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Let me preface this with some facts and statements before continuing to my questions.

• I practice for about 45 min. -1 hr. 5 days a week.
• I have been taking lessons for about 5.5 yrs.
  
• I am trying to experiment with different methods of practice to find one that works best for me.
  
• I understand that some people do not like the term 'practice methods', but please bear with me.
  

Here are the different methods I have tried (all assuming the start of learning a new piece)

1. My Teacher's Method
(Days 1-3) Play through the piece 4 times per day without dynamics to get the technical and articulation aspects under control.
(Days 3-4)By day three or four add in dynamics.
(Day 4-5)By day five, the piece has been polished.
Practice each piece four times per day on the above schedule

The only problem I have with this method is that one has to un-learn all that one does in days 1-3 when one is putting in dynamics in days 3-4

2. Experiment Method 1:
Divide on the score the piece into sections by actual section, then phrase endings.
(Day 1) Sightread to grasp structure
(Day 2-3) Play HS by section w/ dynamics and articulation.
(Day 4-5) Put hands together (HT). Polish piece.

Okay, so that's only two. You see, I am trying to find a routine that will work for me, and it hasn't happened yet. I know that practice methods are subjective, or different for everybody, it depends on your effort, technical ability etc. I know that. Trust me. Instead of all of that, I humbly ask of you knowlegable pianists the following:

How do you practice?
How can I change any of the methods above?
How do you go through a piece from start to finish?


With many thanks and hopes of improving,
~SD

Meh. I don't have a routine. I just play the thing.

QUOTE:

1. My Teacher's Method
(Days 1-3) Play through the piece 4 times per day without dynamics to get the technical and articulation aspects under control.
(Days 3-4)By day three or four add in dynamics.
(Day 4-5)By day five, the piece has been polished.
Practice each piece four times per day on the above schedule

In my opinion that's a really bad method.

Playing through the entire piece is the worst thing to do, unless you can play it with only a few mistakes. But even if that's the case, 1 time is enough.



I don't have methods...

I just practise.

Playing with no dynamics at all seems to be a bad idea to me too. For very difficult passages, sometimes you can't help it in the beginning, but you're right that you have to do some "unlearning" to add them in later.

For pieces that are at or below your technical level, I'd think you should include dynamics as soon as possible. When I'm working on things that are difficult for me, my teacher sometimes even suggests exaggerating the dynamics to make sure my hands are in shape for the polishing phase. This requires a little "unlearning" as well, but it's easier to relax dynamics than it is to start from scratch.

First, I would say that if you have been taking lessons for five and a half years, 45 minutes to an hour a day five days per week is hardly enough practice time to accomplish much, unless you are not making much progress with the works you are studying, or unless you and your teacher are limiting you to relatively simple pieces.

Secondly - and this might bear out my "simple pieces" suggestion - I find it hard to imagine that by day 5, you have "polished" a piece unless, as I say, you are limiting yourself to rather easy repertoire. Most people, reading "polished," would assume that that means bringing a piece to performance level. If that has been your modus operandi for some time, you must have an extensive repertoire and/or it should be time to move to more advanced works and plan to devote more practice time to them.

I agree that practice routines are subjective, but before I could make helpful suggestions based on what I do or what I know others do, I would have to know that you will have more than 60 minutes per day to practice.

Regards,

Your Teacher's method is really bad.

You should try splitting the piece up in to smaller sections, and practice the most difficult parts first - inlcuding dynamics.

You need to get your fingering 100% sorted. Make sure it works and is consistent every time then work on the more difficult parts, either HT or HS first as required.

As you work on small sections and start to get them, start hooking them together in to longer sections. But don't always play them in first to last order. Mix it up a little.

Playing the piece right through from start to finish should be the last thing you attempt i.e. once you are comfortable with all sections, fingering, dynamics, articulation, phrasing etc. and are ready to start polishing.

