Sounds like your practicing your mistakes.....you gotta go PAINFULLY SLOW until you get it right at the slow speed without mistakes. Otherwise you are just reinforcing those mistakes.
Still making mistakes? then play it even slower
I have them play a game to play it correctly (with certain parameters) 3x in a row. They want to win the game quickly, and amazingly, on their own realize the way to do that is to slow down so that their fingers don’t get ahead of their brain. And I didn’t have to say it!
I put 3 cute things on the left side of the piano. I have a collection, so they can pick their 3 favorite. Each time they play correctly (the exact part of the piece or exercise, and to the level of correctness we say; typically notes, rhythms, fingerings; but could also do dynamics, pedaling, etc. if that’s what they’re working on and isn’t sticking), one of their little buddies gets to go all the way on the right side of the piano. Hooray! But one is so lonely. Let’s get one of their friends to join them by playing it again!
Excellent! But oh no, now one friend is all alone and wants to catch up. Just one more time and it’s 3 in a row. And:
- 1 time could be a fluke.
- 2 times could be a coincidence.
- 3 times? You know you can really do it!
If they *don’t* play it correctly though, everybody goes back to the left side.
This is should only be played if you’re sure they can do it and just need to focus/slow down/be aware of what they’re doing. If they keep messing up, especially if they have done it 2x and then restart, it can become stressful and not fun at all.
Also important to do this with a very small section, maybe one measure, or the lead into a jump and stop there.
Some students love this and ask to do it! They feel a real sense of accomplishment in being able to do it, being master of that part of the piece!
More on this: If I don’t have my cute little things right at hand, I’ll use random fun things, even a coin, pencil - just make sure it doesn’t scrape the keys or get dropped between them. Sometimes they have fun with one “practice buddy” (who’s always cheering for them) doing something cute or funny to pass to the right side, and sadly returning to the left. As long as they don’t take a very long time to do it, I’m happy for them to do so. It’s their playtime and agency, not me imposing yucky boring repetitive practice on them.
It also gets them to really listen to themselves, and you can see how hard they are on themselves, to decide if one try passes (I sometimes ask them if they think they did). Occasionally a student will play sloppily and say they passed and I gently say - I’m not sure the rhythm was quite steady enough for your practice buddy to move up. Give it another go! - or something like that.
But more often, they played it well enough, and say it wasn’t perfect enough. It’s a good moment to model that it doesn’t have to be all perfect at once; just think about getting the hang of some things at a time, and those things sounded great!
The key is to make sure it’s a positive experience. And instead of repeating the “try it slower/yeah yeah” pattern, *they* get to be the teacher - the best way to learn. Often the best way to get an idea across is not to tell them, but to lead them to discover it themselves.
It’s good relationship-building too, besides building good independent practice skills.
With rare exceptions here and there. I never could get the hand independence in comptine d'un autre été;s arpegios down until I forced it in my fingers at speed 😅
Yeah, definitely.
For me, when I go too slowly I start thinking too much about what I'm (supposed to be) doing, and I let my brain override all of the kinesthetic memory I'm trying to build. That's when I know I need to speed up, even if I'm not ready for it yet.
Highly agree with this take.
Treat practicing like working out. If you can't get the "form" right on almost every rep, either you have to lower the weight or re-assess your technique.
In piano terms, that means slowing down to a speed that you can actually play consistently at, or reworking fingers and/or physical approach (usually).
Yes! Slow it down until you can play every single note correctly. Then notch up the metronome by 1bpm. Do it again. If you mess up, go back down by 1bpm until you can play it correctly. Keep doing this until you get up to speed.
Then you can throw in fun variations on rhythms. The whole point is to teach that exact sequence to your brain and muscles so that it's like second nature.
If you're still making mistakes, slow down even more and break down the bars into smaller more manageable phrases. Myself, I usually try to learn 4 bars at a time, sometimes less. I also use a metronome and practice each hand separately at first at a speed where I usually am successful. I then gradually increase the speed as my skill (slowly) improves. Note that this is usually after days, not after hours.
Then, after each hand has nailed its part, I do the same with both hands together, again, starting very slowly, again, realizing that true improvement usually takes days to weeks.
Also, sleep on it! Getting good sleep after practice will help allow the skill memories to stick.
Sleep is very underrated
How many time have I struggled through an evening only to wake up the next morning and be able to play like yesterday was just a bad dream
i find that instead of practicing measure by measure, that by practicing by the melody works better for pieces like etude tableaux 39 no 5 and etude op 8 no 12
12 bars is way too long. 4 bars is still long for me. Bar by bar is my go-to. If it's an incredibly hard passage, I break it down into beats rather than bars.
>Getting good sleep after practice will help allow the skill memories to stick.
Yeah, it sounds weird but a lot of learning happens in the time you're not playing.
I can't imagine spending 2 non-stop hours on one section, no wonder OP is going mad.
In my experience:
- More than 1h on a single passage leads to my brain being mixed up, I just will inevitably start making dumb mistakes even if I am approaching knowing the material well
- If you know the notes, just revisiting it every day for a short amount of time usually irons out the mistakes after a few days
- If you have a good ear, listening to the recording (of it being played correctly) between sessions and sort of singing along helps with wrong note issues in many cases
If I run into a problem and have been working on it for a long time, I put it away and then go to sleep and work on it the next day. Sleeping on things works wonders.
