The #1 Mistake Holding You Back in Your Piano Playing

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I'm Robert Estrin with the number one mistake holding you back in your piano playing.

You know I've talked about the pillars of piano and they all have to be there so you have the structure and the fortitude and the solidity in your playing and if any one of them is weak, well what's the number one mistake that people make in practicing the piano? Is not having a clear distinction of which of these pillars you are working on. If you want to get a deep dive into this, check out the description of this video. But let's discuss this further. There are several different skill sets that you need to work on in your piano playing. If you're not clear which one you're doing, you may be accomplishing none of them even though you spend vast amounts of time at the piano. So really to be effective and to get the most done for every minute you spend you have to know exactly what you are striving for in your practice. So what are these things? Well, learning music obviously is a really essential part because you don't want to just play through things. Are you refining? Are you playing? Are you learning? Which one are you doing? Well if you're learning music you have to be very methodical. You have to take one little section at a time, break up the hands, really study the score, get each hand fluid, a very small section, get the other hand fluid, put the hands together, get solidity, go on to the next section the same way, connect sections as you go.

That's the most efficient way to learn music, not just to play through music over and over and hope it seeps in. You need to be more organized than that.

Well reading is another skill, a macro skill you must develop and part of your practice. It's certainly be devoted to developing your reading. Now how is this done? Well in a nutshell finding music on your reading level and reading some of it every day. You'll find over time your reading level will progress. Better than that if you have anyone you can play with or accompany or maybe you even have kids or friends who like to sing and you can play the piano part it keeps your eyes moving, it keeps the music moving and you'll become a better reader.

What other skill sets, macro skill sets or pillars of piano playing? Well of course there's refining what you've learned. Let's say you've learned the music and you just aren't happy with how it sounds. Well there's a methodology to refine it. Go back to the score, go slowly, take your foot off the pedal, utilize the metronome, you can do metronome speeds. There are many countless different practicing techniques you can utilize to refine your music but you should know are you just playing through it or are you refining, are you learning? You get the idea? This is where the productivity comes in your practice so you have a clear idea of what you're doing in every part of your practice.

What else is there? Oh yes there's a lot of pillars.

There's developing your technique. Now of course what I just described that process of refining your playing, that in a nutshell is developing your technique but there are some things you can do that will translate to everything you play. Knowing all your major and minor scales and arpeggios.

Very important because music is comprised of scales and broken chords. If you know them all whenever you come to a scale passage or a broken chord you don't have to first learn it you already have that literally at your fingertips.

Wrists, octaves, there's other techniques that you can explore and devoting just a small amount of your practice time each day to do just strictly on technique can be enlightening. Instead of being confused that you're working on technique or you're working on reading, once again what else is there? How about the structure of the music to understand the theory behind it? Maybe you've learned a sonata and you are not really clear as to the different sections. Well you want to have a really good understanding of the structure of a piece so you don't take a wrong turn, right? Maybe there's a particular section that has some harmonies that shift and you're trying to remember them well maybe if you analyze them you'll realize what the chords are in relation to the key of the piece and of course any key changes in the piece, sectional changes of tempo, get a good grasp of your score intellectually and it goes a long way. And finally what it all leads up to? Performing. And yes you must practice performing. That seems strange but it's necessary.

Just playing through things all the time isn't really like a performance because you might stop and work on something then again are you practicing? Are you performing? No, you should practice your performing. Set up your phone or other device and record yourself and pretend it's a performance you're playing for people and don't stop no matter what. You will learn tremendously what parts need to be worked on. So once again the most important component of elevating your practice so you're productive is knowing what pillars of your playing you are working on at any moment in your practice to not confuse these different skill sets from learning your music, from developing your reading, refining your playing, working on your technique in the abstract, music theory so you understand the structure of your music and finally performing. And if you do all of these then your practice will be so productive knowing which one you're doing at any one time and having the methodology to know how to approach each of these practice skills. If you want to know more about that once again visit the description. I'm Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com your online piano resource. Thanks so much for joining me.

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