How to have a better overview of your practice?

[skari123]

I'm in the beginning stages of learning a lot of very advanced music, both technically and musically and would like to have more efficiency when practising. Sometimes I lose track of what needs the most amount of work and it leads to me wasting time searching for that particular place. I've been recently journaling down the places that needs most work but it's help is limited. Any tips?

[dw4rn]

How about post-it notes in your scores?
Or recording and listening back to your practice in order to get new ideas for improvement when you are away from the piano?

Perhaps, since you are in the beginning stages, you don't know enough about the music. It sounds a bit strange to my ears that you find yourself wasting time looking for particular passages. Perhaps studying the music away from the piano and/or listening to a few recordings would be a good idea?

Why do you find your journaling of limited help? Sorry to answer your question with more questions, but perhaps we could help you more efficiently if you tell us more about what you are practicing and how you are going about it at the moment. 
 

[skari123]

How about post-it notes in your scores?
Or recording and listening back to your practice in order to get new ideas for improvement when you are away from the piano?

Perhaps, since you are in the beginning stages, you don't know enough about the music. It sounds a bit strange to my ears that you find yourself wasting time looking for particular passages. Perhaps studying the music away from the piano and/or listening to a few recordings would be a good idea?

Why do you find your journaling of limited help? Sorry to answer your question with more questions, but perhaps we could help you more efficiently if you tell us more about what you are practicing and how you are going about it at the moment.

Post-it notes are a nice touch, will definitely give that a shot. I think the main thing for me is that after spending a considerable amount time learning a piece I find it hard to listen to it with ''fresh ears'' so to speak. I regularly spend time away from the piano studying the score so it's not that I don't know the music inside out but more like I have a hard time having a fresh perspective on the material. Like for an example I'm currently planning on learning the Debussy thirds etude, but the fingering in the hence edition I'm using is terrible I have been spending a considerable amount of time fingering the whole piece. Then when I actually start learning the piece I feel kinda disoriented, if you catch my drift. I could probably listen more to recordings like you pointed out. When I said ''in the beginning stages of'' I definitely should have phrased it in a better way, but what I meant was that I'm currently learning pieces that are not easy to play nor digest. For reference I recently played Liszt's valee d obermann in a concert and am currently learning the Waldstein sonata, a Rach etude and other similar stuff. It's not that I'm terrible at practicing, but more that I haven't really found the best way for me to practice more efficiently, so I'm trying to broaden my scope a little bit and see what others have to say about this topic

[lostinidlewonder]

How to become more efficient practicing is a complex process which can't just be generalised upon. The most efficient way to learn is to just sight read your piece multiple times, automatically memorize the majority of the piece and then focus on trouble sections. But it all depends upon how you currently do it, do you just brute force repeat until it is done? That of course can leave pieces feeling dry and eat up the inspiration and spontaneity of music making.

[quantum]

If it is a lot of music to deal with, write down items that need work.  Keep a journal of what practice techniques were successful, as well as those that did not work. 

Record yourself regularly.  Not just performances, but practice sessions, and in-progress music as well.  Think of this as a recording journal of your practice.  Another advantage, is that you will get accustomed to having the microphone present when you play.

As you gather more experience, you will acquire the ability to estimate how long a particular piece might take to learn, and can better create learning plans for music.  This is where keeping a journal also helps, as it gives you a point of reference to continually update as you progress.  Eg: if you kept journal entries that Piece A took X amount of time to learn, than you can create a practice plan for Piece B, which is of similar difficulty as Piece A. 

[ego0720]

...then focus on trouble sections...

This is the difference between someone who is productive and one who is not. Not just piano.  Reflecting on my life the students who ignored things they knew they were good at and zoomed straight to the problem are more effective and efficient. Also healthier in their overall life with the time savings.  Knowing ones limitations is also a good sign of healthy self-concept with less distortion of reality and progress is faster accepting shortcomings and working with it.