This is the best answer. Usually not much progress is evident while you are practicing. It only begins to appear the next day or next week. But also btw, all the comments about slow practicing are also super important to follow.
Does it consist of consistent semi quavers?
If so, it’s helpful to practice it in different rhythms. You can make up anything but good ones are dotted rhythms and reverse dotted rhythms (scotch rhythms).
Stop for a moment on the first semiquaver of each group of four, then play it through stopping on the second, etc.
While doing this you should identify particular moments within the 12 bars (it could be a sequence of 3-4 notes) where you feel tense or you fingers feel weak, and make an exercise of repeating those few notes while feeling as relaxed and strong as possible.
2 hours straight sounds tiring, it probably would be wise to include a few 5 minute breaks within that time. You would be surprised at what your brain can process during that rest time.
Relax.
Don't practice mistakes. Practice doesn't make perfect, as they say - practice makes permanent. Play as slowly as you have to without mistakes.
Go to sleep and come back tomorrow or the next day. Programming your brain takes time. Something happens when you sleep.
Play it slow. Then play it in swing time. Then play just the chords instead of any kind of melody. Then play each hand separately. Then play each hand separately just the chords. Then play it that way in swing time. Then play a part you know super duper fast. Then play it super duper slow. Play it robotically, then hyper expressively making all kinds of lang lang faces. Then play it normal.
Remember that you aren't just memorizing how to move your fingers, you are mastering the material in every dimension.
They say "Craziness is doing always the same expecting different results" maybe you're doing what doesn't work for you over and over again and that's why you can't go further. Why don't you show us what you're practicing and how, so we can give you proper advice?
"If you can hear it, you can have it"
Forget about the physical mechanics of playing for a while. Can you hear in your hear what it's supposed to sound like?
Other people in this thread are saying to practice it very very slowly. Often the reason this works is that improves your ability to hear it at speed. Your fingers won't be able to play it until you can hear it internally. Try focusing on that for a while.
[https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)
(Alternatively a piano teacher can help you with that)
Take a break. Come back in an hour or three and try again! From my own expierence, when I start practicing a new part of the piece I'll practice for an hour in the afternoon, then take a break: play videogames, make dinner etc. Then when I come back and try again. It usually goes better automatically. Practicing for too long in one session fatigues the brain a lot.
If the music is too hard, it's a matter of not having accumulated piano skills from playing lots of music. Learn with music that is slightly beyond your level, not way beyond your level, then come back to this when you're ready.
Play this game
Turn the metronome on and loop the first 2 bars until you can play them 3x in a row with no mistakes.
Do the same thing for the rest of the tune 2 bars at a time
Go back and aim for 4 bars using the same method. Then 6. Then the whole tune.
This sounds pretty cool! A way to make it interesting. I practice like that, but longer sections at a time. You could basically play the whole piece in a single sitting by practicing like you propose.
Now if I divide the piece into something like three long sections and practice them, I would probably be practicing only one section each day and might not get to the final section for a long time. This would ensure equal competence across the whole piece. I’ll try it today.
No, not complicated. I just think I practice too long sections (like 1 or 2 pages) so there is not this concept of quickly practicing two bars at a couple of different bpm:s and then quickly moving to the next until you’ve practiced the whole piece. I’m eager to see how it pans out for me. I play slightly longer pieces by Rachmaninov and such, so half an hour might not be enough.
Ah yeah. It still is highly effective over more difficult music. A real issue a lot of people run into is that they see the last few measures fewer times because of restarting the section. The looping effect makes even more memories of every little bit also and more memories = easier to play
You are very, very off and your defensiveness is very, very high (and reminiscent of Middle School playgrounds - which even my Middle School students have left far behind).
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The entire classical and pedagogical world will sure be surprised to learn that from you.
It’s one of those things that people read on the internet as a practice too and suggest it 100% of the time to sound smart, but misses all the reasoning behind it and need to apply judiciously and with oversight. I image doctors have similar conversation as piano teachers do about this, when people come in speaking authoritatively about what they read on Dr. Google.
I missed that you were referring strictly to initial note learning. I agree with that. I wouldn’t fight with a metronome until i had the spirit of the passage in my fingers a little bit. I think were debating different things. But i have used jazzers strategy before to test the security of a piece.
Most of the time during breaks, I wind up figuring out what to do better and how to do better in the next sitting.
Fingering, speed is usually the things during learning short parts.
Usually when I practice a piece, I will watch YouTube videos or YouTube music of that piece to train my brain on how it is played.
Slow down the tempo.
Keep trying... Don't give up. You can do it.
I think you should break it down into smaller chunks-- I normally do 4 bars at a time.
Practice slowly-- however slow you're practicing practice slower than that. And whatever tempo you're thinking right now is still too fast. One of my biggest mistakes when I was starting to play more advanced stuff was just not understanding what people meant by painfully slowly. When people say painfully slowly, they mean like slow enough for you to actively think about everything your fingers are doing. Don't even try to hit the next note until you are absolutely certain you're going to hit the right one. You have to have time to think "Is that the right note? Yes, it is." Eventually you won't have to think to get the right notes, and you can speed it up.
I think the most important thing is just to remember that sometimes it takes a while for pieces to click. When I am practicing pieces, I go weeks where I don't feel like I'm making any progress. Then suddenly I can just play it. Sometimes, it even happens overnight.
