How to practice?

[marijn210999]

Hey, since a few days I'm using the book: Master School of Modern Piano Playing & Virtuosity and it gives real good advices on how to make schedules for practice and it gives very good exercises but my question is. What do the exercises help to reach and how long does it take to notice it in my playing. Will I be able to learn a piece faster? Will I be able to play faster and also. If you would take a note at this link at look at the schedules please:

https://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/3/32/IMSLP288539-PMLP468574-Master_School_of_Piano_Playing___Virtuosity_-_vol_1.pdf

The schedules gives very strict on when and how much to practice technical stuff. But what should I do in the afternoon and evening. In short: What do they mean with pieces, bach, etudes? Thanks for your help!

[louispodesta]

Hey, since a few days I'm using the book: Master School of Modern Piano Playing & Virtuosity and it gives real good advices on how to make schedules for practice and it gives very good exercises but my question is. What do the exercises help to reach and how long does it take to notice it in my playing. Will I be able to learn a piece faster? Will I be able to play faster and also. If you would take a note at this link at look at the schedules please:

https://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/3/32/IMSLP288539-PMLP468574-Master_School_of_Piano_Playing___Virtuosity_-_vol_1.pdf

The schedules gives very strict on when and how much to practice technical stuff. But what should I do in the afternoon and evening. In short: What do they mean with pieces, bach, etudes? Thanks for your help!

Before I discovered the Dorothy Taubman tapes and also Thomas Mark's book, "What Every Pianist Needs To Know About the Body," I lived in your world.  This is the common daily existence of exercises, scales, and arpeggios as part of a normal practice routine.  I no longer have to do that.

Please contact me private message for further conversation, unless you instead choose to be subjected to the mindless egomaniacal advice of the official technique Troller of this website.  Trust me, it will happen.

I genuinely hope I can be of some assistance.

[awesom_o]

The problem is.... there isn't a single, one-size-fits-all "way" to practice. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.

This is why it's so important to have a good teacher who will help you to develop your strengths, and address your weaknesses so that you can eliminate them on your own.

Do you have a teacher?

[pianoplayer51]

My teacher helps me work out my strengths and weaknesses.  However, she does not tell me how much to practice at home.  That is up to me.  I do a full time job so sometimes I get back from work too late or too tired to do very much practice at all, but I do more at the weekends to make up for it.  I spend usually an hour in the early afternoon and then have a break and then go back to it in the early evening for another hour or so.  There is no pressure, just as long as I do something to prove the next lesson that I have done it.

Right now I have a one sheet piece to play with quite technical notes.  I am taking it slowly.  If you try and rush it, unless you are very expert, you will make mistakes.  I prefer to take my time and get all the notes, dynamics and pedaling done properly.  My teacher knows I am sufficiently interested to learn and do my homework.... after all, I am paying for the lessons so it is in my interests to progress otherwise it is a waste of money.

[indianajo]

I liked to do the boring exercises first, which also usually warm up my muscles.  Then I went to pieces I didn't like much but the teacher wanted me to do.  I finished up with the pieces I like.  Slowly with no mistakes, then speed up, was my teacher's constant advice. 
i never practiced more than an hour a daywhen i was young.  The first three years, half an hour.   I was in the "K" classes and usually had 2-3 hours of homework a night and 4-5 hours homework on the weekend.  Still I got up to grade 6 or 7 in seven years, with the occasional grade 8 piece.  It gave me enough technique that I'm playing pieces now in retirement that I have heard at master's degree recitals, without any additional lessons.