Thursday 25 August 2011

How To Practice The Piano

By Andy Penbram


To learn piano or keyboards can be a little depressing when you concentrate on your playing for days on end to find that you do not appear to be getting anywhere. The reason the majority students give up the piano, particularly in children is a highly regarded lack of advancement. Here are a handfull of tips to help you with your own personal practice sessions which ought to help you to progress faster.

Organize your practice time - Build a little routine for your practice periods. The main points of the routine will be very different from person to person dependent on the of music they are learning to play.

The first move to make when you sit down to practice is to warm up. A good way to do that is by practicing your scales for a while, this can loosen your fingers and in the long run will help you to learn pieces in various keys.

As soon as you have finished the warmup you may then go on to working on your pieces. You ought to know after the first few times of practicing a new piece where the difficult sections are. Start with these sections just before you try to play the whole piece. Play the section with separate hands. Keep swapping hands though so as not to let the other hand get cold. Now play the troublesome passage with both hands together.

You can now try the entire piece from start to end with a faith that you will be more comfortable when it comes to the troublesome parts.

Always utilize a metronome when you play your scales and arpeggios and use it for your pieces too if they permit it. Set the metronome to a slower speed than is necessary initially which should help you to play the piece easily. Over the space of 1 or 2 days you can slowly start to increment the tempo of the metronome until you are playing it at speed. You could even benefit from playing the piece more than it should be simply to get your fingers really working and used to the piece.

You've got to learn how to relax while you are playing. Relax your fingers, your back and in reality your entire posture. If you are tense while you play then you'll find it far more difficult to control your fingers and for your playing to flow. This is a little like studying how to ride a bike or drive a vehicle. To start with there are so many things to remember and coordinate but at some specific point it all of a sudden clicks and it all slots into place.

Daily practice on its own isn't really enough to learn the piano correctly but a steady and structured practice routine will certainly give you an advantage.




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