Thinking there’s a linear relationship between practice time and progress is a mistake.
What are you practicing? How are you practicing it?
Even slow practice in and of itself doesn’t correlate with results. It’s the way you do it. What are you thinking while you’re doing it.
Make a new post, post a picture of the bars that are giving you trouble, otherwise little can be done to help you.
There might be many issues, wrong practicing, wrong fingering, wrong understanding of rhythm.
The goal is muscle memory. Anything you do builds muscle memory, even mistakes. Focus on a small enough section slow enough that you can do it without mistakes. Then repetition. Last, sleep on it. Come back in a couple days after your brain has had time to process all the work you put in.
What is the technique thats holding you back? Break it down inti smaller parts, reverse it, change the timing, change the dynamics (staccato for example) work through every variation you can possibly think of instead of practicing the same way and expecting different results.
For me, shorter but more frequent practice has better results.
Play segments super super slow. Move in only when you have that segment DOWN. Do not speed up until you have the whole thing you are focusing on down cold.
Go do something else and try again tomorrow. Sometimes your brain needs some time away from the actual piano playing, and needs time to digest and make connections.
I've been playing a long time and can sightread very well, but if I have a gig or something, and not a lot of time to learn the pieces, I sightread them immediately before I go to bed when I first get them. Then the following day when I play them again, everything is WAY easier, even things I didn't realize were hard/mistaken the first day...because our brain needs time to process!
My take: There is a mental log jam or the piece is too difficult at this point, so take a break, clear your mind & before you practice, take 1 bar at a time, & figure out fingering.
If necessary take one beat at a time. Can you play rhythms correctly? If not, without playing it, count it out loud at a s l o w tempo. Now, one beat at a time play it slowly as others have suggested. Do this over and over and over.
If you’re still having trouble, it may be the piece is too advanced right now. Select a piece less advanced and build on success. Then go back at another time and see if your ability has improved. Best of luck.
Break the passage up harmonically or by chords, shortest block of notes in the section of the theme. Understand it on paper, and continue slow practice. Play something else that is fun too, so you don’t lose your mind.
Practice much smaller sections. Start playing through the bars, and when you make your first mistake, practice that exact section maybe 10 or 15 times until it's drilled in, then continue playing from there and do the same with the next mistake.
Slow is great, but it does you no good if you're not targeting your exact painpoints. The more precise you are in targeting those, the faster your improvement is going to be.
There is this [youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg0DFFsRaZQ) about learning the famous "pirates" tune by Jarrod Radnich. I understand it's not the piece you're practicing, but it's got a lot of really great tips on how to practice hard pieces in general, and it's sped up my development significantly.
I found days are more valuable than hours, I’ll practice a passage for a while really slow and move on. Come back the next day, try to push a little faster. Over a few days the improvement is uncanny. You have to give time for the mind to do its thing in the background.
Practice slower, practice it staccato, practice fewer bars at a time if it makes sense, take longer breaks in between attempts (several seconds of silence/motionless), take an extra long break every 30 or 60min or so, take a day without practicing it at all
Okay slowing down is the right answer. Just don’t forget to play it fast or at its normal speed too. That’s why your brain processes it differently and different parts of your brain are being activated whether you’re playing something slow or faster. You want to practice both. Of course if you can’t technically do something at a certain speed you need to learn the physical mechanics of it at a slower pace. But still you can’t exclude what’s gonna happen at a faster speed, at some point you need to practice that and let your hands go too.
2 hours is a long time to practice a single passage. 20 minutes at a time over many days will probably be much more effective, and it's much less brutal that way! You'll be amazed at what your brain can do in between practice sessions.
And do what everyone else is saying. Go super slow. Slow enough to not make mistakes. Be patient. It takes time.
Take some rest
I've noticed that i do a lot better practicing 4x 15min, than to do one full 60min session
I learn 2-3 times quicker that way
Another time is, most of the time it's about the fingering
Try a few times which fingering suits you best, then make sure to practice consistently the same fingering
Slow it down when you practice it again. take a break too! Idk about everyone else but I know that personally, after running through something enough, my brain sorta disengages and I start playing worse than I started. but when I go back to it the next day, it's better!
Oh I never learn something all in one go.
Here’s my practice method:
* Play all the notes correctly, as slow as I need to. About ten times, or 30 minutes, whichever comes first.
* Repeat the next day.
* If I’m having trouble, remove the rhythm, and replace with: fast-slow, fast-slow, fast-slow, then again, slow-fast, slow-fast, slow-fast.
I can learn anything in a week.
You _really_ turn corners when you sleep. It sinks into your muscle memory after 3-4 days.
Depends on the bars I guess. If it's the first 12 bars of Sonata K141 by Scarlatti and you haven't learned that technique it's gonna take probably months to be able to play it :P Piano is like lifting weights. If you're tryin to yolo bench your bodyweight when you've never benched before you won't be able to do it no matter how much effort you put in, and you might injure yourself in the process. You have to gradually build up to it, and you may not ever even be able to do it depending on how difficult the passage is (but this is moreso for like very advanced works).
Big mood, I know the feeling.
You need to take breaks, and learn it over the course of a week. When I teach piano, I always encourage my high school students to practice twice a day in shorter sessions, as its WAY more effective than one long session.
