How Do You Practice Classical Piano For Four Hours?

My top five tips for practicing any musical instrument:
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1. Have everything organized and ready at hand before you begin: music books, teacher’s notes, metronome, audio recorder, YouTube, and a pencil and eraser. 
2. 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.
3. 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. 
4. Record yourself practicing helps to check your progress.
5. The auxiliary studies of ear training, theory, sight-reading, score analysis, history, and harmony, are all important keys to your eventual musical success. 
6. 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

• Reviewing a piece(s) from your repertoire list will help with its retention.
• Now begin your assigned lesson homework.

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