Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Is it true, practise makes perfect

Please help, I practise very hard, but I do realise not for very long. If we practise for an hour or so each day, is it true, we can develop our skill better? I manage 15 to 20 mins a day. I know that people who have a longer practise session feel more satisfied with their practise.
My question is: longer practise, better skilled. Short practise: never achieving much.

Please could you advise: Some of us have only a short time to practise each day. I feel this is very valuable. But, if we apply more practise time, then are we to become better players?

Obviously, the more time we have to practise seems better, but there is a quality thing here. To practise scales and pieces for a short time each day with committment must produce a quality of work. That is hopefully, what I want you to agree on.

Some people who practise for hours each day do not achieve the level which they want to.

So, I am hoping for you to say, regular practise, even though it may me sparse is a good way to go. As long as it is consistant.

Any practise advise would be welcome.

Shey

Yes practise makes perfect, I practise one hour a day and I wish I could do 2 or 3. Someone in this forum said you need 10000hours of practise to become a good pianist.

But 20 mins every day is better that 8 hour every month

Serge

OT: Do we say practise or practice ?

Serge

There are a few quotes I read that really apply here.

"Practicing is not doing something over and over until you get it right....practicing is doing something right over and over."

"The essence of wasted practice time is crystalized in the much used admonition "That was wrong - do it again". If something is wrong, the worst possible course of action is to do it again."

"Practice is getting it right, and understanding what you're doing to make it right."

"Practicing is isolating technical and musical issues and working with the body but mostly with the mind on realizing how to solve them. Practicing mindlessly is not just useless but it's dangerous."

Just some quotes from books I've read.

I read somewhere that the first 20 minutes of practice are the most important. I do find that after about an hour I wear out and don't do as well. I try to pick the piece that gives me the most trouble to work on early and do the easier ones later and it seems to work.

I read a long time ago that practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.

I think what a lot of these aphorisms imply is that it isn't how much you practice, it's just how you practice. You need to look carefully at the content of your practice time. What tools and techniques do you use during practice to solve problems and eliminate mistakes? This is one of the most important things a good teacher can do for any student: teach them how to practice.

Simply playing a piece from the beginning over and over again isn't effective practice (if the piece has any difficulty to it). You need to focus on identifying and solving specific problems and skip playing parts that you already do well with.

Michael makes a very good point.

You should ALWAYS practice a finished piece as though you are performing it live. This of course assumes that you already can actually play the piece to begin with.

Most people agree that you should practice a piece only as fast as you can accurately play it and over time, (with more practice), the speed will come.

Once you can play a piece fairly well, you really need to play it every time as though you are actually performing it the best you possibly can. By doing this, through repetition, your mind will not know of any other way to play it...[this can come in very handy should you start to choke in front of others!!]

In addition, once you have mastered a piece to the best of your abilities, you will be able to play it much more confidently in front of others.

Practice does NOT breed perfection as some people may be simply practicing their mistakes over and over!. It is better to play a piece very slowly but accurately as opposed to faster and sloppy.

It is the practicing of the piece over time that will bring your speed up but this is really where "quality" vs "quantity/speed" is so important.

Brent Hughes gives some usefull suggestions on piano practice methods
piano practice

It depends where we are in the world. Here (Australia) (and I think in UK) we use practise when it's a verb and practice when it's a noun. So, I'd say "A little practice every day is more effective than practising for a longer time only once a week".
(I think in US they use "practice" for both.)

"Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect." I read that in PW member playadom's sig line, but never asked him the source. I like it!

currawong, thanks for clearing up my foggy understanding of Commonwealth countries' usage of "practise." It didn't occur to me that this was the verb form only, and I now see that the -ise ending makes this apparent.

You are exactly right about the U.S. usage of "practice" only—though I'm now very surprised that we didn't alter "practise" to practize instead (as is our wont)!

Steven

The British do colour their writing with a lot of odd flavours that look queer to those of us in the US. But in their defence, we shouldn't criticise them or over-analyse them too much. They are quite skilful in their own way, and there is a certain metre to their prose which fulfils the need to manoeuvre through any dialogue.

I supposed if we'd get our arse on an aeroplane and hop across the pond now and then we'd no longer take any offence at it.

I've heard it put this way;

Practice like you are performing live.
Play in a recital like you are practicing at home.

Shay,

Your focus should be to practice smarter, not harder.

You can acomplish a lot in 15 - 20 minutes if you are focused and have a plan.

Also, find ways to practice away from the piano if you have small bits of free time. Have a copy of the music with you and work on fingering or analysis or memorization. Even just imagining you are playing through your pieces will improve your playing.

Work on smaller sections, work on one problem at a time. Stop playing when you find a mistake and either work on identifying the cause of that mistake then fixing that mistake.

