How to Practice Piano Effectively

Why practice matters (and why more isn’t always better)

Here’s something that surprises people. In a 2000 study of 22 pianists (Williamon and Valentine), the total hours they practised did not predict how well they played. What mattered was what they did with those hours. Four hours of playing the easy bit you already know isn’t practice. It’s a private recital, you know?

Then there’s sleep, and I love this one. In a famous 2002 Harvard experiment (Walker and colleagues), volunteers learned a finger-tapping sequence. After a night’s sleep they were about 20% faster, with no extra practice. Those who stayed awake for the same 12 hours improved by around 2%. It was tapping, not piano, but you get the idea: your brain does overtime while you snore. That’s why twenty minutes every day beats a two-hour Sunday marathon, okay?

Three kinds of practice

Not all practice is equal. There are three kinds, and only one of them really moves you forward.

1. 1 Play-through Play for fun. It keeps you coming back.
2. Progress lives here 2 Fix-it practice Find the two or three bars that trip you up and work on only those.
3. 3 Performance practice Play the whole piece without stopping, even when you slip. A teddy counts as an audience.

Most people live on number one, replaying the bits that already sound good. Progress lives on number two, so go and live there.

The four levels of working on a song

Every song climbs the same four steps, and the order matters. Touch all four in your practice.

1. The notes firstOnly the notes and the rhythm, nothing else. No dynamics, no articulations, not yet. You’re building the basic skeleton of the song. Play the complete song 20 to 30 times at this level, so it’s really in your hands before you move on.
2. Dynamics and articulationNow the skeleton gets its shape: where it’s loud, where it’s soft, what’s smooth and what’s short.
3. The right speedOnly now do you bring it up to the proper tempo. If the first two levels were done well, speed comes a lot easier.
4. Make it yoursThe fun one. Change a few dynamics, try your own touches and styles, improvise around it. The song stops being only the composer’s and becomes yours as well.

Please don’t jump ahead. Dynamics on top of shaky notes is just practising your mistakes, only louder and softer.

Seven techniques that work

1. Go slowSlower than you think you need to, then a bit slower still. If you can only play it fast, you can’t really play it. Slow down until it’s easy, then nudge the metronome up a few beats at a time.
2. Break it into lines, then chain themGot a full page of a song? Don’t attack the whole page. Play line one 10 times. Then line two, 10 times. Now join one and two together, another 10 times. Then line three, 10 times, and one, two and three together, 10 times. Line four, then one to four, and on it goes. Keep building like that and the whole page comes together in a much better way. And if just one bar is the problem, fix that bar. You wouldn’t re-read a book to fix one typo. line 1 ×10line 2 ×101+2 ×10line 3 ×101+2+3 ×10line 4 ×101+2+3+4 ×10…
3. Count while you playWhatever you play, count it out loud. Every time. It feels silly for about a week, and after that it keeps your beat honest and shows you straight away which bit you don’t really know yet. Count the way the notes are written: Normal notes1 2 3 4 8th notes1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 16th notes1 e and a 2 e and a 3 e and a 4 e and a
4. Hands apart, then togetherEach hand learns its job before they have to cooperate.
5. RotateSwitch passages every few minutes. In a small 2016 study of ten clarinetists (Carter and Grahn), rotating beat 12 straight minutes on one passage, according to some of the expert judges. It also stops boredom.
6. Practice in your headIn a 1995 experiment (Pascual-Leone and colleagues), volunteers who only imagined a five-finger piano exercise showed brain changes similar to those who played it. So yes, you can practice on the bus. (No air piano. People stare.)
7. Read, don’t memoriseSay the rhythm aloud, name the notes, then play. Reading is the master key to every piece you haven’t met yet.

Try this 20-minute session

Put it all together and this is what one good day looks like. Phone goes in another room. Yes, that one.

Your 20 minutes, drawn to scale.

1. 2 minWarm up with scales. Count them out loud.
2. 3 minReview last time’s piece.
3. 10 minFix-it practice. Two hard bars, slowly, hands apart then together, counting out loud.
4. 3 minNew material. Read it, don’t memorise it.
5. 2 minPlay something purely for joy.

At Parla I ask for 20 focused minutes a day, in every weekly lesson routine. Not because 20 is magic, but because it’s a habit you can actually keep. Try it for a week, okay? You’ll feel the difference.

Where the research comes from

• Williamon & Valentine (2000), Quantity and quality of musical practice as predictors of performance quality, British Journal of Psychology. 22 pianists; total practice time did not predict performance quality.
• Walker et al. (2002), Practice with sleep makes perfect, Neuron. About 20% improvement after sleep versus about 2% after the same period awake, on a finger-tapping task.
• Carter & Grahn (2016), Optimizing music learning: blocked and interleaved practice, Frontiers in Psychology. Ten clarinetists; results varied by judge.
• Pascual-Leone et al. (1995), mental practice of a five-finger piano exercise, Journal of Neurophysiology, as cited in a 2015 Frontiers review.