Beginners Piano Lessons - Put Quality Into Your Practice, And Reap The Rewards!

With beginners' piano lessons, there is an emphasis on practice

. "The more you practice, the better you will be" you are told. To a point, this is true. But it should be extended to say "the more you practice THE RIGHT WAY, the better you will be." A regular practice schedule is important, but knowing how to practice builds the foundation that underpins this schedule.

While we're on the subject of sayings, this one is an old standard - "practice makes perfect". It rings true - but not entirely. For if you were to practice the wrong things, all you will perfect is a skill in something that is wrong. This is even more fitting in the world of piano practice.

A piano student repeating, and practicing, the same mistake over and over again will only learn a piece of music with that mistake more firmly engrained each time. This leads to increased frustration, and can cause the student to quit, even though they could have actually mastered the piece over time, and with the correct practice method.

To repeat, practice time is vital, but the student who will truly master the piano is the one who can identify mistakes and isolate them. Then they will need to practice small selections of music until they are able to eradicate the areas of mistakes. Once mastered, they can put the pieces back together and play it as whole.

As the student becomes more experienced, they can take a more active role in setting up their practice regime to meet particular challenges they may come up against. It is quite easy to become familiar with a tune and to play this at each practice. But this won't propel the student forward - they must continually strive to move out of their comfort zone and take on the next challenge. Practicing familiar pieces is not practice at all - that is called playing!

During beginners' piano lessons, each practice session must have a clear goal at the outset. A good idea is to work through various stages of the learning process. This could include a new piece, where the student learns notes, moving through to an advanced selection, being prepared for a potential performance. This challenges the student, who needs to think differently for each piece, which makes practice much more interesting and effective.

When practicing, the student needs to look out for problems, and develop a strategy for dealing with them. They should not get into the habit of repeating a piece right through, with the hope that next time, the area containing mistakes will just disappear. As we have mentioned, practicing mistakes simply reinforces them. So the student should break the piece down into small manageable chunks, isolating the difficult part, and practicing that until correct. Targeted practice will eliminate the mistake.

You will see that, for beginners' piano lessons especially, the quality of practice is absolutely vital. Eliminate bad habits at this early stage, and future practice becomes not only more enjoyable, but ultimately more productive. At the end of the day, there's no point in being able to play 2 pieces of music 80% correctly. It's much more beneficial to be able to play one piece 100% perfectly, and once this is mastered, move on to the next piece.

by: Paul Summers

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