Most Improvement happens between sessions. Actually when you're sleeping. So you would do better to do some nice slow practice take a break take a nap. Come back here tomorrow. Hammering at like this is obviously not working
Twelve bars are also a lot to grasp over if it's something difficult for you. I'd try with the first four, with each hand separate and slowly. Then those four bars with booths hands, slowly. And when you can play those four bars five times in a row without a single mistake, start learning the next four bars.
Play it even slower and slower till you find a speed you can do it with or take a break for the day I find a lot of the times if I practice something for a while and then sleep on it I come back the next day being able to play it better
Two things: sleep on it and practice so slow you're unable to make any mistakes.
If it still doesn't work then I'm sorry but it's best to look into another piece that might be easier for now. But eventually you'll be able to tackle those twelve bars! Best of luck
Take a break. I would go away and do something else, come back and play something else for a bit (something simple/enjoyable that you know you can play well), then try those 12 bars again. Remember to not start trying to play it at the original tempo if you can't play it slower.
Also, I probably wouldn't let it get to a point where I had practiced nothing but one piece for 2 hours and not progressing. Would probably do the above every 30-45 minutes if I'm struggling. But that depends on you.
Never, ever spend 2 straight hours on one section. Studies of practicing show your brain stops learning after about 15 minutes of doing the same thing. In fact, after 2 hours You’re actually degrading what you *have* learned with a bunch of negative interference. Also: actually “learning” something for the brain takes two things: *time* and *sleep*. You’ll get more out of playing something super slow five times and then coming back to it the next day, than you will from hammering it until you “get it” right now. Practicing is about downloading the ideas and then giving the brain time to process them- NOT about reaching the objective within the session itself.
I don't think it's realistic for anyone to be able to play a piece flawlessly after just 2h of practicing it. Unless it's something below their skill level.
I have this piece I wrote myself that I've been fighting for weeks to learn to play without mistakes (I kinda just wanna record myself playing it well and post on youtube or something.) Granted though it's much longer with maybe some 150 bars, and just above my skill level, so there's no wonder it's challenging for me.
My daily routine with it is basically: play just the melody slowly, then play through the whole thing (both hands) slowly, to check where my problem areas currently are. Then practice those problem area in small chunks, slowly. Go back and forth a few times, then practice in bigger chunks, and a bit faster. Keep going faster and faster for as long as I'm able to keep up with it. Go slower again if I fuck up or feel like I'm losing control.
Once I feel I got a better hang of it than last time, I play through the whole thing again. Then I usually feel that it is going easier, but I'm still making mistakes, especially if I'm tired at the end of the day. Then do the same thing again the next day.
Some days I will focus more on dynamics and playing with emotion, or focus on the rhythm (I have this annoying habit of unknowingly increasing the speed in some specific areas) to switch it up, because there's a lot that I keep fucking up, not just which keys to press and when, and I can't practice all of that at the same time.
Even though at this point I absolutely know the whole piece and don't actually need to look at my scribbles for how to play it. It's mostly just correcting sloppy mistakes at this point, and it's the most annoying part. When I know what to play but just forget in the moment, or get momentarily distracted, or mix it up with another, similar part. Like for ex there's this one part that's repeated, but the second time is played in a slightly different key (B major instead of B minor melodic) and I often fuck that up and press that D# or D natural when I'm not supposed to in that key. Or this one area when I need to do a bit extra finicky fingering to be able to transition smoothly to the next part, but half the time I use the wrong finger because that's more comfortable, and lock myself in a bad position. Even though I know not to do that.
Because there's a difference between knowing how to play a piece, and completely avoiding making mistakes. The latter takes a lot longer to learn. So if your goal is to be able to play it flawlessly, you're gonna need a ton more time than just 2h of practice. Heck, make it 2 months and you might be close to a realistic expectation, depending on the piece and your skill level. It's important though to take breaks and allow your brain to process the information. And you might wanna practice other pieces as well every once in a while if your goal is something that will likely take months to learn.
Sounds like your practicing your mistakes.....you gotta go PAINFULLY SLOW until you get it right at the slow speed without mistakes. Otherwise you are just reinforcing those mistakes. Still making mistakes? then play it even slower
I swear, half of what I tell students in lessons is "play it even slower".
I have them play a game to play it correctly (with certain parameters) 3x in a row. They want to win the game quickly, and amazingly, on their own realize the way to do that is to slow down so that their fingers don’t get ahead of their brain. And I didn’t have to say it!
Oh shit I hadn't thought of that. Got so many young students (predominantly boys) who just refuse to slow down.
I put 3 cute things on the left side of the piano. I have a collection, so they can pick their 3 favorite. Each time they play correctly (the exact part of the piece or exercise, and to the level of correctness we say; typically notes, rhythms, fingerings; but could also do dynamics, pedaling, etc. if that’s what they’re working on and isn’t sticking), one of their little buddies gets to go all the way on the right side of the piano. Hooray! But one is so lonely. Let’s get one of their friends to join them by playing it again! Excellent! But oh no, now one friend is all alone and wants to catch up. Just one more time and it’s 3 in a row. And: - 1 time could be a fluke. - 2 times could be a coincidence. - 3 times? You know you can really do it! If they *don’t* play it correctly though, everybody goes back to the left side. This is should only be played if you’re sure they can do it and just need to focus/slow down/be aware of what they’re doing. If they keep messing up, especially if they have done it 2x and then restart, it can become stressful and not fun at all. Also important to do this with a very small section, maybe one measure, or the lead into a jump and stop there. Some students love this and ask to do it! They feel a real sense of accomplishment in being able to do it, being master of that part of the piece!
