practicing – Laurie Beth Frick

HOW MUCH PRACTICE TIME?

HOW MUCH SHOULD I/THEY PRACTICE?

I am often asked this question by parents or students. Practice amount is different for each student. When a parent of a beginning six-year-old piano student asks, I suggest that 10-12 minutes per day is reasonable. They should not practice alone but rather with a parent to help guide them. With most of my six-year-old students, I have a parent attend each lesson and work “along-side” them. In this way, they get to share the experience while their child is growing musically. The children gain reading and playing skills much more quickly and really enjoy the process. The parent also learns to play a little and so it is a win-win. Since the amount of music given is very compact and does not need intensive practice, the amount of practice time is quite short.

When a student is at about the 6th month mark and is 7-10 years old, increasing the time to 20 minutes is appropriate. Each student is different. Some can thoroughly learn the material in less time and others need more. I love when students break up these sessions into two practices as they retain more and learn faster. See my blog “Practice by Taking a Break.”

For pre-teens through adults, I recommend 30-60 minutes. Attention spans are longer and great work can be accomplished if practicing appropriately. Use your time well.

Really think about the music and work in small chunks or phrases. Adding vocal warmups, scales and/or finger exercises should start your practice session. This will add some time but will be extremely beneficial in the long run. Unless you are striving to be a concert pianist or professional singer there is no need to go beyond this. Some very talented students will want to spend a couple of hours per day if time permits. I practiced two-three hours in high school quite often. Sessions were longer in college.

Note: If you are a beginner adult, you should not be at the piano longer than 15 minutes at a time. Your hands need to build strength. If you over practice, your hands might ache. To avoid this, practice in small sessions until the little muscles in your hands get stronger.

Practicing should be enjoyable. If you are frustrated by a section, step back and study it. What is the key? How many beats per measure? Can you count the rhythm? Can you play separate hands or sing it a cappella? Do you have a command of all notes, dynamics, articulations, phrasing and fingering? In piano, it is more often than not, a fingering issue that causes the break down in the rhythm. Do not just try to sing or play through with mistakes. Your brain will remember the errors and those are difficult to break. Do not hold your breath.

Stand and take a break. Each time you come back to the passage it will be easier. Respect the process and you will become a wonderful musician.

Laurie Beth Frick

Practice by taking a break!

I am fascinated by how the brain learns. I recently read an article in Scientific American that explained a simple concept but one that I know works. They referenced how a pianist practices a piece of music. Then detailed that if you work on a passage for a short while and then rest your brain by doing something completely different, the brain will continue to work on the concepts.

This is an interesting way to view how you practice for both voice and piano. Long practice hours are not as efficient as short bursts of repetitive practice, resting the brain then returning.

After working on a piece for a short while and then going to put on a load of laundry, I find that I am silently singing the passages over and over in my brain. The studies they referenced show that the brain actually works on the passages 25 times faster than in actual practice.

Wow – the phrase “less is more” really comes into play here. The next time you practice, sing or play a few passages over and over working for accuracy of rhythms, notes, intonation, phrasing, dynamics, etc. Take a short amount of music at a time (chunking) the phrases.(See “The Art of Practicing” blog that I posted earlier. https://lauriebethfrick.com/?p=424 Then go do something else for a few minutes. Come back later and repeat. When you return for the next practice session, you should find that the music is easier and more accurate than during the previous session. Practice might “make perfect” but “taking a short break” in the middle of practice sessions increases and speeds up learning.

Reference article: Scientific American July 7, 2021

https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/your-brain-does-something-amazing-between-bouts-of-intense-learning/

Laurie Beth Frick

The Art of Practicing

“Practice Makes Perfect” & “Practice, Practice, Practice.” We have all heard variations on these expressions. Practicing takes time, effort and patience.

So how do you practice a piece to get the most out of the session in the least amount of time and also see progress?

It took me years to really understand this process. My husband is in the technology field. There is an expression that asks, “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: “One bite at a time!” This is such a great analogy for practicing. I call this process “chunking it” as that is how I approach a piece.

After sight reading through the selection, I go back and take small sections. I work for notes, rhythms articulations, phrasing, etc. I might work on a two-measure phrase for 10 minutes. However, at the end of that time, I know those two measures backwards and forwards. I know it in my fingers, in my head and in my heart and soul.

Now putting that difficult passage into the rest of the piece takes time and work. However, if you play through the mistakes and not stop to correct them immediately, it takes so much more time to undo the damage. Learning it correctly the first time saves hours and hours of what I call “backwards practice.”

Definition of: Backwards Practice: learning a passage “incorrectly” and then having to “unlearn it.” Such a time waster! The connections in your brain have been wired incorrectly and now have to be rewired! That takes so much more time and effort. Imagine if you did that while building a house. You would be wiring incorrectly and then having to tear everything out and then redo it! Thank goodness you can not set your brain on fire while practicing incorrectly. However, it still would be frustrating, time consuming and not fun!

So the next time you start a new piece, take it in very small sections and learn it correctly. Trust me, you will learn it in 1/10^th of the time and enjoy the process so much more. So, I will “practice what I preach” and “chunk” my next performance piece. I post a new piece on YouTube every Friday so I had better get to work!

Laurie Beth Frick – YouTube (click for hyperlink)