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Writer's pictureSarah Molenaar

11 Ways to Fill Your Practice Time as a Youth or Adult Student

Updated: Oct 18


Do you struggle to fill your practice time? Do you get bored while practicing? Do you know how to practice away from the piano?


As a teen or adult student, there are many tasks you can do to supplement your practicing at and away from the piano.The tasks listed below can help with practice motivation, memorization and retention, and broadening your musical knowledge.


 

AT THE PIANO


Use different practice strategies

Varying how you practice passages of music can make the time you spend at the piano more engaging, help your motivation, and prevent boredom. Here are four practice strategies that you can experiment with while playing with the music:


  1. Find a sticky spot and aim to play it three times consecutively correct

  2. Play the final measure, then the last two measures, then the last three measures etc until you make it all the way to the beginning of your piece or page (in the case of longer pieces)

  3. Divide your piece into sections and play the sections in a random order

  4. Place three or more sticky notes randomly on your music and see if you can make it through without seeing what’s under them


Strategies (3) and (4) can also be used to gradually work towards memorization. 


Keep a notebook of questions

Within your practice time, use a notebook to write down questions about your piece(s)so you can ask your teacher at your next lesson or research the answer at a later time. 


In my studio, I’ve had students as questions like:


  • How can you tell a piece is from the 18th versus 19th century?

  • What fingerings do you use to play this passage?

  • Did music notation always look like this?

  • What language is this term in?

  • How is practicing scales relevant to my piano repertoire?

  • How much should I slow down for a poco ritardando?


Some of the above questions are good prompts to broaden your knowledge of music history and context while others are based on practice strategies and rationale for making decisions in your music.


Review previously learned pieces

Find a few pieces that you’ve learned at least six months ago and try to play them again. You’ll discover that they are much easier to learn, and it should take a very short timeframe to return them to the level that they once were at. You may enjoy spending time to polish the pieces even further and attain a new level of fluency. 


This exercise can be very gratifying and motivating, as it is a direct illustration of the amount of progress you’ve made. It can also be intriguing to discover different aspects of  the piece you may have glazed over or were challenged by initially. If the piece wasn’t memorized before, you may find that memorizing it is now easier. 


Preview the next piece

If you’re nearing completion of your current piece, try previewing a new piece. This will show you where your strengths and weaknesses are regarding terms, symbols, rhythms, and sight-reading. You’ll start to notice how many skills you’ve retained and what you still need to review. If there are things you don’t understand, circle them with erasable coloured pencils and address them at your next lesson. 


Record yourself

Recording yourself has so many benefits, as you gradually learn to evaluate your own playing abilities. Making an audio recording will allow you to:

  • listen to see if your rhythm is accurate

  • compare your tempo throughout your piece to ensure it’s consistent

  • evaluate your sound quality, dynamic levels, and balance


When adding the visual aspect by making a video recording, you’ll also be able to:

  • watch your hand position

  • monitor your profile sitting on the bench

  • look for unwanted mannerisms


You don’t need fancy equipment to do this, simply your smartphone will suffice. Doing this on a regular basis will increase your progress at the piano which, in turn, will increase your motivation. You may consider showing your teacher the video or sharing the audio, so you both can analyze it together. 



 

AWAY FROM THE PIANO


Use YouTube

YouTube is such a big asset to learning piano and having access to it during your practice sessions can be very beneficial. Here are several ways that you can use it:


Synesthesia videos

Synesthesia videos are a great practice tool. They are videos with a piano keyboard at the bottom of the video with thin vertical coloured bars descending from the top of the video towards the piano keyboard indicating which piano key(s) to press.


The length of the vertical bar indicates its duration of the note, and there are often two to four colours used to distinguish which hand plays which notes. Most videos will have one or more reference notes written on the keyboard: C4, the fourth C on the piano, is most common, but other videos might indicate the other C’s as well ( C1, C2, C3,  C5, C6, C7, and C8). 


By using the various YouTube playback speeds, as well as the pause button, you can watch the video(s) to help learn your piece. This method of learning emphasizes memorization and fast key recognition, as the notes flow down the screen at the speed that the music is played.


Listen to your pieces

If you are in the beginning or elementary stages of piano, listening to your pieces multiple times can help you further grasp the rhythm, dynamics, and articulation as well as know the tempo you are trying to work towards. 


If you are at an intermediate level or above, it may be beneficial to listen to different interpretations of your piece. Aspects to pay attention to include:

  • chosen tempo and tempo fluctuations

  • articulations (staccato, tenuto, legato, portato)

  • pedalling

  • dynamic range

  • hand, arm, and torso movements

  • instrument (grand piano, upright piano, fortepiano, harpsichord)


Deciding what aspects you liked from each performer will help you build your own interpretation. This will broaden your knowledge of acceptable interpretations as well as understand the possible limits of the written musical directions (eg. how fast is “con fuoco” supposed to be interpreted as)


Additionally, you can also listen to new pieces at your current level that you wish to play in the near future. Or, you can start building your wishlist of pieces that you hope to be able to play when you have further advanced your piano proficiency.


