Developing good practice habits and structure

[darkaegis]

Hi all,

I am trying to develope better practice habits to break a 2+ hour session into smaller pieces of things I should be working on. I am almost 32 months into this and want to push a bit harder to get more out of the time I am spending on piano each night.

I have gotten into a fairly bad routine of just starting out scales and working on whatever current pieces I am working on for a couple of hours. But I want to add more to my practice session to make parts of it less mechanical and get more out of it.

Any good recommondations? What should I be doing beyond say scales, some sight reading and current pieces?

Thanks in advance.

[darkaegis]

I see a good answer below

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,6458.0.html

[m1469]

I see a good answer below

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,6458.0.html

Hi darkaegis.  Be sure to visit the accompanying link in Bernhard's post regarding the organization of practice times :  https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5767.msg56133.html#msg56133

Much of what I am about to say is my version of many concepts presented in those posts.  I have been studying Bernhard's posts and then putting them into practice myself as well as in my teaching.

****

My current motto toward practising is basically, the more organization the better.  I am currently undergoing major changes in the fundamentals of how I practise as well as how I train my students to practise.  Details are constantly being re-shaped and have even changed from just last week, as I am always working to better utilize time. 

When I have a student come to me and ask how to better utilize and be more efficient with their pracitse time, it is usually because s/he has a sincere interest in the music and the instrument, and s/he basically wants to figure out how to better learn and grow.   The desire to learn and grow is in itself, mostly just a wave of motivation/inspiration with varying levels of strength, energy, and force (and it may even come in sets and tides, so to speak).  Without the proper guidance, attention, and focal points, however, any amount of motivation (no matter how big) may not amount to much of anything at all. 

Consider our interactions with the powerful forces derived from the elements of nature.  An ocean wave, for example, is only recognizeable once it meets with something that focuses its power.  Without the ocean floor, we would not experience it as much of anything besides a placid body of water.   Furthermore, the more focused its energy becomes, the greater it's force and power and the more usable (by our standards) it becomes. 

So one of the first things I try to help a student like this do is establish focal points, both broadly and in great detail.  I want to give that motivation something to interact with, that will encourage it to build upon itself and become a tangible and very useable resource of power.  The type or breadth of focal points I may help each student find, will greatly depend on the force of motivation.

Setting goals and aims are the main means of establishing focal points for any student.  In your case, darkaegis, you are obviously experiencing motivation, and thinking already about how to focus your motivation into something more useable for you.   So, what are the things that you wish to accomplish in your piano studies ?  You don't have to answer me this, but it is helpful for you to be thinking about this as you work to focus your energies toward those goals.

Developing a 5 year plan which outlines the repertoire you would like to learn within that time is a good place to start.  In essence, you are taking a "broad" chunk of your motivation and giving it more focus right away.  It already becomes something more useable for you.  From there, pick out another chunk of pieces you would like to learn within the next year, I like to call this my "core pieces".  From that chunk of core pieces, pick out the pieces you will begin working on right away (maybe you want to continue with some you have already started as well).   In any case, you are giving your desires something to interact with.  By doing these three things, you are providing for yourself a kind of storing place for your musical desires to gather, much like a lake that's gathered for the purpose of creating hydro electricity.  The water is gathered and then pressurized/focused.  We harness it's power and create electricity.

With my students, we properly focus or pressurize the actual study time so that we create an "electricity" from it, so to speak.   We go through 3 steps with every piece, to begin with :

1.   Number all the measures

2.  Conduct some analysis of the piece, primarily looking for repeated patterns and such.

In this stage, we will often find entire sections that are repeated, measures that are found in 3 or more places, etc.  By doing this, they often find that the number of *different* measures they have to learn is considerabley smaller than the total number of measures in the piece.  They ALWAYS *LOVE* this.  This step toward focus gives a psychological boost right away.

3.  Find the most difficult measures to begin working on first.

Once this is done, the piece can be arranged into 15-20 mins practise sessions.  The most difficult sections are worked on first as they take the longest time to stew and also, once they are learned, the rest of the piece comes with it.  In the process of learning how to organize one's practise in this way, it is difficult to break the entire piece down all at once, without having any idea how long each section will take to establish a level of comfort with it.  So, to begin with, one may be deciding day by day what will be worked on in the following day, and this is all kept track of in a practise log.  The basic idea is to not waste time thinking about where to start when you are sitting down to begin.

In organizing the practise this way, vs just sitting down with the pieces and "going for it", I have noticed considerable changes in both my own and my students growth.  More pieces can be worked on at once, giving the student a broader musical base and more exposure to different musical shapes and patterns.  A larger number of pieces at once, help to encourage the fundamental musical growth to be quicker, and therefore, the student's ability to work out patterns within new pieces greatly improves. 

And a last thought, consistency is truly the key.

Just some thoughts  .

m1469

[darkaegis]

Wow.. thanks m1469.

I really should sit down and set some goals.... that would give direction to my practise.

As far as motivation... I have been consistantly putting in >90 minutes 6 nights a week for a long time. I am reaching the point as you mentioned that I want to go further and that will require not more time but a better approach. I understand your approach and it sounds like a good plan moving forward on, I will try to convey some of this to my piano teacher to see if she can help me set out a repretoire. I was considering copying a recent posting on basic repretoire, but my repretoire would be as unique as most others so I will have to focus and determine what I want to play.

I was reading below on the disection of pieces. How many pieces do you have your students working on typically at the same time? I currently work on 3 but this method sounds like I could be useful on more at the same time or directed towards larger works.

Thanks again

[m1469]

Wow.. thanks m1469.

How many pieces do you have your students working on typically at the same time?

You are quite welcome, darkaegis  .  Well, I have been working on a response to this question, believe it or not, but decided that what I have been working up might be overkill  .  So, the most brief response, and perhaps fairly un-informative, would be that of course it depends on the student and a few other factors as to how many pieces one may be working on at a time.  There is an art to it all, I am finding.

Generally though, right from the very beginning, I have students working at least 3 that are completely within reach for their particular position in the learning process.  But the range of numbers between my individual students is currently anywhere from 3 to 12 at once, and the degree of difficulty will begin to vary.


m1469   

[rc]

After reading all the advice I could find in the forum, tons of it, what really helped me was to keep a journal as I tried out the various strategies. I kept track of EVERYTHING in this journal, for each practice session jotting down whatever I thought needed improvement, or just telling myself "good job" if the session went well. As well as long paragraphs of what I'd like to try/accomplish the next few days, and dreaming about being able to play all kinds of things (motivation fodder!).

Every once in a while I would notice my practice getting sloppy again, so I'd bust out the journal and give my ass a kick for the next few weeks. After a few months I began to form very good habits for myself. I still use the journal, but more to guide my progress then to nitpick my habits.

To keep track of what I do from day to day I have a whiteboard divided into squares for each day... I write down what I want to accomplish for the day and put checkmarks and little notes as I accomplish each little goal. Then I can look back on the previous day and go "got that done, review that, this needs more work, didn't get that done..."

The journal was great to enforce good habits as I developed my practice.