{"id":149,"date":"2011-05-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/2011\/05\/principles-of-efficient-practicing.html"},"modified":"2017-08-11T15:25:45","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T15:25:45","slug":"principles-of-efficient-practicing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/principles-of-efficient-practicing\/","title":{"rendered":"Principles of Efficient Practicing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In light of our <a href=\"http:\/\/theteachingstudio.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/Maintaining%20Professional%20Skills%3A%20Continuing%20Your%20Own%20Piano%20Study\">current topic<\/a>, today I&#8217;d like to talk about principles of efficient practicing. This topic will especially apply to&nbsp;busy moms with clambering children, working adults with limited time, teenagers pulled in all directions by extra-curricular activities, young piano students just learning how to practice&#8230;ok, so basically, this is for EVERYONE!!<\/p>\n<p>When practicing time is limited, how can we accomplish more in a short amount of time? Even if practicing time is <i>not<\/i>&nbsp;as limited, what are some ways we can get much more out of our practicing? Here are some ideas:<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<ul><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-BlD7wtrbnYE\/S8iWVJO7sdI\/AAAAAAAAG04\/hgaMeoylp5M\/s1600\/Piano_Piano_by_dawzin.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Piano_Piano_by_dawzin.jpg?resize=214%2C320&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"214\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<li><b>Have a goal<\/b> &#8211; if you don&#8217;t have a specific goal in mind during a practice session, you won&#8217;t accomplish as much! A great goal is to learn a specific, short section of a piece.<\/li>\n<li><b>Pick your fingering<\/b> &#8211; Decide on a fingering from the get-go and stick with it! I like to write in a lot of my fingerings to make sure I play it the same way each time, which helps me to learn a piece much faster.<\/li>\n<li><b>Make it musical as you go<\/b> &#8211;&nbsp;Learn articulations, phrasing, and dynamics as you learn the notes. Don&#8217;t learn notes and rhythms for the entire piece and THEN add in musical elements. Why not learn it right the first time?&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li><b>Small sections<\/b> &#8211; Learn a piece in SMALL sections, right hand alone, left hand alone, together<\/li>\n<li><b>Memorize from day 1<\/b> &#8211;&nbsp;Ideally, if you are learning a piece that you love and you really want to learn it well, it is much easier to memorize it as you learn it! When I do this it helps me to learn the notes much better and more efficiently.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li><b>Analyze as you learn the piece!<\/b>&nbsp;Notice and write down chord progressions, scales used in melodic material, bass notes, etc. This is also a great memory tool. It also ensures you are not learning it purely by muscle memory<\/li>\n<li><b>Work&nbsp;on a different section at each practice session.<\/b> Don&#8217;t always just start at the beginning.<\/li>\n<li><b>Stay focused!<\/b> You will be surprised how much you can accomplished in just 10 or 15 minutes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>What are some principles of efficient practicing that you have learned and that work well for you?<\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-6UzqEnRS0BA\/TI5Iao4KeAI\/AAAAAAAAHEQ\/dFtcQ9JB8v8\/s1600\/jenny+bay+signature.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"160\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/jenny-bay-signature9.jpg?resize=640%2C160&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"640\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In light of our current topic, today I&#8217;d like to talk about principles of efficient practicing. This topic will especially apply to&nbsp;busy moms with clambering children, working adults with limited time, teenagers pulled in all directions by extra-curricular activities, young piano students just learning how to practice&#8230;ok, so basically, this is for EVERYONE!! When practicing<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/principles-of-efficient-practicing\/\">+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[212,1],"tags":[37,38,83,126,39,90],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-uncategorized","tag-efficient-practicing","tag-how-to-practice","tag-jenny-boster","tag-maintaining-professional-skills-continuing-your-own-piano-study","tag-motivating-ourselves-to-practice","tag-practicing-and-motivation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Piano_Piano_by_dawzin.jpg?fit=214%2C320&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6qudh-2p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1065,"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/1065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theplayfulpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}