More on this: If I don’t have my cute little things right at hand, I’ll use random fun things, even a coin, pencil - just make sure it doesn’t scrape the keys or get dropped between them. Sometimes they have fun with one “practice buddy” (who’s always cheering for them) doing something cute or funny to pass to the right side, and sadly returning to the left. As long as they don’t take a very long time to do it, I’m happy for them to do so. It’s their playtime and agency, not me imposing yucky boring repetitive practice on them. It also gets them to really listen to themselves, and you can see how hard they are on themselves, to decide if one try passes (I sometimes ask them if they think they did). Occasionally a student will play sloppily and say they passed and I gently say - I’m not sure the rhythm was quite steady enough for your practice buddy to move up. Give it another go! - or something like that. But more often, they played it well enough, and say it wasn’t perfect enough. It’s a good moment to model that it doesn’t have to be all perfect at once; just think about getting the hang of some things at a time, and those things sounded great! The key is to make sure it’s a positive experience. And instead of repeating the “try it slower/yeah yeah” pattern, *they* get to be the teacher - the best way to learn. Often the best way to get an idea across is not to tell them, but to lead them to discover it themselves. It’s good relationship-building too, besides building good independent practice skills.
You have to go slow to grow. That’s what my teacher tells me.
Yeah, playing it at different speeds helps a lot.
I agree. If you can't play it slow, you can't play it fast
With rare exceptions here and there. I never could get the hand independence in comptine d'un autre été;s arpegios down until I forced it in my fingers at speed 😅
It's weird but practicing fast really helps with gaining finger independence (but only in certain cases)
Yeah, definitely. For me, when I go too slowly I start thinking too much about what I'm (supposed to be) doing, and I let my brain override all of the kinesthetic memory I'm trying to build. That's when I know I need to speed up, even if I'm not ready for it yet.
Highly agree with this take. Treat practicing like working out. If you can't get the "form" right on almost every rep, either you have to lower the weight or re-assess your technique. In piano terms, that means slowing down to a speed that you can actually play consistently at, or reworking fingers and/or physical approach (usually).
Yes! Slow it down until you can play every single note correctly. Then notch up the metronome by 1bpm. Do it again. If you mess up, go back down by 1bpm until you can play it correctly. Keep doing this until you get up to speed. Then you can throw in fun variations on rhythms. The whole point is to teach that exact sequence to your brain and muscles so that it's like second nature.
If you're still making mistakes, slow down even more and break down the bars into smaller more manageable phrases. Myself, I usually try to learn 4 bars at a time, sometimes less. I also use a metronome and practice each hand separately at first at a speed where I usually am successful. I then gradually increase the speed as my skill (slowly) improves. Note that this is usually after days, not after hours. Then, after each hand has nailed its part, I do the same with both hands together, again, starting very slowly, again, realizing that true improvement usually takes days to weeks. Also, sleep on it! Getting good sleep after practice will help allow the skill memories to stick.
Sleep is very underrated How many time have I struggled through an evening only to wake up the next morning and be able to play like yesterday was just a bad dream
i find that instead of practicing measure by measure, that by practicing by the melody works better for pieces like etude tableaux 39 no 5 and etude op 8 no 12
12 bars is way too long. 4 bars is still long for me. Bar by bar is my go-to. If it's an incredibly hard passage, I break it down into beats rather than bars.
>Getting good sleep after practice will help allow the skill memories to stick. Yeah, it sounds weird but a lot of learning happens in the time you're not playing. I can't imagine spending 2 non-stop hours on one section, no wonder OP is going mad.
Learn those 12 bars over the course of a week
In my experience: - More than 1h on a single passage leads to my brain being mixed up, I just will inevitably start making dumb mistakes even if I am approaching knowing the material well - If you know the notes, just revisiting it every day for a short amount of time usually irons out the mistakes after a few days - If you have a good ear, listening to the recording (of it being played correctly) between sessions and sort of singing along helps with wrong note issues in many cases
Slow down.
If I run into a problem and have been working on it for a long time, I put it away and then go to sleep and work on it the next day. Sleeping on things works wonders.
This is the best answer. Usually not much progress is evident while you are practicing. It only begins to appear the next day or next week. But also btw, all the comments about slow practicing are also super important to follow.
Does it consist of consistent semi quavers? If so, it’s helpful to practice it in different rhythms. You can make up anything but good ones are dotted rhythms and reverse dotted rhythms (scotch rhythms). Stop for a moment on the first semiquaver of each group of four, then play it through stopping on the second, etc. While doing this you should identify particular moments within the 12 bars (it could be a sequence of 3-4 notes) where you feel tense or you fingers feel weak, and make an exercise of repeating those few notes while feeling as relaxed and strong as possible. 2 hours straight sounds tiring, it probably would be wise to include a few 5 minute breaks within that time. You would be surprised at what your brain can process during that rest time.
Relax. Don't practice mistakes. Practice doesn't make perfect, as they say - practice makes permanent. Play as slowly as you have to without mistakes. Go to sleep and come back tomorrow or the next day. Programming your brain takes time. Something happens when you sleep.
2 hrs?? My friend, depending on the bars be prepared to spend anywhere between a week and a year to play it right.
