Okay, sometimes I just HATE going and practicing piano.

Any tips? 'Cause I want to do well in piano...and plus, it'll make my parents a lot happier if I practiced without them yelling at me.

What exactly is it that you hate so much? Your post is a little vague and its hard to give a useful answer without more details!

Surely you want to improve ?
Isn't the motivation to improve the reason for wanting, nay, needing to practise ?
If not you may as well pack it in !

If you really "want to do well in piano" - which would mean actively wanting to go through the process of becoming better, rather than just saying "oh, cool, I can play piano" - you'll be practising anyway.

If you only practise because your parents yell at you, I don't think you "want to do well in piano" at all.

I agree with what others have said but here's a suggestion.

Try setting yourself a target each time you practice instead of thinking 'I've got to practice for X minutes'.
It might be to get 4 bars right (right means so that you can play at least 3 times in a row correctly). It might be more than that (or less). You will soon find what is a reasonable amount and you can either make it less or more depending on how easily you manage.

If I'm finding a particular piece rather hard, to the extent that I'm a little demotivated to practice it, then I sometimes bribe myself with the promise of playing something fun after my practice. I might also restrict the amount that I need to practice. For example, I only need to work on the first two lines, etc.

I used to hate practsing (Not too sure why) but my teacher could see I wasnt, she kinda kicked me in the but with the comment she said It was something like, well if your not practising enough wich i can see i'm not going to bother entering you into the exam because you will fail at this rate (i had all christmas too practise but i didnt and forgot how too play my pieces properly) then i started too practise it. If you don't want too be good then quite whil;e your ahead. But it is actully quite fun too practise. If you put your mind too it then you will actully practise. and when you do something wrong, take out your anger in on the piano/keyboard by playing it (don't shout abuse at it though!!)!!
For some reasn I listen too music before I play, i dunno why...it jus makes me practise hader if you know what I mean, so unless you really want to play piano good then practise, if not quite while your ahead.

Abbie
xx

I was given a tip as a way of making myself do boring paperwork, but works for practising as well:

Say to yourself "I'll just do 10 minutes - I can face doing most things for 10 minutes"
You'll be surprised by how the 10 minutes turns into 45 mins, or an hour, or even longer.....

I never practice piano. Never. I play the piano. Because practicing is DULL. Go and play something you LIKE: then move on to something you're working on, and take it from there.

What works for me when I am not motivated enough is:
to start with something I really like! I am fortunate enough that my favourite thing in the whole world are scales, arpeggios and broken chords!!!
so if I don't feel like 'playing' I start revising my scales etc which I enjoy a lot, and I do 20 minutes at this (the 20minutes goes fast as I like it so much, and although I am at grade 2 standard or near there I am already learning scales for grade 4 so I do all my scales etc from grade 1 to 3 and start learning the grade 4 now), by the time I've finished I've 'warmed up' so much that I actually find some motivation (or a lot depends on days) and I go onto doing some work on pieces or playing some pieces! So far I never stopped at scales but if I did then I can always say that it was better than doing nothing at all!

Just think of all those nice pieces that you'll be able to play with practice

Well, i'm not quite like Oddball, but i sight-read a lot. I love sightreading random pieces. playing stuff through without practicing it as such. Then i do practice properly the piece(s) i'm specifically working on; which i'm luck enough to also love.
And also, i think of how great it would be to be able to sit down and play, say, any piece...urm...like...some Tchaikowsky perfectly so then i play!

Yep, I do the same as Oddball. I never practice piano, I play it. It doesn't really get me anywhere because I just sight-read everything and never learn anything properly, but I'm sure you can do better!

I know what you mean, but . . .

As a kid I used to just play piano: That's why I was never very good. Right now I am playing the piano again. However, now I have a goal, or several to be precise: I want to be able to play Schumann's Etudes Symphonique, the Chopin Etudes and Ballades and Liszt's Leibestraum no.3 (O, lieb) and Paganini study no. 3 (La Campanella). These are not easy pieces. Even to contemplate learning these pieces is madness, at the moment, so in the interim I'm working on grade 8. If I get that, then I'll work on the Diploma; then, maybe, the pieces for LRSM and beyond, not for the sake of the bits of paper, but as a way of developing "in bite-size chunks". I'm certainly not going to get there without working, if then, nor without expert guidance, so I go to lessons again, and I practice as I never did when a child.

Yes, I practice but I still enjoy it. I even enjoy the exercises: Eventually it may be that I will be able to play perfectly any scale, arpeggio, broken chord or chord sequence you care to name, at blistering and awe-inspiring speed. Until that day I will continue to practice. I love the music I practice. I am prepared to put in the boring hours to get it right considering the time spent as an investment.

In short, the journey to musical virtuosity is long and arduous. So much so that although it helps to keep the long term target in mind, whatever it may be, if you don't enjoy the journey you won't make it.

The first question is, where are you going? The second is, how are you going to get there?




QED

Rob, it's different for every person. Whilst I'd love to eventually get grade 8 piano, I don't have the same desire or want for it as I do with other instruments and other things in my life. Piano is not my first study and never will be, and I'm not a natural pianist therefore having long term targets that I am really going to strive to reach really isn't me.

I've completely loss my motivation to play classical piano now. I've decided to concentrate on other things like composition and jazz and wait until the urge to play classical music comes back again (if it comes back).

I too wanted to play Chopin's ballades, Mozart's sonatas et all but that was ages ago when I was still a beginner. Now I'm at the level where I could learn to play them confidently but I've just been completely turned off by it all.

Whenever you lose your motivation just play other stuff with your exam pieces or whatever you are playing. You don’t need to bribe yourself with fun pieces. Just play them!

Ooh...Nice tips, guys. Thanks. ^^

I actually DO like to practice the piano. I like learning the new pieces, but when I have to play a piece over and over again, that irritates and bores me.

That's what I meant for tips for practicing piano. Sorry for not making it clear enough.

Ah, what you're after is a way to stay on the steep part of the learning curve, which is fine too. I started a thread on that not long ago: You don't make real progress unless you practice a piece enough to play it really well - that's the playing over and over (though you should be isolating the difficult bits and only playing the odd phrase or bar repeatedly before slotting it back in to the whole thing), and yes it can be irritating and boring, so make sure that somewhere in your practice repertoire is something that you're still in the early stages of learning - that way you're always on the steep part of the learning curve for something and you can continually feel yourself improving somewhere (even if other areas seem to be stagnant)

Thanks for that one. ^^

I'll try that.

Listen to A LOT of piano music, no more of that Kaiser Chiefs stuff! (lol just kidding)

Especially music that makes you think "I want to play that" iff you keep an ear out you'll discover things that you really like the sound of and that should make you want to pay more,
Also make sure you have a variety of music on the go so if you don't feel like playing something you might feel like playing something else

if you don't feel like "practicing" maybe just play for a while and see what comes out, that might help you ease into playing what you need to, and also, you'll be improving your musicality without realising it.