How to practice efficiently?

[yumaisch]

Hi!
This is my first year of studying piano full time and I was wondering how you practice the piano efficiently. I practice about 3,5 hours every day ( sometimes 6, sometimes 2) but it takes me up to 3 month to learn a piece. I searched on the Internet what I was doing wrong, and every site said I was practicing inefficiently ( like just playing the piece through and through, stopping where i make mistakes, repeating that section over and over and so on.)
Every site says that that is inefficient, but they never say what I should change or do to practice efficiently.
So here is my question: how do you practice efficiently?

Sorry for my bad English it is my third language! 

Hope you having a great day!

[brogers70]

People write whole books to answer this question. One suggestion is not to keep playing sections of a piece you can already play over and over. Find the trouble spots. And then don't just play the trouble spots over and over until they get better. Instead think carefully about what's going wrong. Find the single motion or the single transition between two notes or chords that is causing the problem. Then find the right motion for that single, isolated problem. Then practice that until it's easy. Then play it in gradually bigger contexts, first with the beat before and after the trouble spot, then from a few measures before to a few measures after. In a long piece you may feel frustrated because you are only working on a few notes at a time, but in the long run, I think it's the fastest way to learn.

[lostinidlewonder]

Practicing efficiently depends on your current understanding of the piano and how you personally think when practicing. When I teach students how to practice it is always different depending on who they are, yes there are similar ideas that exist in all levels but relating pattern recognition for instance at a masters level to a beginner child will not help and sometimes even detailed analysis of a passage is more cumbersome than getting to the point of learning the part.

There has to be brief but penetrating observation of what you do with a logic which resonates strongly with your own mind and appreciation of what you are doing. Simply repeating in a brute force method may get results but it is often considered inefficient because of the number of incessant repeats you must go through. Repeating mindfully however will change this. This is easier said than done though, finding the thought that acts as a catalyst for your progress is a precious discovery and something that does become more apparent the more you apply mindful practice to many many situations and the better you get to know your own two hands. No one can really tell you how to mindfully repeat your passage unless they understand how you currently think with music. No books really will help you need a good teacher who will deal with your current abilities and way of thinking, perhaps they can enhance what you already have or indeed give you ideas you didn't know about and guide you through the process.

Look for a teacher who teaches "how" to practice not just "what" to practice, this is something I suggest to a lot of people when they look for a new teacher. Too many teachers out there are simply "what" teachers, they just say what you have to improve but don't give details on how you exactly should go about doing that in a mindful efficient manner.

[chopinlover01]

My teacher passed down to me a quote from his professor a week or so ago:

"If you hear someone in a practice room, and they sound good, they aren't practicing."

More or less, you should be focusing at least 80% on the things you're doing poorly.

[mike_lang]

My teacher passed down to me a quote from his professor a week or so ago:

"If you hear someone in a practice room, and they sound good, they aren't practicing."

More or less, you should be focusing at least 80% on the things you're doing poorly.

It can be true, but it's a little misleading in certain circumstances (maybe these are the 20%) . . . before a performance, we're often having multiple run-throughs of entire pieces to acclimate ourselves to the endurance demands, experience the whole, etc. That having been said, the aphorism "don't polish shiny objects" is a good one!

[klavieronin]

3 months to learn a new piece of music isn't all the long if the music you are learning is very challenging for you in the beginning. They say it takes about 10 weeks to acquire new habits and in a sense that's what happens when you learn to play a piece of music.

My advice I would be do practice in whatever way that encourages you to get to the piano. After all, even ineffective practice is better than none.

You might also try studying your music away from the piano. I have found this method extremely effective when learning new pieces. It is very difficult to do in the beginning but once you're accustomed to it you'll be able to memorise about a page of music a day. You won't necessarily be able to play that page but at least the notes will be in your head.

[mike_lang]

You might also try studying your music away from the piano. I have found this method extremely effective when learning new pieces. It is very difficult to do in the beginning but once you're accustomed to it you'll be able to memorise about a page of music a day. You won't necessarily be able to play that page but at least the notes will be in your head.

Yes! This is invaluable. There are so many things you can do away from the piano that will save you oodles of time when you get to the instrument!

[bernadette60614]

I can't recall where I read this, but this is what I do:

Practice new sections first.  My mind is fresh and my enthusiasm is highest.

Practice sections which need detailed work..particularly sections which I thought were "done", but upon reflection really aren't (fast "runs", trills, e.g.)

Practice exercises, including scales.

Play through "finished pieces"...I rotate these.  It is a nice way of reinforcing that yes, indeed, I can "finish" a piece.

I also use a timer and practice whatever for 15 minutes, then go onto a new section.  I find that 15 minutes is about the maximum I can focus on anything before I'm just playing mindlessly.

Good question!