Pianists’ Page

Dear students: This page is designed for you! Here you will find useful downloads, games, fun links, and other tips for improving your piano prowess. Keep checking back for more new stuff!

Practice Tips
Print On-Demand
Sheet Music and Composing
Fun Sites!
Policy Reminder

Practice Tips

Why do we practice? In short, because playing piano is a physical activity. Practice strengthens the muscles to produce controlled, consistent tone and dynamics. Practice develops the muscle memory needed to form various chords, intervals, rhythms, and note patterns. Practice establishes the building blocks needed for advanced musicianship.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could learn all the songs we love just by coming to piano lessons? The truth is, each music lesson only occupies a mere thirty minutes to an hour of your week. So how do you make the other six days count with the most efficient practice possible? Every student is unique, so try the tips below and see which work best for you.

Chunking It: separate a piece into little manageable parts.

Instead of starting at the beginning of the piece and playing it through to the end, work on one small section at a time. Polish until it shines. Set a number of small, interim goals.

Experiment: Choose two bars, and work only those two bars for five minutes. To play those two bars once might only take ten seconds. This means in five minutes you could actually play them thirty times. Or you could spend that five minutes playing the whole piece — pauses, hiccups, wrong notes and all — twice.
Which practice method will make the two bars sound better? After thirty play-throughs or after only two?
Both methods take five minutes. One gives fifteen times as much attention to the section that needs it. Don't be surprised if that delivers a section that’s fifteen times as good.

Go for Ugly: start with the hardest part of the piece.

Carefully look through the piece. Find the ugly and hit it hard until you can play it through. By comparison, everything else will feel easier, which means you are more likely to continue practicing just a little longer. Sooner or later, the only bits left are easy bits.

Flying Start: if the piece is a relay, open with your fastest, then catch up on the remaining legs.

Start easy and build momentum. This method is for you if:

You tend to get so frustrated by the hard bits that you give up on the whole piece.
You need the good feeling of the piece taking regular steps forward.

Conveyer Belt: set to the slowest speed and check everything very carefully.

There are a lot of things to check for when you are practicing: the right notes, fingerings, counting, dynamics; articulation marks, pedal indications, accidentals; key signatures, time signatures, changing clefs... You get the idea.

If you think you can check all these things when the notes are flying past at warp three, think again.
You just won’t notice the things that are wrong. Some students then assume that because they saw nothing wrong, everything must have been right.

Program Perfection: practice it right every time.

You get better at whatever you practice. If you practice mistakes, you will become good at producing mistakes; if you get a section right half the time during practice, you can expect a 50/50 chance of playing it well on stage. Not good odds. Your teacher and parents will be on blood pressure medication if they have to watch you perform too often.

Be very tough with yourself. Insist that each note, each fingering, each dynamic indication is correct — every time — even if you have to play at 30 beats per minute to make sure it happens. Focus intently on not letting a single mistake through. In essence, you will program your subconscious with nothing but correct information.
Practicing this way for just ten minutes can be worth five hours of simply playing the piece through from beginning to end without this level of focus. You will learn things faster. Notes will become more accurate and reliable.
On the other hand, careless playthrough-at-full-speed practice can actually make your piece worse.

PRINT ON-DEMAND

Sheet Music and Composing

     Download and buy sheet music:
          free piano music
          petrucci music library
          8notes
          scribd
          sheetmusicplus
          pianospot
          cdsheetmusic
     CDs that will print out sheet music from your computer:
          http://www.musiciansfriend.com
          http://www.musicnotes.com
     Websites and software for composing:
          noteflight
          sibelius
          finale
          codamusic
          smartmusic
          cakewalk
          musicmasterworks
          noteworthysoftware

Policy reminder:

You should come to lessons prepared and refreshed, not tired from other activities, and with a positive attitude.
You must bring all of your music books and assignment notebook to each lesson to record weekly practice goals and progress.
If you arrive early, you may sit quietly on the couch, read, or color. Activity books and puzzles will be provided. You must remain quiet until the start of your lesson.
If you are late to your assigned lesson time, you will only receive the remaining time of your lesson to be fair to the student after you.
I expect that you come to lessons having practiced and completed your assignments. Suggested minimum daily practice times are:

Primer Level — 20 Minutes
Early Elementary — 30 Minutes
Late Elementary and Intermediate — 60 Minutes
Late Intermediate and Early Advanced — 75 Minutes

Track your daily practice and update your Star Chart each week.
Do your theory homework a little each day (instead of finishing it in the car on the way to lessons)!
Keep your nails trimmed so that they do not click on the piano keys.