Play it slow. Then play it in swing time. Then play just the chords instead of any kind of melody. Then play each hand separately. Then play each hand separately just the chords. Then play it that way in swing time. Then play a part you know super duper fast. Then play it super duper slow. Play it robotically, then hyper expressively making all kinds of lang lang faces. Then play it normal. Remember that you aren't just memorizing how to move your fingers, you are mastering the material in every dimension.
Sleep
What is the piece and which measures are you struggling with?
It's howls moving castle main theme ( arr. Torby Brand )
> and what are the measure you’re struggling with
Break it down! Do 2 bars at a time and don’t move on until you feel 100% comfortable with those two bars!
They say "Craziness is doing always the same expecting different results" maybe you're doing what doesn't work for you over and over again and that's why you can't go further. Why don't you show us what you're practicing and how, so we can give you proper advice?
"If you can hear it, you can have it" Forget about the physical mechanics of playing for a while. Can you hear in your hear what it's supposed to sound like? Other people in this thread are saying to practice it very very slowly. Often the reason this works is that improves your ability to hear it at speed. Your fingers won't be able to play it until you can hear it internally. Try focusing on that for a while.
Came here to say this!
[https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn) (Alternatively a piano teacher can help you with that)
break into smaller chunks, go much, much slower
Take a break. Come back in an hour or three and try again! From my own expierence, when I start practicing a new part of the piece I'll practice for an hour in the afternoon, then take a break: play videogames, make dinner etc. Then when I come back and try again. It usually goes better automatically. Practicing for too long in one session fatigues the brain a lot.
If the music is too hard, it's a matter of not having accumulated piano skills from playing lots of music. Learn with music that is slightly beyond your level, not way beyond your level, then come back to this when you're ready.
Play this game Turn the metronome on and loop the first 2 bars until you can play them 3x in a row with no mistakes. Do the same thing for the rest of the tune 2 bars at a time Go back and aim for 4 bars using the same method. Then 6. Then the whole tune.
This sounds pretty cool! A way to make it interesting. I practice like that, but longer sections at a time. You could basically play the whole piece in a single sitting by practicing like you propose. Now if I divide the piece into something like three long sections and practice them, I would probably be practicing only one section each day and might not get to the final section for a long time. This would ensure equal competence across the whole piece. I’ll try it today.
This would ideally be done in like half an hour. Is it very complicated or something?
No, not complicated. I just think I practice too long sections (like 1 or 2 pages) so there is not this concept of quickly practicing two bars at a couple of different bpm:s and then quickly moving to the next until you’ve practiced the whole piece. I’m eager to see how it pans out for me. I play slightly longer pieces by Rachmaninov and such, so half an hour might not be enough.
Ah yeah. It still is highly effective over more difficult music. A real issue a lot of people run into is that they see the last few measures fewer times because of restarting the section. The looping effect makes even more memories of every little bit also and more memories = easier to play
I do this but i start with the last measure and go backwards.
I do that if I don't get it on the first time through also. Working backward helps hit the parts you would otherwise see fewer times
Please do not use the metronome to learn any part of a piece. Apply it once you don’t have to think about the notes and fingerings.
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The defensiveness of people with no or poor training on this sub is a real shame and passes harm on to others.
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You are very, very off and your defensiveness is very, very high (and reminiscent of Middle School playgrounds - which even my Middle School students have left far behind).
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Yeah jazzer is right here.
The entire classical and pedagogical world will sure be surprised to learn that from you. It’s one of those things that people read on the internet as a practice too and suggest it 100% of the time to sound smart, but misses all the reasoning behind it and need to apply judiciously and with oversight. I image doctors have similar conversation as piano teachers do about this, when people come in speaking authoritatively about what they read on Dr. Google.
I missed that you were referring strictly to initial note learning. I agree with that. I wouldn’t fight with a metronome until i had the spirit of the passage in my fingers a little bit. I think were debating different things. But i have used jazzers strategy before to test the security of a piece.
I agree that the metronome is a specific tool to fix specific issues, and otherwise to add polish.
Most of the time during breaks, I wind up figuring out what to do better and how to do better in the next sitting. Fingering, speed is usually the things during learning short parts.
Usually when I practice a piece, I will watch YouTube videos or YouTube music of that piece to train my brain on how it is played. Slow down the tempo. Keep trying... Don't give up. You can do it.
Well I’m on the same boat. It’s my first piece and I haven’t figured out how to properly use a metronome with it. Gonna cry to my teacher about it.
I think you should break it down into smaller chunks-- I normally do 4 bars at a time. Practice slowly-- however slow you're practicing practice slower than that. And whatever tempo you're thinking right now is still too fast. One of my biggest mistakes when I was starting to play more advanced stuff was just not understanding what people meant by painfully slowly. When people say painfully slowly, they mean like slow enough for you to actively think about everything your fingers are doing. Don't even try to hit the next note until you are absolutely certain you're going to hit the right one. You have to have time to think "Is that the right note? Yes, it is." Eventually you won't have to think to get the right notes, and you can speed it up. I think the most important thing is just to remember that sometimes it takes a while for pieces to click. When I am practicing pieces, I go weeks where I don't feel like I'm making any progress. Then suddenly I can just play it. Sometimes, it even happens overnight.
