 different levels of practice effectiveness and efficiency, allowing them to experience each level and (hopefully) the difference in results.

Pro tip: Since varied practice strategies usually don’t apply to newbie or beginner pieces, this course is intended for your late beginner (grade 1) students and up.

Level 1 Piano Practice: A Regular Routine

This is the baseline. I understand that – for a lot of us – this is what we’re aiming for.

Practice does need to be regular, but students can actually do more with 3 or 4 days of great practice every week than they can with 6 days of just passing time at the piano to make mum happy.

creating efficient piano practice pros

Sure, they’ll eventually get better playing like that. But they could get a lot better a lot more quickly if they practised efficiently.

If you need help getting your students up from Level 0 (no practice) to Level 1 (a regular routine), you might find our parent blog posts helpful. These articles were written as a series for PARENTS of music students so that teachers can pass along the links instead of regurgitating the same information themselves time and time again.

In particular, we have a parent post about how to ‘help your child develop a solid music practice habit’. Feel free to send it to your piano parents.

Level 2 Piano Practice: Varied and Somewhat Thoughtful

Level 2 practice is about students using a variety of approaches in their practice time, such as tapping out the rhythm, singing, listening, practising short sections and so on.

creating efficient piano practice pros

Practising this way achieves better results in less time than it does to simply play a piece from start to finish mindlessly, and it’s a lot more engaging for the student. It’s not, however, specific to what needs to be worked on. It’s not entirely efficient piano practice that’s planned out based on a problem or challenge they are having.

To take students from Level 1 to Level 2 practice, games and activities can work wonders (even for older students!). Some of my favourites include ‘Practice Hero’, ‘Flamingo Focus’ and the games in the ‘Piano Practice Kit’.

The Piano Practice Kit is available to members in the VMT Library. Not a member? Visit vibrantmusicteaching.com to learn more.

Level 3 Piano Practice: Focussed, Specific and Planned

This is where truly great practice happens. At Level 3, a piano student assesses where they are with a piece before making a plan for the efficient strategy to use in that day’s practice. In the ‘Practice Pro’ course, we use an activity called the “practice doctor” to put this into action.

Level 3 practice isn’t easy to achieve, and we shouldn’t expect it to happen from the get-go.

A Balancing Act

As you take students through these 3 levels, it’s important to be clear with students that it’s rare to be at Level 3 Practice all of the time.

creating efficient piano practice pros

If some days, all they can do is show up and play through their piece then that’s ok! (VMT members have a game for that, too. It’s called ‘Take Five’.)

But it should be their priority to make as much practice as possible in the level 3 zone.

Be honest with your students about your own practice, too. You’re a human person, which automatically means you’re not perfect. It’s healthy for students to know that this is a lifelong work-in-progress, but one that’s worth pursuing.

Is piano practice effective and efficient in your studio?

Share your thoughts in the comments below. We’d love to hear them. 🙂

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