Many teachers also recommend "slow practice". Try playing sections you are working on VERY slowly. Some believe this is a good way to end a session as it helps the brain absorb the information and process it more efficiently in your time away from the piano and when you come back the next day and the next and the next etc. you learn what you need to faster.

Hopefully this gives you something to have a go at.

I try to practice in sections. Your brain can only take in so much information at one time. If you keep feeding more information than what your brain can hold at one time, that information becomes displaced and therefore not stored properly.

I think of it like this:

- Before we learn something, our brain is an open field.
- When we first start to learn something, we form narrow weak 'bridges' of that particular information in our brain
- As we rehearse the same information we just learned, these bridges strengthen. They become more stable, 'thicker' if you like to use the term. This is when we get that 'aha' 'lightbulb' moment after successfully playing a passage.

Now, based on what I have just said, if you followed your teacher's practice method, i.e. playing through the whole piece in one go whilst trying to memorize it (or are you? Please correct me if I am wrong), you are building A LOT of weak narrow bridges in your brain, which is ineffective because your brain can only hold a certain amount of information at any one time. Once you've built too many weak narrow bridges, they either collapse (because of its weakness - you're not practicing the piece, instead you're simply playing through it) or are displaced by newer information (your brain's short term memory limit has exceeded). So, strengthen your bridges (practice sections) before adding new weaker ones (adding newer sections).

I personally find it hard to just play through a piece in one go, so this is pretty much my practice method, and my personal conception as to how I practice. Of course, it may not necessarily work for you, but since you've already experimented practice methods, I don't see why you shouldn't experiment this

Good luck

Thank you for your replies!! I appreciate the help! I plan on having a talk with my teacher about practice.

Whether it's for your science paper or for your music, your brain/memory works basically the same way. DrunkenFist had given a reasonable description

When you practice, try doing it in sections, giving more time to difficult portions. I take months to polish any "big piece"; I wouldn't feel ready to perform unless I have given an informal recital of that piece to friends/teacher/students at least twice. When I can do that with almost no mistakes - and of course, a good performance of that piece - then I consider the piece polished for my exams.

I dont use any specific methods, I play how my brain tells me too, and repeat difficult sections untill I can play them. I use Hannon for improving my fingers. Today I worked through the bass line of Magnetic Rag's second page, tomorrow I repeat it a few times and learn the third page and, then it just has one more page and the ending to get learnt before I put both hands together.

Seriously, I cant believe I can learn a page of notes everyday, but its because this piece is easy to read and I have already listened to it lots. Once I finish learning all the notes I will sit down everyday and practice, practice, practice, while starting to learn the notes for the next piece .

My reading and learning abilities are slowly increasing wonderfully with my mind set to improve my note reading everyday untill I can one day sight read, I should be able to sight read easilly by the end of the year and have most of my signature learnt by then .

I recommend reading a book called The Perfect Wrong Note by William Westney. He has some very good practice suggestions, and while they are not regimented like you seem to require, I think ti will give you ideas on what it is to practice. I assume from your post that you are an adult or older beginner? As Bruce points out, you really cannot expect to polish a piece, or even get it to the level you are thinking after 4-5 days unless you are playing pieces that are frankly too easy for you. Anyways, unlike some of the previous posters, I do not have a problem with playing straight through the piece. This is good every once in a while, or if you don't have a lot of time to practice (maybe you could do this on your 1 or 2 days that you don't normally practice....missing 2 days can really be detrimental). It gives you a good gauge of how things are progressing. Then with the rest of your time, you work on sections that need improving.

You should only be adding those things that you are capable of doing. Therefore, you may purposely neglect dynamics if you need to work out a technical issue in that section, then when it is fixed you add the dynamics back in. Or, if the dynamics are a problem for you (say you tighten up while trying to playing something forte), then often practicing the exact opposite will help correct the problem, in this example, playing piano. Same with articulations. Otherwise, if those are not an issue and you can do them, add as much as possible to begin with so those are built into your muscle memory from the start.