The point here is that if you can't have the quantity time you want, then make sure that it is all quality time. I think that is what Peyton is getting at, but I would not want to play in a recital like I practice! :rolleyes:

What I would suggest is that you start
on a big-time concerto, right now, regardless
of your level. I'm assuming you're a novice,
and this will of course be much too difficult
for you--but only in the context of the
whole thing played at full speed. If
you look at it from another angle, as
a long series of one-measure compositions,
then it immediately becomes playable
by any beginner, because any beginner
can play any one measure of any concerto
slowly.

For example, I have the two-piano score
of the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto,
and of course it's very difficult, and
even advanced players won't dare attempt it.
But that's only in the context of the
entire thing played at full speed. Any
beginner can play any one measure of
it slowly, and so a beginnner could
"play" it by going at it one measure per
day very slowly. For example, on day
one you play the first measure--that's
all; don't try to do too much or you'll
burn yourself out and fry your nerves.
This won't take that long, and in the
remainder of your 15 min. practice session
go and work on what you usually work on, which
should seem easier after you've "played"
the concerto. Then on day two play the
second measure, and so forth. Play
the second piano part where the first
piano is silent. In the long sections
with no measure divisions, just break them
up into measure-sized bites. If there
are complex rhythms or polyrhythms or
incompehensible notation, just play the
notes as best you can.

For the first movement of the Rach. 3rd
Conc. played like this at the rate of
one meas. per day, it will take you
about 512 days to get through the whole
movement. This might seem like futility,
but just by virtue of working on such
difficult material your overall playing
should improve. And after 512 days you
will have "played" the first movement
of the Rach. 3rd Conc., something even
advanced players can't do, quite a
feather in any player's cap. When you
get through the movement the first time,
go right back to the beginning and proceed
in the same way. This time you might
find that you can do two measures per
day instead of one. That cuts the time
to cycle through it a second time
in half, a 100% improvement--now that's
significant. And so forth. And you're
doing all this in only 15 min. of practice
per day.

So get the two-piano score of your favorite
big concerto, and dig into your favorite
movement of it, right now.

no, only right practice makes perfect. you can practice something in wrong way 100 times, which wouldn't make you play any better if not worse.

also, no matter how big piece you want to learn, concerto or not, you'd better practice some basics first. otherwise, for next 10 years, you won't be able to play a concerto in tempo. what a waste of time!

The truth is....there is no perfect.

Sometimes 15 or 20 minutes is all I get, too. I think it's extremely helpful, at least for me. I'll spend it playing a couple of measures that are holding me up on a piece I have to have ready for a dance in a couple of days , or playing thru a section that I'm memorizing, or, what's really fun, just sitting down and playing the music I want to play - a great time in my day.

There's some great ideas here. If that 15 or 20 minutes of making music is worth it to you as something that gives you satisfaction, it's worth every minute. It's seemed in the past that you are sometimes so busy you can hardly see straight - if you can get 15 minutes in, good for you! It all counts, and it all makes a difference, and by experimenting with some of the suggestions here if you want, you might even find it even more satisfying.



Cathy

My teacher's generalisation is "don't practice mistakes" - which imples a lot...

I agree with Betty!

Don't think I have ever played a piece perfect, and I have many hours of practice in.

I do like short bursts of practice, such as your 20 min...now if you could only do that twice a day, you would be twice as far ahead of the game!

I laugh when I read Gyro's suggestion of practicing that monumentous piece starting now! But, well, if I had started planting a daffodil a day, 10 years ago, I would have a garden full of daffodils right now!

I also respectfully differ in the opinion that one should play a near finished piece as if you were performing it on a regular basis. One should practice it slowly with music and try to improve something within the piece most of the time, and maybe once/twice a week play it through as if performing it.

Another thought...PRACTICE 6 days a week on your new music, PLAY 1 day a week, past pieces and just for the enjoyment of playing.

And for some inspiration...

http://www.valentinalisitsa.com/discography.php

http://www.valentinalisitsa.com/index.php

Valentina Lisitsa plays pretty close to perfect in my book! She is amazing. On her website, which might take a while to load, it is continuous music. I have read that she not only has a photographic memory, and can sight read amazingly well, she practiced when she was younger repetitive things (scales, technical) while she read a book!!!

Another viewpoint on the "don't practice mistakes:"

This is very true; however, the secret is in HOW you don't practice mistakes.

It is not recommended to just play through the piece so focused on not making any mistakes that you introduce the following habits:
- increased tension from trying to keep making mistakes.
- memorizing the pattern of starting to make the mistake, catching it, and playing the correct note.
What you end up memorizing when you do this is the tension and a pattern that leaves the mistake ready to reappear at any time.

It is much better to stop and try to identify the cause of the mistake.

Rich