PITP Blog

January 25, 2024

December 4, 2023

Pre-Recital Tips

• Make the most of your final lesson before the recital.  Is there a part that you are stuck on?  Let’s work on it!  

• Ramp up your practice.  The more you practice, the better prepared you will feel.

• The week before the recital, practice only your recital songs.

• Practice your repertoire for family, friends and even your dog or cat. 

• Do a dress rehearsal.  Wear your recital clothes.  Practice walking to your piano from another room, play all of your pieces, stand-up, take a bow and walk away from the piano to another room.

• Prepare before you perform. When you sit down at the piano - place your hands in your lap, take in a good calming breath through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth, place your hands over the keys, give yourself a small moment to focus and begin to play.  When you are finished with your first piece.  Take another small moment to focus before moving on to the next piece.  You’ve got this!

• Try to find opportunities to play your recital pieces on different pianos in different locations.  Does a grandparent or a friend have a piano?  Perhaps you can play on a piano at school or on one of those pianos you see on the street at an outdoor mall or even at the airport.  What fun!

• Remind yourself why you love playing the piano and give yourself a positive pep-talk.  Mistakes do happen.  Remember, your audience doesn’t hear mistakes.  They only hear beautiful music and if you play from your heart, your music will be beautiful.

• Most of all, have fun!  

November 16, 2023

November 8, 2023

September 18, 2023                       Counting will allow you to play your piece correctly and play it with others.  😀

September  14, 2023

September 10, 2023

September 6, 2023

All About Practice

• Most important - Keep it fun!

• Music in an enjoyable activity.  Practice should never be a chore.  

• Attempt to practice at the same time every day.  You will learn best by consistent daily exposure.  Even minimal daily practice will prove beneficial over the long term.

•  Discipline yourself to complete each practice goal before moving on to the next.  

• Always warm up your hands with scales, arpeggios and cadences.  Warming up your hands will allow you to achieve speed, accuracy and the physical demands of a complicated piece.

• Only practice with your full concentration.  If you find your mind wandering and your fingers are simply running over the keyboard, your practice time will not be worth your time.  Even fifteen minutes with full concentration is more valuable than thirty or forty minutes of running your fingers around as your mind wanders.

• Practice slowly.  Racing through repertoire will waste your time.  Slow and careful practicing promises optimal results.

• Get it right.  Once you have practiced something incorrectly, it is often difficult and time consuming to correct the problem.  Practice carefully.  

• Divide your pieces into short phrases.  Practice those phrases until you have it right.  Then combine the phrases until you completed the entire piece.

• Practice with your metronome for an even and consistent tempo.

• Practice with your hands apart at first, but do limit hand-apart time.  Your brain needs to coordinate the two hands together.

• Practice all notations.  Piano music is filled with notations such as: dynamics (p,f), tempo (timing), fingering, accidentals (sharps, flats, naturals), pedaling, repeat signs and so on.

• Practice what you don't know.  Getting the most out of your practice time means working on material that is challenging.

• Practice right after your lesson while everything you just learned is still fresh.

• Keep practicing your performance pieces.  You will always have repertoire ready to perform.

• Practice time guidelines:  First year students should practice approximately 15 minutes daily, gradually increasing to 30 minutes.  Intermediate students: 45-60 minutes daily.  Advanced students 1-2 hours daily.  

September 5, 2023

Music and Your Brain