That great feeling when yesterday's practicing pays off...

[larapool]

I just love it!  I finally tried something I should have always been doing, which is breaking whatever piece I'm working on into many small chunks - in this case, I'm splitting Chopin's Op. 9 No. 2, Nocturne in E Flat Major, into sections of 4 bars each, and learning 4 bars each day.

I started three days ago.  The first day went well, learning the 'oom-pah-pah' patterns and familiarizing myself with the feel of the song.  The next day, I was shocked at how easily those 4 bars came back to me, and I immediately moved on to memorizing the next 4!  Now, I've memorized nearly all of the first 2 pages, and will hopefully have the third (final) page memorized by early next week.  Then I can work on fine-tuning dynamics, pedaling, and ornaments...

In short, wow, what a difference it makes!  It's always such a great feeling when you really work hard at something that challenges you one day, and then the next day you can see it actually pays off!  Muscle memory is an incredible thing 

[pianoplayjl]

Yes, you are doing the right thing. I also used your strategy in my pieces. When practicing a whole piece and you play straight through the whole thing it basically amounts to nothing. I progressed much better when practising in smaller sections.

[larapool]

I'm glad to hear I'm doing something right, haha!  My only problem with this is when I can't clearly split them into concise phrases (see the Prelude in C Minor in the first book of the WTC).  I can split them into bars, but the phrases in practice don't sound complete!  That's partially why the practice worked so well with my Chopin piece - I could identify a phrase every certain number of bars.

[pianoplayjl]

for the prelude you can divide it into the first section(continuous notes), the 3 bars leading up to presto, Presto, Adagio and the allegro passage.

[_achilles_]

That's exactly how I learned that nocturne.. which also was one of the first pieces I really loved learning, and the first piece I learned using small chunks. It really opened my mind in a lot of ways and I still love playing it now.

I started three days ago.  The first day went well, learning the 'oom-pah-pah' patterns and familiarizing myself with the feel of the song.

And you got the oompa loompa song stuck in my head...