PPP087: Practice Until You've Practiced

09Apr 2018 by Shelly Davis

A Wise Puritan Proverb

A few weeks ago my pastor shared a quote from John Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress.

“You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”

Over time that quote has been condensed to “Pray until you have prayed.” How do you know if you’ve prayed enough? Pray until you have prayed.

With the idea of piano practice – How do you know if you’ve practiced enough? Practice until you’ve practiced. Practice until there is marked improvement.

One quick side note: Episode 87?? My how time flies!

Let’s hear it for the Canton High School Class of 87!! I didn’t mention this on the podcast (so this is a special treat only for show notes readers) but I was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” my Junior and Senior years of high school. Chris Chambless, the male counterpart my junior year, is the co-founder of a major energy company. I’m a piano teacher. By some measures he has far out-succeeded me but every time a piano student masters a new piece or surges with pride after a performance, I count that as a major success and I smile.

Chris, if you’re reading this, congratulations on your well-deserved success!

Some practical practice tips

Your practice should be more than a clock watching exercise. There should be improvement after each practice session. Here are two ways I encourage my students to practice.

Play and repeat and repeat and repeat – but not more than four times

Play the piece or small section of a piece once. As you play, actively listen for problem areas. Find places that are difficult for your fingers to get to or where mistakes are happening.

Decide on one problem to fix and focus on the notes or measure where the problem occurs.

Play only those notes slowly and intentionally to fix the error. Now that you are playing the correct notes with the correct fingers, repeat that section slowly to train your fingers to play it correctly.

Actively listen with each repetition to make sure you are still playing correctly and that your fingers are getting more comfortable moving to the proper piano keys.

The trick is not to play/repeat more than four times. If you’ve been carefully focusing, four times will be enough. If you aren’t playing carefully, then you are only ingraining the mistake in your muscle memory.

As my student said to me the other day, “Muscle memory works both ways.”

This year’s recital practice incentive

My studio recital is held the first Monday and Tuesday in May. I do this so that students have the remainder of May off and are able to focus on other end of school year activities.

All year, my students have been collecting beads. They earn beads when they complete a book or participate in extra piano events, or when they Get SMART with their music.

To help them prepare their recital piece, I am still ~~bribing~~ encouraging my students with beads. My goal is for them to practice their recital piece 100 times between late March and their May recital. I will give them a special bead when they reach 25, 50, 75, and 100 repetitions.

At each milestone, I will take a video of them playing their recital piece.

We listen to the recording together and I ask them to find specific ways to improve their piece as they practice the next week. As a listener, they are able to recognize when the didn’t keep a steady beat or when they didn’t change the volume as much as they thought they had.

Piano parents can do this same activity at home. Recording your child’s performance does two amazing things:

It raises your child’s awareness in a similar way that the real performance or event will. Knowing they are being recorded gives them the same jitters that playing for an audience will. This helps them learn to handle their nervous feelings in a healthy way.
It gives you and your piano kid an audio journal. If you keep previous recordings, your piano kid can compare them to each other and hear how their performance has improved.

If you are new to the podcast, thanks for tuning in! I hope it is a helpful resource for you. You can find parent interviews, teacher interviews and my “list of ten” episodes by clicking Podcast in the menu at the top of the page.

Speaking of “list of ten” episodes, I am excited to celebrate our 100th episode later this summer. So far I’ve listed 10 ways to encourage a love of music, 10 YouTube videos to watch with your piano kid, 10 things Not to do as a Piano Parent, and 10 books to read with your piano kid to name a few.

What do you think I should list for the 100th episode? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Tune in next week for Episode 088, dedicated to the 88 keys on the modern piano. There is a well-known piece written for the piano that will be celebrating it’s 208th anniversary later this month. Do you know what piece it is?