In order to keep practicing fun and effective, start small and keep it simple!
BEGINNERS: If you are a beginning pianist and just learning to read music, your pieces will probably be quite short. I would recommend focusing on a specific different task each time you play through the piece. For example, start by noticing where each note is on the page. You will ignore its duration (meaning, how long you hold the key down) for now.
Place the finger of one hand (most students prefer using their pointer finger) under each note as you visually scan the exercise from left to right. If the notes are on a staff, practice saying "line" or "space" out loud as your finger arrives under each note. Go back to the beginning, and this time practice saying the letter name of the note out loud (e.g., "c") as you point with your finger. Now do the same thing, but play along (the hand that does the pointing will change depending on which hand you are using to play the piano).
Next, clap the rhythm of the piece with both hands. Count the values of the notes. For example, say "1" for every quarter note, "1-2" for every half note, and "1-2-3-4" for every whole note. As you advance, you will also take into account where the notes occur in each measure. You will begin using the same counts over and over each measure depending on the time signature of the piece. For example, in 4/4 time, you will always count 1-2-3-4. The number(s) assigned to each note will take into account their duration (e.g., how many counts each type of note - like a quarter or half note - is held), but also where it falls in a measure. So a quarter note, quarter note, half note will be counted 1, 2, 3-4. Each quarter note received one count and the half note received two counts, but the counts each received were based on where they fell in the measure.
Try playing each exercise four or five different ways and it will keep practice times short, interesting, and effective. Also, remember that it is better to practice 10 minutes a day every day, than 30 minutes or an hour once or twice a week. Slow and steady wins the race!
INTERMEDIATE and ADVANCED: Even though our pieces are longer and more complicated, we are still going to break them down into small chunks. I highly recommend sight reading brand new pieces every practice session, but it is equally important to focus on particular pieces with intention. And even if you are highly advanced, it is advantageous to break passages down into one, two or four measure phrases.
Practice hands alone, then together. Play through slowly and write down fingering on tricky parts. Always use the same fingering, it will become a major factor in your muscle memory. Practice for correct pitches, but give yourself leeway on duration and tempo. Then be vigilant about the rhythm, but take the tempo as slowly as you need to.
Keep in mind that even on a piece with a fast tempo marking, always start slowly and work up. We don't want to repeat errors because we are trying to play as quickly as we can. Practice makes permanent. Make sure you are repeating the correct fingering, rhythm and pitches each time you play.
Another good tip is to start from the end of the piece. Play the last measure. Then the second to last measure with the last measure. Keep adding measures until you reach the beginning of the piece or section. This will make memorization a natural extension of your practice as you are consistently "programming" your brain about what is coming next. It also helps defeat those glitches that can occur when we practice section by section but don't review the transitions between them enough.
Please never be afraid to work on a little bit at a time. You will retain the information better and own it more fully. Even though the pace may feel slower than you would like in the moment, you will make true progress and more quickly than simply playing the piece from beginning to end over and over. We all tend to want to "just play through" our pieces, but it slows down our learning. The brain retains more and learns most quickly when given information in small doses. That's why phone numbers are divided into sections the way they are. Give it a try and let me know what you discover!
SINGING MUSICIANS: You will also break pieces down into smaller chunks, but we have words to learn in addition to music AND our pitches need to be in our mind as well as our fingers since our instrument is in our bodies!
We are going to approach learning music in several different ways. I would like you to practice your words as a monologue, just as if you were going to present them without any music. Think like an actor/actress and consider who is speaking the text, who they are speaking to/who is hearing it, why the speaker is saying this at this particular moment and what they are hoping to accomplish by saying this.
Consider why each word is important. Practice speaking the text without paying attention to the meter of the song. Feel the flow of the language. We don't want to sound as if we are stilted by the rhythm of the song or the consonants of the words. (We sing on vowels, by the way, and it is easy to allow consonants to clip our vocal line. We will learn how to use consonants to our advantage rather than get in our way in a later lesson.) We want to learn how to ride the tempo and rhythm the writer gives us as if we are swimming in a smooth body of water; rather than allowing it to shut. us. down. on. every. beat.
When you are practicing the text as a monologue, I would like you to move. Walk your dog, or practice in a "safe space" like a room in your home. Allow yourself to walk around. (You may feel a bit ridiculous, I admit that I still do when I am first warming up, so you are in good company!) When you are comfortable enough with the text that you can say it from memory, try speaking it while you are doing another task, such as loading the dishwasher or folding laundry. If you can speak the text while doing another activity, you know that you know it, and you can start to get out of your own way. We all overthink and try to be "perfect" and that is at odds with allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. To truly move an audience, we need to stop focusing on ourselves and just be. It's terrifying, but amazing. Believing we are enough as we are without artifice is what brings an audience joy and reminds all of us that we are human.
In addition to practicing the text as if it is a monologue (which it actually is, it just happens to be set to music), we are going to take the different elements of the song one at a time. Practice tapping the rhythm of the notes. Practice speaking the words in rhythm. Practice singing the tones on a vowel (I recommend "ah") without considering rhythmic duration. Make it sloppy and legato. Practice from the end of the piece to the beginning as noted above under "Intermediate and Advanced" pianist. Sing the tones a cappella. Sing them on a vowel but this time do consider the rhythmic duration. Sing the tones using the vowel of each word, but none of the consonants (this is more difficult than it sounds).
Finally, practice with consideration of all the elements: the words (vowels, consonants and meaning), the tones, duration. When this has become more comfortable, consider the text again. If you were speaking it, where would the accents of the words fall? Sometimes songwriters and composers are very skilled at setting text, and the accented syllables fall on the accented tones. But sometimes, the two work against each other, and the singer has to reconcile the difference. And sometimes the writer intentionally sets the text and music against each other to create tension, these are the guys and gals who really know their stuff. Now you know your stuff, too, and are poised to be an "artist" as well as a "singing musician!"
CONCLUSION: Pianists, Singing Musicians, and Aspiring Pianists and Singing Musicians:
I want to thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. I hope it has been helpful to you. I am (obviously!) very passionate about music and the power it has to make the world a better place. However, there is a caveat to everything that I share and that is this: you always have permission and are always encouraged to keep and use only the suggestions that I make that are helpful to you, and disregard anything that is not helpful. Music is a very personal journey and you know what works best for you.
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Happy Practicing,
Your Music Professor
October 1, 2021
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