Have you ever wondered if you’re making the most of the time you spend learning piano? If you’re efficiently practicing piano so you can make more progress in less time? I never really thought about this before until one day when I accidentally recorded myself during a practice session. Seriously, I happened to be recording one day while I was practicing, but to my surprise, it turned out to be one of the most useful accidents that could’ve happened to me and if you want to learn piano faster, read on.
You see, if you want to improve your piano skills in a more efficient way, you have to do things different. Of course, this is difficult when we get stuck in our same old routine day after day after day. I was guilty of this too. I thought I was having productive piano practice sessions, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In reviewing the video of my practice session I learned a few things that I think will be incredibly helpful for you as well. Besides discovering that I make some RIDICULOUS FACES while practicing piano (Really though, I hope no girls EVER see what I look like while practicing) I also learned just how much time I was wasting in each practice session and some specific time-wasting activities I was doing.
In this article I’m going to share with you exactly how you can discover the amount of time you’re wasting during your piano practice sessions, the biggest time-wasters when it comes to practicing piano, and what you can do to practice more efficiently, make faster progress, and ultimately become a piano superhuman. Let’s dig in.
Finding Out How Much Time You’re Wasting During Your Piano Practice
After watching the video of myself practicing piano it became clear to me that I could practice more efficiently, but first I had to figure out just how much time I was wasting. To do this, I used a stopwatch to time myself during “good” and “bad” piano practice time.
The good practice time was the time I spent performing sections I actually needed to improve on while the bad practice time was the opposite – time spent going through sections I already had nailed down. Sounds obvious, right? Not so much.
The practice session I recorded was 56 minutes long. When I did the breakdown of “good” vs “bad” practice time I found that 19 minutes was good practice, where I was using my time efficiently, while a whopping 37 minutes was essentially wasted time. That’s right, TWO THIRDS of my practice time was a waste. TWO THIRDS! Honestly, I couldn’t believe it.
If you want to make the most of your practice time I’d suggest you go through the same activity. Record yourself playing piano and use a stopwatch to determine just how much practice time you’re wasting. I think you’ll be surprised at the results.
Of course, while knowing you’re wasting time during your practice sessions is important, you also need to understand the biggest time-wasters so you can eliminate them from your routine.
The Biggest Time-Wasters in Your Piano Practice
When it comes to time-wasting activities during my piano practice I discovered three main ones:
- Playing parts of a song I had already learned
- Playing an entire section when I should’ve just practiced the most difficult part
- Playing too fast when the section wasn’t ready for it
If you’re practicing a song, especially one where you already know most of it, do you really need to practice the entire thing? No! Even though I only really had trouble with one section of a song, I would practice the whole song over and over again wasting valuable time.
Furthermore, when it came to practicing the hardest part of a song, just a measure or two, I would go through the entire section every time instead of just the difficult part and maybe the lead up to it. I realized that I could save a lot of time by avoiding this.
Lastly, by playing songs too fast when the section wasn’t ready for it, I ended up making many sloppy mistakes. Because of this, I was actually getting worse with each run-through. What I should’ve done is make sure I could play everything as accurately as possible first and then moved on to increasing the speed at which I played.
Realizing your piano practicing mistakes is the first step towards improving. Next, I’ll tell you how you can practice more efficiently, save more time, and be on your way to becoming a piano superhuman.
How to Make the Most of Your Piano Practice Time
Okay, so, how do you make the most of your practice time?
I suggest two things:
- Account for every part of your practice time
- Set goals before every practice session
Think about this example for a second, if you’re trying to lose weight and you write down everything you eat, what happens? More often than not, you become much more aware of what you’re doing, you find opportunities for improvement, and you ultimately make better progress.
Same goes for trying to save money. If you keep track of all your spending, you’re much more likely to actually save more money and keep your spending in check.
When it comes to practicing piano, things are no different. If you account for every minute of your practice time you’ll be much more likely to have efficient practice sessions. The more efficient practice sessions you put together, the faster you’ll make progress and you’ll level up your piano game that much more quickly.
Setting VERY specific goals for each piano session is also important. I like to use a stopwatch to keep track of my practice sessions, breaking them down by 5 minute sections, and I HIGHLY suggest you do something similar. Seriously, get a stopwatch, and time yourself practicing different sections of your next song. Over time, this compound effect of efficient practice sessions will make you a much better piano player.
Learn Piano Faster…
Had I realized much sooner just how much time I was wasting during my piano practice I would’ve been so much farther along in my development as a musician. I can’t go back and change that, but I hope by sharing these lessons with you, you won’t make the same mistakes I did.
To improve your piano skills even more with a step-by-step system, I highly suggest joining my free Become a Piano Superhuman Course and going to the lesson on goal setting and song mapping. Happy practicing my friend!
