How to practise

Help! How do I learn this new piece and tackle my sight-reading? Below I’ve given you some straightforward tips on how best to practise.

For everyone:

Loosening up before you practise

For beginners:

Learning a new piece
Sight-reading

Non-beginners (typically over 9 years old and playing for more than a year):

Learning a new piece or sorting tricky bits
Sight-reading-reading

Scales and arpeggios:

Webpages that show you how to play scales and arpeggios

Loosening up before you practise

Remember to loosen up properly each time you practice:

Roll your shoulders backwards five times and then forward five times.
Stretch your arms five times.
Stretch your fingers five times.
And finally give yourself a good shake!

Throughout your playing, try to keep sitting upright but still relaxed:

Sit up!
Raise your shoulders and drop them backwards
Feel relaxed and sitting ‘tall’.

Learning a new piece (beginners)

Each time you start learning a new piece, follow these learning rules:

Clap and sing or say the note names.
Once you’re confident with the note names and the tune, sing them again, and this time track the notes with your finger touching the page.
Practice in sections – in bite-sized chunks.
And finally, play the piece while singing the note names.

Sight-reading (beginners)

Before playing each piece, first of all tap out the rhythm on a single key or clap it out.

And then, play the piece all the way through, without stopping to correct mistakes.

Learning a new piece or sorting tricky bits (non-beginners)

Choose the right learning/practice technique. Either:

Learn each hand independently, and then bring together. This is best when the two parts (i.e. hands) are ‘independent’ (i.e. sort of doing their own thing).
Or, learn each bar or phrase with both hands together. This is best when the melody or style of the piece flows between the hands.

Take it slowly at first.

Clap or tap the rhythm before you attempt playing the piece (in separate hands).

Count in one bar before your start.

Keep counting while you are playing.

Read the notes on the page (don’t guess).

Take it slowly the first time you are doing anything, or when you’re sorting out a bit that’s causing difficulty.

Sight-reading (non-beginners)

Being able to play pieces of music you’ve not seen before is a good skill to develop.

Good practice in sight reading is not to dive straight in, but to scan the piece for its main features. Remember:

Use just one or two of the pieces each time you practise from the set you’re working on.
Look through the piece first of all so you can see how it goes.
Clap or tap on the keyboard the rhythm at least once, so that you get an even better idea of how it’s going to sound.
Play each hand separately at first.
Before you start playing, count yourself in for two bars, which will help you start playing it confidently.
Don’t rush it – play it as slowly as you think will be necessary for you to play it reasonably accurately.
And then, play the piece all the way through, without stopping to correct mistakes.

You only have to play each piece once. The aim is not to learn to play them perfectly. Instead, you’re learning to play pieces of music reasonably well (not necessarily perfectly) ‘straight off’.

Scales and arpeggios

Not sure about how to play a scale or arpeggio? These two websites should help you out.

Scales

Piano Fingering Figures gives you the fingering for every scale you will ever want to play. The first page also has a great diagram of the ‘Circle of fifths’.

Arpeggios

The Piano Chord Charts on the Key Notes website has details of how to play arpeggios:

First, find the chord you’re looking for. (You might have to go to the second or third page using the links at the bottom of the first page.)
Then click on the ‘continue reading’ link.
That will take you to the full page for the chord, from where you should go down the page until you come to the section on the arpeggio in root position.