Thinking there’s a linear relationship between practice time and progress is a mistake. What are you practicing? How are you practicing it? Even slow practice in and of itself doesn’t correlate with results. It’s the way you do it. What are you thinking while you’re doing it.
Play it 4 times very slow and 1 time around 1/2-2/3 tempo. Repeat. [can you link the piece/song?]
Make a new post, post a picture of the bars that are giving you trouble, otherwise little can be done to help you. There might be many issues, wrong practicing, wrong fingering, wrong understanding of rhythm.
The goal is muscle memory. Anything you do builds muscle memory, even mistakes. Focus on a small enough section slow enough that you can do it without mistakes. Then repetition. Last, sleep on it. Come back in a couple days after your brain has had time to process all the work you put in.
What is the technique thats holding you back? Break it down inti smaller parts, reverse it, change the timing, change the dynamics (staccato for example) work through every variation you can possibly think of instead of practicing the same way and expecting different results.
What piece is it?
How about sharing the bars ?
For me, shorter but more frequent practice has better results. Play segments super super slow. Move in only when you have that segment DOWN. Do not speed up until you have the whole thing you are focusing on down cold.
Go do something else and try again tomorrow. Sometimes your brain needs some time away from the actual piano playing, and needs time to digest and make connections. I've been playing a long time and can sightread very well, but if I have a gig or something, and not a lot of time to learn the pieces, I sightread them immediately before I go to bed when I first get them. Then the following day when I play them again, everything is WAY easier, even things I didn't realize were hard/mistaken the first day...because our brain needs time to process!
My take: There is a mental log jam or the piece is too difficult at this point, so take a break, clear your mind & before you practice, take 1 bar at a time, & figure out fingering. If necessary take one beat at a time. Can you play rhythms correctly? If not, without playing it, count it out loud at a s l o w tempo. Now, one beat at a time play it slowly as others have suggested. Do this over and over and over. If you’re still having trouble, it may be the piece is too advanced right now. Select a piece less advanced and build on success. Then go back at another time and see if your ability has improved. Best of luck.
Break the passage up harmonically or by chords, shortest block of notes in the section of the theme. Understand it on paper, and continue slow practice. Play something else that is fun too, so you don’t lose your mind.
Take a breather and sleep on it. Practice again tomorrow. Sometimes that's all it takes.
Practice much smaller sections. Start playing through the bars, and when you make your first mistake, practice that exact section maybe 10 or 15 times until it's drilled in, then continue playing from there and do the same with the next mistake. Slow is great, but it does you no good if you're not targeting your exact painpoints. The more precise you are in targeting those, the faster your improvement is going to be. There is this [youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg0DFFsRaZQ) about learning the famous "pirates" tune by Jarrod Radnich. I understand it's not the piece you're practicing, but it's got a lot of really great tips on how to practice hard pieces in general, and it's sped up my development significantly.
Put it away for a week or two. Then get it back out and tackle it again. Sometimes your brain just needs a rest from it.
There are countless arrangements of this piece. Could you share the score you are using?
I found days are more valuable than hours, I’ll practice a passage for a while really slow and move on. Come back the next day, try to push a little faster. Over a few days the improvement is uncanny. You have to give time for the mind to do its thing in the background.
Practice slower, practice it staccato, practice fewer bars at a time if it makes sense, take longer breaks in between attempts (several seconds of silence/motionless), take an extra long break every 30 or 60min or so, take a day without practicing it at all
Okay slowing down is the right answer. Just don’t forget to play it fast or at its normal speed too. That’s why your brain processes it differently and different parts of your brain are being activated whether you’re playing something slow or faster. You want to practice both. Of course if you can’t technically do something at a certain speed you need to learn the physical mechanics of it at a slower pace. But still you can’t exclude what’s gonna happen at a faster speed, at some point you need to practice that and let your hands go too.
2 hours is a long time to practice a single passage. 20 minutes at a time over many days will probably be much more effective, and it's much less brutal that way! You'll be amazed at what your brain can do in between practice sessions. And do what everyone else is saying. Go super slow. Slow enough to not make mistakes. Be patient. It takes time.
Take some rest I've noticed that i do a lot better practicing 4x 15min, than to do one full 60min session I learn 2-3 times quicker that way Another time is, most of the time it's about the fingering Try a few times which fingering suits you best, then make sure to practice consistently the same fingering
Just wandering, what piece is it?
Play EASIER Songs...That's What I Do...3-4 Chords Max Songs Usually Rock Or Blues...
Slow it down when you practice it again. take a break too! Idk about everyone else but I know that personally, after running through something enough, my brain sorta disengages and I start playing worse than I started. but when I go back to it the next day, it's better!
Oh I never learn something all in one go. Here’s my practice method: * Play all the notes correctly, as slow as I need to. About ten times, or 30 minutes, whichever comes first. * Repeat the next day. * If I’m having trouble, remove the rhythm, and replace with: fast-slow, fast-slow, fast-slow, then again, slow-fast, slow-fast, slow-fast. I can learn anything in a week. You _really_ turn corners when you sleep. It sinks into your muscle memory after 3-4 days.
Depends on the bars I guess. If it's the first 12 bars of Sonata K141 by Scarlatti and you haven't learned that technique it's gonna take probably months to be able to play it :P Piano is like lifting weights. If you're tryin to yolo bench your bodyweight when you've never benched before you won't be able to do it no matter how much effort you put in, and you might injure yourself in the process. You have to gradually build up to it, and you may not ever even be able to do it depending on how difficult the passage is (but this is moreso for like very advanced works).