Learn about different aspects of music

Music is such a vast topic, and you may consider using some of your practice time to broaden your musical knowledge by researching topics such as: 


  • Orchestration: how to take a piano composition and make it into a composition for orchestra, concert band, or other ensemble 

  • Composition: how to create your own music 

  • Arranging: how to take a composition originally for other instruments and make it for piano or visa versa and adding more material to a score — countermelodies, modulations, chord extensions, transitions/bridges, etc.

  • jazz, blues, rag-time, neo-classical, stride, bossa-nova genres of music


After watching several videos on one or more of the topics mentioned above, you may find yourself wanting to explore further. There may be some book recommendations, online courses, or private coaching that takes this discovery to the next level. 


Do some theory

Working through a music theory book will help you understand how music is constructed as well as increase your speed in learning new pieces. When you increase your knowledge of scales, chords, and harmony, it will aid you with memorization of your pieces, what notes to expect next, and what notes to improvise in the event of a memory slip, as you’ll understand the rationale of why certain notes are on the page. 


Most beginning piano series have corresponding theory books, such as:


  • Faber and Faber, Piano Adventures for the Older Beginner – Theory

  • Knerr and Hague, Piano Safari for the Older Beginner – Sight-Reading and Theory


If you need, or prefer, a book that isn’t associated to your piano pieces, consider a series such as:


  • Celebrate Theory by the Royal Conservatory of Music

  • Essential Music Theory by Mark Sarnecki

  • Music Rudiments by Grace Vandendool


Investigate the historical context


It can be quite an educational experience to research the background and context of the piece you are learning. 


To begin your search, look at your piece of music to find who the composer is and which years they were alive. Then, you’ll need to choose a  search topic to learn more about what was going on while the composer was alive. Some topics include:


  • artwork (paintings, sculptures, drawings)

  • architecture (houses, churches, government buildings)

  • instruments (keyboard, orchestral)

  • theatre (opera, ballet)

  • concurrent composers (ones that lived at the same time)

  • other works of the composer


If you are learning an additional piece from a similar era or composer, consider researching another topic to further educate yourself. By broadening your knowledge you’ll have the opportunity to see how other art forms, events, and people influenced the composition you’re studying. 


Use music notation software

Here are a few different ways you can use music notation software to help with practicing:


  1. Input your piece or a section of a piece into the software and have it play it back to you so you can hear how it sounds accurately at different tempos and hear one hand at a time. This increases your independence to learn passages on your own and make progress without waiting for your teacher’s assistance. 

  2. Input the notes written for one hand of your piece (or section of a piece) and compose alternate music for the other hand. You’ll retain the melody or accompaniment much more easily by hearing it and working with it outside of the original composition. 

  3. Input your piece (or a section of your piece) and assign different instruments to one or both hands to get an idea of how your piece could sound if it were not in its original form. Exploring other possibilities will broaden your knowledge of instrument combinations.


Music notation software suggestions:


  • Dorico (offers a free and tiered-pricing version)

  • Sibelius (offers a free version and tiered- pricing version)

  • Finale (offers a free version and tiered- pricing version)

  • Musescore (free version only)


Mental practice 

Using mental practice within or outside of your allotted practice time can be as detailed as you choose to go. A few different strategies you can consider are:


  1. Moving your fingers on a hard surface, like a table, while humming the melody in your head—this is also known as kinesthetic memory

  2. Being able to recite the note names of each hand individually

  3. Studying the score while hearing the notes and rhythms in your head


Spend time on apps

Apps are another way of improving your musical knowledge, as they can be used for many aspects of education. Here are several apps that can be used by  teen and adult students:


Note Rush

  • needs to be played at the piano as it uses the microphone to recognize notes

  • focuses on note-reading

  • has different visual themes to adjust to an older student

  • paid app $11.99 CAD


Music Tutor

  • is played away from the piano

  • focuses on note-reading

  • has a countdown timer with adjustable time increments

  • paid app $


Rhythm Lab

  • is played away from the piano

  • focuses on rhythm reading

  • has multiple levels that increase in difficulty

  • paid app $


GoodEar Pro

  • is played away from the piano

  • focuses on ear training elements: intervals, chords, scales

  • can adjust how many intervals, chords, or scales you are quizzed on

  • paid app $


Musiclock

  • is played at the piano 

  • provides a backing track for you to improvise to 

  • has a variety of different styles of music with the ability to select any key to play in

  • paid app $


ReadAhead

  • is played at the piano

  • provides sight reading exercises at a variety of levels

  • exercises increase in difficulty

  • paid app $


Tenuto

  • is played away from the piano

  • focuses on music theory and ear training

  • has timed exercises

  • paid app $


Many of these apps have levels which you can progress through, and you may be able to increase your musical knowledge beyond your current level due to the prompts in the app. 


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