How to Get the Most out of Your Piano Lessons

by Amy Sundberg

Great, you or your child is taking piano lessons! But what do you really need to focus on to become a better player, or help your child improve? Here are some basics to keep in mind:

What to Bring

Try to arrive at your lesson a few minutes early, with all of your books and your assignment book in hand. An assignment book can be a regular notebook or a notebook of staff paper, and should be brought to every single lesson. If you forget one of your books, then you cannot play the song you've been working so hard on all week, and you will lose some progress.

What to Keep in Mind during your Lesson

1. You are playing on a different piano than usual, so it might take some time to adjust. Don't worry, it's normal!

2. Play slowly. Take your time. It's not a race.

3. Before you start playing a piece for your teacher, take a minute to hear it in your head. Remember any parts of the piece that you find especially hard. For example: "oh yeah, I need to remember the 8va and play this section of the piece an octave higher than the rest."

4. If you make a mistake, it's okay. No one expects you to play the piece perfectly. Try to keep going calmly.

5. Play the piece the way you've been practicing it at home.

6. If you have questions, feel free to ask before you start playing, or after you've finished. (For example, after you've played, "I've been having trouble with the fingering in this measure. Could you go over it with me?")

How Often to Practice

Your goal should be to practice thirty minutes a day, five to six days per week. You should always practice the day before and day after your lesson as two of your five/six days. It is fine to practice in shorter chunks (ten minutes three times a day) if shorter times make it easier to concentrate. For younger children, daily practice times can be a bit shorter, especially when first starting lessons. It is fine to practice more than thirty minutes - a more advanced student will often need to practice forty-five minutes to an hour per day.

How to Practice at Home

1. Always check your assignment notebook. Check it every time you practice. Otherwise, you might forget what you're working on. If your child is taking lessons, go over his assignment with him right after his lesson so both of you understand what he will be working on for the week.

2. Divide your time between different tasks. For example, you might want to spend 20% on technique (scales, Hanon, Fingerpower, etc), 60% on pieces, and 20% on having fun! Another example: 20% technique, 50% on pieces, 10% sightreading, 20% fun. So, if you are practicing for 30 minutes, this breaks down to about 6 minutes on technique, 18 minutes on pieces, and 6 minutes doing whatever you want. This is a loose estimate, but the important idea is to break the practice down into different activities.

3. Set specific goals for your practice time. Your notebook will help you remember what you need to work on. "Play better" is not a specific goal. "Fix the notes in measures 10-12" is a specific goal. "Practice counting out loud" is another specific goal.

4. Don't start over every time you make a mistake. Don't back up to try it again. Instead, make a mental note of where this tricky spot is, and go back later to focus practice on it. It's perfectly fine to make some mistakes, so don't beat yourself up about it!

5. Do practice slowly and at the same, even tempo. If that means you are playing some easy parts of a piece much slower than you can, that's fine. Keep at the tempo that you can play the hardest part of the piece.

6. Remember that practice isn't meant to be mindless repetition. I will try to be very specific in your practice notebook as to what your specific goals are. If you don't know what to practice, play the piece once through and choose the three trickiest small sections. Work on those sections - play them hands apart, play them slowly, make sure your notes, rhythm, and fingering are accurate - for each small section. Play each section several times. You may want to work note by note on particularly tricky passages, adding a note on either side as you progress. When putting it back into the piece, play more slowly.

7. Ask yourself if your playing is based on luck or control. If you play a section correctly, is it good luck or could you do it again? If it's luck, focus your practice on that section.

8. Practice the hardest part of the piece the most. If part of a song is easy for you, you don't need the practice as much. If you don't spend time on the tricky parts, they'll never get easier.

9. As a reward at the end of working on a song, let yourself play it all the way through, at a tempo slow enough that you can play the hardest parts of the piece.

10. Try not to watch the clock. Instead, work through your assignment and focus on your goals. If you finish a thorough practice of your goals early, go ahead and have fun at the piano for awhile longer!

How to Help Your Child Practice

When a child begins piano study, her parents should help her develop a practice schedule. Children often need their parents (or another adult) to sit with them or in the same room while they're practicing, to help as needed and monitor their practice. Parents should be aware of what a child's assignment is for the week and help remind them as needed. For instance, maybe the child has a note naming assignment that will only take a few minutes to do, but they can't remember on their own to actually sit down and do it.

Sometimes children don't like their mistakes to be corrected by their parents. It's okay to leave the mistake to be corrected by the teacher at the next lesson if this is a problem. What it is important for a parent to correct is how the child is practicing. If he is playing pell-mell through all of his pieces one time and then says he's finished, he is not practicing effectively. If it says in her assignment notebook that she should be practicing counting out loud and she never does, she is not practicing effectively. Remember that the most important day for your child to practice is the day after the lesson.

Sometimes it is helpful to set up a regular time for piano playing in your house. I suggest treating the piano assignment with the same seriousness that you treat your child doing his homework or completing her household chores. If piano playing is consistently given a low priority, progress will be slow, if at all. Yes, playing the piano should be fun, but it also needs to be a consistent commitment on the part of your child and your family.