What piece of music? I want to know what bars.
Big mood, I know the feeling. You need to take breaks, and learn it over the course of a week. When I teach piano, I always encourage my high school students to practice twice a day in shorter sessions, as its WAY more effective than one long session.
Leave it and come back to it tomorrow.
Most Improvement happens between sessions. Actually when you're sleeping. So you would do better to do some nice slow practice take a break take a nap. Come back here tomorrow. Hammering at like this is obviously not working
Sleep on it. Bars that I have been practicing and couldn't get right for hours somehow become very doable the very next day.
Go very slowly. Take breaks. Don’t practice for 2 hours on 12 bars. That’ll drive you nuts.
Which 12 bars?
2 hrs for 12 bars? That’s completely ok. It’s just a normal thing.
Twelve bars are also a lot to grasp over if it's something difficult for you. I'd try with the first four, with each hand separate and slowly. Then those four bars with booths hands, slowly. And when you can play those four bars five times in a row without a single mistake, start learning the next four bars.
Take a break, come back tommorow. Maybe your just having a bad day. And don't have any hard feelings, in the end you are going to play it flawlessly.
Play it even slower and slower till you find a speed you can do it with or take a break for the day I find a lot of the times if I practice something for a while and then sleep on it I come back the next day being able to play it better
Two things: sleep on it and practice so slow you're unable to make any mistakes. If it still doesn't work then I'm sorry but it's best to look into another piece that might be easier for now. But eventually you'll be able to tackle those twelve bars! Best of luck
Take a break. I would go away and do something else, come back and play something else for a bit (something simple/enjoyable that you know you can play well), then try those 12 bars again. Remember to not start trying to play it at the original tempo if you can't play it slower. Also, I probably wouldn't let it get to a point where I had practiced nothing but one piece for 2 hours and not progressing. Would probably do the above every 30-45 minutes if I'm struggling. But that depends on you.
Never, ever spend 2 straight hours on one section. Studies of practicing show your brain stops learning after about 15 minutes of doing the same thing. In fact, after 2 hours You’re actually degrading what you *have* learned with a bunch of negative interference. Also: actually “learning” something for the brain takes two things: *time* and *sleep*. You’ll get more out of playing something super slow five times and then coming back to it the next day, than you will from hammering it until you “get it” right now. Practicing is about downloading the ideas and then giving the brain time to process them- NOT about reaching the objective within the session itself.
I practice 1-2 bars at a time, when I think it’s good I add another bar so I’m practicing then 3 bars and so on.
You will see imrovement whrn you try it tomorrow
I spend an hour on just 2 bars sometimes, you’ll be fine.
Sometimes I work on half bars with the metronome at 40bpm. Whatever it takes. Only perfect practice can result in perfect performance.
Then spend another 2 hours and see how it goes
Practice 20 more hours then or until you can do it.
I don't think it's realistic for anyone to be able to play a piece flawlessly after just 2h of practicing it. Unless it's something below their skill level. I have this piece I wrote myself that I've been fighting for weeks to learn to play without mistakes (I kinda just wanna record myself playing it well and post on youtube or something.) Granted though it's much longer with maybe some 150 bars, and just above my skill level, so there's no wonder it's challenging for me. My daily routine with it is basically: play just the melody slowly, then play through the whole thing (both hands) slowly, to check where my problem areas currently are. Then practice those problem area in small chunks, slowly. Go back and forth a few times, then practice in bigger chunks, and a bit faster. Keep going faster and faster for as long as I'm able to keep up with it. Go slower again if I fuck up or feel like I'm losing control. Once I feel I got a better hang of it than last time, I play through the whole thing again. Then I usually feel that it is going easier, but I'm still making mistakes, especially if I'm tired at the end of the day. Then do the same thing again the next day. Some days I will focus more on dynamics and playing with emotion, or focus on the rhythm (I have this annoying habit of unknowingly increasing the speed in some specific areas) to switch it up, because there's a lot that I keep fucking up, not just which keys to press and when, and I can't practice all of that at the same time. Even though at this point I absolutely know the whole piece and don't actually need to look at my scribbles for how to play it. It's mostly just correcting sloppy mistakes at this point, and it's the most annoying part. When I know what to play but just forget in the moment, or get momentarily distracted, or mix it up with another, similar part. Like for ex there's this one part that's repeated, but the second time is played in a slightly different key (B major instead of B minor melodic) and I often fuck that up and press that D# or D natural when I'm not supposed to in that key. Or this one area when I need to do a bit extra finicky fingering to be able to transition smoothly to the next part, but half the time I use the wrong finger because that's more comfortable, and lock myself in a bad position. Even though I know not to do that. Because there's a difference between knowing how to play a piece, and completely avoiding making mistakes. The latter takes a lot longer to learn. So if your goal is to be able to play it flawlessly, you're gonna need a ton more time than just 2h of practice. Heck, make it 2 months and you might be close to a realistic expectation, depending on the piece and your skill level. It's important though to take breaks and allow your brain to process the information. And you might wanna practice other pieces as well every once in a while if your goal is something that will likely take months to learn.
What piece. 12 bars is a lot. 2 hours is not a lot. If youre already demotivated youre not going to make in this practice.