Blog Archives

How Do You Practice Classical Piano For Four Hours?

2/11/2021

My top five tips for practicing any musical instrument:

Have everything organized and ready at hand before you begin: music books, teacher’s notes, metronome, audio recorder, YouTube, and a pencil and eraser.
Warm up your body with gentle stretching followed by playing slow scales before you jump in at full speed because piano injury is a real thing.
Before attempting a new piece I suggest you listen to the music professionally performed and mark up the scores by asking, “What’s going on here?” I mark in the articulations, tempo choices, phrasing and dynamic plans created by professional pianists and compare to the score I have in hand.
Record yourself practicing helps to check your progress.
The auxiliary studies of ear training, theory, sight-reading, score analysis, history, and harmony, are all important keys to your eventual musical success.
Bonus tip: Find a supportive group of fellow students to hang out with, either in person or on-line, because being part of a community is helpful for encouragement and commiseration.

Playing

Listening to Classical Piano

Form analysis: What is the structure of your piece? Is it in a Baroque dance form, sonata form, or rondo. With a little research you can discover the answer. Musical form - Wikipedia
Watch YouTube videos of professional performances of your repertoire and related pieces in the same genre or style because deep listening is a form of practicing.
Listen to music appreciation lectures. Suggested materials might include something from The Great Courses.

Ear training

Learning to play melodies in different keys. Work up to complete pieces in new keys. However, start simply with Jingle Bells or Ode to Joy and work up from there.
“What’s going on here?” Mark in the articulations and dynamic plans created by professional pianists and compare. This is so important; I've listed it twice.
Suggested materials: Perfect ear App, Music Theory Pro and RCM online ear training.

Classical Music History

Reading about Classical music history, composer biographies, and watching recordings with scores on YouTube is a fruitful use of your time.

Theory

Key signatures, intervals, transposition, scale/chord construction.
Suggested materials: Music Theory Pro, Alfred’s essential music theory and RCM theory books are good. It all depends on where you are starting though, so ask me for a recommendation based on my assessment of your knowledge.

Sight reading

This is a key activity for maintaining your joy at the keyboard: Playing for fun.
Clapping rhythms with a metronome.
If you play at level 6 (grade 6) sight read at level 4 or lower. Other options include RCM sight reading books or the free 1st page of music from www.musicnotes.com . Again, it all depends on where you are starting. You can ask me for a recommendation.

Piano Technique

Scales, chords, and arpeggios are the basic structural vocabulary of the piano.
The RCM syllabus has good technique lists. Conservatory Canada has even better lists.

If you would like help, call me.

David

Revised March 2023